great atheist

The fact the Ricky gervais is alive is proof that god doesn't exist. He would have been smited from above, for being a first class cock if god existed.

I hate it when 'good solid down-to-earth working class people' deliberately dumb down questions of importance to people, like this. Then they expect to be respected for seeing things realistically, and calling a spade a spade.

Respect for ridiculing people who might have a bit more to them.

Really weak.

i personally though Ricky did good,he clearly stated that he respected other peoples views and tried to explain why HE was an atheist.i personally dont see the problem with that.

i would say i dont believe in god because a good friend is in intensive care with a brain haemorrage,has been unconscious for 2 weeks and about a week ago his gf gave birth to their first child,which he may never see-thats why i dont believe in god!

I do believe, not so that I try and convert others or indeed strongly live it each day, but I do. I think there are a couple of times each year where those who don't believe should respect the views of those who do by not moaning, openly taking the opposing position or taking the piss.

That is a truly terrible thing to hear. I really hope he pulls through

I really don't get the whole religion thing.

Personally, I think everything that makes up this universe (galaxies, stars, planets, comets, mind bending distances/ time, life and evolution, even the laws of physics) is truly amazing and simply putting it down to a being created in a story by a ignorant person hundreds or even thousands of years ago, just doesn't do it justice. It's insulting even.

It's all an (almost ) infinitly complicated, yet perfectly simple system of mathematics. Everything that happens is in reaction to forces or circumstance. A kind of fate really. Even every thought you will ever have is just the product of a VERY complicated equation based on experience, genetics, and outside stimuli.

In a way, it's far more majestic than a 'white beared bloke in the clouds' and we would all do well to spend more time trying to better understand it rather than putting things we don't understand down to an imaginary deity 'because it's convenient'.

On the other hand, my recent string of luck would certainly seem to suggest that someone 'up there' has got it in for me, so maybe I'm talking shit. Sorry!

but what if really the whole universe that we know is just a molecule in a giants thumb nail

You've been brushing up on your astromathematics again, you sly dog


I do suspect that ardent 'common-sense' materialists often have no idea how bizarre their belief is, when explored to its full conclusion. The idea of an entire universe coming from nothing (no space, no time, no material, etc.) for no reason at all, and resulting in us and our extremely complex conscious lives, is just wild.

If you can get your head around the (observable and provable) concept of particle/antiparticle production, I see no problem with extending that to a big bang moment.

It's got to be better than the dichotomy that means universes need creating but gods appear all on their own.

This has been done to death, especially on here. What you have to remember way back when people believed in all sorts of impossible things. Simply put something had to be believed in. OK a bit simplistic but so obvious now, without going into so much crap.......................Simples

It's christmas. Pipeholes, sock, insert.

Christmas is a mish mash of loads of things.

not taking the piss one bit and i never do when it comes to religion.i personally dont believe in a god but im happy for others to have their own beliefs and i wont hold that against them or try and tell them its wrong because its not my place to.everyone has the right to believe in something and i respect that

Indeed, but as soon as some post on here, it's open for discussion.

Personally, I find it impossible to 'get my head around it'. A particle and ant-particle popping into existence within a pre-existing space-time domain seems a very long way behind what we actually find ourselves in. Especially, I find it hard to think of us - our conscious lives - as a natural product (of nothing - no space, no time) without design or purpose.

On the other hand, I find it at least as hard to make sense of a God hypothesis, of any variety.

So for me the whole thing looks like remaining a profound mystery.

I can't help feeling that if our lives have a purpose, it would be nice if there was some nice big unambiguous sign saying what it was.

I don't find it hard to think of us like this. It's all just a series of steps that led to this whole dance of particles.



Exactly. The thing is, I have no idea how the screen I'm looking at now is projected- but I'd sooner accept that there is a logical explanation rather than just put it down to 'magic'.

I've seen a series of very good Television shows recently that have led me to on to do some additional reading. The Horizon episode 'Infnity' (or similar) was very good, showing just how ludicrous the concept of the infinite really is. Attenborough's recent show on the origins of life was very enlightening, and I also caught something about Comets, expalining how they could be laced with the ingrediants of life, simply depositing the 'soup' on planets they hit.

Or alternately, we could be the product of the rag used by the (goddess) victim of attempted rape (by a god) and cast, soiled, to the ground...

the physics programme that was on a few weeks back,early doors about them disproving a big bang was immensly fascinating

I'll go along with that -- it doesn't narrow down my options.

Whether there is a God or not is actually rather unimportant...

... but, what is really important... is...


... the question.



Without the question we would have never discovered anything and no matter how much we discover, there is always more. Those that wish to personify the question, are actually afraid of the answer, afraid that they will lose the magic, the mystery and the wonder. But, this is rather short sighted, because in truth, knowledge opens the doors to greater wonders and mystery.

So... for those who wish to give the question a name, that's fine.... just remember some people have a different name and some have no name at all.

There is, and it's clear as daylight - to decide where you are going afterwards.

What, after life? Prepared yourself for a disappointment. Actually, don't, as you won't exist to be disappointed.

Ahh, it's that kind of optimism that makes life worth living.

Yes, it's really optimistic to hope that once you die a divine being will judge you on an arbitrary set of rules that prohibit cutting your hair and eating mussels and cast you into eternal pain if you don't measure up.

Life's worth living for what you do before you die, not what fairy story you believe happens afterwards.

Well, I can drone on about my views as persistently as the next man, and Oh -look - there he is again! ^

Try to grasp what being a staunch materialist like AndrewR involves. You need to be claiming with complete confidence that:

1. We have such a sound understanding of what we call the 'material world' that we are sure that it encapsulates everything there is.

2. We also know what 'everything there is' includes.

Even though:

3. The 'material world' refers to a model of reality that we constructed on the basis of our own human (evolved for survival) empirical observations and thinking processes.

That's pretty confident, under the circumstances. Just as an illustration, consider what this 'Staunch materialist' is prepared to claim with confidence about the human mind:

4. Even though we quite obviously are conscious, have a subjective inner life, etc., which science, philosophy, whatever, has so far (after 3,000 years of pondering and investigating) utterly failed to account for in objective terms, those required by materialism, it is still obviously the case that:

(drum roll)

5. The 'material world', as described above, includes everything which this conscious, subjective inner life comprises.

You have no doubt heard some people describing this sort of staunch materialism as a religion in itself, so I won't bore you by drawing attention to that view ...

Oh, bugger!

My view is that a staunch materialist is subscribing to a completely unempirical article of faith - no more, no less.

<Sigh> Here we go again. You're an educated man, Brian - you should know better!

I can have fun at Christmas time, can't I?

So it would appear!