So, fellow atheists of pol, who are you supporting in your local elections? There aren't any around here for a while.
How do we make sure the SJW atheists stay a minority so that atheism is never cucked like Christianity is?
How do we stop radical Islam?
Which American presidential candidate do you support? I support Hillary because there is nothing more un-Islamic than an infidel white woman dropping bombs on Muslim shitheads for 8 years who believe that only Muslim men are fit to lead countries.
>>70987475
If you're an atheist, you can only be a nihilist. Therefore, you should just spend your life enjoying sensual pleasures as much as possible.
>>70987873
If you're a Christfag, you can only be a Biblical literalist. Therefore, you should just spend your life believing the Earth is 6000 years old and living a vow of poverty.
>>70988222
What is the Catholic church then?
>>70988338
What are atheists who aren't nihilists then?
>>70988520
They don't fully understand all the implications of their atheism.
>>70988792
Catholics don't fully understand the implications of their Christianity.
>>70988936
You're proving my point, and you obviously don't even realise it. If this is all we have, if there is no structure or order to the universe, then you can only logically be a nihilist. You should thus spend your life maximising your brain's response to pleasure inputs. So all this stuff about "sacrificing for tomorrow" has no meaning to you. Before you know it, all humans will be dead anyway and there will never be any life anywhere in the universe, ever again.
So tell me, why does it matter that you "save the white race" again, from an atheist point of view?
>>70987873
SJW tears give me sensual pleasure.
>>70989402
>then you can only logically be a nihilist
You're right, but:
>Nihilism isn't a real -ism, you don't have to act a certain way if you're a nihilist.
>You can illogically be other things.
>>70989709
Of course, but if it's illogical then it's literally "muh feels" so you can't use it as a basis for an argument or claim it has a basis.
>>70988520
Humanists or naturalistic pantheists. Possibly Buddhists. Just because you don't believe in a supreme being doesn't mean you believe that nothing matters.
(I am a former atheist, was only a nihilist in that period for ~5 min).
>>70987475
>How do we make sure the SJW atheists stay a minority so that atheism is never cucked like Christianity is?
Pretty sure it's too late for that. Thunderf00t made a video about how feminism killed the new atheist movement.
>>70989402
>if there is no structure or order to the universe
This isn't what atheists believe you fucking retard. Atheist's don't believe in god, that is all.
You are just straw manning atheism and then going from that false premise to nihilism. Lawrence Krauss, who has devoted his life to studying the structure and order of the universe, is an atheist, and he is not a nihilist either. Richard Dawkins is also not a nihilist, and neither is Dan Dennett.
You don't even know what atheism entails or what atheists believe.
>>70989909
>so you can't use it as a basis for an argument or claim it has a basis.
Sure you can. People will probably believe you, too.
>implying formal logic has anything to do with actual debate
>>70989944
>Humanists or naturalistic pantheists. Possibly Buddhists. Just because you don't believe in a supreme being doesn't mean you believe that nothing matters.
I completely agree, but 75EtC0NJ doesn't and he is totally wrong. He things atheism -> nihilism without exception.
im not supporting any of them, they are all jew controlled. trump is not serious about doing the things he's been saying, trust me.
>>70987475
Zoltan Istvan, objectively the best presidential candidate.
>>70989402
>then you can only logically be a nihilist
Humans can create meaning and purpose without belief in a Creator, on purely human terms.
Not everyone is driven ultimately only by pursuit of sensuality, but when Christians reduce life without God to that it makes them appear like the are decribing themselves, and not the atheists.
Are Christians just base sensualists capable of nothing else, but dumb and afraid of the Big Book of Bullshit?
>>70990197
Bullshit
>>70989977
If you don't believe in God and you claim that the universe has a structure, this claim has no basis and is irrational. Also check the pic in the sticky because you're doing this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
>>70990077
Yeah, but that's dishonest and I thought we were all goys here
>>70990183
If you follow the logic of atheism to its fulfillment, you become a nihilist. If you deny this, it's because you don't fully understand the implications of atheism as a philosophy.
>Sam Harris
looks more like a Shmuel Horrenstein
>>70990474
>Yeah, but that's dishonest and I thought we were all goys here
The jews have the right idea desu, winning is winning.
>>70990319
If you're an atheist, nothing has lasting meaning, so effectively nothing has any meaning. It's as St. Peter said: if there is nothing more than this life, then "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die," a superficial happiness designed to mask the deep existential despair that an atheist worldview leads to.
Believe me, I've been through this myself. Staring into the void is not pleasant.
>>70990998
*St. Paul, sorry
>>70987475
What does Sam Harris think about Trump?
>>70991280
Sorry I meant Ben Stiller
>>70990474
>If you don't believe in God and you claim that the universe has a structure, this claim has no basis and is irrational.
Except all of modern physics tells you about the structure of the universe from a standpoint that isn't "GOD DID IT"
>If you follow the logic of atheism to its fulfillment, you become a nihilist. If you deny this, it's because you don't fully understand the implications of atheism as a philosophy.
More like you're a brainwashed religious idiot repeating apologist talking point and telling other people what they believe.
I can do it too
If you're a christian you believe snakes can talk and that evolution is false.
>If you're an atheist, nothing has lasting meaning, so effectively nothing has any meaning
Every moment is eternal. The notion that only the present moment exists is an illusion of our consciousness. Because of this any meaning is also eternal.
>Staring into the void is not pleasant.
If you're a weak minded fool I can see that. Staring into the void is my most cherished hobby and brings me fulfillment beyond anything else I've ever experienced.
>>70989944
>Pretty sure it's too late for that. Thunderf00t made a video about how feminism killed the new atheist movement.
Okay I found the video. I will watch it. I don't really like Thunderf00t's non-science videos.
>>70990474
I've already established that you don't understand what atheism is or what it entails, and I have not made any kind of appeal to authority so far. All I have done so far is corrected your false definitions, like atheism meaning that you believe there is no structure in the universe, or that atheism means that you must be a nihilist.
>If you don't believe in God and you claim that the universe has a structure, this claim has no basis and is irrational.
Okay, first of all, it's obvious that the universe does have structure. You can just look through any telescope and see it. Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence for any kind of god in the universe, so our universe seems to be the perfect example of a universe with lots of structure and no god. Saying that structure somehow proves that god exists is a total non-sequitur.
>>70991280
I don't know. He's a self described liberal.
>>70989909
But its just been established that "muh feels" are ultimately all that matters?
>>70991503
>>70991510
I see I'm talking to a bunch of low-church atheists (is there even such a thing as high-church atheism? Theoretically). Learn some basic theology or philosophy, because this is pretty pathetic. It's like you left r/atheism only a few days ago.
To >>70991503
If you believe that the present moment is an illusion of our consciousness, on what basis can you claim that the appearance of structure that you see in the universe isn't also an illusion of our consciousness? Take this idea further and what exactly can you claim to be real? This is what I was discussing in my previous post.
To >>70991510
I'm not claiming I know what your atheism entails, I'm just telling you that you don't understand the implications of atheism. And "looking through a telescope" is not a valid argument since it does not prove that the universe has consistent laws, will continue to exist from one moment to the next, etc.
You also don't know what Christians mean by "God" since you're clearly imagining we think God is some old dude with a white beard hiding somewhere, and you imagine that the fact we can't find this magical old dude disprove the Christian idea of God. This is r/atheism-tier in its strawmanning.
>>70992474
Only if you resort to circular argument
>My feels tell me that my feels are the only thing that matter
>>70990474
>If you follow the logic of atheism to its fulfillment, you become a nihilist. If you deny this, it's because you don't fully understand the implications of atheism as a philosophy.
Oh, dear; people keep espousing the "Atheism leads to nihilism" meme.
It's not true and you need to stop parroting nonsense.
op your religious egalitarianism makes me want to gag on shit
>>70992716
Prove to me otherwise then
>>70992499
>I see I'm talking to a bunch of low-church atheists
I'm not even an atheist (anymore).
You lecturing an atheist on their beliefs because of what theology has taught you is like an astrologist lecturing an astronomer about how he doesn't understand the power of sun and moon signs.
>Take this idea further and what exactly can you claim to be real? This is what I was discussing in my previous post.
Yes, the solipsism trap. Of course somewhere we must make some assumption to avoid it. You take that to be God. I take it to be empiricism, and logic. Sure I don't know if all my senses are lying to me, but if they are I can do nothing about it. Not only that but upon careful inspection there seem to be certain laws that the universe holds to, even beyond my narrow perceptions.
>TFW athiest but think christianity is a net-good and would gladly fight with them in the upcoming crusades
>>70987475
You retard, atheists are the source of SJWism. You're human cancer who seek to destroy an ancient and proven social glue that's been holding western society together for centuries.
>>70993320
No he's not
Atheists are niggerloving communists who put women out of the kitchen. If we had followed the teachings of Jesus we wouldn't have niggers, feminism, or any of the other evils of Satan. We'd have a pure white Christian nation
>>70992499
>And "looking through a telescope" is not a valid argument since it does not prove that the universe has consistent laws, will continue to exist from one moment to the next, etc.
This is proven directly through astronomical observations routinely. Are there any more embarrassing errors you would like to make before you leave the thread?
>You also don't know what Christians mean by "God" since you're clearly imagining we think God is some old dude with a white beard hiding somewhere, and you imagine that the fact we can't find this magical old dude disprove the Christian idea of God. This is r/atheism-tier in its strawmanning.
What you mean by God isn't all that important, since there isn't any evidence for anything the Bible describes as God.
You don't know basic cosmology, yet you're trying to use it to prove your bronze age mythological creature exists. How pathetic.
>>70993320
But empiricism can't prove the validity of empiricism, and logic can't prove the validity of logic. You're assuming the conditions that make logic and empiricism valid are present, and this isn't necessarily the case. You need to go further back than that.
And if you go as far back as you can, you find that eventually you need something that depends on nothing, an uncaused cause: God.
>>70993775
>If we had followed the teachings of Jesus
If a nigger hits you do you offer him your other cheek?
>>70992839
I'm not a religious egalitarian. Islam is the worst religion.
>>70993947
>You're assuming the conditions that make logic and empiricism valid are present, and this isn't necessarily the case.
Of course, that's why I said we make an assumption.
You assume God exists, this isn't necessarily the case.
I assume empiricism because it seems the most reasonable assumption to make to avoid the solipsism trap. If empiricism is invalid than eventually my exploration of the nature of the universe should show that. Somewhere I will come across the universe being inconsistent and I can see that my assumption was false.
Can you ever falsify your assumption of God?
On that note, can you define God? You touched on earlier that he isn't a sky fairy (note: to the vast majority of religious people he is in fact that. People like you who go further into theology get past that, but most people never scrutinize existence at all).
At this point I should tell you I am a Taoist, so it is very possible what you call God I call Tao.
I am mainly arguing from the perspective of my previous belief system. I just still find it annoying when people tell other people what their beliefs are.
>>70993915
>This is proven directly through astronomical observations routinely. Are there any more embarrassing errors you would like to make before you leave the thread?
Cargo-cultism
>What you mean by God isn't all that important, since there isn't any evidence for anything the Bible describes as God.
>You don't know basic cosmology, yet you're trying to use it to prove your bronze age mythological creature exists. How pathetic.
More strawmanning
The worst type of embarrassment is in not realising that you should be embarrassed.
>>70994172
Agreed.
>>70987475
>How do we stop radical Islam?
Jesus fuck this whole thread being derailed by theist cucks. Who gives a shit what they think?
Anyway, concerted propaganda campaign is the way to defeat Islam. (Radical Islam, whatever that means, is just a subdivision of Islam, to be defeated wholesale.)
I don't really give a shit about the election.
>>70994821
>concerted propaganda campaign
You mean memetic warfare.
>>70994510
>Cargo-cultism
You keep using terms that you don't understand. My post has nothing to do with cargo cultism.
Astronomers can verify things like Special Relativity with astronomical observations. If there are any discrepancies, they need to change their understanding of physics. This is how we know the laws of physics are uniform all over the universe. The fact that you don't know this shows that you are a total ignoramus without a basic understanding of the universe you live in, which is typical for a Christfag who looks to an ancient book written by sandniggers ages ago for guidance instead of modern science.
> More strawmanning
This is the opposite of straw manning, you retard. I described God as "anything the Bible describes as God," which is as far away from straw manning God as you can get. There is no evidence of this thing existing anywhere, which is why I am atheist.
You are a Christfag because your mommy and daddy are Christfags too, and they raised you to be a Christfag, and since you're not intelligent enough to learn things like the laws of physics are the same everywhere, you never doubted or questioned any of the dogma, so you stayed a Christfaggot retard and now you are shitposting in my thread.
>>70995057
That's just one aspect. Propaganda is pretty damn wide.
>>70995068
>which is as far away from straw manning God as you can get
Made me laugh. The best part is that he's been strawmanning atheists as nihilists this whole thread.
>>70987873
This argument is completely invalid. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, at all.
>>70995194
I'm curious, could you elaborate more?
I've been thinking about the differences between propaganda and memeitc warfare over the last few weeks.
My conclusion was that memetic warfare was actually broader. I saw propaganda as more a direct attempt at changing views with less concern on creating memes that self-propagate. But I would be interested in anything you could share.
>>70987873
I actually went through a horrible nihilism phase when I started taking physics. I just knew there was no freewill and no reason to live.
I then took an existentialism class which I think saved my life. They believe fervently in freewill which we know would require a supernatural source/computer to create freewill but it's simpler than that.
I actually wrote my final on the combination of existentialism and the lack of actual freewill. I argued that existentialism is a kind of willful delusion that you're aware of.
Treat your body like an animal organism and you can actually control yourself through little tricks I outlined.
>>70993947
Your argument of an uncaused cause is basically self defeating though. If you're starting from the premise that everything needs to have a cause, then an uncaused cause can not exist. You're starting your argument with the assumption that God already exists, and working back from that. Thus, that's not a proof for his existence.
>>70994489
Yeah, they use "the Word" in the Bible, but I really think they should have kept it as "the Logos" because it's very easy to misinterpret what it means. I've heard Chinese Christians are using "the Tao" in place of "the Logos" in their Bibles but if it's like "the Word" I can't be sure of its accuracy.
From my understanding of Taoism, the Tao is like the Christian God except for two things: being a personal God, and being incarnated as Jesus Christ.
You could give several essential characteristics of God as this:
God is "to be" itself. God IS being, and the fundamental force that keeps that which exists existing. This could be falsified if we could prove for certain that the entire universe could just flicker out of existence at any time. Also note that this is not an endorsement of pantheism.
God is that which nothing greater can be thought. The sky fairy is not God because you can fully see a sky fairy and process it in your mind, therefore you can fully understand it, therefore it is not God. God by nature is something that we can't completely understand because of our limited human intellects.
God is that which has no cause, and I touched on this before. I'm typing on my computer, my computer gets electricity from a hydro plant, the hydro plant depends on the water cycle, the water cycle depends on the sun, the sun depends on nuclear reactions, etc. Everything in the universe has a cause that is a prerequisite of its existence, except for God.
Now since this is an atheism thread I won't get into proving that God is a personal God or that God is incarnated in Jesus Christ, but if you don't believe we have this God that gives structure to the universe, you by nature believe we have an irrational universe. And if indeed we have an irrational universe and this could be proven, you could falsify God. But that doesn't appear to be the case
And just to be fair since you called yourself a Taoist, I'm a Catholic.
>>70995571
>I actually went through a horrible nihilism phase when I started taking physics
Yea my brief 5 minute drop into nihilism was literally while I was doing E&M homework.
Also throughout college I was almost obsessed with the concept of free will. Moving from a strict determinist to a compatabilist.
>>70995764
>From my understanding of Taoism, the Tao is like the Christian God except for two things: being a personal God, and being incarnated as Jesus Christ.
Very accurate. The Tao is best described in the first verse of the Tao Te Ching:
"There is something that is the source and mother of all things. I do not know its name. Therefore when forced to name it I call it Tao. When forced to categorize it, I call it great."
Another point you touched on would be summed up as:
"The Tao that can be thought about is not the true Tao."
I would generally categorize the Tao as "The Holy Spirit" in the trinity concept, since the Father and Son are both depicted as being sentient, where as the Tao is not.
I would also argue that atheists DO believe in this same entity, as long as you keep it this abstract. They would probably refer to it as something along the lines of, "The singularity that started the Big bang."
I was raised catholic, became agnostic to atheist. Then flirted with pantheism and fell in love with Taosim.
>>70995789
>compatabilist
Yes, the juxtaposition of freewill and the lack of a supernatural force in this universe is more of a semantics issue.
But it's still a problem that many "atheists" believe they have the typical freewill the public knows about.
>>70995426
If you're an atheist, it eventually follows that nothing matters and everything will cease to exist at one point. Negative consequences are therefore irrelevant since they're only short-term at worst, and thus you should try to maximise your own pleasure.
>>70995571
Genetics is even worse the way they teach it nowadays. They fully adopt this idea that you are just doing as your genetics tell you and you have no real free will, and it's just absolute bullshit because it tries to make an otherwise interesting field boring.
>>70995614
Imagine seeing a long train passing by. I don't know if this is common where you live, but one passes right through my city. You can watch the carts passing by for minutes, each one pulling the one behind it forward. But there must be an engine at the front, or there would be no motion.
>>70996234
>Tao
Isn't Taoism and Daosim the same? I imagine the idea being it is a war between two opposites which ends up creating all there is in the universe.
You cannot have happy times without sad times to compare them to.
You cannot have a friendship without banter.
>>70996360
>But it's still a problem that many "atheists" believe they have the typical freewill the public knows about.
They probably just haven't spent very much time thinking about it.
I feel like a lot of the problems people have with religious folk is that they haven't examined their beliefs very much. But the same is generally true about atheists. Just being an atheist won't necessarily mean you're more inclined to spend a lot of time thinking deeply about your existence.
The real fun part is when I realized that nobody can really define what they mean by, "free will."
>>70996363
>Genetics is even worse the way they teach it nowadays. They fully adopt this idea that you are just doing as your genetics tell you and you have no real free will, and it's just absolute bullshit because it tries to make an otherwise interesting field boring.
But genetics and your environment are the only things that control you. It might feel like you're controlling yourself and even the environment but you're not.
The environment is controlling you, and by extension, controlling itself through you.
You are nothing.
>>70996363
>If you're an atheist, it eventually follows that nothing matters and everything will cease to exist at one point. Negative consequences are therefore irrelevant since they're only short-term at worst, and thus you should try to maximise your own pleasure.
Not exactly true. Another Big Bang will eventually happen just do to straight up probability of virtual particle creation/destruction. It will most likely happen again in 10^10^10^52 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
> Estimated time for random quantum fluctuations and quantum tunnelling to generate a new Big Bang.[92]
Because the total number of ways in which all the subatomic particles in the observable universe can be combined is 10^{10^{115}},[93][94] a number which, when multiplied by 10^{10^{10^{56}}}, disappears into the rounding error, this is also the time required for a quantum-tunnelled and quantum fluctuation-generated Big Bang to produce a new universe identical to our own, assuming that every new universe obeyed the same laws of physics and contained at least the same number of subatomic particles. Even factoring in the generally agreed number for possible laws of physics as predicted by string theory (~10500)[95] would not alter that number.
>>70996363
>Imagine seeing a long train passing by. I don't know if this is common where you live, but one passes right through my city. You can watch the carts passing by for minutes, each one pulling the one behind it forward. But there must be an engine at the front, or there would be no motion.
Nice analogy but it doesn't refute my point. Also, you're thinking in terms defined by the laws if causality of this universe. Why are you assuming the same laws were present before the beginning of the universe?
>>70996363
Hedonism doesn't follow from nihilism. Lets examine your argument:
Premise 1: Nihilism follows from atheism.
Premise 2: You are an atheist.
Conclusion 1: You must be a nihilist.
Conclusion 2: You should live an hedonistic lifestyle.
As you can see, Conclusion 2 has nothing to do with the previous concusion and premises. It cannot be possibly deduced from the previous parts of the argument.
I doubt you have taken logic classes if you cannot understand this.
>>70996234
>I would also argue that atheists DO believe in this same entity, as long as you keep it this abstract. They would probably refer to it as something along the lines of, "The singularity that started the Big bang."
That's why I always say that most atheists don't really understand their own philosophy, among other reasons. Of course there could be such a thing as an atheist who does understand his philosophy, but it's not really something I've encountered.
I also went through a similar path as you. I was raised Catholic (my dad is an atheist though) and received the shitty catechism common in churches nowadays. Then I was all into Eastern philosophy as a teenager and eventually got out of that. I was never really an atheist, more like one of the people who would identify as "non-religious" until eventually someone posted a Robert Barron video and I saw for the first time that Christianity had intellectual depth. Edward Feser is very good too if you like to read longer, more in-depth things (Bishop Barron is excellent, but his thing is more to reach out to atheists and he only has a few things available that go more in depth)
>>70996718
*unsheathes katana*
>>70996581
>Isn't Taoism and Daosim the same?
Yes. It depends on how you latinize the word. Basically when speaking it try to make a sound between a T and a D so that nobody would actually know which you're saying. But they still get what word you mean.
>I imagine the idea being it is a war between two opposites which ends up creating all there is in the universe.
A very neat way of picturing it yes. All summed up in the yin-yang symbol. The white and the black both occupy each other's negative space. Neither would have form or exist without the other.
All perceived dualities are actually a part of a single unity.
Things aren't good or evil. Things just are. It is only when we begin to label some things good that others become evil. I really enjoy the perspective it has given me on things. Rather than reacting to things based on the labels I attached to them, I just try to see them as they are and nothing more.
A related thought would be what Lawrence Krauss has talked about with the universe spawning from nothing. The positive energy in the universe is exactly equal to the negative energy in the universe. Thus the total energy balance in the universe is zero so it could spawn from nothing.
>>70987475
Why make an atheist thread on a Christian board like /pol/?
>>70987475
Nope. It's zionism, Ham Sarris
>>70995539
Well, according to Ellul, propaganda is first and foremost a way to lead a certain person or group of person to action (the action may be, in point of fact, inaction or apathy).
In order to do so, there is, if I remember correctly, two types of propaganda. (1) Pre-propaganda and (2) a more direct kind of propaganda, which directly precedes action. Pre-propaganda is more important than the direct kind of propaganda.
Pre-propaganda is about creating a framework of though which will later be used for the more direct kind of agitation propaganda which will be used to lead people to action. For instance, Hitler 1933-1939 was all about pre-propaganda. In order to make the German people accept the need for war, and in order to have them enlist and support this effort, it was necessary to put in place, for them, a system of belief which was such that, even on their own, they would end up wanting war, wishing for war, craving it.
This is not so much about a couple of poster being placed on a wall as it is about creating a grand narrative in which various events are to be interpreted. This is what I feel many people in here don't really understand. The reason the left dominates is because we've basically been loosing the pre-propaganda fight for something like forty years. We've lost way before getting into an actual battle. All the moral ideals people cling to are stacked up in such a way that the notion of borders itself will already be seen as dubious and hence it will be extremely hard to argue in favor of having any.
Once you have succesful pre-propaganda, it's fairly easy to mobilize people in order to do the more direct kind of propaganda which does nothing more than reaffirm, more forcefully perhaps, that which was implicitly contained in the pre-propaganda messages. Open border activist waving their banners in front of a camera crew is the more direct kind of propaganda. Once sided article about refugee is also of this kind.
>>70996972
You have to admit that we can't even predict things that will happen tomorrow, so predicting things that will happen in 10^10^10^52 years is silly. I also don't see how this could overcome heat death.
>>70996997
You're actually arguing an uncaused cause, just in a slightly different way. In our universe, everything has a cause, but of course for there to be a beginning at all this must have been different at some point.
>>70997087
No, I was claiming that if you follow the philosophy of atheism to its fulfillment that you would be a nihilist. If you're an atheist but you've only partially developed your philosophy, it could be different.
>>70997153
>Neither would have form or exist without the other.
Nice.
>Things aren't good or evil. Things just are. It is only when we begin to label some things good that others become evil. I really enjoy the perspective it has given me on things. Rather than reacting to things based on the labels I attached to them, I just try to see them as they are and nothing more.
I think that outlook is important but it's so rare. Most people just think and make decisions with their feelings. But it's important to detach yourself from the situation to get an outsider's look. I became anti-abortion while still being a hardcore libertarian because of this type of thinking.
>Thus the total energy balance in the universe is zero so it could spawn from nothing.
Well when a Big Bang happens it forms like a virtual particles form. Their opposite shoots off into the opposite spacial direction. Even the opposite way through time (some say). So there is theoretically another Universe just like ours but opposite, going backwards in time and "flying" away from us. Which would imply we are that "negative" universe and thus we contain that negativity lying underneath. But that's not moral negativity, just physical.
>>70997761
>Even the opposite way through time (some say).
I actually came up with that idea on my own as a solution to the baryon asymmetry problem.
>>70997602
>You have to admit that we can't even predict things that will happen tomorrow, so predicting things that will happen in 10^10^10^52 years is silly. I also don't see how this could overcome heat death.
It won't overcome the heatdeath. This will happen long....LONG.... after the heat death. But just because matter will cease to exist does not mean space itself won't. There will **always** be virtual particle creation. It is in the nature of existence.
It just so happens that the likelihood of virtual particles coming into existence in the shape of another mortal universe is unlikely... but INEVITABLE given enough time.
>>70997602
>You're actually arguing an uncaused cause, just in a slightly different way. In our universe, everything has a cause, but of course for there to be a beginning at all this must have been different at some point.
No I am not. Following my logic, why can't the universe have created itself? If we're assuming that this God had no cause, then the same assumption can be made about the universe. Thus, you can not validly use the uncaused cause argument as a proof for God.
I'm not even artist and I admit that believing in God is a pretty big leap in faith and leap in logic.
>>70997602
What you are still not getting is that hedonism cannot be deduced from nihilism.
In fact, your argument defeats itself. If nihilism is true, there are no normative facts, so any "You should X" cannot be objectively true. Yet you claim "if you believe nihilism is true, you should X".
>>70998018
Athiest*
>>70995539
Memes are just one way in which information can be encapsulated. Memes aren't limited to a particular kind of propaganda but, it seems, they can be :
(1) Be directed at the enemy group
(2) Be directed at your own group
(3) Be pre-propagandist
(4) Be more direct in their call for action
Very often, meme seem to be integration propaganda. They're directed at your own group and rely on a series of visual cues which are understood by the group and integrate them in one picture. These memes are designed to make the in-group feel good about itself and its own views. What you see on /pol/ is mostly of this kind but not all of it.
Another good example of pre-propaganda is the notion of the "Islamic golden age". It's actually a way to push for the notion of an Islamic state without doing so overtly. Since there was such a thing as an "Islamic golden age", and since this "Islamic golden age" happened at a time when there was Caliph, Islamic law, Islamic armies and in which Spain was actually part of the Islamic empire, the child who is being taught these things has his head filled with medieval imagery of an Islamic utopia when Islam ruled the world and people followed the way of Allah.
This imagery then stays dormant in the mind, never leaving, but always forming a kind of fantasy into which the notion of the glory of Islam can be attached. This then forms a kind of nexus of pride which can be exploited in the form of the more direct propaganda of ISIS, who then exploit this dormant imagery in order to appeal to muslims who will inevitably understand this language.
>>70997950
Do you think our current universe is infinite in extent and that therefore we are having this conversation an infinite number of times at a spacing of about 10^10^122 meters between each instance of us? (Brain Greene is source for that number)
>>70998018
Well God can mean anything. Religious people just personify existence and nature into a God that resembles humanity. This leads to people assigning characteristics (ie, laws/dogma) to existence itself which, ironically, is so narcissistic because founders of religions claim to understand all of existence.
To me, God is just the universe unpersonified.
1. Hand out informative packets telling not to cuck, specifically in an SJW manner.
2. Guns.
3. cant
stump
the
Trump.
>>70998338
We're also having the same conversation every 10^10^10^56 years because that's how long it would take for a Big Bang to form that is EXACTLY like the one we're currently a product of.
>>70997950
That seems to presume a lot. For one, I've never heard of any case where particles come into existence out of nothing in our universe. And other than that, there's no guarantee that a whole second universe could come into existence in a single instance, probable or not.
>>70998018
Because the universe is physically limited in scope, and if it's possible to create physical objects out of nothing then I should theoretically be able to conjure an apple out of nothing (albeit at a low rate of success). And what's to say that things can't just disappear from existence just as suddenly for no reason? What's to say that the universe itself can't suddenly disappear for no reason?
>>70987475
She kicked ass in Benghazi
>>70998519
>
THIS IS A POLITICAL THREAD PLEASE LEAVE PHYSICSNIGGER
>>70998519
If something happens once, it will happen again.
Read up on virtual particles. The vacuum is not actually a truly empty vacuum. Particle get created in pairs and destroyed instantly because of how often this pair production occurs.
I also gave linked the wiki article in that comment which cites a credible source.
>>70998519
>I've never heard of any case where particles come into existence out of nothing in our universe
Look up virtual particles and the quantum foam. There are briefly lived particles popping into existence for no reason all around and in you all the time.
>>70998703
Somewhere there is a universe where I beat you by 5 seconds. But not in this universe. =(
This thread broke down at specifically 7 replies. New Record.
>>70998493
This seems to just be an irrational argument for shifting from a linear understanding of time to a circular one.
>>70998144
If nihilism is true, there is no reason to be moral, especially not if you can get away with it.
>>70998348
>Feuerbach's understanding of God
That's actually a strawman, albeit an old and established one.
>>70998822
Broke down? I think this is one of the best threads I've seen on /pol/ in a while.
>>70998519
>Because the universe is physically limited in scope, and if it's possible to create physical objects out of nothing then I should theoretically be able to conjure an apple out of nothing (albeit at a low rate of success). And what's to say that things can't just disappear from existence just as suddenly for no reason? What's to say that the universe itself can't suddenly disappear for no reason?
We've already established that we are making the assumption that the laws of causality did not exist before the creation of the universe. In that new "universe", something can come from nothing, thus the universe could have come from nothing. Just because you observe the laws of casualty in the present universe doesn't refute my point.
The current universe won't disappear for no reason because it is bound by the laws of causality. The same can not be said of what came before.
>>70998828
There's no reason to not be moral, either.
Are you getting the point now? If nihilism is true, there's no particular lifestyle that's objectively more valuable than any other. And as such, you cannot claim that nihilism implies a certain way to live.
>>70987475
>Raised by a "hardcore atheist" father and an "ex-Catholic turned Shamanist" mother,[48] the duo once described their religious beliefs as non-denominational.[54] Lana is a vegetarian
>atheist in charge of parenting
>ever
>>70998703
>>70998710
Reading up on it quickly, it seems to be just a theory thrown in to explain away deficiencies in our current understanding of the universe. Like the luminiferous aether of the 21st century.
>>70998884
Theoretically, if something broke the laws of causality that were in place for the pre-existence universe to make the universe exist, something could just as well break the laws of causality of our universe and bring it out of existence.
>>70999099
Yes, but atheism/pol/ implies being moral as an atheist, while an atheist has no justification for proscribing moral behaviour.
>>70999099
The objective reason for being moral is to continue your biological imperative. It's to help further humanity because if we are talking about this shit now imagine what we'll be talking about a million years from now. Might even be able to create an entire universe solely from a hyperlogical argument.
>>70987475
>who are you supporting in your local elections?
I live in a *very* rural area. We're the biggest town in about a 150 mile radius and we have a population of like 4500 people. Mostly white, some beaners. Our local political scene doesn't even recognize social justice retardation as a valid concern.
I've been thinking about triggering the religious people of our community by writing a Letter to the Editor raising concerns about the lack of secular consideration in the county being financially responsible for lighting up a cross-shaped star on the side of the hill during Christmas and Easter. It's a lot easier to defend that it's intended as a secular practice during the month of December, but it's impossible to defend that it's an inappropriate burden on the taxpayer to fund its illumination over the Easter weekend.
The Christians here would lose their minds.
>>70999361
>but it's impossible to defend that it's an *appropriate* burden on the taxpayer
>>70999361
Do it faggot.
>>70999289
>Theoretically, if something broke the laws of causality that were in place for the pre-existence universe to make the universe exist, something could just as well break the laws of causality of our universe and bring it out of existence.
The laws of causality did not exist in the theoretical pre-universe, they were never broken. There's no evidence of the laws of causality being broken in this universe so I don't see why you would think it would happen.
>>70999289
>Reading up on it quickly, it seems to be just a theory thrown in to explain away deficiencies in our current understanding of the universe. Like the luminiferous aether of the 21st century.
Nope, it's derived out of quantum mechanics and is verified by experiment.
Basically it can be related to the uncertainty principle. If you apply the uncertainty principle to a field then it says the value and the rate of change of the value cannot both have arbitrary accuracy. This means that at a very small level a field cannot be both 0 and stable at 0. The small fluctuations that must occur in order to satisfy the uncertainty principle are virtual particles. (Particles and field values are synonymous in QFT)
>>70999289
>Reading up on it quickly, it seems to be just a theory thrown in to explain away deficiencies in our current understanding of the universe. Like the luminiferous aether of the 21st century.
Have you never read the vacuum energy experiment. This guy put two parallel metal plates in a vacuum and found that because larger wavelengths can't form between the plates but can form outside the plates there was a net force that pushed the plates together.
And thank to DeBroglie we know that waves are particles. It is this energy that creates the particles.
>>70999289
Don't derail the discussion.
The argument was about the implications of nihilism, and it's clear you cannot sustain your claim.
I don't get why all atheists cling to Christian values like it's their most prized quality.
Do they realize how stupid they are?
Imagine what you could do if you really threw the book out of the window.
LARP is over.
If you're a christcuck, mudslime or kike you can gas yourself.
>but le fedora reddit meme
gas your family too.
>>70999346
If it's about continuing our biological imperative, how come /pol/ endorses marriage and having lots of children that way as opposed to having unprotected sex with as many women as possible. This would spread your lineage even further than monogamy ever could. Hell, why not do this in the third world where any women you have sex with are more likely to just give birth? /pol/ is opposed to racemixing for some reason, but racemix or not, you're still advancing the biological imperative.
>>70999487
Clearly something had to give a kick, so to speak, to the universe in its pre-existence state to get it to exist. How is it impossible for the same thing to happen again?
>>70999510
>>70999566
I think I see what you guys are saying now. But there's still nothing to show that it's possible for these virtual particles to have a sustained existence, which would be a prerequisite for having a second big bang.
>>70987873
But that's wrong.
Being a nihilist may naturally entail a more hedonistic philosophy, but what everyone finds pleasant is different.
I enjoying playing music, writing, and reading. They're all pleasures of a sort, but none of them are "sensual"
>>70999936
>If it's about continuing our biological imperative, how come /pol/ endorses marriage and having lots of children that way as opposed to having unprotected sex with as many women as possible. This would spread your lineage even further than monogamy ever could. Hell, why not do this in the third world where any women you have sex with are more likely to just give birth? /pol/ is opposed to racemixing for some reason, but racemix or not, you're still advancing the biological imperative.
Because if only a few men have sex with all the women then genetic diversity goes down and humanity viability goes down with it.
>I think I see what you guys are saying now. But there's still nothing to show that it's possible for these virtual particles to have a sustained existence, which would be a prerequisite for having a second big bang.
How are you not getting this. Getting pairs in poker happens all the time. But getting the same pairs for a trillion to the trillion times will only happen after a very long time.
Virtual particles get created all the time but they're simple and relatively formless. For any form to arise out of randomness you need time. Lot's of time. And we're dealing with such timescales here that a supermassive blackhole evaporating due to Hawking radiation would seem instant in comparison.
>>70987873
>If you're an atheist, you can only be a nihilist.
I'm an absurdist, actually. Figure out how that works on your own.
>>70999625
Nihilism in practice leads to the depressed NEET fapping to anime, not the Nietzschean Ubermensch. Nietzsche wasn't much of an Ubermensche himself even, he was constantly sick and had silly delusions all the time (that incident with the horse in particular).
Just because moral behaviour isn't discouraged by atheism doesn't make the opposite true.
>>71000088
You're still just doing what sets off the neural pathways that give you good feelings. So if it's good things that set off your neurons, great. But cocaine and tinder sluts also set off good feelings in the neural pathways.
>>70999936
>But there's still nothing to show that it's possible for these virtual particles to have a sustained existence, which would be a prerequisite for having a second big bang.
Now look up hawking radiation. Basically it's an instance in which a virtual particle pair forms on the edge of a black hole. One particle falls in the other escapes and becomes real.
But to be honest, I will say you have a good sense. That part of the big bang theory is, to my knowledge, hand wavy and incomplete.
But you can't really fault a physicist for not having a full explanation of that which you have deemed incomprehensible.
>>71000300
>Absurdist
>Posting on 4chan
Actually makes a lot of sense.
2016 and not an evolutionary-buddhist-christian-universalist?
It's 2016!
>this thread
>>71000393
So, now that you have failed to defend your argument, you went into a rant about NEETs and Nietzsche. Fucking great.
>>71000300
Camus is heavily influencing my justification for this.
>>71000230
My question is more: can the impossible become possible on a sufficient timescale?
>>71000400
I'm not really faulting anyone for not having a perfect explanation. I'm sure hundreds of years from now we still won't have a perfect explanation. You guys both have a deeper knowledge of these questions of physics than I do, but to me the idea that a particle can come into existence out of nothing seems like a theory that's obviously hiding a gap in the current scientific understanding. It would also violate our current understanding of thermodynamics, because it implies that energy can be created.
>>71000825
When given a harder choice and an easier choice, people will take the easier one unless they have a good reason.
The moral choice is most often the harder one to make and follow through on.
Atheism/Nihilism does not provide an incentive to make hard choices.
Therefore, atheism/nihilism leads to immoral behaviour.
Happy?
>>71000914
>My question is more: can the impossible become possible on a sufficient timescale?
Who said a Big Bang was impossible? If it was we wouldn't be here right now. I suggest you take a stats course, my boy.
>>71001090
You're suggesting that a big bang could occur within the universe
Sorry for breaking into your thread (which was already bad enough), but I want to see the GETs.
>>70999999
>>71000000
>>71001052
Still an invalid argument, as it presupposes there aren't any other factors that act as incentives to avoid immoral behaviour, when there are plenty ("moral intuition", social pressure, personal conviction, avoiding jail, etc)
>>70987475
I'd rather vote for trump, who is obviously atheist.
>>71000300
Well shit I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I've read Sickness Unto Death, yet I was not aware of Absurdism as a philosophical position.
>>71001425
Well I'm speaking for a traditional guilt-based moral system, i.e. an internal moral guidelines. "Moral intuition" is just the atheist way of saying "the parts I agree with from Christian morality." Shame-based moral systems (i.e. "It'll make me go to jail/dishonour my family, etc.) are third-world-tier.
>>70987873
> wahh cry... there's no reward/punishment outside time/space laws of existence
No idiot I realize other people feel pain.
>>70988792
argument from the consequences, even if your bullshit was true.
>>71001167
1. There's a difference between our observable universe, our unobservable uniders, and existence itself.
2. Our observable universe is like an atom inside the unobservable universe. And our unobservable universe is like an atom again within existence.
3. Given enough time though a Big Bang will happen at every location. If you were truly immortal and just floated in space forever because matter disintegrated in front of your eyes, a Big Bang would eventually happen near you such that you could travel an "Earth" again. Hell, eventually a Big Bang will pop into existence inside your eyeball.
>>71001624
You don't know what moral intuition is if you think it comes from christianity. Humans have "felt" certain actions are wrong for as long as they have existed.
The discussion has been derailed, by the way, you went from making a normative claim to a descriptive one.
>>70989402
this also applies to you then.
following your reasoning, you are just a selfish agent maximising your pleasure response by getting jesus to suck your cock for trillions of years in heaven. You don't actually care about any one else, just the reward of eternal bliss.
This was a good thread, but I have to study for my exam tomorrow now so I shouldn't be posting any more after this.
>>71001933
If we want to be truly scientific, we can't claim anything about the unobservable universe or the part of existence that is outside of the universe (if we're talking physics). If there is an infinite number of big bangs, then matter must be infinite. If matter is infinite then eventually huge parts of the universe will be full of nothing but solid matter. This claim violates a lot of laws in our current understanding of physics (notably thermodynamics), so I can't see how you can support it.
>>71001961
Yeah, I just feel like I need to explain what I meant, is all.
And of course we "feel" moral intuitions, but anyone who says they don't need religion to be moral always just chooses the parts they like (the easy parts) from Christian morality so it isn't some type of objective thing. They're living off of previously-built-up moral capital when they do this.
>Atheism General
>>71001052
>Atheism/Nihilism does not provide an incentive to make hard choices.
It doesn't provide a disincentive either. A nihilist is free to just like making hard choices, when nothing matters then "because it's easy" or "because it's pleasurable" are no longer meaningful statements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI2xcubc6QI
>>70987475
I support Trump because if he wins there will be massive butthurt on global scale and also because there's nothing more un-islamic than someone who wants to put marks on muslims like pigs. May Trump make Earth great again.
#MEGA
>>70987475
>The problem ... are
Are there any cool atheist clubs to join, you know, like a church without the preaching old paedophile.
