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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@David Killens
I've no doubt you love your wife yet, as Sappo noted: "Causality only meaningfully exists within systems of defined properties."
Assuming you agree with her...the causes of love cannot be "systematically defined"; love is non-quantifiable thus it cannot be caused to exist meaningfully. ( by implication from Sapp)
Yet, you do indeed love...and consider it no less meaningful to your existence.
Those can all be defined, you just did it by using words whose common usage implies a definition(s).
Shedon and David Killens's replies here are in accordance with my views.
That's fine . Though, this leaves you want for a non-trancendental one. If you're happy or otherwise find solace in this dissonance...who am I to shake your tree?
@quip
I know how I got here, my parents had sex.
Do you know how you got here? Did a God create you?
Do you believe in a God? If you believe in a God can you prove it exist?
Edit for spelling error
You got the 'how' covered! Impressive.
"You got the 'how' covered! Impressive."
My parents wanted children, that's why they had me. Semantics are not as impressive as you think.
xeno, this is off topic, but anyway...
do you remember when you were a kid and found out your parents had SEX?
ewwww!
@ MB
Really? ewwww? I found it fascinating when I read my dad's college biology textbook. It was fascinating to know that is how us animals reproduce.
rmfr
2nd edit: And I found it exceptionally fascinating how two microscopic specks can come together and form something that is so infinitesimally huge compared to its size when it first started.
Somethings you can't unsee.
@Quip/original post
What you really are asking is the age old question: "what is the meaning of life?" Just directed at atheist, perhaps because you may get a more interesting answer then "because god."
What is the meaning of life? Or perhaps more specifically what is the meaning of one's own life? I feel we all already know the answer if we spent any time honestly pondering and not clouded by the "cause god" answer, but we just mostly tend to not like it, so we usually reject it.
To me, the pure logic and reasoning answer is: because we are not nothing, we are something.
A something given nearly infinite chances to get increasing complexity to the point we have "somethings" that can begin to be self aware and actually wonder about the "why?"
We were programmed by efficiency to see patterns, (a powerful survival mechanism to help predict the future,) we were programmed by efficiency to fear death, another powerful survival mechanism, but us humans knowing the "purpose of life" was not necessary as a powerful survival mechanism. In a lot of ways the various god ideas people come up with is a coping mechanism for the gap of "why?" Especially when modern science findings were not around to answer even more basic questions like lightning and thunder, why people suddenly keel over clutching their chest, etc.
For the last one you are asking what is consciousness? Another really difficult question we all ask and mostly have go unanswered, I only have a partial answer here from my own thoughts: pattern recognition using memories and sensory input creating, a form of self that is a collection of our experiences along with the physical reality of our bodies and brain.
Why are we born now and male or female? That is easy, in the cycle that is life (yep humans included) you already know the answer: a particular sperm met a particular egg and developed to who you are that is why you are born when you are born and why you are your gender, your parents. Do not over complicate it. It really is that simple.
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▮ I am an atheist that always likes a good debate. ▮
▮ Please include @LogicFTW in responses directed to me. ▮
▮ Useful list on forum usage. A.R. Member since 2016. ▮
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Logic, you just rock. Plain and simple. Well written, well thought through, and here are the keys to your new BMW.
However, haha... aren't we all born female? and then that nasty y chromosome messes it all up and turns females into...gag... male.?
@Magnficant Beast
Yes, as I understand the effects of the presence of a "Y" chromosome does not kick in much until 7-10 weeks after fertilization of the egg when hormonal production begins. In rare cases the absence of a 2nd x or y, results in a human having more "female" traits than male. "In mammalian primary sex determination, there is no “default state.”
"The formation of ovaries and testes are both active, gene-directed processes. Moreover, as we shall see, both diverge from a common precursor, the bipotential gonad."
A brief search on the net turns up: roughly half of all sperm have the x chromosome and half have the "y" male chromosome.
With in vitro you can choose the gender of your kid with an extra step, (they pick sperm that carries the wanted chromosome.) However most in vitro clinics refuse to do so on moral/ethics grounds, especially if the couple was of high likelihood to conceive naturally.
Thanks for the new BMW!
\(^-^)/
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▮ I am an atheist that always likes a good debate. ▮
▮ Please include @LogicFTW in responses directed to me. ▮
▮ Useful list on forum usage. A.R. Member since 2016. ▮
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My grandniece had a baby boy yesterday. NINE POUNDS. Holy crap!
My first thought was, "why'd it have to be a BOY?" course, I'm not telling Shenez that.
I know next to nothing about invitro, so I thank you for the info. I wonder if there are religious invitro centers.... know any?
@Magnificent Beast
That is a big baby, oof your grandniece had her work cut out for her that day.
I do not know of any religious invitro centers, (typically IVF procedure takes place in fertility clinics although lab work may be done off site.) I do know many religious folks take serious issue to fertility clinics, so I can imagine there are not very many, if any religious fertility clinics. But my knowledge here is very limited.
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▮ I am an atheist that always likes a good debate. ▮
▮ Please include @LogicFTW in responses directed to me. ▮
▮ Useful list on forum usage. A.R. Member since 2016. ▮
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nine pounds? Big. When me wife had our twin daughters, both were 7 pounds 5 ounces each. After watching the video, my only thought was, "How in Hell am I ever going to satisfy that again?"
rmfr
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@LogicFTW.
Sincerely, a well thought out post.
Though still off the mark. I'm here neither seeking the meaning for life nor for the understanding of conciousness.
Rather, I'm asking atheists - by way of ratiocination - may they defend their wholesale denial regarding the possibility of an antecedent to their particular existential experience....beyond mere knee-jerk rejection and the ironic albeit implied standard of logic - the rigors of which - are systematically refused purchase and application to very inquiry itself.
Quip, no, you're not. You're a Theist in an atheist forum. Beating around the bush doesn't help communication. You can back pedal all you want, but it's probably very clear that you don't accept any answers to your questions except those you agree with.
Until you can accept the answers, you will never understand. Your agenda, and I see it very clearly, is to propose that life is not random, and that your god has a plan for all of us. BULLSHIT.
The reason you are you, and not me, is because your mother fucked your father, and not my father. It's that simple. But that's not within your agenda, right? We're supposed to say "because god has a plan for each of us and we are all preordained." BULLSHIT.
It would have been so much better if you were upfront with your OP from the very beginning. At least you would have been honest about it.
I'm seeking no answers just open-minds.
quip, you can't see it because you can't recognize an open mind. You're posting with people who have life experiences that are valid and important. They are answering your questions. You don't like their answers, so you claim, now, that you aren't seeking answers.
BULLSHIT.
BULLSHIT..indeed!
Your denials grasp upon a duplicitous application of logic. You prop yourself upon a logical pedestal yet, rely upon it (conspicuously) as a passive renunciation to the question posed.
Theists say open mind, but don't seem to know what it means, as all it means is you approach all ideas without bias. The only bias in this thread is from quip, who is insisting his beliefs are not subject to the same rational and epistemological standards of evidence as other claims and beliefs are.
It's a tedious theistic merry-go-round, and we've seen it too many times before. Asking atheists why we think we exist, then ignoring all the answers as they don;t make the biased assumptions he's looking for. Open mind indeed, hilarious. From a man who thinks he can not believe in a deity, and also not not believe in a deity. Then again he has also claimed to be agnostic on the question, then immediately claimed it is possible, so he doesn't know what agnostic means either.
There was a poster on the UK Amazon religious discussion website for years, and he delighted in trolling by reversing every fact, and insisting he was right but refusing to follow links to explanations of why he was wrong. His username was Spin, aptly enough and quip is starting to remind me a little of Spin. one of my favourite Spin claims was that light years were a measurement of time, he also claimed that men had one less rib than women.
Trollers, like quip, seldom delight in trolling. It's their addiction. Once they get responses, they are hooked. Notice he's only doing one-liners and very short posts. That's a Troller. This is based on infor about Trollers. There are a lot of them, and more coming, because it's another addiction. Food, drugs, sex, trolling, etc.
We have good Mods here, though. I'm sure they'll know when to draw the line, unlike most of us. So I'm cool with it.
Yep. The standard wishy-washy agnostic wimp. It is kind of like saying "kind of pregnant." You either believe or you do not.
rmfr
Re: quip - "I'm seeking no answers just open-minds."
Now THERE is irony for you, ladies and gentlemen! *chuckle*
Now why would you say that? I was an atheist for years....it's just that the neanderthal world-view left me at.....let's say, a logical impasse.
Are you familiar with the philosophical concept known as naive realism? If not look it up....you seem to epitomize the notion.
@ quip
Naive Realism
Unsophisticated Interest for Reality.
Sounds like you.
rmfr
Indeed!
I've little interest in sophistication.
@quip Re: "Are you familiar with the philosophical concept known as naive realism? If not look it up....you seem to epitomize the notion."
Awwww.... You're so sweet! That's the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me....*blushing*... Goodness gracious... Next thing I know you will be sending me flowers and asking me out. You're such a smoothie...*fanning face with hand*.... *eyes fluttering*.... Oh, dear! I simply MUST go find something nice to wear! Wouldn't want to get caught unprepared!.... *rushes off to bedroom closet*....
Edit to add: Almost forgot, I think it's only fair that I tell you I do not ALWAYS put out on the first date.
Ahh. Good to know!
I'll keep my condoms and 3-in-one in the glove box.
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