Why do Atheists Hate Religion?

[CoinCube]

What part of there's a giant bearded dude in the sky that created earth and man don't you understand?

Notbatman is a simpleton or troll who ignores all scientific evidence, believes that everyone is engaged in a giant conspiracy to hide the nature of the planet and can apparently only visualize an infinite creator as a big man in the sky with a giant beard.

Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.

[af_newbie]

What transformation are you talking about?  Are you 'transforming' right now?

Can you post the before and after pictures from your transformation?  What exactly did you transform?  Please be specific.

Maybe a computer science analogy will be easier for you to follow? When you download an operating system onto a computer what kind of transformation is that? Physically the change is unobservable the computer and hard drive look exactly the same. Nevertheless the functional changes and the effect on the behavior of the system is profound.

Choosing God is the human version of this general type of transformation a revision to the core operating system. Nearly completely unobservable yet at the same time fundamental.

Are you are talking about a functional transformation?  

How did your body or mind functionally changed since you 'accepted' God?

Let me give you a hint.  Good people remain good people despite believing or disbelieving in imaginary friends.  Same goes for the bad apples.

Again, a real example would be helpful to understand where you went wrong.

[af_newbie]

What part of there's a giant bearded dude in the sky that created earth and man don't you understand?

Notbatman is a simpleton or troll who ignores all scientific evidence, believes that everyone is engaged in a giant conspiracy to hide the nature of the planet and can apparently only visualize an infinite creator as a big man in the sky with a giant beard.

Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.

I think we already re-hashed the God of the Gaps argument.  You need to dig deeper for more original arguments.

[CoinCube]

Are you are talking about a functional transformation?  

How did your body or mind functionally changed since you 'accepted' God?

Let me give you a hint.  Good people remain good people despite believing or disbelieving in imaginary friends.  Same goes for the bad apples.

Again, a real example would be helpful to understand where you went wrong.

In regards to “good people” I suspect we would have trouble agreeing on the definition of that term. here is a comment I ran across a few months back that stuck with me. Not my words but I have found them to be true.

“I have often noticed. The further the unbeliever is from God...the more "good" they believe themselves to be. Contrastly, the nearer one draws toward God...the less good they see in their own life! God is the light the reveals the sin within us. As we draw nearer that light...so that sin is revealed. As we move further ...so that sin disappears in the darkness.”

The proper term would be a spiritual transformation. Perhaps that’s why you are struggling with the concept. Materialist reject the existence of the spirit so naturally it’s difficult to understand the transformation of something that you refuse to acknowledge exists. As I said before the closest analogy in materialist phraseology would be an update or revision of the core operating system.

[af_newbie]

Are you are talking about a functional transformation?  

How did your body or mind functionally changed since you 'accepted' God?

Let me give you a hint.  Good people remain good people despite believing or disbelieving in imaginary friends.  Same goes for the bad apples.

Again, a real example would be helpful to understand where you went wrong.

In regards to “good people” I suspect we would have trouble agreeing on the definition of that term. here is a comment I ran across a few months back that stuck with me. Not my words but I have found them to be true.

“I have often noticed. The further the unbeliever is from God...the more "good" they believe themselves to be. Contrastly, the nearer one draws toward God...the less good they see in their own life! God is the light the reveals the sin within us. As we draw nearer that light...so that sin is revealed. As we move further ...so that sin disappears in the darkness.”

The proper term would be a spiritual transformation. Perhaps that’s why you are struggling with the concept. Materialist reject the existence of the spirit so naturally it’s difficult to understand the transformation of something that you refuse to acknowledge exists. As I said before the closest analogy in materialist phraseology would be an update or revision of the core operating system.

That is the problem.  I don't even know what does 'sin' or 'spirit' even mean.  They are abstract concepts developed to instill fear and bondage in the gullible masses.

So what you're talking about is mumbo jumbo in my 'materialistic' world.  Makes absolutely no sense.  Crazy talk.

[Astargath]

What part of there's a giant bearded dude in the sky that created earth and man don't you understand?

Notbatman is a simpleton or troll who ignores all scientific evidence, believes that everyone is engaged in a giant conspiracy to hide the nature of the planet and can apparently only visualize an infinite creator as a big man in the sky with a giant beard.

Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.

There are a ton of problems with this kind of argument. For one, something that might seem logical now, might not be logical tomorrow when we find out whatever new information that changes everything. Perhaps our understanding of the universe is not even 0.01% correct. Second problem would be that even if it's logical to think there is a creator, the argument still doesn't show it's the god from the bible and not other god.

[CoinCube]

In regards to “good people” I suspect we would have trouble agreeing on the definition of that term. here is a comment I ran across a few months back that stuck with me. Not my words but I have found them to be true.

“I have often noticed. The further the unbeliever is from God...the more "good" they believe themselves to be. Contrastly, the nearer one draws toward God...the less good they see in their own life! God is the light the reveals the sin within us. As we draw nearer that light...so that sin is revealed. As we move further ...so that sin disappears in the darkness.”

The proper term would be a spiritual transformation. Perhaps that’s why you are struggling with the concept. Materialist reject the existence of the spirit so naturally it’s difficult to understand the transformation of something that you refuse to acknowledge exists. As I said before the closest analogy in materialist phraseology would be an update or revision of the core operating system.

That is the problem.  I don't even know what does 'sin' or 'spirit' even mean.  They are abstract concepts developed to instill fear and bondage in the gullible masses.

So what you're talking about is mumbo jumbo in my 'materialistic' world.  Makes absolutely no sense.  Crazy talk.

Yes well that happens when people adopt different fundamental a priori about the nature of the universe. They begin to branch out in entirely different directions. To you my arguments sound like crazy talk. To me your arguments appear as willful blindness reflecting an inability to open your eyes and take in the nature of reality around you.

The a priori matters quite a bit. Our innate biological limitations lock us into set forms and patterns dictated by natural law but increasingly we are developing the power to overcome these and remake reality according to our whims. As we do so the a priori becomes ever more important as it ultimately directs our developmental path which becomes a matter of choice not destiny.

A synonym for a priori is faith. Everyone who is logical and consistent has a faith. The nihilist has faith in the meaninglessness of the universe. The hedonist has faith that pleasure is the most important thing in life. The theist has faith in God. What we choose to have faith in is far more important then commonly recognized for in the end it dictates who we are.

If you understand this you can begin to understand why a genuine faith in God may at the end of the day be more important then the mistakes even the horrible ones that people may have committed on the winding path to achieving that faith.  

[CoinCube]

Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.

There are a ton of problems with this kind of argument. For one, something that might seem logical now, might not be logical tomorrow when we find out whatever new information that changes everything. Perhaps our understanding of the universe is not even 0.01% correct. Second problem would be that even if it's logical to think there is a creator, the argument still doesn't show it's the god from the bible and not other god.

Regarding #1 Our knowledge may indeed expand in the future and invalidate some of current understanding. However, changing or shaping your current worldview based on hypothetical future knowledge that may or may not ever exist is not a path to a sane or stable worldview.

Regarding #2 If there is an entity that created the universe then by definition that is the God of the Bible for such a creator is by definition God. This would be true even if the Bible was somehow shown to be incomplete or inaccurate in its description of said creator.

[af_newbie]

Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.

There are a ton of problems with this kind of argument. For one, something that might seem logical now, might not be logical tomorrow when we find out whatever new information that changes everything. Perhaps our understanding of the universe is not even 0.01% correct. Second problem would be that even if it's logical to think there is a creator, the argument still doesn't show it's the god from the bible and not other god.

Regarding #1 Our knowledge may indeed expand in the future and invalidate some of current understanding. However, changing or shaping your current worldview based on hypothetical future knowledge that may or may not ever exist is not a path to a sane or stable worldview.

Regarding #2 If there is an entity that created the universe then by definition that is the God of the Bible for such a creator is by definition God. This would be true even if the Bible was somehow shown to be incomplete or inaccurate in its description of said creator.

You missed his point.  His point was that in the future we could discover how the world (and all the parallel universes) were created naturally. Your position is not allowing for any future discoveries to be accepted because it would invalidate your 'God the creator of all things' position entirely.

An honest position is to say: we know what we know, what we don't know we don't know.  We know the universe was much smaller in the past, probably was a singularity when the spacetime that we know and experience 'became available' in its current form.  Who knows what the future discoveries will bring?

Maybe the spacetime that we know was in a different form, and we never actually had the singularity.  Just a different form or state (with unknown Physics).

What is known to be 100% true is that the stories about Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, and all the other ancient Gods are fairy tales (from the crypt, pun intended).

[Astargath]

Nevertheless he is correct in this one implication. The existence of a creator is a straightforward and logical a priori. There is no observed example of spontaneous and sustained de-novo creation in the observed universe. Yet here we are and we can trace our existence back to a unique moment of infinite creation when the entire universe emerged and then expanded from a single point in space and time. Given the complexity of the universe and ourselves the belief there is a creative entity behind it all is indeed not hard to understand.

There are a ton of problems with this kind of argument. For one, something that might seem logical now, might not be logical tomorrow when we find out whatever new information that changes everything. Perhaps our understanding of the universe is not even 0.01% correct. Second problem would be that even if it's logical to think there is a creator, the argument still doesn't show it's the god from the bible and not other god.

Regarding #1 Our knowledge may indeed expand in the future and invalidate some of current understanding. However, changing or shaping your current worldview based on hypothetical future knowledge that may or may not ever exist is not a path to a sane or stable worldview.

Regarding #2 If there is an entity that created the universe then by definition that is the God of the Bible for such a creator is by definition God. This would be true even if the Bible was somehow shown to be incomplete or inaccurate in its description of said creator.

You missed his point.  His point was that in the future we could discover how the world (and all the parallel universes) were created naturally. Your position is not allowing for any future discoveries to be accepted because it would invalidate your 'God the creator of all things' position entirely.

An honest position is to say: we know what we know, what we don't know we don't know.  We know the universe was much smaller in the past, probably was a singularity when the spacetime that we know and experience 'became available' in its current form.  Who knows what the future discoveries will bring?

Maybe the spacetime that we know was in a different form, and we never actually had the singularity.  Just a different form or state (with unknown Physics).

What is known to be 100% true is that the stories about Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, and all the other ancient Gods are fairy tales (from the crypt, pun intended).

Exactly. Just look at history. Was it not more logical to believe in a god 5000 years ago? I believe it was. People had so little information about anything, a big bearded man in the sky seemed quite logical. They also believed the earth was flat, can you blame them? Of course that was shown to be not even close to reality.

[CoinCube]

You missed his point.  His point was that in the future we could discover how the world (and all the parallel universes) were created naturally. Your position is not allowing for any future discoveries to be accepted because it would invalidate your 'God the creator of all things' position entirely.

An honest position is to say: we know what we know, what we don't know we don't know...

Exactly. Just look at history. Was it not more logical to believe in a god 5000 years ago? I believe it was. People had so little information about anything, a big bearded man in the sky seemed quite logical. They also believed the earth was flat, can you blame them? Of course that was shown to be not even close to reality.

I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable.

We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches.

“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal.

[af_newbie]

You missed his point.  His point was that in the future we could discover how the world (and all the parallel universes) were created naturally. Your position is not allowing for any future discoveries to be accepted because it would invalidate your 'God the creator of all things' position entirely.

An honest position is to say: we know what we know, what we don't know we don't know...

Exactly. Just look at history. Was it not more logical to believe in a god 5000 years ago? I believe it was. People had so little information about anything, a big bearded man in the sky seemed quite logical. They also believed the earth was flat, can you blame them? Of course that was shown to be not even close to reality.

I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable.

We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches.

“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal.

If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.

As for the closed or open systems, it is your assumption, just like your assumption that God must exist.

We are here on this Earth for a very short time; make the best of it. 

Impact lives of people around you in a positive way, create good memories.  That is all you can do.

You did not exist for billions of years, you exist only for about 80-120 years if you are lucky, then you go back to non-existing forever (or about 20 billion years as some estimate, then the Big Rip or Big Crunch will destroy all atoms in your body and the rest of the universe).

[BADecker]

If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.

All you are saying is that you want your suggestion to be worshiped. But you recognize that you might be off a little in some way, so you hide your mistakes in the idea of worshiping nature. But understand it for what it really is. It's self-worship.

[af_newbie]

If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.

All you are saying is that you want your suggestion to be worshiped. But you recognize that you might be off a little in some way, so you hide your mistakes in the idea of worshiping nature. But understand it for what it really is. It's self-worship.

You did not understand my comment.  It had nothing to do with 'self' and all to do with other life you interact with.

[BADecker]

If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.

All you are saying is that you want your suggestion to be worshiped. But you recognize that you might be off a little in some way, so you hide your mistakes in the idea of worshiping nature. But understand it for what it really is. It's self-worship.

You did not understand my comment.  It had nothing to do with 'self' and all to do with other life you interact with.

Obviously you didn't understand your own comment. It completely has to do with 'self'. After all, you, yourSELF made it.

[BADecker]

As for the closed or open systems, it is your assumption, just like your assumption that God must exist.

Now you are assuming that people and you exist.     

[BADecker]

You did not exist for billions of years, you exist only for about 80-120 years if you are lucky, then you go back to non-existing forever (or about 20 billion years as some estimate, then the Big Rip or Big Crunch will destroy all atoms in your body and the rest of the universe).

Billions of years is all an assumption. God told us less than 10,000.

[CoinCube]

I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable.

We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches.

“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal.

If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.

As for the closed or open systems, it is your assumption, just like your assumption that God must exist.

We are here on this Earth for a very short time; make the best of it. 

Impact lives of people around you in a positive way, create good memories.  That is all you can do.

You did not exist for billions of years, you exist only for about 80-120 years if you are lucky, then you go back to non-existing forever (or about 20 billion years as some estimate, then the Big Rip or Big Crunch will destroy all atoms in your body and the rest of the universe).

We are indeed only on this earth for a very short period of time and your suggestions on ways to make the most of that time are not bad ones.

1) Impact the lives of people around you in a positive way.
2) Create good memories.
3) Develop deep, meaningful relationships with people.
4) Love and respect life (humans, plants, animals).

These are all good suggestions but do they qualify as the objects of worship that Mr. Wallace described above? To answer that we must ask another question. Are we valuing those things as means to an end or an end in itself?

Perhaps what we are really after is personal pleasure and satisfaction and feel those rules the best way to achieve it. In that event personal pleasure is our true object of worship not the suggestions. We despite our fine words are much more akin to the hedonist placing our pleasure above all else. One man might value deep meaningful relationships another endless one night stands personal preferences vary.

Or perhaps we are really value successful reproduction and ensuring our genetic line extends propagates. Maybe those suggestions are our opinion on how best to achieve that. In that case we are again worshiping reproduction not the fine suggestions. One man may opt for the strategy of being the reliable family man, another might seek to be a scoundrel to seduce and then repeatedly abscond at the first opportunity. Strategies like personal preferences also vary.
 
Or maybe just maybe we actually value those things as an end in an of themselves. That is far less likely. BADecker was correct when he noted that most of the time what we humans do is self-worship. If we value something as an end in and of itself we become more concerned more with the essence of those things and less about their impact on us personally. If we truly treasure deep, meaningful relationships or the love and respect of life as an ends then our primary concern will not be maximization of those things in our personal lives though that will most certainly happen. Instead our primary goal will be ensuring those treasured ends grow stronger in the world and do everything we can to ensure that after our deaths we leave a world with more of those meaningful relationships and a greater love and respect of life then was there when we entered it.

If we value something as an ends we must ask ourselves how do I make sure I work towards those ends even if I don't want to or I am tired. What will keep me on track when those ends no longer give me the pleasure they once did or they become costly. How do I grow those many good things in a world that is not necessary fertile soil for the principles and does not prioritize them. A system is obviously necessary. A system that strengthens us and helps keep our focus on necessary goals.

I would propose two alternative rules from which your four goals can be naturally derived from.

1) Love God: This unifies all creation under a father. It makes all of us and all of life siblings to one another.
2) Love your neighbor as yourself: This dictates how we are to treat our siblings.

I would suggest that your list of good things follows naturally from genuine application of the two premises above. Furthermore I would highlight that the the above two rules are viable as ends in and of themselves and not just as means. Finally I would point out that their exists a well structured system built around those principles that already exists to help support and propagate them.

What we worship ultimately defines what we are.

[af_newbie]

I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable.

We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches.

“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal.

If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.

As for the closed or open systems, it is your assumption, just like your assumption that God must exist.

We are here on this Earth for a very short time; make the best of it.  

Impact lives of people around you in a positive way, create good memories.  That is all you can do.

You did not exist for billions of years, you exist only for about 80-120 years if you are lucky, then you go back to non-existing forever (or about 20 billion years as some estimate, then the Big Rip or Big Crunch will destroy all atoms in your body and the rest of the universe).

We are indeed only on this earth for a very short period of time and your suggestions on ways to make the most of that time are not bad ones.

1) Impact the lives of people around you in a positive way.
2) Create good memories.
3) Develop deep, meaningful relationships with people.
4) Love and respect life (humans, plants, animals).

These are all good suggestions but do they qualify as the objects of worship that Mr. Wallace described above? To answer that we must ask another question. Are we valuing those things as means to an end or an end in itself?

Perhaps what we are really after is personal pleasure and satisfaction and feel those rules the best way to achieve it. In that event personal pleasure is our true object of worship not the suggestions. We despite our fine words are much more akin to the hedonist placing our pleasure above all else. One man might value deep meaningful relationships another endless one night stands personal preferences vary.

Or perhaps we are really value successful reproduction and ensuring our genetic line extends propagates. Maybe those suggestions are our opinion on how best to achieve that. In that case we are again worshiping reproduction not the fine suggestions. One man may opt for the strategy of being the reliable family man, another might seek to be a scoundrel to seduce and then repeatedly abscond at the first opportunity. Strategies like personal preferences also vary.
 
Or maybe just maybe we actually value those things as an end in an of themselves. That is far less likely. BADecker was correct when he noted that most of the time what we humans do is self-worship. If we value something as an end in and of itself we become more concerned more with the essence of those things and less about their impact on us personally. If we truly treasure deep, meaningful relationships or the love and respect of life as an ends then our primary concern will not be maximization of those things in our personal lives though that will most certainly happen. Instead our primary goal will be ensuring those treasured ends grow stronger in the world and do everything we can to ensure that after our deaths we leave a world with more of those meaningful relationships and a greater love and respect of life then was there when we entered it.

If we value something as an ends we must ask ourselves how do I make sure I work towards those ends even if I don't want to or I am tired. What will keep me on track when those ends no longer give me the pleasure they once did or they become costly. How do I grow those many good things in a world that is not necessary fertile soil for the principles and does not prioritize them. A system is obviously necessary. A system that strengthens us and helps keep our focus on necessary goals.

I would propose two alternative rules from which your four goals can be naturally derived from.

1) Love God: This unifies all creation under a father. It makes all of us and all of life siblings to one another.
2) Love your neighbor as yourself: This dictates how we are to treat our siblings.

I would suggest that your list of good things follows naturally from genuine application of the two premises above. Furthermore I would highlight that the the above two rules are viable as ends in and of themselves and not just as means. Finally I would point out that their exists a well structured system built around those principles that already exists to help support and propagate them.

What we worship ultimately defines what we are.

I said, "if you must worship".  I don't need to worship anything.

I cannot believe it.  Are all religious folks so shallow to think only about themselves and their salvation?  
It is all about you and your personal pleasure.  

Why would you even think that someone would want to be good to others to satisfy their own personal whimsy?

You are good to others so that others feel good.  That is what selflessness is all about.

Maybe religious people cannot become truly selfless that is why you don't understand or trust what I am talking about.

Maybe that is why you invent the supernatural to satisfy your pathological lack of empathy for human beings.

You need the supernatural because you lack connection with other, physical life.

I am afraid our nervous systems are wired differently that is why you do not truly trust and understand what I am saying.

Instead, you look for invalidation of my position elsewhere by inventing that reason to fit it into your worldview.

I am walking, talking Jesus or Budda compared to you guys.

[Astargath]

You missed his point.  His point was that in the future we could discover how the world (and all the parallel universes) were created naturally. Your position is not allowing for any future discoveries to be accepted because it would invalidate your 'God the creator of all things' position entirely.

An honest position is to say: we know what we know, what we don't know we don't know...

Exactly. Just look at history. Was it not more logical to believe in a god 5000 years ago? I believe it was. People had so little information about anything, a big bearded man in the sky seemed quite logical. They also believed the earth was flat, can you blame them? Of course that was shown to be not even close to reality.

I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable.

We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches.

“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See: An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal.

The problem with your ''logical'' argument is that you can't prove it, if it's really logical and obvious, everyone would know it and yet not everyone believes in god, also not everyone who believes in god, believes in the same god.

Also, we are talking about an eternal, all powerful all knowing being, right? Well, such a being would simply not care about us or anything at all, think about it logically, he already knows everything and can do anything, he simply wont care, a human death or baby being born is meaningless for him, the amount of particles in the universe doesn't even change, why would such a being need to be ''loved'' and worshiped?