Do you believe in god?

[BADecker]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

[af_newbie]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

Those are not scientific nor proofs.

[CoinCube]

The Argument from Religion - A Transcendental Argument

Morality can’t be found from a scientific examination of nature. So if morality is not in nature it must be beyond nature – the supernatural.

Where does value come from? It’s not found in the world reduced to scientific facts. Nonetheless, it’s found in the world as we actually experience it. We find value in all sorts of things. We value our friendships, and hopefully at least some of our family members. We value certain books, films, projects, beautiful days, ‘nature,’ and music. So value exists. We experience it. A transcendental argument asks – what must the world be like for this experience to be possible? There must be more to the world than scientific facts. The value of the world that we discover must have its basis in something else.
...
Morality is invisible to science because science cannot see value. Anything invisible to science must either not exist at all, or it must be nonphysical. Our name for the nonphysical aspects of reality is the spiritual, i.e., the divine, transcendent, God.
...
There is remarkable agreement among those at the higher reaches of many world religions. High level Buddhists, Catholic monks, Kabbalists, Sufis, all describe ultimate reality in similar terms and much of what they say can be summed up in the cliché, ‘all is one.’

If all is one, then my treating you badly is really treating myself badly.
...

I disagree with the argument from religion and its transcendental argument. It is my belief that humans are intrinsically moral whilst they are at the same time completely natural. I reject a transcendental argument with its postulate of a non physical transcendence - this is a mere construct, a superfluous idea - without a direct basis in physical existence, which is what I believe is in fact the only existence that is, and reality and all it implies (see wiki for details) as well. The world is as it is in its natural state and this reality make morality possible. There is no other basis to have this moral value we find in humans. I name the nonphysical aspects of reality the emergent qualities of personhood. No need to interject metaphysical (imaginary) constructs here. We are indeed connected to each other in a network, but its all natural.

Any look at current events or recent history provides a powerful argument that humans are not intrinsically moral.

Religion and Progress

The greatest obstacle to human progress is not a technological hurdle but the evil inherent in ourselves. Humans have knowledge of good and evil and with this knowledge we often choose evil.

Collectivism exists because it employs aggregated force to limit evil especially the forms of evil linked to physical violence. Collectivism is expensive and inefficient but these inefficiencies are less than the cost of unrestrained individualism. Collectivism aggregates capital for the common good and we are far from outgrowing our need for this.

1.   Prehistory required the aggregation of human capital in the form of young warriors willing to fight to protect the tribe.
2.   The Agricultural Age required physical capital in the form of land ownership and a State to protect the land.
3.   The Industrial Age required the aggregation of monetary capital to fund large fixed capital investments and factories.

A farmer in the agricultural age could achieve some protection from theft and violence by arming himself. He could protect himself against a small hostile groups by forming defensive pacts with neighboring farmers. To defend against large scale organized violence, however, requires an army and thus a state.

In 1651 Thomas Hobbes argued for the merits of centralized monarchy. He believed that only absolute monarchy was capable of suppressing the evils of an unrestrained humanity. He described in graphic wording the consequences of a world without monarchy a condition he called the state of nature.

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. - Thomas Hobbes Leviathan

There may well have been a time in human history when the absolute monarchy of Hobbes was the best available government but Hobbes was writing at the end of that era. England had been transformed from a nation almost completely conquered by the Odin worshiping Great Heathen Army of 865 to a country that protected the legal rights of nobles in the Magna Carta of 1215 to a devoutly Christian nation that formalized the rights of judicial review for common citizens in the 1679 Habeas Corpus act. Hobbes had failed to appreciate the growth of moral capital that allowed for superior forms of government with increased freedom.

Our forefathers understood that it is morality and virtue that allows for freedom a lesson many today have forgotten.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” - James Madison

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” - George Washington

In human interactions we often face a choice between cooperation (reaching a mutually beneficial exchange) and defection (advancement of ourselves to the detriment of our fellow man). The nation state, police, and laws suppress physical violence but do nothing to maintain the morality and virtue that sustain freedom. Collectivism limits some avenues of defection while opening entire new possibilities. New opportunities for defection arise along the entire economic spectrum. Everything from special interest lobbying, to disability scammers, and on a larger scale our entire fiat monetary system are essentially forms of defection allowing the few to profit at the expense of the many. Nation state collectivism has allowed for the creation of great civilizations and yet is entirely unsustainable in its current form.

"our Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it." - A.W. Tozer

The perishing of Western civilization, however, does not mean fragmentation and collapse. Indeed in this instance the opposite appears to be true and collapse looks set to drive us via economic fundamentals and debt into a single world government paradigm for reasons discussed at length elsewhere.

The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to higher potential energy systems with increased degrees of freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. It is likely that in the near future republics will be consumed by world government, and perhaps someday world government will evolve into decentralized government.

Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increases the number of individuals able to engage in cooperative activity while lowering the number of individuals able to defect. Each iteration increases the sustainable degrees of freedom the system can support. Moral capital is the foundation that allows this progress to occur. For this reason ethical monotheism is the single greatest contributor to human progress from any source since human culture emerged from the stone ages.

"Nature is amoral. Nature knows nothing of good and evil. In nature there is one rule—survival of the fittest. There is no right, only might. If a creature is weak, kill it. Only human beings could have moral rules such as, "If it is weak, protect it." Only human beings can feel themselves ethically obligated to strangers.
...
Nature allows you to act naturally, i.e., do only what you want you to do, without moral restraints; God does not. Nature lets you act naturally - and it is as natural to kill, rape, and enslave as it is to love.
...
One of the vital elements in the ethical monotheist revolution was its repudiation of nature as god. The evolution of civilization and morality have depended in large part on desanctifying nature.
...
Civilizations that equated gods with nature—a characteristic of all primitive societies—or that worshipped nature did not evolve.
...
Words cannot convey the magnitude of the change wrought by the Bible's introduction into the world of a God who rules the universe morally." - Dennis Prager

The utopia of limited to no government would only be possible for a population constantly striving at all times to be moral. Such a utopia would require all individuals to always act cooperatively, honesty, and transparently. We lack the required moral fiber for anything like this to work at our current juncture in history.

See: Freedom and God for more.

[popcorn1]

Please send the men in white coats for this dude ..
You have lost the plot .
What the smartest man 100 years ago knew is nothing to what a 12 year old child knows now ..
SO GROW UP NUTTER  

You know this thread reminds me of the Flat Earth thread over in the off topic section. Lots of pictures, lots of insults, and an utter disinterest in rationality if it challenges preconceived notions.

The depth of your argument popcorn1 tells me that you are either unwilling or unable to cognativally digest complex challenges to your world view.

We know that pre-rational people exist. Pre-rational people, as I’m defining it, are concrete operational or worse. (Worse would be preoperational/magical and sensorimotor/archaic).
...
The rational person can try to explain how things look to the pre-rational. They will not succeed. Either you can see the validity of a logical argument, or you cannot. If I say if p, then q, p, therefore q and you say ‘no it’s not,’ all I can do is stare at you.

Morality..Take the shops away and bring back hunting then how moral are we?..
But the main thing is your arguing over 1 word morality ..
The bible has millions of words so you only got so much time left in your life to argue the rest of the other words and their meaning?..

But your arguing over nothing  ..So why waste your life clock on total bullshit because what you are saying will not solve or do anything to make peoples lives better..
Your just talking about 1 word out of the bible..

Morality comes from experience then we pass it down and on to others..
Take the food away I.E shops and money and go back to hunting how moral will we be?..

STOP WASTING YOUR LIFE ON BULLSHIT ..I am trying to help you  ..
Use your time on something more constructive..

1 word and you go crazy..MORALITY..

Do you have any professors who know about these words that are in the bible ..
COMPASSION EMPATHY VENGEANCE JEALOUSY..Yes just words don't faint  ..

Stop believing in the magic sky man who zapped this planet and made it so ..

Or why don't you call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWTmtNn3zY..

[The_prodigy]

Of course i believe in god. Reasons is who creates the Earth? Rain? Sea? All of that is impossible without God. All the human being and animals are God's creation and you should believe in god you aren't here if god doesnt exist.

Before god exist earth already made up by science. But when god comes he created everything on this planet like animals and other ting that you eating on this earth . God is the reason why we here and why still keep breathing on this planet i thank god that i am blessed.

No. Evolution is the true reason behind that.
Could you give 1 reason why you think god exists?
because there is some book somewhere telling you that he did?
That is almost the same as believing that HYIPS are going to make you rich. Come on man.
Why is "god" not telling anyone about the dinosaurs that were on earth earlier then humans were? That isn't noticed anywhere in the Bible and all those books, while it is scientifically proven that they were.
which make me believe that it is all FAKE..

God is exist watch on youtube about moises and other thing that happened dinosaurs are Before christ right? Its our next generation human or scientist they examin about dinosaur and they proved it why didn't you believed in god what is the reason?

[BADecker]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

Those are not scientific nor proofs.

Since you can't seem to explain any rebuttal you might have, it is you who are proving yourself scientifically inadequate. But that's okay. Since the science stands, there isn't any rebuttal for it. All you are doing is to help to prove it, and your faith in your atheism religion.

You can change, though. All you have to do is become honest with yourself. Since God exists, there is no reason to keep on denying it. Why not simply acknowledge God's truth for yourself in your life?

[eddie13]

Yes, I do believe in God..

[Buffer Overflow]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

Those are not scientific nor proofs.

Since you can't seem to explain any rebuttal you might have, it is you who are proving yourself scientifically inadequate. But that's okay. Since the science stands, there isn't any rebuttal for it.

No point, you've already shot that one down in flames yourself.

Science is guesswork

[BADecker]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

Those are not scientific nor proofs.

Since you can't seem to explain any rebuttal you might have, it is you who are proving yourself scientifically inadequate. But that's okay. Since the science stands, there isn't any rebuttal for it.

No point, you've already shot that one down in flames yourself.

Science is guesswork

Hi, Fluffer. Be a good little kid, and go out and play.   

[dippididodaday]

"Nature is amoral. Nature knows nothing of good and evil. In nature there is one rule—survival of the fittest. There is no right, only might. If a creature is weak, kill it. Only human beings could have moral rules such as, "If it is weak, protect it." Only human beings can feel themselves ethically obligated to strangers.
...
Nature allows you to act naturally, i.e., do only what you want you to do, without moral restraints; God does not. Nature lets you act naturally - and it is as natural to kill, rape, and enslave as it is to love.
...
One of the vital elements in the ethical monotheist revolution was its repudiation of nature as god. The evolution of civilization and morality have depended in large part on desanctifying nature.
...
Civilizations that equated gods with nature—a characteristic of all primitive societies—or that worshipped nature did not evolve.
...
Words cannot convey the magnitude of the change wrought by the Bible's introduction into the world of a God who rules the universe morally." - Dennis Prager

I am naturally human. As such, I display traits that some want to attribute to a transcendental (constructed) being. In doing so, these characters claim control over others, in claiming they act on behalf of the transcendental being by forcing laws on others and thereby forfeit their true nature, as humans. These characters have become artificial and unnatural.

[dippididodaday]

The Argument from Religion - A Transcendental Argument

Morality can’t be found from a scientific examination of nature. So if morality is not in nature it must be beyond nature – the supernatural.

Where does value come from? It’s not found in the world reduced to scientific facts. Nonetheless, it’s found in the world as we actually experience it. We find value in all sorts of things. We value our friendships, and hopefully at least some of our family members. We value certain books, films, projects, beautiful days, ‘nature,’ and music. So value exists. We experience it. A transcendental argument asks – what must the world be like for this experience to be possible? There must be more to the world than scientific facts. The value of the world that we discover must have its basis in something else.
...
Morality is invisible to science because science cannot see value. Anything invisible to science must either not exist at all, or it must be nonphysical. Our name for the nonphysical aspects of reality is the spiritual, i.e., the divine, transcendent, God.
...
There is remarkable agreement among those at the higher reaches of many world religions. High level Buddhists, Catholic monks, Kabbalists, Sufis, all describe ultimate reality in similar terms and much of what they say can be summed up in the cliché, ‘all is one.’

If all is one, then my treating you badly is really treating myself badly.
...

I disagree with the argument from religion and its transcendental argument. It is my belief that humans are intrinsically moral whilst they are at the same time completely natural. I reject a transcendental argument with its postulate of a non physical transcendence - this is a mere construct, a superfluous idea - without a direct basis in physical existence, which is what I believe is in fact the only existence that is, and reality and all it implies (see wiki for details) as well. The world is as it is in its natural state and this reality make morality possible. There is no other basis to have this moral value we find in humans. I name the nonphysical aspects of reality the emergent qualities of personhood. No need to interject metaphysical (imaginary) constructs here. We are indeed connected to each other in a network, but its all natural.

There are others who would not agree with limited "modern" science in this regard - 15 minutes.

The Folly of Machine Consciousness (FULL) - Health Ranger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzNAy84OBY

Even one cellular organisms display patterns of learned behavior. You don't need a "spirit" to have moral traits - all you need is an example. The idea of me having (being) a "spirit", a consciousness that will continue after death is a fallacy. My consciousness will die with me. Consciousness in the sense of what it contributes to morality is learned behavior. All humans learn by example as they start life at 0 and take it from there on wards. This is the way of nature.

[QuestionAuthority]

The Argument from Religion - A Transcendental Argument

Morality can’t be found from a scientific examination of nature. So if morality is not in nature it must be beyond nature – the supernatural.

Where does value come from? It’s not found in the world reduced to scientific facts. Nonetheless, it’s found in the world as we actually experience it. We find value in all sorts of things. We value our friendships, and hopefully at least some of our family members. We value certain books, films, projects, beautiful days, ‘nature,’ and music. So value exists. We experience it. A transcendental argument asks – what must the world be like for this experience to be possible? There must be more to the world than scientific facts. The value of the world that we discover must have its basis in something else.
...
Morality is invisible to science because science cannot see value. Anything invisible to science must either not exist at all, or it must be nonphysical. Our name for the nonphysical aspects of reality is the spiritual, i.e., the divine, transcendent, God.
...
There is remarkable agreement among those at the higher reaches of many world religions. High level Buddhists, Catholic monks, Kabbalists, Sufis, all describe ultimate reality in similar terms and much of what they say can be summed up in the cliché, ‘all is one.’

If all is one, then my treating you badly is really treating myself badly.
...

I disagree with the argument from religion and its transcendental argument. It is my belief that humans are intrinsically moral whilst they are at the same time completely natural. I reject a transcendental argument with its postulate of a non physical transcendence - this is a mere construct, a superfluous idea - without a direct basis in physical existence, which is what I believe is in fact the only existence that is, and reality and all it implies (see wiki for details) as well. The world is as it is in its natural state and this reality make morality possible. There is no other basis to have this moral value we find in humans. I name the nonphysical aspects of reality the emergent qualities of personhood. No need to interject metaphysical (imaginary) constructs here. We are indeed connected to each other in a network, but its all natural.

There are others who would not agree with limited "modern" science in this regard - 15 minutes.

The Folly of Machine Consciousness (FULL) - Health Ranger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzNAy84OBY

Even one cellular organisms display patterns of learned behavior. You don't need a "spirit" to have moral traits - all you need is an example. The idea of me having (being) a "spirit", a consciousness that will continue after death is a fallacy. My consciousness will die with me. Consciousness in the sense of what it contributes to morality is learned behavior. All humans learn by example as they start life at 0 and take it from there on wards. This is the way of nature.

Oh yeah, well my penis didn't "learn" how to get this rock hard and long. It has a consciousness of its own because it keeps chasing slutty women around even though I keep trying to tell it how much trouble that behavior ends up causing.

[CoinCube]

I am naturally human. As such, I display traits that some want to attribute to a transcendental (constructed) being. In doing so, these characters claim control over others, in claiming they act on behalf of the transcendental being by forcing laws on others and thereby forfeit their true nature, as humans. These characters have become artificial and unnatural.

You assumption that religion by "forcing" laws on humans voids our true nature. I assume you mean our human nature is forfeit because our freedom of action becomes restricted.

This approach is flawed as it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom.

Freedom and God

Freedom is neither license nor anarchy: It does not mean chaos or the use of tooth and nail. Freedom does not give any man or group the right to steal, to use fraud or aggressive force or threats of same to get what one wants.

Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less.

Thus "freedom is self-control" leads to the conclusion that as acting individuals, we must respect the rights and boundaries of others. In other words, every individual should control his or her actions such that they do not aggress or invade against other individuals or their rightfully owned properties. "Freedom" as "self-control" points up the dual nature of human existence: of the Self (mind, soul, and spirit) housed in a physical body. Human beings require both spiritual freedom and physical liberty

The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted.

The ultimate driver behind this process is Ethical Monotheism for this is the underappreciated foundation that freedom rests upon. The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood as as restrictions. In reality they are the road map to freedom. To better understand this I highly recommend the following 5 minute video clip from Prager University.

God Wants Us To Be Free

Freedom out-competes slavery. This is why the Odin worshiping vikings were replaced by Christian vikings. It is the ultimate reason why Arab polytheism was replaced by Islam and why the Jews who who's traditions demand an individual understanding and observance of scripture have so excelled.

A person is responsible for every action he takes and for every action he refuses to take. Thus, he is responsible for commissions and omissions, and whether these are good or bad. The individual is the responsible unit. Responsibility cannot be collectively delegated. Each person is responsible in exactly the same way and to the same degree that every other person is.

At the level of the individual we again return to choice. Do we truly care about freedom or do we care about our cravings and wants? If we choose freedom we must embrace that which makes freedom possible. If we choose whims and desires we should admit to ourselves that we do not prioritize freedom and are most concerned with our ability to sate our appetites.

Freedom is something that is maximized and approached not something that is ever achieved. We are much freer today than the ancient Egyptian society where the majority of people were enslaved by their Pharaoh. Why is that? I would argue it is due to the following rules that have entered our culture. Rules that when followed minimize the need for top down control and maximize freedom.  

Rules:
1 ) I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
2 ) You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
3 ) You shall not take the name of God in vain.
4 ) Remember and observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5 ) Honor your father and mother.
6 ) You shall not murder.
7 ) You shall not commit adultery.
8 ) You shall not steal.
9 ) You shall not bear false witness.
10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or house or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

The Ten Commandments: Still The Best Moral Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00USBMEX2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Imagine for a moment a world in which there was no murder or theft. In such a world, there would be no need for armies, or police, or weapons. Men and women and children could walk anywhere, at any time of day or night, without any fear of being killed or robbed. Imagine further a world in which no one coveted what belonged to their neighbor; a world in which children honored their mother and father and the family unit thrived; a world in which people obeyed the injunction not to lie. The recipe for a good world is all there—in these ten sublime commandments.

But there is a catch. The Ten Commandments are predicated on the belief that they were given by an Authority higher than any man, any king, or any government. That’s why the sentence preceding the Ten Commandments asserts the following: “God spoke all these words.”

You see, if the Ten Commandments, as great as they are, were given by any human authority, then any person could say: “Who is this man Moses, who is this king or queen, who is this government to tell me how I should behave? Okay, so why is God indispensable to the Ten Commandments? Because, to put it as directly as possible, if it isn’t God who declares murder wrong, murder isn’t wrong. Yes, this strikes many people today as incomprehensible, even absurd. Many of you are thinking, “Is this guy saying you can’t be a good person if you don’t believe in God?”

Let me respond as clearly as possible: I am not saying that. Of course there are good people who don’t believe in God, just as there are bad people who do. And many of you are also thinking, “I believe murder is wrong. I don’t need God to tell me.” Now that response is only half true. I have no doubt that if you’re an atheist and you say you believe murder is wrong, you believe murder is wrong. But, forgive me, you do need God to tell you. We all need God to tell us. You see, even if you figured out murder is wrong on your own, without God and the Ten Commandments, how do you know it’s wrong? Not believe it’s wrong, I mean know it’s wrong? The fact is that you can’t.

Because without God, right and wrong are just personal beliefs. Personal opinions. I think shoplifting is okay, you don’t. Unless there is a God, all morality is just opinion and belief. And virtually every atheist philosopher has acknowledged this.

Another problem with the view that you don’t need God to believe that murder is wrong is that a lot of people haven’t shared your view. And you don’t have to go back very far in history to prove this. In the twentieth century millions of people in Communist societies and under Nazism killed about one hundred million people—and that doesn’t count a single soldier killed in war.

So, don’t get too confident about people’s ability to figure out right from wrong without a Higher Authority. It’s all too easy to be swayed by a government or a demagogue or an ideology or to rationalize that the wrong you are doing isn’t really wrong. And even if you do figure out what is right and wrong, God is still necessary. People who know the difference between right and wrong do the wrong thing all the time. You know why? Because they can. They can because they think no one is watching. But if you recognize that God is the source of moral law, you believe that He is always watching.

So, even if you’re an atheist, you would want people to live by the moral laws of the Ten Commandments. And even an atheist has to admit that the more people who believe God gave them—and therefore they are not just opinion—the better the world would be.

In three thousand years no one has ever come up with a better system than the God-based Ten Commandments for making a better world. And no one ever will.

[dippididodaday]

The Argument from Religion - A Transcendental Argument

Morality can’t be found from a scientific examination of nature. So if morality is not in nature it must be beyond nature – the supernatural.

Where does value come from? It’s not found in the world reduced to scientific facts. Nonetheless, it’s found in the world as we actually experience it. We find value in all sorts of things. We value our friendships, and hopefully at least some of our family members. We value certain books, films, projects, beautiful days, ‘nature,’ and music. So value exists. We experience it. A transcendental argument asks – what must the world be like for this experience to be possible? There must be more to the world than scientific facts. The value of the world that we discover must have its basis in something else.
...
Morality is invisible to science because science cannot see value. Anything invisible to science must either not exist at all, or it must be nonphysical. Our name for the nonphysical aspects of reality is the spiritual, i.e., the divine, transcendent, God.
...
There is remarkable agreement among those at the higher reaches of many world religions. High level Buddhists, Catholic monks, Kabbalists, Sufis, all describe ultimate reality in similar terms and much of what they say can be summed up in the cliché, ‘all is one.’

If all is one, then my treating you badly is really treating myself badly.
...

I disagree with the argument from religion and its transcendental argument. It is my belief that humans are intrinsically moral whilst they are at the same time completely natural. I reject a transcendental argument with its postulate of a non physical transcendence - this is a mere construct, a superfluous idea - without a direct basis in physical existence, which is what I believe is in fact the only existence that is, and reality and all it implies (see wiki for details) as well. The world is as it is in its natural state and this reality make morality possible. There is no other basis to have this moral value we find in humans. I name the nonphysical aspects of reality the emergent qualities of personhood. No need to interject metaphysical (imaginary) constructs here. We are indeed connected to each other in a network, but its all natural.

There are others who would not agree with limited "modern" science in this regard - 15 minutes.

The Folly of Machine Consciousness (FULL) - Health Ranger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzNAy84OBY

Even one cellular organisms display patterns of learned behavior. You don't need a "spirit" to have moral traits - all you need is an example. The idea of me having (being) a "spirit", a consciousness that will continue after death is a fallacy. My consciousness will die with me. Consciousness in the sense of what it contributes to morality is learned behavior. All humans learn by example as they start life at 0 and take it from there on wards. This is the way of nature.

Oh yeah, well my penis didn't "learn" how to get this rock hard and long. It has a consciousness of its own because it keeps chasing slutty women around even though I keep trying to tell it how much trouble that behavior ends up causing.

Your penis getting rock hard and long is a natural phenomenon, even if it is the case by chasing slutty women. Don't try and fight it - accept the trouble it will cause. Learn to live with it, and merge your consciousness with that of your penis.

[Buffer Overflow]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

Those are not scientific nor proofs.

Since you can't seem to explain any rebuttal you might have, it is you who are proving yourself scientifically inadequate. But that's okay. Since the science stands, there isn't any rebuttal for it.

No point, you've already shot that one down in flames yourself.

Science is guesswork

Hi, Fluffer. Be a good little kid, and go out and play.

But I'm am playing. You're a ball in my pocket I can bounce around anytime I get bored.
Wanna get out of my pocket? Easy, all you have to do is stop lying. I cannot trip up the truth; never can, never will.

Trouble is, in order to do that, you'd have to stop lying to yourself as well........
I don't think your ready to step up to that stage just yet.

[QuestionAuthority]

The Argument from Religion - A Transcendental Argument

Morality can’t be found from a scientific examination of nature. So if morality is not in nature it must be beyond nature – the supernatural.

Where does value come from? It’s not found in the world reduced to scientific facts. Nonetheless, it’s found in the world as we actually experience it. We find value in all sorts of things. We value our friendships, and hopefully at least some of our family members. We value certain books, films, projects, beautiful days, ‘nature,’ and music. So value exists. We experience it. A transcendental argument asks – what must the world be like for this experience to be possible? There must be more to the world than scientific facts. The value of the world that we discover must have its basis in something else.
...
Morality is invisible to science because science cannot see value. Anything invisible to science must either not exist at all, or it must be nonphysical. Our name for the nonphysical aspects of reality is the spiritual, i.e., the divine, transcendent, God.
...
There is remarkable agreement among those at the higher reaches of many world religions. High level Buddhists, Catholic monks, Kabbalists, Sufis, all describe ultimate reality in similar terms and much of what they say can be summed up in the cliché, ‘all is one.’

If all is one, then my treating you badly is really treating myself badly.
...

I disagree with the argument from religion and its transcendental argument. It is my belief that humans are intrinsically moral whilst they are at the same time completely natural. I reject a transcendental argument with its postulate of a non physical transcendence - this is a mere construct, a superfluous idea - without a direct basis in physical existence, which is what I believe is in fact the only existence that is, and reality and all it implies (see wiki for details) as well. The world is as it is in its natural state and this reality make morality possible. There is no other basis to have this moral value we find in humans. I name the nonphysical aspects of reality the emergent qualities of personhood. No need to interject metaphysical (imaginary) constructs here. We are indeed connected to each other in a network, but its all natural.

There are others who would not agree with limited "modern" science in this regard - 15 minutes.

The Folly of Machine Consciousness (FULL) - Health Ranger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzNAy84OBY

Even one cellular organisms display patterns of learned behavior. You don't need a "spirit" to have moral traits - all you need is an example. The idea of me having (being) a "spirit", a consciousness that will continue after death is a fallacy. My consciousness will die with me. Consciousness in the sense of what it contributes to morality is learned behavior. All humans learn by example as they start life at 0 and take it from there on wards. This is the way of nature.

Oh yeah, well my penis didn't "learn" how to get this rock hard and long. It has a consciousness of its own because it keeps chasing slutty women around even though I keep trying to tell it how much trouble that behavior ends up causing.

Your penis getting rock hard and long is a natural phenomenon, even if it is the case by chasing slutty women. Don't try and fight it - accept the trouble it will cause. Learn to live with it, and merge your consciousness with that of your penis.

LOL

god made my cock the way it is so it must be perfect. I gotta go, god wants me to merge my penis with a slutty woman.

[dippididodaday]

I am naturally human. As such, I display traits that some want to attribute to a transcendental (constructed) being. In doing so, these characters claim control over others, in claiming they act on behalf of the transcendental being by forcing laws on others and thereby forfeit their true nature, as humans. These characters have become artificial and unnatural.

You assumption that religion by "forcing" laws on humans voids our true nature. I assume you mean our human nature is forfeit because our freedom of action becomes restricted.

This approach is flawed as it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom.

Freedom and God
...
Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less.
...
The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted.

Freedom cannot be reduced to self-control and self-government. But even if I assume that this is all freedom does amount to, which would not be bad for starters, there is still a diabolical contortion ongoing of the conceptual liberties associated with these concepts.

The devolution of the social contract is a regressive descent to systems with decreased overall freedom. The state of nature backslided to tribalism. Tribalism lapsed into despotism. Despotism declined into monarchy. Monarchies morphed into republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall coerced activity and loss of freedom the system permitted.

"God" is a construct that is used to impair the individual's ability to identify with another person.

[Karloff]

I don't believe in God. No its because there is no evidence of its existence. There are a lot of people wrote that I believe in God, but no one has provided evidence. Was not even a single logical explanation of religious dogma.

[BADecker]

Yes, I do. I always believe in God . I can not see God but I can feel this fact when I say prayer to God . After praying, I will be better and more peaceful with everything I can do. Thanks God because you are always with me in everytime and everywhere.

Many people who suffer from dementia also present themselves such as Napoleon and believe in it. This does not mean that he is the Emperor of the French. So faith in God. I think it's a kind of dementia.

However, once a person finds that God DOES exist, then lack of faith in God is shown to be the dementia.

Any belief should be supported by evidence that you are on the right track. In the case of dementia you will not believe that you are Napoleon. In this you'll believe only you. What makes you believe in God? This is not supported by any evidence?

Here are some links to both, the scientific proof, and overwhelming evidence that God exists. If you don't understand the science, you can easily see the evidence of nature.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg10718395#msg10718395
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1355109.msg14047133#msg14047133
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1662153.40
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054513.msg16803380#msg16803380

While the proof gives knowledge that God exists, why should I believe Him? In fact, how do I know that He is even talking to me? The history of the way the Bible came into existence makes it an impossible-to-have-happened book. Since the Bible is impossible, yet exists, it has been guided by God to be His Word to people.

Those are not scientific nor proofs.

Since you can't seem to explain any rebuttal you might have, it is you who are proving yourself scientifically inadequate. But that's okay. Since the science stands, there isn't any rebuttal for it.

No point, you've already shot that one down in flames yourself.

Science is guesswork

Hi, Fluffer. Be a good little kid, and go out and play.

But I'm am playing. You're a ball in my pocket I can bounce around anytime I get bored.
Wanna get out of my pocket? Easy, all you have to do is stop lying. I cannot trip up the truth; never can, never will.

Trouble is, in order to do that, you'd have to stop lying to yourself as well........
I don't think your ready to step up to that stage just yet.

Good choice. I'm proud of you. "He who walks with the wise becomes wise." You might even learn something.

[CoinCube]

Freedom cannot be reduced to self-control and self-government. But even if I assume that this is all freedom does amount to, which would not be bad for starters, there is still a diabolical contortion ongoing of the conceptual liberties associated with these concepts.

The devolution of the social contract is a regressive descent to systems with decreased overall freedom. The state of nature backslided to tribalism. Tribalism lapsed into despotism. Despotism declined into monarchy. Monarchies morphed into republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall coerced activity and loss of freedom the system permitted.

"God" is a construct that is used to impair the individual's ability to identify with another person.

You appear to once again argue that God limits human freedom. You posit that God and religion impair human connection and interaction. This is false. The opposite is true.

To understand why, however, we must dive into the relationship between entropy, knowledge, and freedom of choice. The post below and the debate that followed covers this relationship.

In the opening post of this thread I linked to The Rise of Knowledge where Anonymint discussed the the nature of knowledge and its relationship to entropy.

Immediately up-thread I discussed the prerequisites of freedom. What freedom is and what is necessary to achieve it.

This post will explore the relationship between freedom and knowledge.

Knowledge and Power by George Gilder
https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Power-Information-Capitalism-Revolutionizing/dp/1621570274

The most manifest characteristic of human beings is their diversity. The freer an economy is, the more this human diversity of knowledge will be manifested. By contrast, political power originates in top-down processes—governments, monopolies, regulators, elite institutions, all attempting to quell human diversity and impose order. Thus power always seeks centralization.

Capitalism is not chiefly an incentive system but an information system. We continue with the recognition, explained by the most powerful science of the epoch, that information itself is best defined as surprise: by what we cannot predict rather than by what we can. The key to economic growth is not acquisition of things by the pursuit of monetary rewards but the expansion of wealth through learning and discovery. The economy grows not by manipulating greed and fear through bribes and punishments but by accumulating surprising knowledge through the conduct of the falsifiable experiments of free enterprises. Crucial to this learning process is the possibility of failure and bankruptcy. In this model, wealth is defined as knowledge, and growth is defined as learning.

Because the system is based more on ideas than on incentives, it is not a process changeable only over generations of Sisysphean effort. An economy is a noosphere (a mind-based system) and it can revive as fast as minds and policies can change.

That new economics—the information theory of capitalism—is already at work in disguise. Concealed behind an elaborate mathematical apparatus, sequestered by its creators in what is called information technology, the new theory drives the most powerful machines and networks of the era. Information theory treats human creations or communications as transmissions through a channel, whether a wire or the world, in the face of the power of noise, and gauges the outcomes by their news or surprise, defined as “entropy” and consummated as knowledge. Now it is ready to come out into the open and to transform economics as it has already transformed the world economy itself.

All information is surprise; only surprise qualifies as information. This is the fundamental axiom of information theory. Information is the change between what we knew before the transmission and what we know after it.

Let us imagine the lineaments of an economics of disorder, disequilibrium, and surprise that could explain and measure the contributions of entrepreneurs. Such an economics would begin with the Smithian mold of order and equilibrium. Smith himself spoke of property rights, free trade, sound currency, and modest taxation as crucial elements of an environment for prosperity. Smith was right: An arena of disorder, disequilibrium, chaos, and noise would drown the feats of creation that engender growth. The ultimate physical entropy envisaged as the heat death of the universe, in its total disorder, affords no room for invention or surprise. But entrepreneurial disorder is not chaos or mere noise. Entrepreneurial disorder is some combination of order and upheaval that might be termed “informative disorder.”

Shannon defined information in terms of digital bits and measured it by the concept of information entropy: unexpected or surprising bits... Shannon’s entropy is governed by a logarithmic equation nearly identical to the thermodynamic equation of Rudolf Clausius that describes physical entropy. But the parallels between the two entropies conceal several pitfalls that have ensnared many. Physical entropy is maximized when all the molecules in a physical system are at an equal temperature (and thus cannot yield any more energy). Shannon entropy is maximized when all the bits in a message are equally improbable (and thus cannot be further compressed without loss of
information). These two identical equations point to a deeper affinity that MIT physicist Seth Lloyd identifies as the foundation of all material reality—at the beginning was the entropic bit.
...
The accomplishment of Information Theory was to create a rigorous mathematical discipline for the definition and measurement of the information in the message sent down the channel. Shannon entropy or surprisal defines and quantifies the information in a message. In close similarity with physical entropy, information entropy is always a positive number measured by minus the base two logarithm of its probability. Information in Shannon’s scheme is quantified in terms of a probability because Shannon interpreted the message as a selection or choice from a limited alphabet. Entropy is thus a measure of freedom of choice. In the simplest case of maximum entropy of equally probable elements, the uncertainty is merely the inverse of the number of elements or symbols.
...
Linking innovation, surprise, and profit, learning and growth, Shannon entropy stands at the heart of the economics of information theory. Signaling the arrival of an invention or disruptive innovation is first its surprisal, then its yield beyond the interest rate—its profit, a further form of Shannon entropy. As a new item is absorbed by the market, however, its entropy declines until its margins converge with prevailing risk adjusted interest rates. The entrepreneur must move on to new surprises. The economics of entropy depict the process by which the entrepreneur translates his idea into a practical form from the realms of imaginative creation. In those visionary realms, entropy is essentially infinite and unconstrained, and thus irrelevant to economic models. But to make the imagined practical, the entrepreneur must make specific choices among existing resources and strategic possibilities. Entropy here signifies his freedom of choice.

As Shannon understood, the creation process itself escapes every logical and mathematical system. It springs not from secure knowledge but from falsifiable tests of commercial hypotheses. It is not an expression of past knowledge but of the fertility of consciousness, will, discipline, imagination, and art.

Knowledge is created by the dynamic interaction of consciousness over time. This process results in surprise (new information) which is the foundation of new knowledge. Entropy in this context is a measure of freedom, it is the freedom of choice. An information system with higher entropy allows for greater dynamic interaction of consciousness and thus greater knowledge formation. Freedom must be subject to the constraint of convergence. Some top-down order must be maintained to prevent destructive chaos aka noise that would otherwise destroy rather than create knowledge.

The amount of top-down control needed increases in the presence of increased noise. A primitive population may require the iron fist of a dictator whereas an educated one may thrive in a republic. However, power always seeks centralization. Thus the tendency of both of the dictatorship and the republic will be towards ever increasing centralization restricting freedom beyond that what is necessary and hobbling knowledge formation.

I posit that that the only model of top-down control that facilitates knowledge formation without inevitable progressive centralization is Ethical Monotheism. Uniformly adopted and voluntary followed it may be the only restraint on freedom that is necessary.