A Question to Atheists ?

[Astargath]

A few weeks ago ,I had a long debate with an Atheist friend, a debate about the existence of God. we have been trying to ignore such a debate for a while but it had to take place.

since i can not prove that there is a God , simply because you can't close your eyes and expect to see the light ! but i finally won the debate and opened my friend's eyes.

so after a long debate that led to no way. I had to ask my friend a simple question, and this goes to all the Atheists.

Since death is certain,what is the risk that each of us is taking now ? who is risking more ?

when we die, there are 2 possible scenarios

1- (there is no God) That's the end, , no judgment, no saving,no hell fire, no heaven.
2- (there IS God) resurrection will happen, judgement will happen, disbelievers will go to hell fire.

To me as a believe am risking nothing, i will be good with both scenario mentioned above, it's either heaven or nothing ! so i am not risking anything !
To my Atheist friend, he is good if scenario number one happen, but he sure as hell won't be good if it turns out that there is a God, its either hell or nothing!

so the certain fact here that Atheists are taking a great risk for almost no reward.

now as an Atheists i want you to explain to me why would you be taking a big risk even if it has a 1% chance of failure?

Problem with your logic is that you don't know which one of the 3000+ Gods to believe.  You are probably wrong picking your God in which case you will burn in hell (if there is a God that created hell for people so that he can watch them suffer for eternity :-) )

Another option is that there is a God and nothing happens after you die, i.e. simulation is over and the atoms in your body are recycled to create something else.

So there could be two different options:

1. There is no God, i.e. nothing happens after you die.
2. There is God, nothing happens after you die.  God does not give a fuck about this insignificant planet in the middle of nowhere.

I am pretty sure God concept was invented by insecure, ignorant people to make themselves feel better.  So I would not worry about these childish stories.  Pick option #1 and enjoy your life.  You only got one life to live.

This thread should have ended here. Not to mention the fact that you can't force yourself to believe  in something.

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[ATMD]

This thread should have ended here. Not to mention the fact that you can't force yourself to believe  in something.

I think you hit the nail right on the head.

I can't force myself to believe in something. It is impossible. Either something truly miraculous has to happen to me or it doesn't. If it does, I change my whole worldview instantly. If it doesn't, talking for hours about it surely isn't going to help. I realize this about "religious debates", they are just for light chitchat. I enjoy talking about it myself, but I know it is just for fun, nothing serious.

How can words change anything? My worldview will always remain the same I start out with.

Mind-blowing experiences change worldview, not words.

[BADecker]

This thread should have ended here. Not to mention the fact that you can't force yourself to believe  in something.

I think you hit the nail right on the head.

I can't force myself to believe in something. It is impossible. Either something truly miraculous has to happen to me or it doesn't. If it does, I change my whole worldview instantly. If it doesn't, talking for hours about it surely isn't going to help. I realize this about "religious debates", they are just for light chitchat. I enjoy talking about it myself, but I know it is just for fun, nothing serious.

How can words change anything? My worldview will always remain the same I start out with.

Mind-blowing experiences change worldview, not words.

Possibly the biggest miraculous happening that happened to you, is that you can look inward, and say, "I am," or "I exist."

[ATMD]

Possibly the biggest miraculous happening that happened to you, is that you can look inward, and say, "I am," or "I exist."

Cogito, ergo sum.

[Spendulus]

This thread should have ended here. Not to mention the fact that you can't force yourself to believe  in something.

I think you hit the nail right on the head.

I can't force myself to believe in something. It is impossible. Either something truly miraculous has to happen to me or it doesn't. If it does, I change my whole worldview instantly. If it doesn't, talking for hours about it surely isn't going to help. I realize this about "religious debates", they are just for light chitchat. I enjoy talking about it myself, but I know it is just for fun, nothing serious.

How can words change anything? ...

I have an opinion that such discussions are limited hopelessly by the grammar, as might have been discussions about math in an Indian tribe whose set of words for numbers were "one, two and many."

The central question is whether the universe, or the local subset of it if one wishes, is intelligence/consciousness rich or intelligence/conscious poor. There is no need to limit this to biological creatures, it's an abstract discussion. If it is
"poor" there is a question where that is caused a speed of light limit on communications.

In the first case, there would be massive sentience; in the second, something like oasis of sentience in vast deserts. But these things have had billions of years to develop, there have been several generations of stars.

Today it is popular to ask when we may create super-AI, but the above indicates it's likely been around a very long time. Somewhere, perhaps not here. Whatever one wishes to call such a thing. Charles Stross used a phraseology "weakly God-like."

Clearly this is a different, more detailed and more nuanced look at the matter than monotheism would argue, but it argues neither for or against monotheism. However, I can't fathom why any one would waste time worrying or debating the existence or not of a god, when the existence of sentience outside and beyond humans had implications that at least partly address that question.

Why? Because it's not just going to be a few ET types. It will be the entire range of life, such as what we have here, plus the things that are yet to be developed here but pretty much certain, such as AI and super AI. And given the known age of the universe and the star systems, that AI will have been developed not for fifty or one hundred years but millions or billions of years.

[ATMD]

I have an opinion that such discussions are limited hopelessly by the grammar, as might have been discussions about math in an Indian tribe whose set of words for numbers were "one, two and many."

The central question is whether the universe, or the local subset of it if one wishes, is intelligence/consciousness rich or intelligence/conscious poor. There is no need to limit this to biological creatures, it's an abstract discussion. If it is
"poor" there is a question where that is caused a speed of light limit on communications.

In the first case, there would be massive sentience; in the second, something like oasis of sentience in vast deserts. But these things have had billions of years to develop, there have been several generations of stars.

Today it is popular to ask when we may create super-AI, but the above indicates it's likely been around a very long time. Somewhere, perhaps not here. Whatever one wishes to call such a thing. Charles Stross used a phraseology "weakly God-like."

Clearly this is a different, more detailed and more nuanced look at the matter than monotheism would argue, but it argues neither for or against monotheism. However, I can't fathom why any one would waste time worrying or debating the existence or not of a god, when the existence of sentience outside and beyond humans had implications that at least partly address that question.

Why? Because it's not just going to be a few ET types. It will be the entire range of life, such as what we have here, plus the things that are yet to be developed here but pretty much certain, such as AI and super AI. And given the known age of the universe and the star systems, that AI will have been developed not for fifty or one hundred years but millions or billions of years.

I am intrigued, please continue.

[Spendulus]

I have an opinion that such discussions are limited hopelessly by the grammar, as might have been discussions about math in an Indian tribe whose set of words for numbers were "one, two and many."

The central question is whether the universe, or the local subset of it if one wishes, is intelligence/consciousness rich or intelligence/conscious poor. There is no need to limit this to biological creatures, it's an abstract discussion. If it is
"poor" there is a question where that is caused a speed of light limit on communications.

In the first case, there would be massive sentience; in the second, something like oasis of sentience in vast deserts. But these things have had billions of years to develop, there have been several generations of stars.

Today it is popular to ask when we may create super-AI, but the above indicates it's likely been around a very long time. Somewhere, perhaps not here. Whatever one wishes to call such a thing. Charles Stross used a phraseology "weakly God-like."

Clearly this is a different, more detailed and more nuanced look at the matter than monotheism would argue, but it argues neither for or against monotheism. However, I can't fathom why any one would waste time worrying or debating the existence or not of a god, when the existence of sentience outside and beyond humans had implications that at least partly address that question.

Why? Because it's not just going to be a few ET types. It will be the entire range of life, such as what we have here, plus the things that are yet to be developed here but pretty much certain, such as AI and super AI. And given the known age of the universe and the star systems, that AI will have been developed not for fifty or one hundred years but millions or billions of years.

I am intrigued, please continue.

If one leaned toward the unproven view that the Universe (or the local area) was rich in sentience, and ways were know to allow distant communication, given the prior note about certainty of rapid AI development. This seems to render virtually all God-concepts quaint and obsolete, as well as concepts of atheism. The latter tend to be reactionary against perceived fallacies in God-concepts, forming an "A and not-A" pair.

In the unproven view that the Universe was sparse in sentience, without distant communications, there would exist spheres of knowable and findable sentience around certain stars. The size of the sphere would be the limit of the speed of light times the time that race had communications capability. Bubbles here and there, essentially.

Non of this really has anything to do with ET, it explores God-concepts. It does not destroy concepts of Christianity or Islam but dwarfs them with a reality far vaster and richer. I say "nothing to do with ET" because we're strictly looking at whether other consciousness exist and it's implications. A sentience could for example have converted 10% of the silicon on a planet's surface to logic gates and "be the planet." What IQ would that thing have? Obviously that's a ridiculous question. It wouldn't even be life as we think of it. Any calculation of its capability, done by comparison of the number of logic gates with that of the human mind, would show it trillions of times more capable. Most would have no problem with a "weakly God like" designation, but none would understand or comprehend such a thing.

Although in the next millennia the human race certainly will be looking at these questions and may find some off-Earth sentience, ridiculously advanced AI will be forever an enigma. We're no more capable of understanding it than a cockroach is capable of understanding us. Envision a local area with millions of such, that would be the sentience-rich universe concept.

In conclusion, I have some difficulty taking the currently discussed God-concept duality seriously.

[clareyancey215]

Is it that you believe in God is fashionable to get a ticket to heaven? There are many people who believe in God and have done terrible things. There are many atheists who live a righteous life. You can't make a person believe. Faith is either there or not. You ask why atheists take the risk? The answer is that if God exists, then judging from the bible, he awards not a witness but for deeds. Live fair and you will get what you deserve

In the world there's good and bad, as there are bad atheist, I know there are good and righteous atheist people as well, so are Christians, they can do horrible things even when not supposed to, every rule has it's exceptions, but things happen, everyone will be judged based on their actions not words.