Proof Against God

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

They are a peculiar species. They look around, seeing how every species is indifferently annihilated through extinction from natural events. But they don’t think they are bound for the same fate. In fact they don’t even think they are animals.
Similar to their extinct cousins, they participate in weird activities such as burying their dead with perfectly good tools that could aid their survival. Why would they do this? They also tend to waste their mortal time and precious energy, mutilating themselves and creating objects/structures that serve no purpose. Why do they do this? They do this because they have an anthropomorphic tendency.

They look at the indifferent, hostile environment they live in and since they can’t make sense of it, they begin behaving as if the environment itself is conscious. Similar to how they try to outsmart each other and anticipate each other’s motives, they try treating reality like it’s human! They think that if they make gifts and structures, dedicated to the Sun, that the clouds will go away or not become ‘angry.’ They think that if they punish themselves, they can gain a more favorable standing with their environment; that the environment is conscious and will grant them mercy.

Are you starting to see, through an objective lens, the problem with the humans? Their thinking and behavior is not only based in fear but it has been evolved to be. Their brains account for fear by means of coping mechanisms grounded in vain anthropomorphic thought. “If I act good towards others and my environment, my environment with act kindly towards me as a reward.” This is an anthropomorphic delusion. This is antithesis to the way natural selection works. This is antithesis to how reality works.

Reality is not conscious, there is no reward or consideration for how you think and behave in the face of an indifferent and deterministic structure; the Universe. There is only the consequence of your actions, eroding the well-being of our species, based on your vain speculation. There is no god who loves you. It’s a lie and false comfort that has been plaguing our minds (and the minds of the other hominids that are now extinct)

Anthropomorphic thinking flat lines the Abrahamic god in total; it’s proof against god!
How can we take the idea of god seriously when it’s just a mirror for vain thinking?
“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens.

If you are an adult male living in 2015, you have no excuse if you are able to understand this. Quit excusing faith! Call it out for the bulls~~~ it is.

[RoyDalParticipant]

Have you heard the one about the agnostic with severe dyslexia and insomnia? He lies awake at night wondering if there really is a Dog.

Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

I guess it is just a joke. Similar to the plot of Interstellar. People cant summon concern for the collective well being of our species. They just dont want to see past their own needs.

The limitless potential of our species, the clear genius in our progressive discourses. Just one little glitch in our software making it all useless.

Oh well.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Roydal: I like this bit of comparative World religions:

Taoism S~~~ happens.
Buddhism If s~~~ happens, it’s not really s~~~
Islam If s~~~ happens, it’s the will of Allah
Protestantism S~~~ happens because you don’t work hard enough
Judaism Why does this s~~~ always happen to us?
Hinduism This s~~~ happened before.
Catholicism S~~~ happens because you’re bad.
Hare Krishna S~~~ happens rama rama.
T.V. Evangelism Send more s~~~
Atheism They’re all full of s~~~
Jehova’s Witness Knock knock, s~~~ happens
Hedonism There’s nothing like a good s~~~ happening
Christian Science S~~~ happens in your mind
Agnosticism Maybe s~~~ happens, maybe it doesn’t
Rastafarianism Let’s smoke this s~~~
Existentialism What is s~~~ anyway?
Stoicism This s~~~ doesn’t bother me.
Janeism: Don’t hurt or kill s~~~
Mormonism: Multiple marriage s~~~
Olympic Gods: Seriously Anthropomorphic s~~~
Amish: Horse s~~~ and buggies
Satan: Self-gratification s~~~
Deism: Hands-off s~~~
Scientology: L. Ron got filthy rich off this s~~~
Unitarian: All this s~~~ is Twue

I added Janeism, Mormonism, Olympic Gods (Greco-Roman), Amish, Satan, Deism, Scientology, and Unitarian to the classic list. And changed Atheism from no s~~~, to ‘they’re all full of s~~~’, but perhaps ‘prove your s~~~’ would be better?

In Ancient Greece and Italy, Gods were even MORE anthropomorphic than now.  If you look at, say, Zeus, he was depicted in statues as a MAN — a head, two arms, two legs.  He had supernatural powers, but was a man – albeit, not a mortal man — he had gender and liked to have sex with women other than his wives!  So the Greco-Roman Gods acted like mortals too.  Of course, Zeus was great at disguises (Leda & the Swan, etc), amongst his other super-human powers.
What makes religion unbelievable to me is simply lack of evidence.  This, and internal contradictions within their sacred texts/beliefs/dogmas.  Also, their history and prophecies are often wrong, and their science, particularly cosmology, is wholly defective.  Most religions are products of syncretism – drawing from other faiths to create a new one.
It seems to me a lot of it is about getting wealth, power, and women – or, in simple terms: dickery by the High Priest.  Look at Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism.  If that is not a PERFECT example of this with copious documentation, I don’t know what is.
I don’t think anthropomorphism proves there can be no Abrahamic God.  The Christians will just argue God created US in his image.  And whenever a fact is inconvenient, it becomes ‘metaphorical’. Doctrines in the Bible are followed selectively.
Religious people will not apply Occam’s razor to religions: Instead of believing they religions were created to explain natural phenomena, entertain, enrich a priesthood, for political or social reasons, etc, they instead believe one is literally true, and all the others, all false.

[RoyDalParticipant]

Douglas Adams – An Artificial God?

Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

ROYDAL!

Thanks brother! Keep feeding me this stuff. You keep posting the most useful videos. Thanks.

Douglas Adams nails the failed thinking anthropomorphic nature of god in the first 10 mins, then goes on to amaze me with his thinking.

 

Thanks

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

His essential argument is that believing in god serves some superficial comfort, that we should believe in belief though we know very well there isn’t a god. Christopher Hitchens and others have shown the stance to be incredibly pessimistic and degrading towards the human race. The stance is peddled to try and excuse religion and only serves as moderate cover to fundamentalist atrocity.

However, he is correct to a certain degree. Anthropomorphic tendency is instinctive in hominids, it’s our fascination with ourselves since no other species in our immediate area are as smart as us (not to mention smarter). The anthropomorphic delusion (religion) had its place in helping men find admirable virtue (citation needed) but like a diseased limb, we need to cut it off or it will kill us. We can not delete wish-thinking, superstition and anthropomorphic delusion (religion) out of people. We could ban it and burn all the books, delete the religious literature off hard drives. This would help get rid of the religions we have along with causing widespread murder and war. But in the end, new forms of theism would arise because the delusion arises from our fearful and vain psychology. Just like we’ve seen before with religion, it evolves and changes into new denominations that accuse the old versions of heresy. Normally this would expose the unplausibility of the initial premise but the monster survives on memes and genes. It would all begin again if we could wipe the slate clean.

The solution is to correctly identify and educate people about the problem not settle for delusion. Douglas Adams would have us praying to false alters for false comfort.

His idea of an artificial god is interesting. Considering that stars are too far apart for our kind to traverse, even with a few more thousand years, its just not likely we will be star faring. This is a reality we have to face despite our love of Science Fiction movies and theoretical physics. What is more likely is that our machines will become star faring. Remember the movie AI Artificial Intelligence? After the human race is long extinct, our AI inventions have kept evolving and have become star faring. They would be able to begin life on habitable worlds. They would be able to wait out the millions of years it takes to seed planets and transit star systems. They could even wait out billions of years of evolution.

When you understand that extremely probable outcome in regards to our future here as humans; combine that with the fact that out of billions of stars and billions of galaxies all containing billions of stars–the presence of intelligent beings like us to exist is very probable. Even if life like us only sprang up 1% of 1% of 1% of stars. That would mean that dozens of sentient life forms reside in this galaxy.

Now you have to estimate what is more probable, based on Earths young age; are we the first to develop AI that’s destined to go stellar or has it been done before–meaning, are we the seeded offspring of interstellar AI robots that were created by intelligent beings several billion years ago?

In the end you have to admit, based on deductive logic, that the likelihood of Earths life originating this way is big enough to take seriously. There is no god but that doesn’t mean that single cell organisms weren’t purposely put on Earth.

This theory is similar to those other theories that we’re all running as a simulation on a computer. LOL.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Roydal: I love Douglas Adams, it’s a shame he’s no longer with us.  I do believe he can shed some light on this deep question, with this irrefutable argument.  It is as irrefutable as the Chewbacca defense of O.J. Simpson from South Park:

‘Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.’

-Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — a great book — I remember reading it as a young teen.

These are some relevant Adams theism quotes: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/douglas.htm

BTL: I don’t agree that religion will necessarily kill us — though a clash between radical Islam and the West (OR the East) could — a clash of civilizations.  I think religion has, however, limited and slowed our progress.  By that, I mean wasted and diverted resources that might otherwise be expended on advancing technology and improving human welfare.  I would also make a case that religions such as Roman Catholicism have contributed to corruption and bad governance in numerous countries where the faith dominates, such as the Phillipines and Latin America — just as Islam has contributed to bad governance where it has absolute domination.  That is obviously a very controversial statement, but I think it has some merit.  Personally, I find religion and religious beliefs facsinating, but only from an academic standpoint.  None of it gives me any ‘burning in the bosom’.  Religion is far, far less damaging, in my opinion, in countries that aren’t dominated by one religion — and by that, I’m including denominations that help keep each other in check as you have in the USA.  Contrast this to countries with absolute domination of one faith — or to Christendom in medieval times — there was a lot more abuse then, than now.  Don’t get me wrong, though, religious persecution is still going on today — Islamic State, Yugoslavia in the 90’s, and partitioning of India after WWII — lots of deaths there — that was huge, etc.  And obviously, the Roman Catholic sex scandal was disgraceful, with high churchmen (bishops and cardinals) moving pedophiles around and shielding them from civil prosecution.

Also, religious persecutions long predate Christianity; the persecution of Socrates occurred in ancient Greece wherein he denied the Greek Gods.  Although there, it was a democracy, so the citizens voted, rather than priests, so quite different than the Roman Catholic Inquisition. Oddly, we do not use the same adjectives to describe different things; we call WW II Germany Nazi Germany, but we don’t attribute the Inquisition to the Church, e.g. the Catholic Spanish Inquisition or the Catholic Portugese Inquisition.  I attribute that to political correctness.  This may be a subtle difference in language to others, but to me it’s a big deal.

Yes, it’s much more likely for machines than men to traverse interstellar space with current technology.  But so much of it is speculation; futurists often get it wrong.  We actually COULD send probes to the closest stars using technology developed in the 1960’s (Project Orion), but it would take decades for them to reach their destination.

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I am a marvelous housekeeper.  Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.  – Zsa Zsa Gabor

 

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

Nice Fractal Frank!

FrankOne wrote:

We actually COULD send probes to the closest stars using technology developed in the 1960’s (Project Orion), but it would take decades for them to reach their destination.

Based on what I read about Project Orion here, (http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-to-the-nearest-star/) I quote from that article, “…but unless we make a breakthrough in interstellar travel (and science fiction become more like science fact)..”

Basically, that technology doesn’t exist, nor does anything close to it. We’re talking about sending machines out into space at 5% the speed of light. That’s unthinkable brother, they’d disintegrate. I’d be thrilled to learn we could do that, but in reality, another 500 years of advancements in technology isn’t going to yield that Lost in Space pipe dream. 500 years from now, whether manned or machine, the trip will still be over 20,000 years long, just to get to one star. As they say in the severely fictional movie Interstellar, that doesn’t even qualify as futile. By the way, I love that movie, probably my favorite movie next to Solaris but it’s completely full of s~~~ as far as plausibility. The plot makes me tear up though, its an emotionally charged movie about how depressing these numbers really are. We’re alone in a dark rift. </span></span>

It would take more like hundreds or thousands of decades to explore the stars in our “immediate” area. Our current (fastest) shuttles/probes speed limit is 36,000 miles per hour. (http://www.space.com/24701-how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars.html) Proxima Centauri is only 4.24 light years away. Since light travels 186,000 miles per second we can do the math.

186K x 60 for secs x 60 for mins x 24 for hours x 365 for a year x 4 for four years.

Our nearest star, Proxima Centauri is over 23,462,784,000,000 miles away! So our fastest probe today would reach it  after 75,000 years! 

Even with hypothetical technology we haven’t invented, and the hypothetical tech that would come after that, and the tech that would come after that….we’ve hit a wall and are unable to get bodies across those rifts.

I used to be more optimistic about star faring life as a kid, but when I matured and understood the numbers, and then grew up even more and got more humble and serious, the numbers look even worse. its probably never happened. But what probably has happened many times, is machines crossing these unimaginable distances.

 

 

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Beware the Lamiae wrote:

Nice Fractal Frank!
FrankOne wrote:
We actually COULD send probes to the closest stars using technology developed in the 1960’s (Project Orion), but it would take decades for them to reach their destination.
Based on what I read about Project Orion here, (http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-to-the-nearest-star/) I quote from that article, “…but unless we make a breakthrough in interstellar travel (and science fiction become more like science fact)..” Basically, that technology doesn’t exist, nor does anything close to it. We’re talking about sending machines out into space at 5% the speed of light. That’s unthinkable brother, they’d disintegrate. I’d be thrilled to learn we could do that, but in reality, another 500 years of advancements in technology isn’t going to yield that Lost in Space pipe dream. 500 years from now, whether manned or machine, the trip will still be over 20,000 years long, just to get to one star.

Thanks for the complement on the fractal!  I wasn’t suggesting Project Orion would yield a Lost in Space pipe dream.  I do believe it is a viable means to send a probe (no people) to the nearest star system.  The acceleration for Project Orion would only be about 1 g.  Freeman Dyson’s design had a bit longer transit time of about 133 years without accounting for deceleration, to Alpha Centauri.  The acceleration would occur over 1 week with discrete bombs detonated at 3 second intervals behind the pusher plate.  This was calculated to be below the maximum acceleration the structure could withstand so it would not disintegrate.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29 Significant experimental work was done, for instance, ablation was dealt with by oil-coating the pusher plate.  There is/was still some question about damage done by interstellar dust.  Unfortunately, it was tested only with conventional explosives.  So durability of the plate isn’t known – it would need to survive hundreds of thousands of successive explosions.  To get high specific impulse, an Orion vessel needs to be huge – the momentum-limited design with 133 year travel time/0.033c speed, is 330 ft diameter.  So, while it gives huge heavy lift capability, specific impulse drops significantly with a smaller diameter.  Von Braun was a proponent of this for a Mars mission; several Saturn missions would ferry the components for an Orion rocket into orbit; it would be assembled, and make the round trip in an astounding 125 days.  And that is with an enormous, 100 ton payload.  The reason Orion didn’t receive further development was the partial test ban treaty prohibiting nuclear explosions in the atmosphere.  The other downside is as ship diameter/ablation plate diameter decreases, it becomes less efficient; in the case of the Mars mission, the ablation plate could be no larger than ~30’ dia.
There was considerable fear about a rocket explosion on ascent, either conventional or nuclear, spreading radionuclides into the atmosphere – an issue even if a conventional chemical rocket was used to boost an Orion rocket into orbit for assembly.
It also isn’t known how much damage impacts with interstellar dust would cause.  It was also expensive.  Dyson’s estimate, $376 Billion.  What makes Project Orion so interesting is that much of the technology to realize it, already exists.
Cost is infrequently discussed, but for comparison, all Apollo missions combined cost about $170 billion in their totality.  Considering a US population in 1970 of ~200 million, then, about $850 per citizen – quite a massive Big Government undertaking.  In contrast, the Soviet Union spent far less, lost Korolev, and didn’t have von Braun.

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

I like you a lot Frank, you’re useful in the Crystallized knowledge sort of way. You’re willing to give pause to some bizarre stuff man. Like all that brain hemorrhaging with John Doe. I know what the mind looks like behind that John Doe handle and it’s neurotic. The guy is an unstable sociopath for sure. I could have finished reading the Odyssey in the amount of time and words that you and he threw back and forth. For what? He’s clearly delusional to the point that, in real life, he’s a risk to himself and others. He has a mild mental retardation, Im not kidding

I’m not still not buying the Orion Project pipe dream Sir. If it was even remotely plausible that we could probe another star, we’d of done it instead of dicking around with every rock, moon and planet in this solar system. wouldn’t we have forgone countless other projects in an effort to sling a probe to Proxima Centauri to check for Earth-like planets?

Sending a probe at 5% the speed of light would vaporize it, plus their braking idea is settling off nukes in front of the space craft lol, come on bro! 🙂  And we’re talking about extremely high velocity outside the helio-pause. We don’t know whats out there. Interstellar wind for sure and a a lot of vacuum nothingness granted, but its the real outer space, not our cozy little solar system. Its crazy man. I hope youre right though and that human machines will traverse that space but its fantasy when looked at realistically. The Orion project is a bar napkin.

300 billion dollars lol

Anyway have a good one bro

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

BTL: Unfortunately, a lot of things we do in Big Science spending aren’t logical.  Sticking to the space program, look at the huge focus on the Space Shuttle program.  My Dad worked for Rockwell, he worked on the B-1B design, but Rockwell/North American also made tons of money off the shuttle.  They (North American) actually DESIGNED it, NOT NASA.  But it turned out it was MORE costly than single-use rockets to put payloads into orbit.  So it never ‘paid for itself’ as early proponents contended, and instead, consumed much of NASA’s budget.    And putting men into low earth orbit, has yielded little to NO scientific breakthroughs — only vast spending.  In contrast, unmanned probes, have yielded huge amounts of information, whether Voyager, Mars probes, CBE, Helios, etc.  Yet we MUST have a manned space program that doesn’t go anywhere (i.e. goes into low-earth orbit).   Why?  Damned if I know — but I suspect it’s because it captures the public’s imagination and makes it easier to get any NASA funding.  Or national pride.  What breakthroughs have resulted from Skylab or the International Space Station?  In my view, none.  What use was there in sending a teacher on the space shuttle when I was in high school?  I guess to get kids interested in science?

Exploding a warhead in front of you is little different than behind you; that’s because the velocity is relative; the bomb is fired out of the ship from a gas gun, with a modest velocity relative to the ship.  Ulam wasn’t just doing theoretical physics; the experiments at Eniwetok proving ground showed a metal sphere could withstand a nuclear explosion at a distance of 30 ft with a thin layer of graphite ablated from its surface.  This is for a low-yield bomb, of course.  In the early years of nuclear development, small bombs were also developed as artillery weapons — shells — to be used in combat.  We usually consider a ground burst as vaporizing any metal structures in the immediate vicinity, and that is true for larger yield weapons.  Surprisingly, the oil-coated pusher plate does not melt at 67,000 deg C due to the extremely short exposure time. Extensive testing with an explosive-driven helium plasma generator was performed to test the pusher plate.  A researcher accidentally left a fingerprint on the pusher plate and it was found to ablate less; so the discovery of oil coating was serendipitous.

The Trinity project/gadget/first atomic bomb cost a staggering $2 billion to develop.  It was 20 kilotons.  Orion would use bombs with a yield of about 0.1 kiloton, so much, much lower yield by a factor of 200.

Can massive objects move at extreme velocities?  Runaway stars moving at hypervelocities have been discovered.  How much hull damage would occur at hypervelocities in interstellar space, also isn’t known.

Orion never DID come up with a shock absorber that was demonstrated to work; and whether the pusher plate could survive thousands of successive explosions is not known.  There is a great book on Orion written by George Dyson in the early 2000’s ‘Project Orion the True Story of the Atomic Spaceship’, I read it years ago.  I’m not saying Orion would definitely work, and it’s certainly extremely expensive (like the Apollo project), but much of its technology has been proven.

Part of the objection to development probably lies also with the long time frames; even if it took only 20 years to get results, it is going to be hard to fund.

There were a lot of exploration plans in the late 60’s, but when funding dried up, they were halted, and the shuttle consumed almost all the budget in the 1970’s and beyond.

 

[Beware the LamiaeSpectator 89]

interesting stuff Frank, thanks for the contribution

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