Gordon Barlow

Mike, you have just given me the best laugh I've had in ages. Very clever. Thank you.

I've just turned 74, so opinions on suicide are more immediately relevant to me than to the rest of you. I'm in good health, and I'm lucky - but neither of those states can be relied on to continue. My wife and I have discussed the Big Problem ad nauseam - namely, WHEN to take ourselves out. As other posters have pointed out, if you leave it too long, it's too late. It's not fair to expect someone else to take the decision just because you weren't brave enough to do it while you still could.

So you gamble.

redShark

If you are searching for a direct physical evidence for the existence of God then you are going to be wasting your time, because there ain’t any!! All the evidence are in the mind, just as it is the case with the evidence of life on other planets.

If your mind tells you that the vastness of the universe demands belief in the existence of life on other planets, then your mind should also tell you something about the incredible complexity of the human brain. Because according to scientists, the human brain that weights a mere one Kg. is the most complex object in the universe known to man. I don’t know about you, but my mind tells me that whoever is behind the creation of this magnificent source of intelligence has to be of a level far above the human intelligence!!

Gordon Barlow

Probably, Shark, but that doesn't make the source all that intelligent!

As so often, I will steal an opinion from a blog-entry of mine. This one is from May this year ("The engineer and the auditor, Part 1") written as a tribute to a friend of mine who had just died. He and I used to explore abstruse ideas over breakfast every Saturday.
...From stem-cell research and gene therapy, he deduced (provisionally) that humankind must have been designed by a computer programmer and engineer, not of this world. As a devout heathen, it alarmed him to find himself on the same side as the Intelligent Design people, at least in respect of the creation of life on this planet.
...I pointed out that his hypothetical extra-terrestrial engineer was not necessarily benign, or fully sentient. It could have been a random force of nature – a kind of idiot-savant, like Dustin Hoffman in the movie “Rain Man”. We easily agreed that the creator of humanity was not the originator of the universe, and that neither of them warranted worship...

mikewot

Well done! So now we just have to deal with your delusion that a god exists, what else can you be suffering from if not a delusion?
Sigh! You don't really listen do you? I already said that there is currently no evidence for life outside of earth but given the number of possible life sustaining planets I'd be astonished if there wasn't. Science is what I use to help me understand the world around me, not some mumbo jumbo magic man. For your edification and clarification "Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
No not the vastness, the sheer number of planets within the goldilocks zone (too hot, too cold, just right) of their stars. All of which are composed of the same elements as the earth. As scientific studies of the moon and now Mars show we're not unique. And I don't demand belief, I'm not a religious leader, make your own mind up. Actually dolphins are said to be more intelligent than man, with larger brains so shouldn't their brain be 'the most complex object in the universe'? Incidentally who spouts that crap? Ah right! We must have been created/manufactured. Well I'm sorry to have to tell you but there is a vast and overwhelming body of scientific evidence which proves that humans (and all life on earth) evolved. The evidence that we were created is zip, zero, zilch, nada and nothing.

mikewot

Mr redshark this is you:

Gordon Barlow

Mike, a fellow-atheist here. Forgive me, but I have to say that I am always reluctant to rely on the "scientists all agree" argument. Scientists have been wrong more often than not, over the centuries. For me, logic and plausibility serves to see off the God-believers.

redShark

Once again I reiterate . If you call what I have a delusion, then it would be the same kind of delusion that made you astonished to think there is no life out there in the universe. The fact that you are scared to deny categorically there existence is nothing more than a symptom of delusion you are under.

Creation or Evolution to me are the same, they are a systematic process under the supervision/will of someone!!!

Frankly, I don’t see a point in continuing this discussion with you as we will be going in an endless circle since obviously we don’t share the same common sense. My logic is single-faced, and I struggle to see yours the same.

redShark

Any attempt to explain the emergence of life on earth by attributing it to extra-terrestrial involvements will be doomed, because you will be hunted by the inescapable damming question of “who created them then?”. So long as we choose to imprison our mind in the cocoon of Time and Space we can never find a satisfactory answer to the existence of the universe. Science can only explain things that exist in Time and Space world because only in Time and Space you can find the laws of physics, and nowhere else.

You may ask me what proof do I have for the existence of other worlds than Time and Space!! I may have some explanations based on some philisophers reflections. I tend to agree with those explainations and you can by all means differ with it so long as you come up with a different explanation, not just rubbishing mine!!
So hold on to your seat and lets sail…

Every human being transcend Time and Space (short of their bodies ) into a different world at least once every single day. They do that when they go to sleep; It is the world of dreams!! When you are asleep you are in a world where laws of physics seize to exist, where you meat people who’d died centuries ago but they are still alive in that world. You witness various kinds of events with many contributors into those events, not least our conducts in life on earth, for example. There are also many other contributors to those events that we witness in those dreams.
The only reason why we think dreams are illusions and life on earth is reality is because we spend a few seconds in our dreams and 24 hours on earth. Had it been the other way round, life on earth would have been viewed as illusion instead.
Interestingly, Quran speaks of sleeping as another state of death!!!

Gordon Barlow

Shark. You haven't explained WHY the "systematic process" has to be under the supervision or will of "someone". You are making an assertion, not a logical argument.

Gordon Barlow

That's not a logical statement, Shark. Who (you mean"whatever", I think***) created life on earth is an entirely different question to the question of what created the life-on-earth creator. There is nothing in logic that requires the two notional creators to be the same entity.
*** Using the word "who" is anthropomorphic, which the Online Dictionary defines as "ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human, especially to a deity".

redShark

Because every phenomenon has to have a reason why it is there, and when I manage to find the reason for it’s existence the next question will be what is the reason behind this reason, and so on and so forth. Until I hit the boundaries of Time and Space

redShark

I agree with you to a certain extent that ‘what created’ and ‘who created’ are two different things. Because ‘What’ refer to the process and who refers to the will.

The difference between me and you is that you are quite content to stop at ‘what created’ while I am more daring to go further and ponder at the entity represented by ‘who’, and the only way to do that is by freeing my mind from the shackles of Time and space

Gordon Barlow

No, we are both speculating with completely open minds - I hope. Have you freed your mind from the shackles of believing there must BE a "who" or a "what"? Maybe there is a nothing. Maybe the universe really is infinite - and if it is, then there IS no who or what.

mikewot

Seriously!! Everything has to have a reason? Why does it?

mikewot

Why is it deluded to think that there is life out there? I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of extraterrestrial life because there is no proof yet either way, which is why I'm open minded on the subject.
??? You obviously spectacularly fail to understand the process of evolution.
Your 'logic' is unquestioning belief in an old book, mine is somewhat more modern