Right, and all of those things point to it not being a reliable document from God, which it why it makes the "god exists" argument harder to make.

The Christian god said there would be suffering in the world, so he's the one I brought up when talking about suffering = no god.

I don't wanna argue because I'm not too smart and pretty inarticulate, so I'd lose and get my feelings hurt.

I don't think there are very many people who would say that it's 100% certain that there isn't a god. I'd go so far as to call it a strawman argument to criticize atheists for that. Atheists who actively believe that there is no god generally feel that the lack of evidence for god and evidence for a naturalistic universe are convincing enough that they feel comfortable saying that he doesn't exist, but would stop short of calling it a certainty.

For the most part, there is no such thing as a gnostic atheist. It's simply not a philosophical position that makes any sense to say that you know god doesn't exist. Even the most militant atheists would only describe themselves as agnostic atheists unless either A.) they had a different definition of "gnostic atheist", or B.) they were an idiot.


One other thing that picks at my brain. I can respect the logic behind being agnostic, but the basic idea of someone being able to remain completely undecided about such an important and defining concept as the existence of a god seems ludicrous to me. Your certainty might not be strong, but I just don't think the human brain can keep you from forming an opinion one way or the other, just because your logic might tell you that your belief was irrational.

:beer:

Get off the f*cking fence and choose a side and then live with it 100%.

I don't believe in God 'cuz he don't believe in me, and he never returns any of my calls.

Although, it's funny, one time I was watching a Nevada/Boise State football game, and I wanted Nevada to win as it was my hometown team. It was tied at the end and Boise was going for a short field goal to win, I asked god to make him miss, and he did, then same scenario in overtime, and I asked again, and he missed again. Nevada won. I didn't know how to pray so I just kinda made a request directed toward god. Both of those field goals were like 20 yards.

So yeah, God made that happen obviously.

who specifically is acting like they know? we're talking about logic to make a best guess, not absolute certainty one way or another. this line of reasoning is akin to "where is the evidence that vampires don't exist?"

i dunno why that is. i'll say to you what was said to me once. if you think it is simple to create a meaningful universe that doesn't allow for suffering and still has life evolve, feel free to spell out how you would design such a universe. the nature of suffering is logically built into the concept of life as a mechanism for navigating existence.

so if there is a god i'll say i'm grateful i exist rather than not existing and won't hold the suffering against god. you basically have to take the good with the bad imo. life is a package deal but its worth it to me.

Straw man 101.

The majority of the suffering is grounded in the creator.

do you know what straw man means? cause i'm making my own argument, not representing yours. my argument is that suffering is necessary for a universe where life is capable of evolving and interacting with that universe. you can disprove that argument by describing a universe that would logically achieve that end goal without including suffering, which is what i challenged you to do. not a straw man. a simple challenge is all.

Once when playing Axis and Allies (board game) I was mocking Jesus out loud, because I was an atheist kid and that's what we do, and I rolled three sixes. I did not heed the advice. Next I rolled either a six-six-five or a six-six-seven. I stopped talking **** for a little while after that. Actual true story.

i notice random coincidences where it feels like god could be trolling me. but then again it could just be random.

I generally find gnostics annoying whether theist or atheist.

Agnostic doesn't mean undecided in the 2D view (though I recognize some people use it this way as a medium ground between atheism and theism in the 1D view).

In this 2D terminology, it just means you have no ontological knowledge or you don't think one can ever have ontological knowledge of a god's existence. So basically, an agnostic atheist has nothing to prove, since the matter isn't in the domain of material evidence.

And of course, you can't prove a negative in the real world. That's why the burden is always on the positive claim.

Many "lower" life forms probably don't have suffering, just avoidance responses. That is, there's likely not a consciousness associated with simple lifeforms, especially the ones without a brain. The structures associated with consciousness probably didn't come about until after chordates. So we already have a universe in which suffering wasn't necessary for life. Consciousness, and the suffering that comes with it, could just be a biological spandrel.

ok this is interesting cause from what i recalll you are a scientist or at least are studying in that field..so let me ask how do you differentiate between suffering and avoidance responses?

Just sweeped some change across this table and it formed this cross, completely unintentional, no foolin. So after two miracles I have more evidence supporting the existence of a god than not. I believe.

http://oi61.tinypic.com/73o3n8.jpg

The number of the beast.

Basically, it's been a concern of ethics boards in biology experiments; it's been determined that the complex structures and dynamics associated with suffering (so-called "neural correlates of consciousness") exist in the forebrain.

If you take an animal like c. elegans (the nematode), they don't really have a brain - more like a nerve bundle (the neuronal ring) that integrates sensory systems (input) and muscle/endocrine systems (output) but these structures and their associated dynamics are more akin to reflexive responses in humans (for example when you withdraw your arm - the signal doesn't travel to the forebrain, lower brain handles reflexive actions, if we had to be conscious of a fire burning our hand before we reacted, we'd probably be too slow).

IACUC (the ethics board for animal experimentation in the US) requires us to first anesthetize tadpoles and frogs, then remove their forebrain to eliminate the chance of them experiencing suffering. Experiments are then performed on the neurons of the remaining living, but presumably not-conscious, hind or mid brain.

And we see some similarities and complexities in animals with a big forebrain to body mass ratio (dolphins, elephants, monkeys, humans). All these animals seem to have rich and conflicting emotions that implies are richer conscious experience (due to having more elaborate morphology and dynamics associated with the forebrain). All of these are of course, vertebrates, which is a requirement for having a well-organized and divided brain (rather than a kind of symmetric bundling of wiring)

Of course, this isn't definitive, and we still have a lot to discover about consciousness in the first place, but there have been useful theories developed based on this and the resulting complexity of the information integrated across systems (Tononi's Integrated Information Theory is an example). Their usefulness has been in assessing the consciousness of comatose patients, I believe (I'd have to review the literature again to be sure).

so would it be more accurate for me to say that instead of life requiring suffering, consciousness requires suffering?

I don't know. I would guess that suffering is a byproduct of consciousness and consciousness is either:

1) a selected trait that enhances cognitive functions (an adaptation)
2) a byproduct of cognitive traits that were selected for (a spandrel)
3) a physical fact regardless of biology (panpsychism).

I've always kind of went with 2) I guess.

well what i was basically asking you is if you think consciousness is possible without suffering.

but now i am also curious which cognitive traits that were selected for you think consciousness is a byproduct of. cause i always thought consciousness served a purpose of sorts in basically helping to tie together the lower cognitive functions.

I wouldn't think so. I would think the avoidance responses were there first and when consciousness emerged in evolutionary history, it gave subjective form to things like avoidance behavior and part of that was suffering.

I don't see why it would be necessary for consciousness. There are some people that claim that it's necessary, but we can easily imagine a lifeform that just does cognitive computations without experiencing them. Maybe those computations just gave rise to consciousness as a byproduct.

that post is kind of confusing to me. particularly this part: "I don't see why it would be necessary for consciousness. There are some people that claim that it's necessary, but we can easily imagine a lifeform that just does cognitive computations without experiencing them. Maybe those computations just gave rise to consciousness as a byproduct."

it sounds like you're saying suffering isn't necessary for consciousness but then you go on to describe "a lifeform that just does cognitive computations without experiencing them." this doesn't sound like consciousness to me.

i guess i always thought about consciousness as being 'experienced' sort of by its very nature. so it just seems logical to me that if a conscious lifeform has 'avoidance responses' it would experience them in a negative way(e.g. pain). i'm not playing devil's advocate here, i do appreciate your responses but i don't quite understand what you're saying tbh.

Yes, you're right; it wouldn't be consciousness - point being that in terms of evolution and life, consciousness isn't necessary to replicate and ensure the survival of your kin. There's nothing particularly superior about cognitive function either. Bacteria do a lot better than us in numbers without cognitive functions. Parasites regularly make prey of us.

yes, i'm perfectly willing to concede that point. i was asking more specifically if suffering is necessary for consciousness, since i am willing to concede the fact that maybe it is not present in lower forms of life.

i also understand what you're saying about consciousness not being necessary in and of itself. that's probably true but i tend to value consciousness, myself. i would definitely prefer this universe to one that never developed consciousness.

I think consciousness and suffering emerged at the same time as subjective correlates of avoidance responses and cognitive function.

I hate god and other people. I fail to see anything negative about that.

I'm not sure what kind of negative stigma other than "atheists are bad people with no morals" there are, since I've never gone out of Kansas to find out what the rest of the world is like for longer than single weeks at a time. So all I know is that religious people, who form a large majority in my state, don't like me when I express my opinions. I don't know why they don't like me, other than the fact that I'm going against most of everything they've been brainwashed into believing.

I'm religious, and I don't dislike you. Carry on.

I like both of you!

I think it's a matter of where you are from in the manner of people's reaction to atheists. Where I live most people I know are atheists but I'm sure if I was from one of the U.S. Southern states things would be different