[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I occasionally watch this really boring show, Closer to Truth , where this lame dude goes around asking b-movie scientists and poorly dressed mid-grade theologians questions about atheism vs theism, discussions about the nature and meaning of God. Essentially he asks the questions about the existence of God, and attempts to have meaningful debates and discussions about theological, cosmological and scientific issues but...

ITS ALL BULLSHIT! There is no science! There is no theology! There is no SUBSTANCE! This show is nonsense.. I watch it hoping to hear a truly scientific explanation, but there is never any real science. I hope to hear some deep theological arguments, but here are none, these guys are hardly theologians! So I thought, maybe the SYG board could do better..

please discuss with as much detail or eloquence as you'd like, in a serious manner with SUBSTANCE not sensationalism, any issues you would like regarding atheism, theology, science or religion.

So lets ask these questions from the show:

1) Does God Make Sense?

2) How Vast is the Cosmos?

3) Why is Consciousness So Mysterious?

4)Why the Cosmos?

5) Are Science and Religion at war?

6) Why the Cosmos?

7) Arguments For/Against the Existence of God

8) Is God Outside of Time?

9) Fallacies in Proving God's Existence?

10) Is God Necessary?

11) Arguing God From the Moral Law..

12) Arguments for Atheism..

13) Is Consciousness Entirely Material?

14) Can the Brain Explain the Mind?

15) What Things Really Exist?

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Closer To Truth is the definitive series on Cosmos, Consciousness and God, a global journey in search of the vital ideas of existence. It is the most complete, compelling, and accessible series on Cosmos, Consciousness and God ever produced for television.
Closer To Truth explores fundamental issues of universe, brain/mind, religion, meaning and purpose through intimate, candid conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, scholars, theologians and creative thinkers of all kinds. The shows are a rich visual experience, shot entirely on location in high definition with multiple cameras generating rich production values. The visual lushness of the high definition, on-location productions, combined with the intriguing titles of the shows, builds audiences already interested in mankind's greatest questions.
Public fascination with questions of Cosmos, Consciousness and particularly of God has grown substantially in recent years. Public debate has been intense, often heated. Closer To Truth presents to mass audiences these leading-edge ideas in an approachable, rational and balanced manner, and introduces the human personalities behind these ideas. By meeting these change-making characters close-up, the thinkers behind the thoughts, visiting them in their homes, offices, labs, gardens, churches and temples, Closer To Truth humanizes riveting ideas and makes them more accessible and more relevant.
It is the mission of Closer To Truth to become the most publicly prominent venue for heightened understanding and thoughtful discussion of Cosmos, Consciousness and God for broad television audiences.
The initial slate of 39 Closer To Truth episodes interweaves 13 each on Cosmos, Consciousness, God. Each 30-minute episode features four to seven of the world’s foremost thinkers. The series as a whole features 128 such authorities, each taped in detailed conversations (between two and eight hours), in what we believe to be the most comprehensive and definitive treatment of these topics ever presented in visual or electronic media. An invaluable record of today's best thinking, this new edition of Closer To Truth includes, in addition to the high-definition television series, an extensive internet site, and resource materials for educators and life-long learners.
Closer To Truth is hosted and executive produced by Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn. It is produced by Grace Creek Media (formerly New River Media), a Washington-based company well-known for the quality and success of its public television productions. Andrew Walworth, president of Grace Creek Media, is executive producer. Peter Getzels is Closer To Truth's award-winning producer/director.
Closer To Truth is Robert's life journey to grasp Cosmos, Consciousness, and God, visiting those who think deeply about existence, meaning and purpose. He goes to MIT and Harvard in Boston; Cal Tech and UCLA in Los Angeles; Berkeley and Stanford in San Francisco; Oxford and Cambridge in England; Princeton, Notre Dame, NYU — and for a gathering of cosmologists, to the glaciers and hot springs of Iceland.
Each Closer To Truth episode presents Robert embarking on a personal exploration in search of answers to a single Great Question. The audience joins him as he travels to meet world-renown experts, four to six per episode, each of whom brings a different viewpoint or perspective. Between experts, Robert summarizes the previous conversation and sets-up the next one with a bridging segment, represented with visually interesting footage. Each episode concludes with Robert providing a summary observation, which may not be a definitive "answer" but will always draw viewers "closer to truth."
Each episode is structured as a stand-alone program so that first-time viewers can understand and enjoy it. But there is logic and flow to the architecture and order of episodes, and an arc to the series as a whole, so that many viewers will be drawn from one episode to the next.
Robert does not avoid conflict or fear ridicule. Conventional wisdom and convenient consensus are put to the test in every episode. Robert challenges current belief and welcomes serious controversy. He will accept uncertainty but not sloppy thinking. His search is what Closer To Truth is all about: a passionate, detail-rich exploration of Cosmos, Consciousness, and God.
Never before have Cosmos, Consciousness and God been explored with such breadth, and in such depth, and by such illustrious experts.
If you were an Alien and had to know where thinking has come on Planet Earth, you would have to watch Closer To Truth.
Join Robert in these probing, provocative discussions at the frontiers of human understanding.
As Robert says, "I do not promise that you will find Ultimate Truth. I do promise that you will be exhilarated... getting Closer To Truth".

[atsonicpark]

Well... I'm agnostic (agnostic theism). I don't believe in religion itself (though I do recognize it as a good thing for some people to have), but I do believe in "God", sure. There's no evidence whatsoever of God, beyond blind faith, and beyond... well, someone probably created us, right? Who knows?... I think most of those questions, and the idea of God, are too far beyond our knowledge and our ability to answer them. We're just not programmed to understand these things. But, personally, yes, I do believe in God. And I believe he's an asshole.

Also, this is unrelated, but I don't "believe in" the Bible. I think that was some book written by a bunch of dudes a long time ago, that has almost no real meaning in our lives today. It's like someone worshipping a t-shirt from 2000 years ago or something. There's some wonderful morality tales in it, but there's also lots of contradictions and... uh, let's put it this way, a lot of it is out of date, and the more meaningful stuff is common sense anyway. Laws... "good" people don't need them, and "bad" people don't follow them, so what's the point?

[floatingslowly]

1) Does God Make Sense? there will never be enough data to truly substantiate Gawd making sense. besides that, human minds cannot grasp the entirety of the infinite

2) How Vast is the Cosmos? by cosmos, do you mean the visible universe or those attached to it? either way, yr answer is [inf.].

3) Why is Consciousness So Mysterious? it's the dark sunglasses.

4)Why the Cosmos? I'm sorry, what's the question?

5) Are Science and Religion at war? throughout the ages, they have been (just ask Copernicus), however, they are simply two different methods that human minds use to describe the unknown.

6) Why the Cosmos? if I didn't know what you meant the first time, I won't know now.

7) Arguments For/Against the Existence of God all matter is inter-related.

8) Is God Outside of Time? time is an illusion caused by gravitmetric distortions.

9) Fallacies in Proving God's Existence? most people tend to take myths and legends too seriously, and fail to see the true moral of the story.

10) Is God Necessary? I believe so. although, I use the term Gawd loosely. spirituality is necessary. what you do with it is on you.

11) Arguing God From the Moral Law.. I'm only responsible for my own morals. what other people do with their's in their own business.

12) Arguments for Atheism.. seeing is believing.

13) Is Consciousness Entirely Material? mine isn't.

14) Can the Brain Explain the Mind? no. you need to look from the outside in.

15) What Things Really Exist? aye, there's the rub.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Today's topic was FIRST CAUSE..

The Cosmological Argument or First Cause:

So this one dude tried to say that God does not have to exist because there does not have to be a first cause to the universe at all, but rather the universe could be the result of infinitely smaller causes, so that there is no truly first cause, as each cause is preceded infinitely by a smaller and smaller cause..

But I don't understand how this necessarily throws God out of the equation. If anything, having to rely on infinity I feel brings a divine source into the equation to begin with, because essentially saying, "There is no necessarily FIRST cause because all cause and effect in the universe is simply part of an infinitely fractionated series of causes.. that is a cop out. That is a circular argument, that is not necessarily science. For example, science today is bringing the circle full round, and saying its not Big Bang, its a Big Bounce, and that the universe today is the result of the contraction to critical density of a previous universe (essentially another circular argument)

I say to these kinds of thinking, what was the first cause of the previous universe which contracted?

Of course on the other side of the coin, Theologians who argue for the existence of God as the primordial mover, the Divine First Cause, are flawed in the arguing for the Comsological Theory. Their tenets claim that science looks for these circular, infinite loops of causes, and that is illogical, that there must a beginning, a first cause BEFORE infinity.. BUT:

This challenges the very concept of an Infinite God. Current models of the universe define the raw energy which is the true substance of the universe as being infinite, having neither a beginning nor and end, that is, Energy can not be created or destroyed. This is the basic premise of the Law of Conservation of Energy. So if energy can be eternal, without beginning or end, surely God who is supposed to be beyond energy can also be infinite? So those who argue for the existence of God based upon the premise that God is the beginning of the Universe, challenge the very concept of an infinite, limitless and eternal God. God must be before the beginning or more correctly have no beginning, if energy itself has no such beginnings either.

In my mind, the weak scientific argument that God does not exist because the universe is the result of an infinte sequence of increasingly fractionated first-causes actually proves the existence of God, since God must also be infinite.

In other words, we can not identify any kind of first-cause because there is no identifiable first cause because God is the first-cause but since God Himself has no first-cause, and is Himself the first-cause, then the first-cause principle itself is flawed.

If God is the beginning, but God Himself has no beginning, then logically there is NO BEGINNING to begin with..

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by floatingslowly

human minds cannot grasp the entirety of the infinite

That's really what I was trying to say in the first part of my post but you made it sound so much sexier.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

But, personally, yes, I do believe in God. And I believe he's an asshole.

That is a more potent declaration of Faith than the Nicean Creed

Also, this is unrelated, but I don't "believe in" the Bible. I think that was some book written by a bunch of dudes a long time ago, that has almost no real meaning in our lives today. It's like someone worshipping a t-shirt from 2000 years ago or something. There's some wonderful morality tales in it, but there's also lots of contradictions and... uh, let's put it this way, a lot of it is out of date, and the more meaningful stuff is common sense anyway. Laws... "good" people don't need them, and "bad" people don't follow them, so what's the point?

There are no contradictions in the bible, just things lost in translation. That is why Muslim scholars do not translate the Ku'ran, but make people from Mali to Indonesia learn Arabic to read the holy scriptures, as they do not want to lose anything in translation. But in regards to the bible being irrelevant, nonsense. The bible is the definitive collection of narratives on the Human Experience. It is absolutely complete in this regard.. It is not merely a collection of high-handed hymns and liturgies like the Bhagavad Gita, nor is it a book full of poems and law like the Ku'ran. While the bible has all these things like Liturgy, Hymn, Poetry, and History, it also has all the drama of human life, murder, adultery, jealosy, failure, hopelessness, war, balanced with hope, love, faith, altruism, victory, achievement etc etc. It is a fairly balanced book of philosophy, but not necessarily the best book for dogmatic religion

[Rob Instigator]

1) Does God Make Sense? NO. The idea of a supernatural being who created the cosmos as we see it and understand it, does not make sense. What makes even less sense is the idea of a personal god deity that actually oversees every single event that can possibly ever happen, especially as it pertains to indiviudual human lives. Having said that, much of the cosmos does not avail itself to human common sense. Human common sense is strictly a by-product of the collected experiences and evolution of our species. It tells us many things tat are actually wrong.

2) How Vast is the Cosmos? The cosmos is by all intents and purposes, infinite. If there is just one universe, and we are in one of the trillion or so galaxies in that universe, the scale for comparison is moot, and we may as well call it infiite. This is speaking in terms of scope.

3) Why is Consciousness So Mysterious? It is mysterious only because it canot be studied properly. water cannot get wet. fire cannot burn itself. consciousness cannot understand itself, not fully. it seems supernatural, but it is just a result of the limits inherent in self-analysis. Just because there is a mystery does not mean that the answer to that mystery is magic or supernatural, or god. The bestoption for humans is to study the underlying basis for consciousness, or our mechanistic brains. this will never fully answer the question of consciousness. a bycicle chain cannot, just by studying itself, understand that it is moving a hot babe along on top of a larger mechanical device.

4)Why the Cosmos? - pointless question. the question "why" is a human failing, a question that seeks to impose meaning and pattern, something our human minds are expert at (even if there is no pattern or meaning). It only applies to the end result of actions undertaken by conscious life. you cannot hope to answer why the colorado river carved th Grand Canyon. You can just answer How. This is the central dillema of all religions, for they choose to provide a pat answer to this pointless question.

5) Are Science and Religion at war? No, but they should be. This is personal opinio of course, but religion is codified supersition, and as such, can be very easily subverted to control populations, individuals, societies as a whole, to denigrate and exclude any non-believers. science does not do that. humans can use science's information to do evil, sure, but science itself can correct those evils and prove their stupidities wrong. religions just contradict each other in a never ending war., and it is all bullshit. BILLIONS if not trillions of human have been killed tortured, maimed, enslaved, genocided, captured, ridiculed, and deeemd lower beings due to mere religious disagreements. It is the history of our species. Science has slowly, and with hopefully ever expanding scope, shown the interconnectedness of all life, PROVEN IT beyond a shadow of doubt, shown the frailty of our existance, and the true brotherhood of all living matter in the world. This will hopefully one day extinguish the bullshit that man calls religion.


6) Why the Cosmos? see answer to question 4

7) Arguments For/Against the Existence of God - pointless. may as well spend one's life arguing whether or not purple leprechauns control the lava flows on Mt Vesuvius. There is no proof either way for the very idea is bullshit.

8) Is God Outside of Time? - this is a cop-out used by religious believers to endow their "god" with the magical ability to be eerywhere see everyhing know everything, like fucking santa claus. BULLSHIT.

9) Fallacies in Proving God's Existence? - all of them

10) Is God Necessary? - it is if you want to control whole masses of blind ignorant people. It is neccesary if you want to enslave the free thinking minds of humanity to some sort of all-powerful overlord whom only you can speak to, or for whom only you can speak for or understand, or decipher their "godly" writings. "god" is the greatest lie ever told to man.

11) Arguing God From the Moral Law.. - there is no moral law, or natural law, orany other such dictum describing how people shoudl treat each other. Anything that claims this, is just a lie made up by HUMANS to control other humans.

12) Arguments for Atheism.. - Might as well ask for arguments against the existance of Chuthulu, or the keebler elves.

13) Is Consciousness Entirely Material? - no one knows. conscciousness may be entirely immaterial, but it could result from material things, like our brain's neurons. a magnetic field is immaterial, but it results from a very material substance, such as a magnet. this does not mean that a magnetic field can exist independent of the magnet, or that consciousness can exist independently of the brain.

14) Can the Brain Explain the Mind? - brain/mind are just words used to designate certain aspects of our consciousness. brain is the hardware and the mind is the end result of the hardware.

15) What Things Really Exist? "things?" all things exist. god, satan, appollo, yahweh, beelzebub, crom, chuthulu, are all ideas, not things.

[Rob Instigator]

and to answer flotz, science and religion are NOT two different ways to describe the unknown. science is a method by which we can gather unbiased information about the cosmos, information that is repeatable, re-veryfiable, and correctable. religion does nothing of this. it just shits up your nose and asks you to give it money for that pleasure.

[!@#$%!]

So lets ask these questions from the show:

1) Does God Make Sense?
People try.

2) How Vast is the Cosmos?
Last I heard, we don't know.

3) Why is Consciousness So Mysterious?
Because it's very complex and difficult to observe and measure with reliable instruments. In other words, most of our experience of consciousness is subjective-- we are inside of it.

4)Why the Cosmos?
Why the question?

5) Are Science and Religion at war?
Only for those who don't understand either.

6) Why the Cosmos?
Why the question again?

7) Arguments For/Against the Existence of God
Sorry, busy morning.

8) Is God Outside of Time?
Depends on how you formulate "God", most sophisticated definers like to do it that way.

9) Fallacies in Proving God's Existence?
There is no proof, so all arguments are fallacious.

10) Is God Necessary?
For some people it is a definite necessity, for others it isn't. Is Santa Claus necessary?

11) Arguing God From the Moral Law..
Morality is a product of biology... the rest is window dressing.

12) Arguments for Atheism..
We've never spotted the old bastard.

13) Is Consciousness Entirely Material?
Define "matter".

14) Can the Brain Explain the Mind?
We are certainly trying. Give us a couple of centuries and this will be elementary school stuff, like explaining "the mysterious rainbow."

15) What Things Really Exist?
Define a) "things", b) "really", c) "exist" and you'll end up with different answers according to the different definitions.

[atsonicpark]

All I'm saying is, I've read the Bible front-to-back one and a half times in my lifetime, and... you know what? It just doesn't mean anything to me. It never has. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, on the other hand, is invaluable. To me.

[terriblecanyons]

" Lets have a serious discussion about Atheism vs Theology"

haha.

hahahahahaha.

hahahahahaha.

[Heywood Floyd]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

1) Does God Make Sense?

I guess god makes sense if only for the reason that he provides a definitive conclusion to the reason for existence.

2) How Vast is the Cosmos?

Boundless. Who knows? I believe in infinity. But do I believe in infinite universes? or ONE universe of infinite boundaries.

3) Why is Consciousness So Mysterious?

Because it isn't fact.

4)Why the Cosmos?

I do not know.

5) Are Science and Religion at war?

Yes.

7) Arguments For/Against the Existence of God

For: It can't be disproven

Against: It can't be proven.

8) Is God Outside of Time?

Unsure.

9) Fallacies in Proving God's Existence?

The Bible is filled with fallacies. I don't think believers should really take the Bible so seriously in their arguments for god.

10) Is God Necessary?

No.

I only had time for 10 questions. This interview is over.

[notyourfiend]

I personally believe in the importance of faith to the human spirit. Faith pulls me away from total self-destructive nihilism which "realism" consistantly leads me too. But faith gives me strength and hope to believe that there is a power in what I will never be able to understand. And who am I to really have any real answers when my existant is so fininte? So to me, "god" is what is beyond my own knowing and ego. Of course, I have a little bit of "god" in me because I am a part of the larger universe. I try to embrace the mystery of the unknown, knowing that the more questions i ask the more questions there will be.

Faith and "god" are extremely personal things and it is extremely dangerous to create one singular image for all of us to follow. That being said, I was raised in a religious household (Jewish) and totally threw the dogma out the door.

[gualbert]

2) How Vast is the Cosmos?
15 billions light year maybe.
But what is further?

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

5) Are Science and Religion at war?
Only for those who don't understand either.

Smart!

[Rob Instigator]

you know that's a bullshit answer !@#$%

religion has been at war with science since religion first realized science can and does undermine nearly every single bit of bullshit that religions have tried to feed to the ignorant masses.
religion killed off so many of science's adherents. science has never truly fought back, except in ideas. fuck religion.

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

religion does nothing of this. it just shits up your nose and asks you to give it money for that pleasure.

my religion is mine alone and does no such shitting.

I am a monotheistic pagan. I believe that Zeus, Jah, Gawd, Allah, Buddah, etc. are all culturally-biased representations of the same source; a source that lies outside of direct observation and cannot be quantified and categorized by normal scientific means.

so...given the fact that current scientific knowledge cannot explain "Why the Cosmos?", how else should the unobservable be accounted for, other than faith?

I was once like you in my rigidity of denial, then I met some TRULY EVIL people. sine/cosine.

[Glice]

1) Does God Make Sense?

Does God create sense? Or is the notion of God sensible? I always respond - blithely - that the narrative of empirical truth is not necessarily commensurable with the notion of spriritual, or theistic, truth. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced that a truth as understood in post-enlightenment terms even exists for theism.

3) Why is Consciousness So Mysterious?

There are no places to stand to move the world; likewise, there is no alterity to consciousness, except refracted through others, whose consciousness we may percieve but not appertain. The ubiquitous is always mysterious

5) Are Science and Religion at war?

Anyone who understands either to any level beyond the superficial would realise they are not.

7) Arguments For/Against the Existence of God

Personally, I think it shows a certain failure of character to use proofs as a weapon.

10) Is God Necessary?

I suspect others disagree, but I think that if God is necessary to some people, God is necessary.

13) Is Consciousness Entirely Material?

No.

14) Can the Brain Explain the Mind?

Yes. The success or otherwise is moot; in fact, the mere notion of explaining it is adequate for the human mind to conceptualise it, a reification that's fine by me (did I steal that from Kant or did Kant steal that from Plato?)

15) What Things Really Exist?

Well, what is the nature of reality? Is it really necessary to prove reality? That's not to say that reality is immediately self-evident (although, effectively, it is) but this argument always seems to implicitly suggest that there is a bifurcation between ontology and the abstract, which I don't agree with.

[/fap]

I left out the shit questions.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

you know that's a bullshit answer !@#$%

religion has been at war with science since religion first realized science can and does undermine nearly every single bit of bullshit that religions have tried to feed to the ignorant masses.
religion killed off so many of science's adherents. science has never truly fought back, except in ideas. fuck religion.

nigga pleez...

i'm merely restating stephen jay gould's take on the demarcation question.

have a summary, and a good day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocks_of_Ages_(book)

additional readings:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

we're no longer in the 16h century-- though some people are (e.g. creationists and their ilk-- those who do not understand science, as stated in my first post).

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

10) Is God Necessary? - it is if you want to control whole masses of blind ignorant people.

I find this sentiment laughable at best, and offensive to whacking great swathes of people at worst.

I think the problem in America is that America seems to have an incredibly vocal minority of often right-wing fuckwits who come to represent the whole of religion for an equal number of not-terribly-bright left-wing headcases. ALL I'M SAYING is that I'd rather people who belived in God, such as myself and others in this thread, weren't tarred with the idiocy-stick as if they were blindly servile to science.

The problem I'm suggesting is that you can quite easily make science some monolithic God-head, but it'll quickly become the tower of Babel if you treat it as the answer.