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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Bohandas]

Question for everybody: Do you think that humanity as a whole needs a collective mythos?

I can't imagine why it would.

Especially not one that people actually believed in. I mean, I can see the value in some mythoses (mythoi?) being familiar the world over, so that filmmakers can dispense with some of the exposition in movies about Thor or Hercules and get straight to the action, but I can't imagine that we'd need a world wide belief system, or any belief system for that matter.

EDIT:
It is my sincere hope that today's major belief systems will, in the future, exist in the same position of being primarily of interest to to writers of movies and comicbooks in need of quick plots and characters.

[Descan]

But the universe doesn't have a personality, obviously, so saying you want to 'dick it back' is nonsensical- the universe just is. Neither good nor bad, but with aspects that we perceive to be good or bad.

I feel you are taking my wording far too seriously.

[Angle]

Could the afterlife occur in a different universe? Where things last forever?

Theoretically, sure. The point I'd make, though, is that given enough time, you would no longer be you. Things change, including people, and given enough time, they become unrecognizable. Once you've lived a trillion trillion years, learned everything there is to know human history, dreamt of everything, loved everything, hated everything, come to know every other human being, climbed every mountain, every tree, walked every inch that ever was and ever will be, you won't recognize yourself.

As for my morality, it's based on "We're all each other's got, just us against the universe." Universe is a dick, and it's my job to dick it right back, and make it service humans.

...And now I'm imagining porn of this. THANKS DESCAN

[Descan]

My work here is done!

* Porn-Man vibrates away!

Also, I might not be the me I am now, but neither am I the me I was when I was a wee babe, so like... What of it?

[Bohandas]

3b) Because no non-physically defined parts exist, a "god" can therefore not exist.

It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean "Naturally occurring metaphysical being with magical powers" (as nearly every god described in religions are), then I agree.
If by god you mean: "Super powerful (functionally) immortal being/construct capable of doing things (functionally) indistinguishable from magic powers", then I strongly disagree, as such a being is very possible (and probably exists somewhere in the universe).

It's certainly possible to make lightning bolts with a Tesla coil.

EDIT:
and Fracking can cause earthquakes

and comparisons might be made between the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[lemon10]

I suspect that an afterlife wouldn't last for eternity though. Its fundamentally not how this universe works, and I see no reason that another would be so fundamentally different. That isn't to say that there wouldn't be the very real possibility it would last for thousands/millions/billions of years, but I'm of the very strong opinion, that if there was an afterlife, it wouldn't last for eternity.

Could the afterlife occur in a different universe? Where things last forever?

It totally could. If you took away thermodynamics and replaced it with something else, you could indeed have a universe where things lasted forever. If you had the power to create universes it probably wouldn't even be particularly hard.

I don't really see the point of making a universe where nothing changes and nothing can die (because if anything can die or change, then nothing will really last forever), but I see no reason for it to be impossible.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Bohandas]

I think the governments of the United States and the People's Republic of China are the closest things to a deity on Earth.

[Bohandas]

A question for the atheists: If you had the option of an afterlife, would you take it?

Yes, absolutely. Death is scary. I mean, I'd prefer eternal nothingness over Hell, but I'm assuming you mean a positive or neutral afterlife.

Personally I'd even take Hell over nothing

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Rolan7]

I think the governments of the United States and the People's Republic of China are the closest things to a deity on Earth.

Hm.  If we're stretching the definition that much, I'd nominate the *founding fathers* of the USA, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Il, various others people of power, but primarily... Romulus and Remus.

Of course, with pantheons, we can include the many larger-than-life people who contributed to these lasting edifices of power.  Like the Roman emperors, and various US presidents.  Or at least, their idealized images.

[Bohandas]

I think the governments of the United States and the People's Republic of China are the closest things to a deity on Earth.

Hm.  If we're stretching the definition that much, I'd nominate the *founding fathers* of the USA, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Il, various others people of power, but primarily... Romulus and Remus.

Of course, with pantheons, we can include the many larger-than-life people who contributed to these lasting edifices of power.  Like the Roman emperors, and various US presidents.  Or at least, their idealized images.

No, I mean that the organizations wield godlike power (especially in the form of the hydrogen bomb, but also many other things as well) and  (precisely because they are NOT specific individual humans) are immortal unless destroyed, and their intervention in the greater politics of the world is reminiscent of the stereotypical image of the gods using mortals and kingdoms as playing pieces in some great game.


EDIT:
Power and immortality are the defining traits of a god; fame and adulation are merely the defining traits of a celebrity, including even mediocre reality TV stars.

[Frumple]

... I guess that would make corporations demi-gods?

"Heracles Inc. is now in business! Excuse us while we beat our subordinate companies to death in a fit of unthinking rage. Twelve decades of fines, coming right up!"

Seriously though, it's not so much specific governments as collective action in general. Most of the things attributed to gods are things we as a species are either capable of, will be in relatively short order, or are actively doing. Floods, plagues? Victory in war, great constructions? Near every miracle -- and definitely every miracle worth note -- is something mankind has already done, and what few aren't are within our technical capability either now or in the near future. And barring disaster, our capability to do so (technology, methodology, etc.) will remain indefinitely. Power, immortality (or at least immune to aging), right there.

It'd just be really expensive and kinda' pointless to turn someone in to a pillar of salt or somethin'. We could do it, via tiny machines or whatev',* there's just no reason to, 'cause it's stupid and cruel and wasteful and etc. The good stuff like small-scale geo-engineering, restoring sight to the blind, limbs to crippled, the dead to life, we already do (to varying degrees of effectiveness. Getting better on all fronts, though!).

*We might even be able to do it pretty quickly if you consider "turn in to" to be "spatially replace and render the former matter nonexistent". Just have to figure out how to shoot a lot of salt at someone really fast, which we could probably manage.

[Bohandas]

Three: What if the world actually had supernatural entities and phenomenon? Well, after we started understanding them, to the extent we can, they'd cease being supernatural and just become a natural part/effect of the universe, at least the parts we can see/feel/experience/measure. Everything else, we wouldn't even know we didn't know them; we'd think we had the whole puzzle. For all we know, electrons are the intrusions in our world of fairies dancing in another universe, but because we can only see, measure, feel, experience, the electron-part of this weird fairy-dance, we have no way of knowing that electrons are actually supernatural. They'd just be a "natural part of the universe" for us. Same as anything else supernatural. The intrusions, measurable effect on our world would just be a (seemingly whole) facet of our naturalistic universe, working in ways we can't really grok because we're missing a piece of the puzzle, but because we'd have no way of knowing we're missing something, we'd just assume it's a quirky mess. If it even is, it could look whole. The only way we'd know we're missing something big/supernatural, would be if an actual intelligent being were to communicate and say "Yo. You're missing something." and even then, depending on how they communicate, we could still miss it.

I like the way you think

[TD1]

What do I, as an atheist, actually believe in regarding the universe?

Well, I won't answer like everyone else with the whole "I believe in an objective universe" bit. If anything, the entire idea of something to believe in is... well, never actually in my mind. Sure, I might see a string of coincidences and put them together as "karma," but even that's very loose in how much I attribute to it. I just... don't really need to hold a belief in anything.

Same.

[penguinofhonor]

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