THE MAIN REASON WHY PEOPLE ARE STUPID

[MONEYMUFFINS]

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT BLACKDRAGON OR JRASTA ARE TRYING TO SAY BUT IT LOOKS RETARDED SO WHO THE FUCK CARES.

THERE'S NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT WITH PEOPLE WHO THINK REALITY DOESN'T EXIST OR THAT VALUES DON'T EXIST. IF YOU WANT TO FIND REASONS TO CONTINUE PLAYING THIS STUPID GAME OF LIFE AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS THEN GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS THREAD. YOU'RE USELESS TO ME. ANYBODY ELSE THAT STILL NEEDS CONVINCING OF ANTI-NATALISM OR WHY THEY'RE WRONG FOR BEING OPTIMISTS ABOUT REALITY, ASK MORE QUESTIONS.

 

[Signia]

So why do we fear death? And why can't we question science when the whole point of science is to question everything?

It seems both questions have the same answer - because we fear the unknown. The unknown can't be understood, and therefore can't be controlled to makes us feel better, and we fear what we don't understand for this reason. Our comfort zones are nothing compared to the unknown - comfort zones have boundaries; the unknown is unlimited.

We don't know what happens after death, so we can't control death, so we fear death because we feel powerless against it.

We don't like the idea of questioning science because there's always a possibility that the evidence it presents to us, no matter how objective it seeks to be in finding empirical evidence, could be wrong. And if there's a possibility that science is wrong... well, what is right? We're back in the unknown. And we can't control the unknown. So we fear the unknown.

This fear of the unknown is what also defines morality. We all have a story in our heads about how life should be - this is our comfort zone. When circumstances abide by this story, we call them "good", "right", "God", etc. However, when they don't abide by this story, we call them "bad", "wrong", "Satan", etc. Circumstances we call "wrong" and "evil" are labelled as such because emotionally, we don't know what to do about them. In essence, they are part of the unknown.

And because we live in a world that'll do almost anything to feel better, we either fight or flee from "evil" to this end.

Considering "evil" still exists, and is part of the unknown, how we doing?

omg haha. Baseless assumptions built on baseless assumptions. This was painful to read.

You think we don't want to die because we don't know what happens afterward or we'll be in a situation that we don't understand? But we know what happens. Your processes that keep you metabolizing and replacing your cells stop functioning, and you rot. It's not that we don't want to die because we don't like not knowing things (fearing unknown) lol, we don't want to die because dying means ceasing to exist, to be completely powerless (not to be confused with the powerless feeling that you mentioned that you feel while still alive when thinking about death). Basically, we don't want to lose our ability to do things.

And you think that we don't question science because -- we fear the unknown. And that's the whole point of science? I don't think you know what science is. Unless of course you changed how you're using the word "questioning" for dramatic effect. You should really distinguish between scientific fact and the scientific method because I can't tell which of those you're talking about. Yeah, you're trying to be way too poetic here or something. We're "in the unknown" = we don't know some things. "We can't control the unknown" = we can't affect things and get predictable results for things we don't know about. "So we fear the unknown" = therefore we avoid things we don't know about. You're obscuring your meaning so much that you yourself don't know what you're talking about. WTF is your point anyway? You're just stating a bunch of false premises with no conclusion that I can find.

Anyway, I prefer to call scientific facts just "facts" and scientific method as just "science" but I think you're using "science" refer to scientific fact. Whatever the case, it's stupid to question the scientific method and you'd know why if you knew what is and why it's so good that it allowed us to figure out fucking amazing things like computer engineering. For scientific facts, people DO question them. That's part of what scientists do, they perfect the models we have that attempt to make the universe predictable. So much for your "fear of the unknown." Facts and relationships are questioned all the time, and we have varying amounts of evidence and degrees of certainty for each one. Every statement that isn't true by definition is subject to some uncertainty. Your idea of "right and wrong" in the sense of "correct and incorrect" is too strict if you think that having uncertainty means we don't know anything or whatever the fuck you meant by "And if there's a possibility that science is wrong... well, what is right?"

Don't even try to define morality based on your false principles.

It's interesting how the people who claim not to believe in the super-natural are more often than not the same people who think winning at a videogame means anything beyond winning at the videogame. Or the pointless discussion trying to discredit the super-natural. You don't need to discredit unproven things.
They're unproven it means the same bloody thing. You prove unproven things. Stupid.

Winning at a videogame means nothing? As in, no conclusions can be drawn other than who won? That would be true if there was no users behind the inputs that affected the game, or if it were impossible for the players to affect the game (like in roulette). Clearly, other conclusions can be drawn for competitive games.

That second sentence makes no sense. What about the so-called "pointless discussion?" That "or" what?

And clearly, beliefs in the supernatural (no hyphen) need to be discredited, since people still hold beliefs in them.

Also, what conclusion were you trying to make by establishing that relationship (of dubious validity) between atheists and people who are better than you at something and think they're also better than you at other things? Why is it "interesting", why'd you stop there?

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT BLACKDRAGON OR JRASTA ARE TRYING TO SAY BUT IT LOOKS RETARDED SO WHO THE FUCK CARES.

This is what I should have said.

 

[Jrasta111]

Uh huh... I'm not the one who made a thread calling everyone and their grandma stupid... Good luck with that by the way, I sense you'll need every bit of it.

 

[Kappaccino]

If the goal is to survive, I believe birthing more humans is the wrong path for humanity. We as a species have already broken so many natural process that we experience little to no resistance when we push even harder. Every human born pushes humanity even farther down the road to our own destruction and the destruction of nature itself.

Money, your logic seems to suggest that life itself isn't supposed to exist in the first place. If this is the case, would Natalism not be the absolute best solution to the life "problem"? The faster we overpopulate ourselves, the faster our species falls down the spiral. Anti-Natalism almost seems like a weak effort to delay the collapse of humanity at this point.

What problem does anti-natalism solve?

Why does optimism have to be a bad thing? There are many consequences of optimism, not all of which are necessarily bad. Can an individual not be both optimistic and a realist at the same time?

 

[BlackDragon37]

omg haha. Baseless assumptions built on baseless assumptions. This was painful to read.

You think we don't want to die because we don't know what happens afterward or we'll be in a situation that we don't understand? But we know what happens. Your processes that keep you metabolizing and replacing your cells stop functioning, and you rot. It's not that we don't want to die because we don't like not knowing things (fearing unknown) lol, we don't want to die because dying means ceasing to exist, to be completely powerless (not to be confused with the powerless feeling that you mentioned that you feel while still alive when thinking about death).

Thanks for proving my point about fearing the unknown. Ceasing to exist is entering the unknown. Being completely powerless is entering the unknown.

We value certainty, so we seek to be as far away as possible from death. In certainty, we have control, and power. But we have those attributes because certainty requires limits, boundaries and assumptions to work.

But we have no control or power over what's limitless, boundless, and unassumed. That's uncertainty. Fear is about uncertainty, because there's always a chance something bad will happen that's completely outta your control. What happens in death after life is uncertain.

The reason why I talk about feelings is because we're primarily emotional creatures, not primarily rational, logical ones. Emotions govern our perceptions of life and therefore colour it at all times (so I'm not saying reality doesn't exist, as MONEYMUFFINS suggested). So I ask you this - what's wrong with ceasing to exist, being completely powerless? And how does it feel?

We cease to exist in this life, yes. Then what? For all we know, we definitively cease existence altogether. Or there's another life ahead of this one. Or we come back to this life as trees. How do we know there's no existence after this life when we have no way of measuring that? The best that science can say to maintain objectivity is that there's no evidence of life after death. It can't conclude therefore that there's no life after death. That's subjective, and science seeks to be objective.

So yes, we fear death. There' nothing wrong with that when we feel powerless against it.

And you think that we don't question science because -- we fear the unknown. And that's the whole point of science? I don't think you know what science is. Unless of course you changed how you're using the word "questioning" for dramatic effect. You should really distinguish between scientific fact and the scientific method because I can't tell which of those you're talking about. Yeah, you're trying to be way too poetic here or something. We're "in the unknown" = we don't know some things. "We can't control the unknown" = we can't affect things and get predictable results for things we don't know about. "So we fear the unknown" = therefore we avoid things we don't know about. You're obscuring your meaning so much that you yourself don't know what you're talking about. WTF is your point anyway? You're just stating a bunch of false premises with no conclusion that I can find.

Are you assuming I'm against science or something?

There are no answers without questions. Because science is about objectivity, it wouldn't exist if it wasn't questioning everything. We wouldn't have what we currently have without science. We wouldn't have progressed so much without science. And even when science finds answers, doesn't mean they're always right. Consider the evolution of the theory of atoms, whether Earth was flat or round, or even the Higgs boson - scientists though that particle could answer everything about how the universe, only to find that it opened up more questions about the universe.

Part of science's ongoing evolution is to be proven wrong. There's anything wrong with that, IMO.

Anyway, I prefer to call scientific facts just "facts" and scientific method as just "science" but I think you're using "science" refer to scientific fact. Whatever the case, it's stupid to question the scientific method and you'd know why if you knew what is and why it's so good that it allowed us to figure out fucking amazing things like computer engineering. For scientific facts, people DO question them. That's part of what scientists do, they perfect the models we have that attempt to make the universe predictable. So much for your "fear of the unknown." Facts and relationships are questioned all the time, and we have varying amounts of evidence and degrees of certainty for each one. Every statement that isn't true by definition is subject to some uncertainty. Your idea of "right and wrong" in the sense of "correct and incorrect" is too strict if you think that having uncertainty means we don't know anything or whatever the fuck you meant by "And if there's a possibility that science is wrong... well, what is right?"

Of course people question scientific fact. Science can't grow without that.

And uncertainty =/= we don't know anything. Uncertainty = we don't know.

Maybe I haven't explained myself well. There's nothing wrong with science. Rather, it's our perception of it that matters. When we perceive science as the sole validator of truth, then we get our knickers in a twist when it's wrong on something. Science is best at finding rules that apply to everything that's physical. It doesn't work as well on the mental, emotional, inner topics such as God, consciousness, etc. It can at best speculate on such topics.

Don't even try to define morality based on your false principles.

Morality is subjective, since morality is a mental interpretation on how to live one's life, and the mind can rationalise and justify anything when perceived as the causal point of our life experience.

If there's anything else you feel I haven't argued well, bring it up.