Are we really that important or are we just arrogant?

[Creeyayshun]

I'm new to this forum and to debating these subjects in general. I do not intend to offend anyone and I am genuinely curious, as an atheist, as to what religious people think of this.

I'm just wondering for those of you who do believe that the everything that exists was created by god, why did he make so much? If humans and life on earth was the only life he created, then why did he make things millions of light years away? They don't effect us at all so in essence they have no meaning other than to look at them.
Please look at this just to get a visual scale of how small we really are:



Now, that stops at stars... just stars. There are billions of stars which make galaxies. There are billions of galaxies that make up our universe which continues to expand. Compared to all of this to say we are merely a spec of dust is an understatement. So basically what I am asking:

1. why do religious people think we are so important and that an entity is watching us and only us (supposedly being the only living things in the universe) all the time with no other life if our universe is this big. It just seems arrogant to me.

2. Why would he make all of those galaxies so far away?

3. If you believe the bible in saying the earth is 6000 years old then how do we see stars millions of light years away (the light wouldn't have reached us yet)

[Openmind]

I'm sorry, but linking to even more quantum physics doesn't exactly help my eyes-glazing-over problem. You're going to have to explain this in layman's terms, but I'll at least help by clearly stating my question: What does quantum mechanics have to do with metaphisical theories about macroscopic fate?

I'll attempt to convert this into layman's terms. I think I'm in the middle of you and QED! I think Bell's Theorem essentially supports Quantum Mechanics - which is essentially a theory that states particles do not have defined momenta and position. Things exist in a sort of fuzzy state, ill-defined. They exist everywhere at the same time, sort of. Because of quantum indeterminacy, events can be random - you just don't know how the particles will interact at the quantum level. Therefore, the universe cannotly be completely deterministic, because randomness is a real part of the events that occur.

I may be completely off, but at least this is my interpretation.

[Assent]

I'll attempt to convert this into layman's terms. I think I'm in the middle of you and QED! I think Bell's Theorem essentially supports Quantum Mechanics - which is essentially a theory that states particles do not have defined momenta and position. Things exist in a sort of fuzzy state, ill-defined. They exist everywhere at the same time, sort of. Because of quantum indeterminacy, events can be random - you just don't know how the particles will interact at the quantum level. Therefore, the universe cannotly be completely deterministic, because randomness is a real part of the events that occur.

I may be completely off, but at least this is my interpretation.

I thank you for your effort, as I successfully understood the above paragraph. But if your interpretation is correct, then I have two questions to raise, and they are both about translation.

First, how would the idea randomness in quantum physics translate past molecular interaction in chemistry? I do happen to know a few things about that subject, and as far as I know, the interactions of chemicals are among the most guarenteed events known. I understand that there are random events even at this scale, such as the free H- and OH+ ions in water, but this randomness is easily tested, measured, and accounted for. It is a most ordered chaos.

Second, where does the leap from the behavior of particles to the spouse one marries occur?

[QED]

Hello Assent, I think we might be losing the plot of this thread but I'll try to clear up some of the misunderstandings all the same.

Can I think of a scenario where the question of life-after-death is not answered after death? Yes, based on my understanding of life, I happen to think that we will never come to know that there is life-after-death.

But you said "A complete ending to existence does count as an answer." (my bold). How can it? This sounds like that Joe who responded (not atypically) to a psychology questionnaire about existential beliefs by answering; "yeah, sure he knows he's dead"

My point is, that you still expect a positive response to your assumption after your death.

No way! Joe does, but I think he's wrong.

I have thought of at least one scenario in which answers are not given at all, so even the idea that "death answers/obsoletes questions" is not a guarantee.

Sure, in the scenario where mind ceases with the cessation of organised matter that we call our brains, answers are not given. We both seem to agree upon that.

I am suggesting that the "questions without answers" do have a reality-based answer, and if or until someone produces this true answer, then no answer held by humans has any inherent merit over any other answer.

Here is where we differ. By your reasoning the opinions of any critic of the parallel universe that I claim exists resembling ours in every detail except that it's all made of modelling clay cannot be considered to have any merit over my own. I think that reduces your argument to an absurdity.

Bell's theorem rules out hidden variables such that Quantum Indeterminacy is an intrinsic property of the world. Fate can therefore hinge on events that are genuinely random.

I'm sorry, but linking to even more quantum physics doesn't exactly help my eyes-glazing-over problem. You're going to have to explain this in layman's terms, but I'll at least help by clearly stating my question: What does quantum mechanics have to do with metaphisical theories about macroscopic fate?

I hope the addition of some "bold" helps you see that I didn't want to glaze you over, I'd already packaged the answer in the terms of the question you posed! The link was only there for if you wanted to check up on the answer for yourself.

[Cathar1950]

Hello Assent, I think we might be losing the plot of this thread but I'll try to clear up some of the misunderstandings all the same.

Can I think of a scenario where the question of life-after-death is not answered after death? Yes, based on my understanding of life, I happen to think that we will never come to know that there is life-after-death.

But you said "A complete ending to existence does count as an answer." (my bold). How can it? This sounds like that Joe who responded (not atypically) to a psychology questionnaire about existential beliefs by answering; "yeah, sure he knows he's dead"

My point is, that you still expect a positive response to your assumption after your death.

No way! Joe does, but I think he's wrong.

I have thought of at least one scenario in which answers are not given at all, so even the idea that "death answers/obsoletes questions" is not a guarantee.

Sure, in the scenario where mind ceases with the cessation of organised matter that we call our brains, answers are not given. We both seem to agree upon that.

I am suggesting that the "questions without answers" do have a reality-based answer, and if or until someone produces this true answer, then no answer held by humans has any inherent merit over any other answer.

Here is where we differ. By your reasoning the opinions of any critic of the parallel universe that I claim exists resembling ours in every detail except that it's all made of modelling clay cannot be considered to have any merit over my own. I think that reduces your argument to an absurdity.

Bell's theorem rules out hidden variables such that Quantum Indeterminacy is an intrinsic property of the world. Fate can therefore hinge on events that are genuinely random.

I'm sorry, but linking to even more quantum physics doesn't exactly help my eyes-glazing-over problem. You're going to have to explain this in layman's terms, but I'll at least help by clearly stating my question: What does quantum mechanics have to do with metaphisical theories about macroscopic fate?

I hope the addition of some "bold" helps you see that I didn't want to glaze you over, I'd already packaged the answer in the terms of the question you posed! The link was only there for if you wanted to check up on the answer for yourself.

Good morning QED.
I can't get back to sleep mostly because I went to sleep to early.
I remember a friend of mine back when we were working on our PhDs in philosophy explaining to me how death personally could not be experience as we only experience other's deaths and we never experience our own. We can experience dying but not our death as to experience is to remember.
Being somewhat of a Whiteheadian more influenced by Hartshorne I could see his point.
He was into existentialism. I remember sitting and reading about memory when my kids ran through the room and thinking about how I was remembering them running because it had already happened even as I was experiencing it. First it happened then my eyes got the light filtered it through my brain and then fed it back through the visual cortex to my brain again. But it was already the past before I was aware of it. It is all memory.
What was my point?
Oh yes now I remember, people don't wake up dead.
Of course I tend to think everything is connected and interrelated. Everything is a lopsided manifestation of the singularity. I often imagine waking up after I die remembering me, as I do my childhood, plus everyone else that has happened. I would no longer have a consciousness of myself as I am gone and no longer experience. Granted It may not be much of a consolation as I hang on to memories and consciousness now and my identity.
It is fun to speculate.

[QED]

Hello Cathar1950, I think I can smell the coffee already

It is fun to speculate.

Of course, that seems to be our fate.

It's been noted in psychology that we're only equipped to imagine a continuous stream of consciousness. Trying to imagine the cessation of consciousness is impossible when modelling it in a stream of consciousness. But clearly consciousness begins at some point (albeit slowly) -- we're not conscious before we're born so why should we expect a process that begins with a material being not to end when we "de-materialise"? The human population is constantly getting bigger so we can't really argue that consciousness never has a fresh beginning (even if we swear that we've personally been reincarnated). So if it's not eternal stretching back in time, i.e. it is something contingent, then why should we suppose it could possess any independent properties once it has been manifested?

One motivation for imagining the impossible has already been given as our inadequate modelling abilities. Another obvious motivation is to tell ourselves a seemingly harmless and comforting story -- one that can never be tested and have the results communicated to all. If beliefs about importance are built around ideas that can't be tested, they seem to be of little real value (says he, trying to steer things back on topic).

[Cathar1950]

Back on topic?

1. why do religious people think we are so important and that an entity is watching us and only us (supposedly being the only living things in the universe) all the time with no other life if our universe is this big. It just seems arrogant to me.

Why wouldn't we think we are not important being we are watching?
Who says they is only us. Why would we assume we are the only ones? We are not the only life forms on earth. Even Chimps can add. It seems arrogant to me not to think we are not important. Our survival as a life form was dependent upon wanting to avoid danger and pain. Becoming self aware through human or animal evolution should give us some feelings of awe.

2. Why would he make all of those galaxies so far away?

There were not always that far away. The distance seems necessary for the formation of galaxies.

3. If you believe the bible in saying the earth is 6000 years old then how do we see stars millions of light years away (the light wouldn't have reached us yet)

I don't know why anyone with any concept of history would think we were only 6000 years old as even in the Americas there seems to have been humans as far back as 40,000 years ago from Australia in South America.
They have found signs of humans that date back 20,000 in North America. I remember reading about a bone or antler with Orion the Hunter, belt and all, that dates to 32,500 years ago.