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This is a thread I have been wanting to start for years but haven't because:
a. I wasn't sure how to word it.
b. I know theists will immediately jump all over it and say 'because - god', and that's just too easy an answer.
c. It's a very broad topic and could end up just being all over the place (I'm happy though, just to just see where it goes).
But here goes.
Organic and biological processes
Back when I lived in the UK, probably a couple of decades ago now, there was documentary about human life presented by world famous fertility expert Robert Winston. They were somehow able to film groundbreaking footage inside the womb of a woman - her human embryo in the minutes when it was just a collection of cells, and then it's heart began beating for the very first time.
And it's the same every time. 21 days after fertilization. The heart will continue to beat in the same rhythm for the next (approx) 79 years.
I was blown away seeing that. It really hit home to me the processes going on around us that we really cannot quite explain.
Human consciousness
Human consciousness is of course is another of the big questions that we have had many threads about on here. Atheists will say something like "consciousness emerges from a complex computation among brain neurons and synapses acting as indivisible bits, or information states". Okay. We know that. But it's not really an answer.
Animal consciouness / animal cognition / animal instinct.
Here's an excellent article that highlights evidence that animals also appear to 'have a mind that exists outside the head' or let's call it conscious thought. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/t...=pocket-newtab
Savant syndrome.
People who have have astonishing and extraordinary abilities, brilliance or talent that usually stand in stark contrast to other social or physical limitations.
Again, many years ago I remember see on the news, this kid Stephen Wiltshire who was able to draw entire, extremely complex architectural landscapes after seeing them just once, after maybe just riding past on a bus. Like his brain is taking pictures. He was only about 9 years old at the time.
He's now world famous and earns his living doing this. He draws entire 360 degree complex accurate landscapes entirely from memory from just seeing them once.
He is of course only one example of a person with similar un-explainable extraordinary abilities.
^^^ So here are just 4 examples of things that blow my mind. There are many, many more. I could go on and on.
I'm interested to know, fellow atheists, are there things that stop you in your tracks once in a while?
What are they? What gives you pause? Do you stop and think about the big questions? Do you not to think about them too much?
Please feel free to add other examples.
This thread is NOT just for atheists BTW. Others free to join in. But I'm interested to hear primarily from atheists.
Sorry I may not be able to interact much on the thread (busy 3 months ahead) but will be interested to read your answers.
EDIT: just realised, for people reading this that don't know me. I'm a VERY firm atheist. This thread isn't about having doubts about that. It's about not having good explanations.
There are reasonable beliefs about the system that has science behind them, easy doesn't Mr. militants, I don't mean the field of science I mean the data and some scientist.
And some atheist will let atheist speaking their mind hang out to dry because of how theist behave. I don't understand that one.
Why the disclaimer? I believe we are in a system that matches alive better than it does not alive. I am a stone sold atheist and when atheist call me a sorta godder ... so what? You do not have to defend yourself to atheism ... its not a thing.
The belief in something more is totally acceptable. It ain't no deity thing that's for sure. Lets talk about what they may be independently of how over zealous theist mis behave.
There are reasonable beliefs about the system that has science behind them, easy doesn't Mr. militants, I don't mean the field of science I mean the data and some scientist.
And some atheist will let atheist speaking their mind hang out to dry because of how theist behave. I don't understand that one.
Why the disclaimer? I believe we are in a system that matches alive better than it does not alive. I am a stone sold atheist and when atheist call me a sorta godder ... so what? You do not have to defend yourself to atheism ... its not a thing.
The belief in something more is totally acceptable. It ain't no deity thing that's for sure. Lets talk about what they may be independently of how over zealous theist mis behave.
Just because for new people to the forum I realised the post might read that I'm actually a theist having a go at atheists. This only occurred to me after I wrote the post. Just wanted to be clear that it's written from the stance of an open and honest atheist.
OP, these are all fascinating questions. I likewise have been perplexed and awed by savants and by the origin of consciousness in particular. I have no answers whatsoever, but I do thank you for starting what will hopefully be an intriguing thread.
OP, these are all fascinating questions. I likewise have been perplexed and awed by savants and by the origin of consciousness in particular. I have no answers whatsoever, but I do thank you for starting what will hopefully be an intriguing thread.
Thanks.
Here's another example that blew me away recently.
Perhaps people could post examples of extraordinary things in nature.
...."in his head a plan of mathematical perfection"
I had no idea! Nature IS amazing, and I do not believe that the universe came about by happenstance and coincidences. I don't know exactly what I believe, but i believe there is something far greater out there than our mortal minds can fathom
I had no idea! Nature IS amazing, and I do not believe that the universe came about by happenstance and coincidences. I don't know exactly what I believe, but i believe there is something far greater out there than our mortal minds can fathom
In the case of Stephen Wiltshire and other savants, they always have extraordinary abilities at the expense of other abilities. Which leads me to believe that maybe there's only so much humans can fit in their brains before something else has to drop by the wayside, and that if we had bigger or differently wired brains we could all have the same ability Stephen has.
Perhaps their are beings somewhere out there in the Universe with better brains than ours that would better comprehend all this than we do?
(I'm aware the path this line of thinking leads down.
What if you could take all the abilities in the world from all the people and all the animals and put them all together into one being?)
The first thing I think of is, how do we relate this to forum? I know that you said a theist will pop 'God' in there as a stopgap, but an atheist won't.
So effectively we have unanswered science questions. And that's all an atheist is going to have to say about it.
And yet there's a relevance simply because God -believers DO pop stopgap -god in there. The relevance is not so much what the answer could be, but why God Isn't an answer. Not to instinct before we knew about DNA, not to morality before the biological basis was understood and those who discussed ethics were rather trying to find an answer to something when they didn't know what the question was.
The Big Three remain: Cosmic origins, Origins of Life and Consciousness. Abiogenesis really isn't a serious Question now. The indirect evidence is compelling as to how it happened, but not exactly how. Rather as the the way the Bronze age collapse is reliable history, even though what caused it is still a mystery.
I recon that Cosmic origins has lost ground rather than gained it, but consciousness may be a rather better Gap for a god than even I thought a decade ago.
So there's a question relevant to Forum and a good one for atheists.
But the answer is the usual one 'The honest and logical answer is 'Don't know'. It is not 'God'.
I am not a violent man.... no, no I'm not, but there are two Godsuckers who really really need their faces smashed in. One is the prophet of doom preaching the earthquakes that would destroy America.
The other was a preacher debating Dillahunty, and the idiot tried to make a case out of atheism not knowing how the cosmic matter originates. That was just idiotic, but the sneering way he did it it qualified him for a 'face that is begging to be turned inside -out' award.
Aside from that, appeal to unknowns is not a valid answer where we don't know. 'We don't know' is the one.
And going back to the start, some questions that were thought to be beyond science have turned out to look like science is what answers them and philosophy, never mind religion, is Not what answers them.
So the scientific pending tray, rather than the religious collection -tray, is the best place for these questions, and, fellow goddless bastards, Darwinist pondslime and fornicators in the street, remember poor old Anthony Flew and don't let the buggers stampede you into signing up to 'God' as an answer when there is only a question.
But, in the process, we get an awful lot of Onion.
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no, no I'm not, but there are two Godsuckers who really really need their faces smashed in. One is the prophet of doom preaching the earthquakes that would destroy America. 
