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My mind is in this universe. But it sounds to me as if you are saying the Universe has a 'mind' of its own, independent of us. Is that right? If so, where is it, and what does it do? What evidence do you have of it?

tar, The one thing that jumps out at me in your post, is your personification of the universe. Its 'power' and 'authority'. The feeling that you 'belong' to it. None of that strikes a chord with me at all. Do you feel the universe has some kind of 'mind'?

Thanks for the links. A bit dark and pessimistic for me. My philosophy shares many of the same ideas but is a bit more upbeat. Hope you didn't mind me batting your post and name around like a shuttlecock.

There you go again. Making assumptions about what is going on in my mind instead of addressing what I actually wrote. If you want to argue that it is stupid to compare your version of God to Bill Clinton, then you are going to have to argue with yourself. No one else here has made that claim. Is it really that hard to just read the words and make a comment on those words? If you want to make that assumption go right ahead. I have found it to be risky. If he wanted to clarify what he meant after I questioned his logic then he was certainly free to do so. No, I did not. I tried to show that the logic he used, sans any premises, was faulty and could be used to prove any stupid thing, such as the idea that Bill Clinton does not exist. That is why I said "...using your argument, you could explain why you don't believe in most people." An analogy is not supposed to be a duplicate of the original subject. The purpose is to highlight some aspect of that subject. In this case I used analogy to highlight the fact that his argument, without any premises or clarifications, was faulty. Another waste of time. You got that right. Bite me.

I don't know what you are talking about. You can claim anything about God that you want. So can Seriously Disabled. But I don't see how I can comment on what Seriously Disabled claims until he actually claims it. He did not say he was talking about the God of the bible, or Thor. He didn't mention good deeds, omnipotence, loving, or beneficience, so I don't see how I can comment on those traits, or how you can assume that he is talking about those traits. I was only commenting on what he actually said, not what I assumed he was thinking. For example, you seem to be assuming that I am saying that people cannot claim anything about God. I never said or implied any such thing. Maybe it would be better if you just talked about what I actually said, and not what you assume I am thinking. I already agreed with you that there is a good indication that the God with the traits you described probably does not exist.

Yes, justification for believing in a God. Which God are we talking about? Seriously Disabled did not mention a specific God, and not all Gods provide good deeds. That is why I mentioned the possibility that God does not perform Good Deeds. It is a bit unreasonable to expect that I would somehow know which version of God he is referencing. Or, for that matter, that you would know which version of God he is referencing. Yes, the one mentioned above by you, long after the post by Seriously Disabled that I was addressing. I wasn't addressing your post and the traits you assigned to a God.

In other words, I am wrong because God is omnipotent. Oh, you mean I'm wrong because God is omnipotent, AND loving. Wait, wait. Ok, he's omnipotent, loving, AND beneficent. THAT is why I'm wrong. I have never seen anyone move the goalposts more quickly in my life. If you are unable to be consistent from post to post we can't discuss. Oh, give me a break. Analogies are no longer acceptable for fear someone, somewhere may take exception? My analogy portrayed your mother as capable, caring, and intelligent. You are the one making it personal and looking for sympathy. Get over yourself.

Ah, a dismissive attitude. That is fine, we don't need to discuss it. Very thoughtful of you to also make me feel like shit in the same post. My condolences.

No, but what does matter to me is that if a person makes an assertion that they be prepared to back it up, or not make it in the first place. Dancing around a request for evidence is unseemly.

As far as I know it is because God is often referred to as 'He' in the bible.

You seem to be taking a rather shallow view of religion. You have come to the conclusion that He can't exist because He did not help you out of trouble last week (assuming he is omnipotent and beneficent). No religion claims that is how their God acts. You seem to feel if He has the ability, and it seems to you that he should be helping, then the lack of help is proof He does not exist. This is the same problem I had with the post from Seriously Disabled. If your logic worked, then you could also prove your mother did not exist. You were in trouble (you played ball instead of doing your homework and tomorrow the teacher will yell at you), your mother has the ability to help you (she could do some of the work to help you get it done on time), she wants to perform acts of kindness to you (she is your mother after all), yet she doesn't help. Is she a bastard? Does she not exist? Or is it possible there is something else going on that you might not be aware of? Perhaps she feels she is doing more good by not helping in that way.

Yes, it is traditionally defined that Gods are omnipotent. But an omnipotent God does not imply that a person in need will be helped, and therefore that criterion should not be used to determine whether or not something exists. It's not reasonable to say "God could have helped me but he didn't, therefore he does not exist". It's a bit like saying that I could have won the lottery last week, but I didn't, therefore the lottery does not exist. However, if you are going to change the criteria to 'he is omnipotent and he is not a bit of a shit', then yes, I agree. If he can help, and if he is not a bit of a shit, then him not helping indicates he may not exist. I am, however, unaware of any religion that claims that God will always do what is asked of him.

Ok, so no recent changes. That sounds reasonable. Although how long ago did Homo Sapiens emerge? I am not sure why you are telling me about monogamy and the marital system. You said, "Yes, we evolved in small groups so we are unable to really show much compassion and concern for those who are outside of what we regard as our group." My question is, how do you know that evolving in small groups caused us to have the inability to show much compassion for those outside our group? Perhpas it is the other way around. Perhaps we started with an inability to show much compassion beyond a limited number of people, and therefore we only formed small groups. Perhaps the limited compassion started well before humans evolved.

What has omnipotence got to do with it? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you will do something.

Perhaps God does not go around helping people. I mean, using your argument, you could explain why you don't believe in most people. For example, just plug in 'Bill Clinton' in place of 'God', and you have successfully argued that you don't believe in him either.

Also...much...better...without...all...the...periods.............................................................

How can you possibly know this? Perhaps the way we can relate to smaller groups of people is what drove us to the group size we lived with, and not the other way around. Given that there is so little data about interactions between groups in our distant past it may have been that we interacted in much larger groups, but only lived in smaller groups. Perhaps our level of compassion and concern has absolutely nothing at all to do with group sizes in our past.

I know this is off topic but just wanted to comment on this statement. It is wrong to think we would have wings if we needed them. Or that the reason we don't have them is because we didn't need them or it was better not to have them. You also have to be presented with the option. Wings may be the best thing that could ever happen to man, but if no mutations led in that direction, then we would never get the chance to select for them or not.

Correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief 'Belief in the Big Bang' is to hold the proposition of the Big Bang to be true. If you think that 'Belief in God' is equivalent to 'converting one's neighbors and telling homosexuals that they are going to burn for eternity', I can understand your confusion. I think that taking a group as large and diverse as 'those who believe in God' and making a sweeping generalization about them is a terribly flawed and biased idea.

I assume you are talking about the people who believe in the Big Bang? You aren't trolling, are you?

Your evidence is good, their evidence is bad. Of course you will find the comparison flawed. We have evidence that makes belief in the big bang reasonable to you. Such evidence for belief in God is absent for you. The interpretation of the evidence pointing to the Big Bang could be flawed. Even the evidence could be flawed. The evidence is not proof, and you know that. But to you it is good enough. People look at evidence of God and the interpretation of that evidence. Most know the evidence or interpretation could be flawed, but for them it is good enough. You are drawing a line that says your level of required proof is sufficient for belief but their level is not. That seems exceedingly unfair to me. Why do you get to draw the line? Why not criticize everyone who believes in anything without absolute proof? Or perhaps we could accept that people should be allowed to make up their own minds about their beliefs without fear that they will be labelled as broken by those who have a higher standard of proof than they do. I'm reminded of a George Carlin skit. He said that while driving, everyone feels that anyone who is going faster than them is an idiot, and anyone who is going slower than them is a jerk, and that the speed they are going is just right. Doesn't matter if I drive 60 and you drive 80, we both use the same model for determining who is and idiot and a jerk.

I implied no such thing. You, on the other hand, are implying that they are common to all who believe in God. Surely that cannot be. I am also not conceding the fact that people can be considered broken due to belief. I was stating believers are all in the same boat regardless of what it is they belive in. That is, if one set of believers can be considered broken, then so can the other set. The reason I addressed the belief characteristic is because that is the only thing known to be in common between all members of all groups, whether a belief in God or a belief in the Big Bang. To suggest that all people who believe in God are broken, then they must have something in common that makes them broken. The only thing they are known to have in common is belief. And they also have belief in common with people who believe in the Big Bang. We cannot say that all believers in God are irrational or refuse to accept contrary evidence, since there are so many different beliefs in God. A person who believes in the God of the bible is much different than the person who believes that God created the conditions that would allow our universe and has not been involved with us since. My response would have been different if the OP had been "People who believe in God and who are irrational or refuse to accept contrary evidence are broken". Of course at that point the OP could have been "People who believe in the Big Bang and who are irrational or refuse to accept contrary evidence are broken".

Can you please clarify where the electrons come from? If from a battery it sounds like they come from a chemical process, but what if the electricity comes from something like a hydro-electric source? Since the current flows in a circuit, does that mean that an individual electron can/will end up back at the power plant? If I had a problem with my electrical device and the current was flowing to the ground, are the total number of electrons involved somehow 'reduced'?

Same is true for a black hole. But remember that the escape velocity increases as you get closer to the center of mass. Since a black hole is so small you can get relatively close to the center of mass. Eventually you reach the critical point at which the amount of mass is great enough, and the distance from the center of mass is close enough, that no amount of energy will allow you to reach escape velocity. We are circling a black hole right now that resides at the center of the galaxy, but we are far enough away to be able to escape its gravitational pull.