Incredible Documentary! Really eye opening, all those I know that have seen it are now looking at religion, politics, the universe etc... in a new light.
I highly recommend it to anyone asking themselves those same questions
"Does God exist? What do u make of religion? and the origin of the universe and life itself?
If u were face to face with God, what would u say to him/her? What are some of the questions u would ask?
Creation vs Evolution vs "the other stuff" : Which one do u agree with?"
If you like this movie, and you want to go deeper into this topic, definitely watch "What the Bleep?!: Down the Rabbit Hole"
I assume you're referring to part 1, since the other two parts don't really have much to do with religion and are mostly hokey conspiracy theory garbage. I never found this to be that eye-opening. It's well known that Christianity and other modern religions evolved from pagan traditions. But perhaps a good viewing for those who aren't aware of this.
quote:
If you like this movie, and you want to go deeper into this topic, definitely watch "What the Bleep?!: Down the Rabbit Hole"
For those that have seen it, I would love to hear your thoughts!
TERRIBLE movie. An attempt at philosophy for the common idiot? There are some good ideas in this, but I found it to be horribly presented. They ask questions with obvious answers like "what are thoughts made of?"... well, of course, your thoughts are made of carbon and hydrogen and other things just like the rest of you. This should only be staggering to people who believe in theism, souls, or other supernatural phenomena. And then it goes on to talk about people bending spoons with their mind and crap like that. Absolute garbage. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, even the layperson, because, like most other bad philosophy documentaries, it tries to make people question their existence by distorting reality in favour of absurdity. I have too little faith in people's ability to THINK and realize that most of what this movie says is utter .
With regards to OP's questions. No, there is no God. I am quite a militant atheist and believe strongly in the harms caused by strong belief in supernatural powers. If you happen to believe that the universe was created by a magical sky wizard who sent his zombie son to die for the sins of humanity... well, I think you're as nuts as people who believed in Zeus and Hera and that crap. Also, I think that your beliefs are damaging to society as a whole.
With regards to Anas's posts on free will and souls; well no, there is no free will; humans are all big clumps of chemicals that act in accordance with natural laws, in a sense no different from robots with memories and self-awareness. There is no soul, there is no free will, and there is nothing "special" about you that makes you any different from any other machine. You're just smart enough (and vain enough) to think that you're special.
If this seems depressing, then that's only because of your prior ill-conceived notions about reality. I happen to think that the natural explanations for life's mysteries are far more elegant and interesting than most of the false "explanations" attempted by religion.
Dr. Z
define existance
ownt
Nick Cenik
quote:
Originally posted by DJ_Elyot
your thoughts are made of carbon and hydrogen and other things just like the rest of you.
Thoughts are incorporeal and, thus, by definition immaterial. This, of course, assumes that one accepts that the mind is separate and distinct from the brain.
DJ_Elyot
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Cenik
Thoughts are incorporeal and, thus, by definition immaterial. This, of course, assumes that one accepts that the mind is separate and distinct from the brain.
Yeah, it's not.
Anas Attia
quote:
Originally posted by DJ_Elyot
If this seems depressing, then that's only because of your prior ill-conceived notions about reality. I happen to think that the natural explanations for life's mysteries are far more elegant and interesting than most of the false "explanations" attempted by religion.
Yea, people upon realization of this are often depressed, but just like I was at first I quickly realized we should be looking at it in a more positive light. We are being set free, to explore ourselves and the world around us without prejudice and with unlimited potential!
Muff2K
god appears in different forms for different cultures.
religion was created to explain what science could not yet understand.
most major religions have great guidelines as to how to be a good person.
.... and dinosaurs created man.
DJ_Elyot
quote:
Originally posted by Muff2K
most major religions have great guidelines as to how to be a good person.
THINK about this. Given two tribes in the woods, one which kills off its people and one which fears their god and believes that killing is sinful, which will be the most successful tribe in 10 generations? Survival of the fittest applies to CULTURE as well as natural selection. So of course, religions will tell you not to kill, not to be gay, to have as many babies as you can, and to give food to your neighbours. Some of these "religious guidelines" might be good, but not all of them are.
The biggest danger with this is that people can't see the forest for the trees. Many religious people BLINDLY follow the teachings of their doctrine without question; this can and HAS lead to many types of behaviour that is unhealthy for humanity... persecution of ethnic minorities and homosexuals, discouraging the use of contraception leading to increases in disease transmission, war, abuses of human rights, abuses of women's rights, the list goes on and on.
People should learn WHY they need to have morals. No, it's not to appease the lord or to be like jesus or whatever. People must make intelligent decisions and even sacrifices sometimes for the greater good of humanity. The greedy algorithm is sometimes suboptimal in life (nash equilibria can be pareto-suboptimal). By "being a good person", we are really just making good decisions and trusting others to do the same, allowing us to wind up in the globally optimal configuration in the prisoner's dilemma. Every child should be taught about the prisoner's dilemma so they can understand WHY they should avoid littering, not fight, etc. Feel-good stories and religious parables are NOT an adequate substitute for this.
tvmann
I always wonder why lots of fairly intelligent & reasonable people have hardcore religious beliefs that seem ridiculous and make about as much sense as believing in Santa Claus. Well, most of them as kids were brainwashed by their parents and churches to clone the religious beliefs onto the young 'uns. It worked. Not too many unindoctrinated adults would independently take up a religion (unless maybe it got them some cash, votes, power, sex, free food etc, which happens).
Still, I wonder why so many people have religious beliefs.
Interesting bit on CBC Radio 1 - The Current - on Dec 29 2008 - interview with prof Harvey Whitehouse about religion. Besides talking about how a lot of religions have similarities, he points out that it may have been in early man's interest to be always looking for things that explain the world and increase the odds of survival - so we were always on the lookout for dangerous animals & situations. And maybe we evolved to have brains that were always looking for some "agency" (supernatural forces, gods etc) that explained the world - thus eventually a natural genetic disposition to take up a religion.
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200812/20081229.html
Audio player there, it's 24 minutes long, the stuff about "agency" starts around 13 minutes. They don't have a podcast for this one but I made a 10 KB mp3:
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