A Civil Religious Debate

God is a metaphor (or title/label) for a being or group of beings that are most trusted.

(I would say in many cases excessively trusted)

Only beings who communicate can be trusted.

A non existent being cannot communicate.

If it wasn't so late at night, I'd probably get it.

So, you're saying that the word 'God' is a metaphor, and that since people who use the word 'God' use the word, then he has to exist, since if he didn't, the word wouldn't relate the metaphor?

I probably just didn't follow that properly because I'm tired.

All radical, one-sided opinions are lame. Anti-religion is lame, and pro-religion is lame. Neither are obviously good or evil, so the only stance should be the moderate one. Compromise fixes these problems, people.

Life is fleeting and questionable. What's to stop people from assuming we're in the Matrix? It's not impossible. There's no proof that we're in the Matrix, but no proof that we're not in the Matrix.

Since life is so extraordinarily fragile within the minds of men, the only thing really keep our world together is sanity. The glue of sanity is faith, the ability to just believe in anything in general.

Since reality is perceptive, and only perceptive, even if something is infallibly proven, is it really infallibly proven? You have no way of proving that anything is infallibly proven. You have to believe, have faith in the idea, that is has been infallibly proven.

Perception of how anyone sees life is such a frail thing... that's why people who are insane tend to see outside the box! They think of apocalypses, demons, aliens, magic, etc. They start cults, found pseudo-sciences, and supposedly have mystical powers. Why does their perception allow them to do that?

Because it's fragile human perception.

The only thing that separates the sane from the insane is their ability to see what's important in life as opposed to 'ifs' and 'whats' and 'could(s)'. That's why we have to have faith to glue our views of life together. I have to have faith in my loved ones to act the way I except them to act, and I have to have faith in myself to do what I expect myself to do. I also have to have faith in gravity to keep working like it should and not let me float off into the clouds and meet my demise!

Simply put, my point is that nobody can simply be. They must believe that they can be. They must have faith that they can be. It's not a religious matter to me as it is to many people, especially atheists.

After all, death is just as much a choice as life. If anything, that should imply that we have to believe in being, not simply just be. Death is always a way out. If we didn't choose to be, why didn't we choose to not be?

I believe faith is far broader then how you describe it. I think it is impossible for a human being to exist without faith. If you have faith in nothing, what do you have? Nothing, to be honest. Just because something can be infallibly proven doesn't mean it doesn't require faith to believe that it's been infallibly proven.

It is apart of the human condition to doubt everything, and it is therefore apart of the human condition to have to have faith in everything.

I believe the absence of the need to have faith will mark both a horrific and angelic age for humanity... considering we will not be human when such a day comes.

Correct, truth is a word I am using by mere human vocabulary. The problem is that it doesn't matter what words I use, none of them would exist without me. I understand this. But to say that everything would not exist without human perception is silly. Existence is infallible. To say everything only exists because we can perceive it is like saying that anything is possible if you open your mind to it. Please, we aren't that important in the grand scheme of things.

Truth and existence are words that would not exist without us, this is correct, but that does not mean that things do not exist without the word 'exist' existing. With or without us, existence exists, in truth. Word or no word, perception or no perception.

Ideas are strange. Love and pain and sorrow and rights... they are real and yet not real. For the purpose of how I've argued before, they are only real in relative to human perception. When you remove perception and the ability to perceive, they do not exist.

Do they still exist in truth even if they cease to exist beyond humankind?

They do, but only as long as humankind exists. Our thoughts are uniform with us. We live and die with them. They were a truth as long as our existence was. Things beyond our existence, however, exist in truth always. They exist before, during, and after, up until some cosmic force destroys them. It does not matter if we can percieve them, that does not change their state of existence in truth.

No, I do not. :) Things exist without humanity. They did before and they will when we are dead.

Truth is absolute, merely because it bypasses human perception. While human perception is the only thing humans can you use to observe, this does not make things untrue. Just because you cannot see something does not mean it does not exist. For all we know, all the colors we see are actually different colors in truth, but that does not mean they are not truthfully the colors that we cannot see.

Truth in infallible, perception is not.

Well I prefer not to over-complicate things. It's wiser that way. :P So I see intelligence as the presences of a self-aware brain. That's when we know that a creature, like humans, feel real emotions and real pain that really matters. If a computer has a self-aware brain, then it's a step away from being, frankly, another intelligent creature.

What are your doubts? The first computer was the size of a skyscrapper. Not even a hundred years later, a computer with 100 times the computing power of the first computer is small enough to fit in someone's smallest orafice.

So I don't have many doubts that it will. When and how, on the other hand, is a different story.

But that's why we have an organization of scientists who are gathered for the soul purpose of making sure the Singularity doesn't kill all of us. Like in the Terminator. Or Matrix. Matrix was a little worse...

Not really, but then again, I don't exactly know what you mean by it only being based on that. I actually may have and just not remember.

Yes, technology does have many ways of moving us backwards! But, when the time came that would could move backwards by use of technology, by killing everyone in a single war with a single variation of weapon, we didn't.

The reason we've gotten this far is because humans have good intentions and ingenuity. Technology kills, but look at the world it has given us so far. It's done a lot more good then bad. Why would it suddenly stop? I think humans have enough faith in the greater good to keep the wheel from spinning backwards.