What do you believe?

[Appawesome]

I believe that there was a Big Bang, and God was created.

[OldTrees]

I believe that there was a Big Bang, and God was created.

Short list of beliefs.
What about you beliefs about:
What is right, what is wrong?
What is a person?

What do you want?
Who are you?
What do you have worth living for?
Is B5 is great or what?

[Ajit]

I believe in Jesus Christ, the trinity, and all of that jazz.  I believe all worldly things can be explained through science, and that God operates through this medium.  I believe there is a Heaven and Hell.  I believe there is an entity named the Devil and I believe in God.  I believe the only thing necessary to getting to Heaven is Christ.  I believe the modern day (perhaps has always been) church is generally a business, a money-making business, however I do believe great things such as teaching people the Christian belief and great support of those less fortunate are a result of the Church.

I believe in most of this because it was what I was taught.  Or at least that's how it started, but I believe the reason I still uphold my beliefs is because they make sense to me and I feel I've developed a relationship with Christ.

[OldTrees]

I believe in Jesus Christ, the trinity, and all of that jazz.  I believe all worldly things can be explained through science, and that God operates through this medium.  I believe there is a Heaven and Hell.  I believe there is an entity named the Devil and I believe in God.  I believe the only thing necessary to getting to Heaven is Christ.  I believe the modern day (perhaps has always been) church is generally a business, a money-making business, however I do believe great things such as teaching people the Christian belief and great support of those less fortunate are a result of the Church.

I believe in most of this because it was what I was taught.  Or at least that's how it started, but I believe the reason I still uphold my beliefs is because they make sense to me and I feel I've developed a relationship with Christ.

Is heaven relevant in the pursuit of moral action/the right?
What do you mean by a relationship with Christ?

[Ajit]

A difficult question I've always thought of, what happens to the "good" people who don't believe in Christ.  What about a great man like Gandhi?  Well, in the end, I've kept it simple, and believe, it isn't mine or anyone else of this world's place to judge who went to Heaven and who didn't.

A relationship with Christ, tough to explain, but you know in the movies when a character says they "just know" something is true, defying any odds?  Well that's what this relationship is.  You have this feeling, you acquire it over time, that Christ has gotten to know you, and you to him. You learn (not only through what is taught to you but through the real life experience) that Christ is there for you, through many facets of life.  But its not all cake and cookies (for lack of a better phrase).  I mean, it, like any other relationship, can and will be tough at times.  Life is not perfect because I believe in Christ, but this world's life is never perfect.

[Funkyvenom]

I believe in Catholicism and all that it stands for, with similar reasons as ajit.

[doublecross]

I do have beliefs that can take the place of the supposedly comforting belief in the afterlife. There are 2 things I believe in strongly, that do the job nicely.
      a)"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" When living my life, I try to avoid joining teams. I do not support factions; I support the truth.
      b)"That which has existed, always will have existed"   I do not need to believe the unprovable statement that people will continue to exist after their physical form is gone, because I have a logically unarguable statement that I find just as comforting. Every event that has happened, always will have happened. No one can argue that.
Everything that existed, will always have existed.
It does not matter if there is no record of it, It does not matter if no one remembers it, it does not even matter that there are no traces of it left; It existed. It happened.



One day, when the universe has either succumbed to Entropy (as this forum has) and gone into heat death, or given into Gravity and re-collapsed into a singularity, and the universe is completely unrecognizable, with nothing even remotely resembling our current world still in existence, our world still WILL HAVE EXISTED. Nothing can take that away, and it is logical fact.

I know it may sound like I believe in a different kind of afterlife, and you can call it that if you really wish. But I believe that would reflect a mis-representation of what I think. I am not claiming there is some kind of celestial book that contains the History of the Universe. Nothing like that. Just the simple logical fact that the past happened. Even if time can be re-written, such that the events really never happened, then, one level up, it will still be history that it happened and then got erased. (People who have read GEB will likely know what I mean by one level up).
 

This is what I cling to instead of an afterlife; I cling to the logical fact that, while people, events, objects, etc. can be erased, nothing can change the fact that they existed. I don't think they continue to exist in some form, but I KNOW that nothing can change the fact that they were a part of this world.

I cling to the truth, and I cling to the the fact that everything that has happened, always will have happened.

[Bloodshadow]

It does not matter if there is no record of it, It does not matter if no one remembers it, it does not even matter that there are no traces of it left; It existed. It happened.

Quantum theory begs to differ. All past and future are uncertain unless observed. When we observe something, we change both its past and future. I'm sorry to say this, but the certainty you believed is scientifically proven to not exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_histories

You may say your conclusion is a logical fact, but quantum theory defies logic, common sense, and intuition.

[doublecross]

I anticipated your argument, and have a response.

There is a concept of "levels". If, on any given level the history has changed, such that it is not even true that it once happened, you can "go one level up" to a history where you see it happening, and then being erased.


If, something somehow changes that level, you go one level further up.

Thus, no matter how much history could be erased, it always will have happened.

EDIT: I am not entirely sure you understand quantum theory.

[Bloodshadow]

There is a concept of "levels". If, on any given level the history has changed, such that it is not even true that it once happened, you can "go one level up" to a history where you see it happening, and then being erased.

I thought that all possible histories are superimposed upon one another simultaneously, but we can only observe one history at a time. Time is like a line containing infinite dots, and our perception is another line that can only intersect with one of the infinite dots in the timeline. Objectively the past doesn't have any certainty, and you can say that "they all happened" and "none of them happened" at the same time. This is my understanding at least.

I am not entirely sure you understand quantum theory.

By all means, point out the errors in my understanding.

[OldTrees]

There is a concept of "levels". If, on any given level the history has changed, such that it is not even true that it once happened, you can "go one level up" to a history where you see it happening, and then being erased.

I thought that all possible histories are superimposed upon one another simultaneously, but we can only observe one history at a time. Time is like a line containing infinite dots, and our perception is another line that can only intersect with one of the infinite dots in the timeline. Objectively the past doesn't have any certainty, and you can say that "they all happened" and "none of them happened" at the same time. This is my understanding at least.

I am not entirely sure you understand quantum theory.

By all means, point out the errors in my understanding.

To start with BloodShadow you should recognize that the multiple histories is only one of the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. The theory is as strong as most Scientific Theories (Theory of Gravity) but the interpretations are being debated and are much less scientific.

The difficulties of interpretation reflect a number of points about the orthodox description of quantum mechanics, including:
The abstract, mathematical nature of the description of quantum mechanics.
The existence of what appear to be non-deterministic and irreversible processes in quantum mechanics.
The phenomenon of entanglement, and in particular, the correlations between remote events that are not expected in classical theory.
The complementarity of possible descriptions of reality.
The essential role played by observers and the process of measurement in the theory.
The rapid rate at which quantum descriptions become more complicated as the size of a system increases.

[doublecross]

Quantum theory is on a particle level.

The heisenburg uncertainty principle deals with various pairings of variables, where the added uncertainty of the two values has a minimum value.


Two of those pairings are momentum and position, and, duration and energy (of a particle).

These are not a limit for how well these can be measured, but rather an absolute limit on how well these are known, even by the universe.


The observer effect does come in here, because, by observing one of the two variables to a certain accuracy, we limit the maximum certainty about the other variable.

To then extend this principle to say that whether or not we observe an event (a macro event involving millions of particles) can modify the history of that event is a misinterpretation of quantum theory.


The problem with quantum theory is that it has gotten into popular culture as a science thing that makes everything uncertain and allows multiple histories and makes observation critical for everything.   
This is not the case.


Even with the observer effect, on a particle level, there is still one history.


The history of that particle would go like this.

At a time t, the particle was located somewhere within [parameter] and its velocity was between [parameters].

Even if uncertainty and the observer effect make it impossible to pinpoint one specific value, there is still one history of what happened.

Please know your science before trying and using it to shoot down someone's beliefs.