There is nothing in the structure of the universe that would indicate any kind of intelligence, it's more like chaos instead of an ordered, well-designed simulation a sensible researcher would do.
Adding another layer does not solve any problems, it just further obfuscates things. Use Occam's razor instead of the God of gaps and cut away completely unnecessary layers. They have no use.
Besides deist arguments open up a steep slippery slope for people who don't exactly get the basis of the argument (e.g. "There might be a god" -> "ALL HAIL YAHWEH")
Really we are so used to the idea of the "generic" view of God that in an event where a divine/higher thing/being/whatever did actually exist, we probably wouldn't be able to recognise it.
When you think about it, modern technology is some of the most ape shit crazy stuff you can imagine, but we take it for granted because we are so used to it (the internet is the internet, most people do not ponder its existence when they go online).
For example, if a divine being consisted of all the paper clips in the world, we wouldn't be able to recognise it because to us, they are "just" paper clips.
I remember hearing something about a suggestion for "physics" being some sort of divine power, but most people wouldn't be able to live with such an "impersonal" power.
Maybe it doesn't matter if there is or isn't a god. We exist and we will probably continue existing, so maybe we should just make the most of it and live life.
If paper clips are indeed the almighty being above, we have done pretty well not knowing it for millions of years, so what is there to gain from actually recognising this "god"? Experience of existence tells me that if there is a higher power, he doesn't really care if people believe in him or not because everything has a rational explanation that has deep seated roots in other events. Nothing is spur of the moment.
On July 14 2011 23:39 krndandaman wrote: Yes, I believe in God.
it's really quite ridiculous how many people complain about Christians shoving religion down others' throats when atheists try to do the same to me (bash my beliefs).
I really don't get why a lot of the people on this forum are making statements such as "whoever believes in an invisible old bearded man in the sky is clearly dangerous and insane". Honestly?
If you did any research you'd understand that it really isn't far-fetched at all to believe in a god or higher-being in the first place.
Either way, arguing about religion on the internet really never gets anywhere lol.
Shoving beliefs down people's throats is trying to enforce religious dogma into law, like what many Christians do, still actively fighting against gay marriage, not telling you you're stupid. Maybe when an atheist tries to ban Christianity you may have a point.
as a philosophy student all your wikipedia "knowledge" makes me close to actually vomiting..so does the Christianity and any other religions some people have created and still create in order to give their life anything that the common human beeing refers to as a sense. This goes for any Scientific reasoning aswell, for it is always, in the core, at the start, to believe in something, to put something at the start of argument, which cannot be proven. Any mathematical axioms for example are honestly the same as believing in something like a divine god. This does not mean in any way that you all shoudnt be allowed to believe what you want. In the end I actually dont give a crap what you think is right or wrong for it doesnt matter at all to be frank. All this nonsense just pulls you further away from actually asking yourself the real questions you should have ask yourself about how and why and where and when you want to spend your life. Only the weak search for any kind of guidance in faith, unable to accept that life is cruel and an end will surely come and therefor should live in the very moment, instead of always looking right and left should rather gather their own strenght to actually be who they are, who they are meant to be.
On July 14 2011 21:35 Demonace34 wrote: Your argument for god is: The world is beautiful -----> There is a god.
There is also death, destruction, famine and tons of injustices. The universe is chaotic, stars blow up everyday, and our sun will eventually blow up. I don't think that a beautiful world proves the existence of god.
But those things are a result of mankind sinning. We are responsible for that, not God. In order to have free will, we have to be able to take the good with the bad - otherwise we would have just been robots programmed to do exactly what God wants. But because God loved us so much we were created with the freedom to choose for ourselves what we want. Unfortunately many people choose to turn away from God, which is why there are so many horrible things happening in the world today.
I would just say that many atheists have well intentioned moral and ethical beliefs and can actually be altruistic without god in the picture. We also have atleast a basic understanding of world religions and have well thought out arguments against theists.
Yes, I don't disagree with you there. Atheists are just as capable of being altruistic as Christians. The problem is though none of us are perfect, so even if you donated a million dollars to charity, if you murdered someone you would still have to go to jail, just as a murderer with no money would also go to jail. The difference between a Christian and an atheist is that while we are not perfect, we have accepted Jesus' death for us.
What bothers me is that you seem to assume that nonbelievers only live for things like money, sex and power. I find that a very arrogant attitude! While I don't see that there is any objective "meaning of life", I do try to lead a meaningful and ethical life. My work and my relations with friends and family are every bit as meaningful as yours, and art and music can at times touch me to the core. Do you really feel the need to insist that such things are meaningless?
I didn't say you only lived for money, sex and power, but those are certainly the things you aspire to in your life - would you not agree? There's nothing greater - no God to believe in - so once you reach that level of money, fame and power, you have nothing to live for anymore. The difference with Christianity is that Christians believe in God, who is infinite, so there is no limit as to how high we can soar on his eagle's wings.
I don't have time to watch all the videos the rest of you have posted, but I strongly recommend you watch this to get a better understanding of Christianity. The pastor here is also black, like the guy in the video you posted above:
I think I speak on behalf of all Christians here on TL when I say we truly genuinely care about what will happen to your souls when you die, and if you believe in things like homosexuality and pornography it will only lead to death. Pornography is perhaps the most destructive thing in the world today that is leading to countless evils being committed (rape, suicide, homocide). I know this because I used to be an atheist myself, but then I went to a Christian camp at the invitation of a friend when I was 17. It was super fun and very eye-opening.
It turns out, God gave me some visions of my relationship with my girlfriend at the time failing there, because they had some speeches they do there about previous experiences, and apperantly one girl there had a vision that her relationship was becoming bad, and then it did. It made me realise that God comes first, and so my girlfriend had to become a close second in my life.
That's probably the hardest thing about Christianity - yes, there are wars that are happening in the world and poverty and starvation and economic crises, but nothing is harder than putting aside the 'self' and putting Jesus first in your life. If anyone wants to talk about this more feel free to PM me.
I think I speak on behalf of all decently sensible people here when I say I'm genuinely concerned about how insanely delusional you are. "Pornography is the most destructive thing in the world today." It's almost like you didn't even grow up in the same reality as I did. Pornography is perfectly healthy and doesn't cause any of those things, I'm sorry you've been so thoroughly brainwashed. Yeah it's not the holy wars that still happen, the idiot politicians, greedy corporations, evil religious dogma, nope, porn is gonna be the end of us.
I still think burden of proof is on the person believing in god, atheism is without belief and isn't claiming certainty of no god. The video wraps it up well.
Glad to see the thread hasn't turned into a shitfest/flamewar yet, hopefully it can stay that way.
I watched the start of the video and already there are a couple things I disagree with.
Let me first define atheism for you: "Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities"
Copied off of wikipedia.
As far as I can tell, this literally means that an atheist considers it a fact that there is no God, of any kind. However, since one cannot state that as a fact (Since there are legit reasonings leading to the conclusion of there being a God, in the broadest sense of the word) one could say that, atheists ->believe<- there is no God, at all.
Which brings me back to my post you quoted.
In that case you can claim that there are no facts, because the universe is huge and we can't know.
...Which is daft.
You can't say the flying spaghetti monster nor scientology is untrue but people consider those false without even thinking about it. Same with most of the over 3000 dead religions gods.
I could make up a god right now, and it would have the same likelihood of the christian god or any other god existing. I could make it as ridiculous as possible, and it would still not be "unprovable". And you couldn't say I just made it up, because I could be a prophet!
So understand that if you go down the seriously weak route of "well you can't prove a god doesn't exist" what you're really doing is instead of judging religion with the critical thinking faculties you've applied to unicorns, leprechauns, pixies, all the old weird religions/paganism, you're going with paschal's wager. And paschal's wager is a contemptable piece of writing, because it seems to assume that the god in question (who is supposedly omniscient) could be fooled by a mere human.
It's just pathetic pandering.
Um, just saying, but the Christian God has much more sources backing it up on top of testimonials, historical documents, etc. whereas the flying spaghetti monster and whatever god you may conjure up doesn't. So yeah, I don't think it's fair to put it that way lol
It simply doesn't. The closest historian to "jesus" was Josephus, who wrote hand-me-down stories 20 years after his supposed death. Imagine if someone today attempted to hand in a history paper as an accurate source, with all information being obtained from uneducated, illiterate story tellers 20 years after the supposed event? You'd be given an F.
All other accounts are even more out of their time.
Anyway back to deism, so do you who just randomly "believe" to fill in a gap of knowledge instead of saying I don't know, not feel any intellectual dishonesty to that? Not feel as if you're selling your own mental abilities short? I would.
I believe that we cannot know and as such I'm an agnost or a 'weak' atheist. I believe both theists and 'strong' atheists are equally incorrect.
I also believe that if there is a god, all the current main religions are absolutely wrong because they contradict themselves and are not logically possible and as such that god would be not discovered yet (if it even wanted to be, or if it even could be).
Example, Adam and Eve were told not to eat from the tree of Good and Evil. How were they supposed to know the consequences of their actions when they hadn't eaten from it yet and as such they could not yet distinguish between right and wrong. Yeah, that's right
On July 14 2011 21:35 Demonace34 wrote: Your argument for god is: The world is beautiful -----> There is a god.
There is also death, destruction, famine and tons of injustices. The universe is chaotic, stars blow up everyday, and our sun will eventually blow up. I don't think that a beautiful world proves the existence of god.
But those things are a result of mankind sinning. We are responsible for that, not God. In order to have free will, we have to be able to take the good with the bad - otherwise we would have just been robots programmed to do exactly what God wants. But because God loved us so much we were created with the freedom to choose for ourselves what we want. Unfortunately many people choose to turn away from God, which is why there are so many horrible things happening in the world today.
I would just say that many atheists have well intentioned moral and ethical beliefs and can actually be altruistic without god in the picture. We also have atleast a basic understanding of world religions and have well thought out arguments against theists.
Yes, I don't disagree with you there. Atheists are just as capable of being altruistic as Christians. The problem is though none of us are perfect, so even if you donated a million dollars to charity, if you murdered someone you would still have to go to jail, just as a murderer with no money would also go to jail. The difference between a Christian and an atheist is that while we are not perfect, we have accepted Jesus' death for us.
What bothers me is that you seem to assume that nonbelievers only live for things like money, sex and power. I find that a very arrogant attitude! While I don't see that there is any objective "meaning of life", I do try to lead a meaningful and ethical life. My work and my relations with friends and family are every bit as meaningful as yours, and art and music can at times touch me to the core. Do you really feel the need to insist that such things are meaningless?
I didn't say you only lived for money, sex and power, but those are certainly the things you aspire to in your life - would you not agree? There's nothing greater - no God to believe in - so once you reach that level of money, fame and power, you have nothing to live for anymore. The difference with Christianity is that Christians believe in God, who is infinite, so there is no limit as to how high we can soar on his eagle's wings.
I don't have time to watch all the videos the rest of you have posted, but I strongly recommend you watch this to get a better understanding of Christianity. The pastor here is also black, like the guy in the video you posted above:
I think I speak on behalf of all Christians here on TL when I say we truly genuinely care about what will happen to your souls when you die, and if you believe in things like homosexuality and pornography it will only lead to death. Pornography is perhaps the most destructive thing in the world today that is leading to countless evils being committed (rape, suicide, homocide). I know this because I used to be an atheist myself, but then I went to a Christian camp at the invitation of a friend when I was 17. It was super fun and very eye-opening.
It turns out, God gave me some visions of my relationship with my girlfriend at the time failing there, because they had some speeches they do there about previous experiences, and apperantly one girl there had a vision that her relationship was becoming bad, and then it did. It made me realise that God comes first, and so my girlfriend had to become a close second in my life.
That's probably the hardest thing about Christianity - yes, there are wars that are happening in the world and poverty and starvation and economic crises, but nothing is harder than putting aside the 'self' and putting Jesus first in your life. If anyone wants to talk about this more feel free to PM me.
I think I speak on behalf of all decently sensible people here when I say I'm genuinely concerned about how insanely delusional you are. "Pornography is the most destructive thing in the world today." It's almost like you didn't even grow up in the same reality as I did. Pornography is perfectly healthy and doesn't cause any of those things, I'm sorry you've been so thoroughly brainwashed. Yeah it's not the holy wars that still happen, the idiot politicians, greedy corporations, evil religious dogma, nope, porn is gonna be the end of us.
I think he was exaggerating a bit when he said pornography "is the most destructive thing in the world today". Nevertheless, calling him delusional is a bit far fetch because pornography does have its harm. People can become addicted to it. It has ruined healthy relationships, marriages, families. In addition, children are becoming increasingly exposed to it. And if you argue that this is not unhealthy, then I would really want to hear your argument.
I didn't say you only lived for money, sex and power, but those are certainly the things you aspire to in your life - would you not agree? There's nothing greater - no God to believe in - so once you reach that level of money, fame and power, you have nothing to live for anymore. The difference with Christianity is that Christians believe in God, who is infinite, so there is no limit as to how high we can soar on his eagle's wings.
I have the whole universe to believe in, I don't see how that is not enough. I see the wonder of life in every leaf of grass to every galaxy.
On July 14 2011 21:35 Demonace34 wrote: Your argument for god is: The world is beautiful -----> There is a god.
There is also death, destruction, famine and tons of injustices. The universe is chaotic, stars blow up everyday, and our sun will eventually blow up. I don't think that a beautiful world proves the existence of god.
But those things are a result of mankind sinning. We are responsible for that, not God. In order to have free will, we have to be able to take the good with the bad - otherwise we would have just been robots programmed to do exactly what God wants. But because God loved us so much we were created with the freedom to choose for ourselves what we want. Unfortunately many people choose to turn away from God, which is why there are so many horrible things happening in the world today.
I would just say that many atheists have well intentioned moral and ethical beliefs and can actually be altruistic without god in the picture. We also have atleast a basic understanding of world religions and have well thought out arguments against theists.
Yes, I don't disagree with you there. Atheists are just as capable of being altruistic as Christians. The problem is though none of us are perfect, so even if you donated a million dollars to charity, if you murdered someone you would still have to go to jail, just as a murderer with no money would also go to jail. The difference between a Christian and an atheist is that while we are not perfect, we have accepted Jesus' death for us.
What bothers me is that you seem to assume that nonbelievers only live for things like money, sex and power. I find that a very arrogant attitude! While I don't see that there is any objective "meaning of life", I do try to lead a meaningful and ethical life. My work and my relations with friends and family are every bit as meaningful as yours, and art and music can at times touch me to the core. Do you really feel the need to insist that such things are meaningless?
I didn't say you only lived for money, sex and power, but those are certainly the things you aspire to in your life - would you not agree? There's nothing greater - no God to believe in - so once you reach that level of money, fame and power, you have nothing to live for anymore. The difference with Christianity is that Christians believe in God, who is infinite, so there is no limit as to how high we can soar on his eagle's wings.
I don't have time to watch all the videos the rest of you have posted, but I strongly recommend you watch this to get a better understanding of Christianity. The pastor here is also black, like the guy in the video you posted above:
I think I speak on behalf of all Christians here on TL when I say we truly genuinely care about what will happen to your souls when you die, and if you believe in things like homosexuality and pornography it will only lead to death. Pornography is perhaps the most destructive thing in the world today that is leading to countless evils being committed (rape, suicide, homocide). I know this because I used to be an atheist myself, but then I went to a Christian camp at the invitation of a friend when I was 17. It was super fun and very eye-opening.
It turns out, God gave me some visions of my relationship with my girlfriend at the time failing there, because they had some speeches they do there about previous experiences, and apperantly one girl there had a vision that her relationship was becoming bad, and then it did. It made me realise that God comes first, and so my girlfriend had to become a close second in my life.
That's probably the hardest thing about Christianity - yes, there are wars that are happening in the world and poverty and starvation and economic crises, but nothing is harder than putting aside the 'self' and putting Jesus first in your life. If anyone wants to talk about this more feel free to PM me.
I think I speak on behalf of all decently sensible people here when I say I'm genuinely concerned about how insanely delusional you are. "Pornography is the most destructive thing in the world today." It's almost like you didn't even grow up in the same reality as I did. Pornography is perfectly healthy and doesn't cause any of those things, I'm sorry you've been so thoroughly brainwashed. Yeah it's not the holy wars that still happen, the idiot politicians, greedy corporations, evil religious dogma, nope, porn is gonna be the end of us.
I think he was exaggerating a bit when he said pornography "is the most destructive thing in the world today". Nevertheless, calling him delusional is a bit far fetch because pornography does have its harm. People can become addicted to it. It has ruined healthy relationships, marriages, families. In addition, children are becoming increasingly exposed to it. And if you argue that this is not unhealthy, then I would really want to hear your argument.
No, people's discomfort with it has ruined relationships. That's like saying homosexuality ruins families, it's not homosexuality it's their homophobia. And fucking seriously porn addiction? Well fucking chocolate ruins relationships because people get addicted to it then become fat. FUCKING CHOCOLATE LETS BAN IT. You can get "addicted" to anything, it's not the porn's fault it lies solely on the people in question. Also starcraft ruins lives, people get addicted. Why are you playing this evil game? Fucking blasphemer.
I still think burden of proof is on the person believing in god, atheism is without belief and isn't claiming certainty of no god. The video wraps it up well.
Glad to see the thread hasn't turned into a shitfest/flamewar yet, hopefully it can stay that way.
I watched the start of the video and already there are a couple things I disagree with.
Let me first define atheism for you: "Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities"
Copied off of wikipedia.
As far as I can tell, this literally means that an atheist considers it a fact that there is no God, of any kind. However, since one cannot state that as a fact (Since there are legit reasonings leading to the conclusion of there being a God, in the broadest sense of the word) one could say that, atheists ->believe<- there is no God, at all.
Which brings me back to my post you quoted.
In that case you can claim that there are no facts, because the universe is huge and we can't know.
...Which is daft.
You can't say the flying spaghetti monster nor scientology is untrue but people consider those false without even thinking about it. Same with most of the over 3000 dead religions gods.
I could make up a god right now, and it would have the same likelihood of the christian god or any other god existing. I could make it as ridiculous as possible, and it would still not be "unprovable". And you couldn't say I just made it up, because I could be a prophet!
So understand that if you go down the seriously weak route of "well you can't prove a god doesn't exist" what you're really doing is instead of judging religion with the critical thinking faculties you've applied to unicorns, leprechauns, pixies, all the old weird religions/paganism, you're going with paschal's wager. And paschal's wager is a contemptable piece of writing, because it seems to assume that the god in question (who is supposedly omniscient) could be fooled by a mere human.
It's just pathetic pandering.
Um, just saying, but the Christian God has much more sources backing it up on top of testimonials, historical documents, etc. whereas the flying spaghetti monster and whatever god you may conjure up doesn't. So yeah, I don't think it's fair to put it that way lol
It simply doesn't. The closest historian to "jesus" was Josephus, who wrote hand-me-down stories 20 years after his supposed death. Imagine if someone today attempted to hand in a history paper as an accurate source, with all information being obtained from uneducated, illiterate story tellers 20 years after the supposed event? You'd be given an F.
All other accounts are even more out of their time.
Anyway back to deism, so do you who just randomly "believe" to fill in a gap of knowledge instead of saying I don't know, not feel any intellectual dishonesty to that? Not feel as if you're selling your own mental abilities short? I would.
Being a Deist is not very different from being an Atheist really. Think about it. When you ask why ppl randomly believe in something like God, same can be ask for every scientific theory such as gravity.
Can you prove God's existence? No. Can you prove gravity's existence? No. Einstein once said "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Point is, just like any sound scientific theory, God is an idea/phenomena that many assumes exist. And until we found evidence to disprove God, it is absolutely logical for ppl to be deist.
Comparing addiction of pornography to something like chocolate is silly. Tell me stories of those addicted to chocolate and how their lives deteriorated. Enlighten me.
So you argue that it is solely the person's responsibility and not the source of the problem? Then heroine and cocaine should be legalized and made available for everybody, because in the end, if they abuse it, it is their fault. If a child gets it from some bum on the street and die from overdose, its the child's fault.
I still think burden of proof is on the person believing in god, atheism is without belief and isn't claiming certainty of no god. The video wraps it up well.
Glad to see the thread hasn't turned into a shitfest/flamewar yet, hopefully it can stay that way.
I watched the start of the video and already there are a couple things I disagree with.
Let me first define atheism for you: "Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities"
Copied off of wikipedia.
As far as I can tell, this literally means that an atheist considers it a fact that there is no God, of any kind. However, since one cannot state that as a fact (Since there are legit reasonings leading to the conclusion of there being a God, in the broadest sense of the word) one could say that, atheists ->believe<- there is no God, at all.
Which brings me back to my post you quoted.
In that case you can claim that there are no facts, because the universe is huge and we can't know.
...Which is daft.
You can't say the flying spaghetti monster nor scientology is untrue but people consider those false without even thinking about it. Same with most of the over 3000 dead religions gods.
I could make up a god right now, and it would have the same likelihood of the christian god or any other god existing. I could make it as ridiculous as possible, and it would still not be "unprovable". And you couldn't say I just made it up, because I could be a prophet!
So understand that if you go down the seriously weak route of "well you can't prove a god doesn't exist" what you're really doing is instead of judging religion with the critical thinking faculties you've applied to unicorns, leprechauns, pixies, all the old weird religions/paganism, you're going with paschal's wager. And paschal's wager is a contemptable piece of writing, because it seems to assume that the god in question (who is supposedly omniscient) could be fooled by a mere human.
It's just pathetic pandering.
Um, just saying, but the Christian God has much more sources backing it up on top of testimonials, historical documents, etc. whereas the flying spaghetti monster and whatever god you may conjure up doesn't. So yeah, I don't think it's fair to put it that way lol
It simply doesn't. The closest historian to "jesus" was Josephus, who wrote hand-me-down stories 20 years after his supposed death. Imagine if someone today attempted to hand in a history paper as an accurate source, with all information being obtained from uneducated, illiterate story tellers 20 years after the supposed event? You'd be given an F.
All other accounts are even more out of their time.
Anyway back to deism, so do you who just randomly "believe" to fill in a gap of knowledge instead of saying I don't know, not feel any intellectual dishonesty to that? Not feel as if you're selling your own mental abilities short? I would.
Being a Deist is not very different from being an Atheist really. Think about it. When you ask why ppl randomly believe in something like God, same can be ask for every scientific theory such as gravity.
Can you prove God's existence? No. Can you prove gravity's existence? No. Einstein once said "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Point is, just like any sound scientific theory, God is an idea/phenomena that many assumes exist. And until we found evidence to disprove God, it is absolutely logical for ppl to be deist.
Tl;dr Chill guys. No need to get heated.
No it is not logical. My god, it is not logical to believe in something without evidence. I saw an ufo today! You have to believe me now, even though I did not provide any evidence because that how logic works! I also saw a two headed rabbit with wings and it breath fire out of it's anus! You'd better believe me or you're being illogical!
And you're also not making a distinction between two completely different things, namely gravity and the theory of gravity. Gravity is a fact, the theory of gravity attempts to explain how gravity works. Evolution is a fact, the theory of evolution tries to explain how evolution works. Stars are a fact, the 'theory of stars' tries to explain how they work.
On July 15 2011 00:40 mowglie wrote: Comparing addiction of pornography to something like chocolate is silly. Tell me stories of those addicted to chocolate and how their lives deteriorated. Enlighten me.
So you argue that it is solely the person's responsibility and not the source of the problem? Then heroine and cocaine should be legalized and made available for everybody, because in the end, if they abuse it, it is their fault. If a child gets it from some bum on the street and die from overdose, its the child's fault.
Why are you playing video games? Don't you know that video games ruin people's lives? Is it that guy's fault who played 3 days straight and died? Starcraft should be BANNED. It is clearly evil, and a detriment to this world.
I suppose you are also in favor of banning alcohol, or any other substance or activity that could be considered addictive?
I still think burden of proof is on the person believing in god, atheism is without belief and isn't claiming certainty of no god. The video wraps it up well.
Glad to see the thread hasn't turned into a shitfest/flamewar yet, hopefully it can stay that way.
I watched the start of the video and already there are a couple things I disagree with.
Let me first define atheism for you: "Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities"
Copied off of wikipedia.
As far as I can tell, this literally means that an atheist considers it a fact that there is no God, of any kind. However, since one cannot state that as a fact (Since there are legit reasonings leading to the conclusion of there being a God, in the broadest sense of the word) one could say that, atheists ->believe<- there is no God, at all.
Which brings me back to my post you quoted.
In that case you can claim that there are no facts, because the universe is huge and we can't know.
...Which is daft.
You can't say the flying spaghetti monster nor scientology is untrue but people consider those false without even thinking about it. Same with most of the over 3000 dead religions gods.
I could make up a god right now, and it would have the same likelihood of the christian god or any other god existing. I could make it as ridiculous as possible, and it would still not be "unprovable". And you couldn't say I just made it up, because I could be a prophet!
So understand that if you go down the seriously weak route of "well you can't prove a god doesn't exist" what you're really doing is instead of judging religion with the critical thinking faculties you've applied to unicorns, leprechauns, pixies, all the old weird religions/paganism, you're going with paschal's wager. And paschal's wager is a contemptable piece of writing, because it seems to assume that the god in question (who is supposedly omniscient) could be fooled by a mere human.
It's just pathetic pandering.
Um, just saying, but the Christian God has much more sources backing it up on top of testimonials, historical documents, etc. whereas the flying spaghetti monster and whatever god you may conjure up doesn't. So yeah, I don't think it's fair to put it that way lol
It simply doesn't. The closest historian to "jesus" was Josephus, who wrote hand-me-down stories 20 years after his supposed death. Imagine if someone today attempted to hand in a history paper as an accurate source, with all information being obtained from uneducated, illiterate story tellers 20 years after the supposed event? You'd be given an F.
All other accounts are even more out of their time.
Anyway back to deism, so do you who just randomly "believe" to fill in a gap of knowledge instead of saying I don't know, not feel any intellectual dishonesty to that? Not feel as if you're selling your own mental abilities short? I would.
Being a Deist is not very different from being an Atheist really. Think about it. When you ask why ppl randomly believe in something like God, same can be ask for every scientific theory such as gravity.
Can you prove God's existence? No. Can you prove gravity's existence? No. Einstein once said "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Point is, just like any sound scientific theory, God is an idea/phenomena that many assumes exist. And until we found evidence to disprove God, it is absolutely logical for ppl to be deist.
Tl;dr Chill guys. No need to get heated.
What you are saying is: it is and will be always, till the end of times be possible that there is a god. Even when there is amounts of evidence there isn't one because you can never be really sure. You are right in that but that's not how logic works.
On July 14 2011 23:39 krndandaman wrote: Yes, I believe in God.
it's really quite ridiculous how many people complain about Christians shoving religion down others' throats when atheists try to do the same to me (bash my beliefs).
I really don't get why a lot of the people on this forum are making statements such as "whoever believes in an invisible old bearded man in the sky is clearly dangerous and insane". Honestly?
If you did any research you'd understand that it really isn't far-fetched at all to believe in a god or higher-being in the first place.
Either way, arguing about religion on the internet really never gets anywhere lol.
Shoving beliefs down people's throats is trying to enforce religious dogma into law, like what many Christians do, still actively fighting against gay marriage, not telling you you're stupid. Maybe when an atheist tries to ban Christianity you may have a point.
I don't see how that covers the millions of Christians around the world (You're probably addressing Christians who live in the US who oppose gay marriage). Me personally as a Christian, think we have much bigger things to worry about than allowing gay marriage. Would I oppose gay marriage? To be honest, I don't even care. I believe that deciding whether gay marriage is legalized or not is not an issue Christians should be so concerned with. Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin. Getting married doesn't make the sin any worse so I don't quite agree with the Christians vehemently opposing gay marriage. Also, I feel that calling someone stupid for a belief they have is just wrong. Many people with different levels of intelligence, both high and low, believe in a god. It isn't something that can be physically proved or disproved so it's quite pointless to call someone stupid over it. Especially when it's believed by a good 1/3 of the world. My point is that there should be a basic level of respect and courtesy between people no matter the difference in religion.
I still think burden of proof is on the person believing in god, atheism is without belief and isn't claiming certainty of no god. The video wraps it up well.
Glad to see the thread hasn't turned into a shitfest/flamewar yet, hopefully it can stay that way.
I watched the start of the video and already there are a couple things I disagree with.
Let me first define atheism for you: "Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities"
Copied off of wikipedia.
As far as I can tell, this literally means that an atheist considers it a fact that there is no God, of any kind. However, since one cannot state that as a fact (Since there are legit reasonings leading to the conclusion of there being a God, in the broadest sense of the word) one could say that, atheists ->believe<- there is no God, at all.
Which brings me back to my post you quoted.
In that case you can claim that there are no facts, because the universe is huge and we can't know.
...Which is daft.
You can't say the flying spaghetti monster nor scientology is untrue but people consider those false without even thinking about it. Same with most of the over 3000 dead religions gods.
I could make up a god right now, and it would have the same likelihood of the christian god or any other god existing. I could make it as ridiculous as possible, and it would still not be "unprovable". And you couldn't say I just made it up, because I could be a prophet!
So understand that if you go down the seriously weak route of "well you can't prove a god doesn't exist" what you're really doing is instead of judging religion with the critical thinking faculties you've applied to unicorns, leprechauns, pixies, all the old weird religions/paganism, you're going with paschal's wager. And paschal's wager is a contemptable piece of writing, because it seems to assume that the god in question (who is supposedly omniscient) could be fooled by a mere human.
It's just pathetic pandering.
Um, just saying, but the Christian God has much more sources backing it up on top of testimonials, historical documents, etc. whereas the flying spaghetti monster and whatever god you may conjure up doesn't. So yeah, I don't think it's fair to put it that way lol
It simply doesn't. The closest historian to "jesus" was Josephus, who wrote hand-me-down stories 20 years after his supposed death. Imagine if someone totoday attempted to hand in a history paper as an accurate source, with all information being obtained from uneducated, illiterate story tellers 20 years after the supposed event? You'd be given an F.
All other accounts are even more out of their time.
Anyway back to deism, so do you who just randomly "believe" to fill in a gap of knowledge instead of saying I don't know, not feel any intellectual dishonesty to that? Not feel as if you're selling your own mental abilities short? I would.
Sigh. Do your research. Have you even read the apologetics? There are many many accurate sources supporting Christianity. It's silly to not think there are. And did you just really try to compare today's ability to record and document information with that of more than 2000 years ago?
There are various things in the Bible that are simply incorrect, there's no evidence to support the story of noah's ark for example, Jesus' existence is questionable, we know the earth wasn't created in 7 days. Inc "it was all a metaphor lolz"
On July 15 2011 00:40 mowglie wrote: Comparing addiction of pornography to something like chocolate is silly. Tell me stories of those addicted to chocolate and how their lives deteriorated. Enlighten me.
So you argue that it is solely the person's responsibility and not the source of the problem? Then heroine and cocaine should be legalized and made available for everybody, because in the end, if they abuse it, it is their fault. If a child gets it from some bum on the street and die from overdose, its the child's fault.
Why are you playing video games? Don't you know that video games ruin people's lives? Is it that guy's fault who played 3 days straight and died? Starcraft should be BANNED. It is clearly evil, and a detriment to this world.
I suppose you are also in favor of banning alcohol, or any other substance or activity that could be considered addictive?
Hey, you can get addicted to food get fat and get heart problems, we should ban food.
Sorry for the condescending tone but you really make no sense (mowglie).
the order and structure of our universe is so obviously created that men are without excuse; when you are judged begging Lord, Lord! I didn't have PROOF you existed, well, you will be without excuse.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
People specifically want to replace the incorruptible monotheistic christian god with their own lusts of idolatry and nihilistic atheism. In fact, today you're a cool dude like Carl Pagan if you come up with your own personal new age sophistry to explain away the creator of heaven and the universe.
6For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Ask yourself: is this the kind of idolatrous culture we have today in the post-Christian american/european world? Are men given over to a reprobate mind because we have turned on God? is violent crime and immorality skyrocketting? Is homosexuality becoming more and more prominent and acceptable? Could it be that a whole new generation of kiddies trained by school in pantheist evolutionism is what led America to murder 60 million infants in the womb?
EPT
