For a long time I walked the tight rope between Atheist and Agnostic, and I've never been a fan of organized religion of any kind (but that's not what this is about.) I've always done my research on religions and all that kind of stuff, because I'm not the kind of person who likes to be against something I know nothing about. Despite this, I had never heard of "deism" until a couple months ago, and I just attributed my beliefs to Agnosticism.
I believe that everything that is in the Universe, and all of the pieces that tie it together to make it what it is (physics, evolution, etc.), was created by something greater than the Universe, some higher power or being or something.
My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from. It seems like that is a question that very few scientists are even trying to answer.
Assuming a linear understanding of "time" as opposed to a circular one, you are always forced to question what was before whatever is commonly accepted as "the beginning." This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
I believe that whoever or whatever was responsible for the creation of our Universe did JUST that, and then left it alone. No divine intervention, no divine miracles. That is not to say I'm entirely opposed to the supernatural (things such as ghosts) but I think if such things were real, there would be a valid scientific explanation for it, maybe something that we just haven't quite figured out yet.
The above beliefs make me a deist, and I didn't know it. I was just curious if there were other people here who had similar beliefs.
Time is intrinsically linked with mass according to standard relativistic theory, and was therefore created 10^–43 seconds after the Big Bang according to standard models.
Which means causality breaks down before 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang, unless you happen to have a model of causality that doesn't use the one-way flow of time as an axiom. Food for thought.
i really like this, it is really difficult for me (science major) to accurately express my beliefs to my classmates with out being looked down on. It is en vogue right now to hate religion, but honestly I am of the opinion that the divisions between science and religion are not that extreme, one could say that evolution is god, for example.
Without going off on a rant, there are other beliefs, such as pantheism, the idea that the universe and its collective are literally god, a belief held by the late Carl Sagan.
I hope we can all realize that humanity has a lot of common goals, regardless of personal opinion
I became a deist during my 2nd year of high school. my AP european history teacher covered it in class and it seemed more plausible to me that someone created the universe then went off to play a never ending game of golf
It is pretty long (book length), but it has some very interesting arguments. Though you might want to read some background on the work before actually going into it blind.
Do I get it right: You believe in a god only because there is something you can't explain and that must be divine? That's how they did it with with the weather many years ago. They didn't know when there will be rain and when there will be sunshine and they thought it was arbitrary, so they thought a god controlled it and they have to prey to him to have good weather. Nowadays, we can't explain where the universe came from, so it must be created by a god. Do you see the parallels? *facepalm*
In such situations it is not sensible to inject your instinctive explanation in place of the knowledge gap. The answer could be anything, we do not have it. That is where it ends. When we do, we will know. Until then, it is a bad idea to start guessing.
Like seemingly a lot of people these days I only believe in what there is evidence to support. Though I don't dis-believe or have anything against any religion (because there is also no evidence to refute divine beings, assuming you don't nitpick ancient religious texts). I think this makes me agnostic?
As for your reasoning for being Deist, it seems to me that it raises the question of where that original deity came from. Unless you assume that matter requires an origin but divine beings do not, which, considering the inherent impossibility of understanding such an entity is not an unreasonable assumption to add.
I have my own theory as to where the matter in the universe came from, it's based on an arguably silly (and possibly downright inaccurate?) application of math. I think it's a fun subject to come up with answers to, religious or not.
I've considered deism and find myself fascinated by it. Logically, it makes sense. However I don't know if I can accept it. The universe is shockingly unorganized, and it has things in it that, while fascinating, serve little purpose. I think if anything the universe functions as a computer system. It has a maximum rate at which information can be exchanged (light speed) and it even has glitches that seem to violate standard laws (black holes).
Eh, I don't care much for explanations as to how, why, etc. the universe came into being. It's just simpler to think that shit happened and we all came into existence.
If humans have been struggling to explain how we all came into being via religion or science and if we STILL haven't figured it out, is it really worth the trouble? >_>
Nope I'm an atheist. I like some religions, like buddhism and daoism that don't really have the concept of god, especially not the naive "personal" god that many religions subscribe to. The way I approach it is, does belief in god really add any value to life? And to me the answer is no. I can enjoy the beauty of the universe without believing that something created it. and i don't have to worry about what created the creator.
as carl sagan said, if you want to argue that the creator always existed, just take it one step further. the universe always existed. god adds no value and is un-necessary. a belief in god actually takes away value, as anyone who has studied history can tell you.
When it comes down to it, the existence of life, consciousness and intelligence on an inhabitable planet is way too coincidental to be random. Yes, I believe in God.
On July 14 2011 16:26 Flameberger wrote: Like seemingly a lot of people these days I only believe in what there is evidence to support. Though I don't dis-believe or have anything against any religion (because there is also no evidence to refute divine beings, assuming you don't nitpick ancient religious texts). I think this makes me agnostic?
As for your reasoning for being Deist, it seems to me that it raises the question of where that original deity came from. Unless you assume that matter requires an origin but divine beings do not, which, considering the inherent impossibility of understanding such an entity is not an unreasonable assumption to add.
This makes you an atheist by most (accurate) definitions. Lacking a belief in a god/gods makes you an atheist, even if you don't take the extra step of making the claim that God does not exist.
It's like if I told you I had a million dollars in the trunk of my car. You wont believe it without evidence, but you can't be sure it isn't there. If you feel this way about God, you're an atheist. People will classify you as a "weak atheist," but you're still an atheist.
On July 14 2011 16:32 snotboogie wrote: When it comes down to it, the existence of life, consciousness and intelligence on an inhabitable planet is way too coincidental to be random. Yes, I believe in God.
Yeah what a concidence that life developed on an inhabitable planet. Wait, what?
On July 14 2011 16:22 LloydRays wrote: i really like this, it is really difficult for me (science major) to accurately express my beliefs to my classmates with out being looked down on. It is en vogue right now to hate religion, but honestly I am of the opinion that the divisions between science and religion are not that extreme, one could say that evolution is god, for example.
Without going off on a rant, there are other beliefs, such as pantheism, the idea that the universe and its collective are literally god, a belief held by the late Carl Sagan.
I hope we can all realize that humanity has a lot of common goals, regardless of personal opinion
You could only consider evolution "god" if you think that god is a concept. If you think that god is a being than it is impossible for evolution to be a god.
To the OP- 10^-43 power is 1/10^43rd of a second, ie time started when the big bang happened. You may consider yourself a deist or agnostic but if you want to go on scientific proof, their is an explanation for everything in this world, thus their is no proof of a higher power. Just food for thought.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: For a long time I walked the tight rope between Atheist and Agnostic, and I've never been a fan of organized religion of any kind (but that's not what this is about.) I've always done my research on religions and all that kind of stuff, because I'm not the kind of person who likes to be against something I know nothing about. Despite this, I had never heard of "deism" until a couple months ago, and I just attributed my beliefs to Agnosticism.
I believe that everything that is in the Universe, and all of the pieces that tie it together to make it what it is (physics, evolution, etc.), was created by something greater than the Universe, some higher power or being or something.
My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from. It seems like that is a question that very few scientists are even trying to answer.
Assuming a linear understanding of "time" as opposed to a circular one, you are always forced to question what was before whatever is commonly accepted as "the beginning." This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
I believe that whoever or whatever was responsible for the creation of our Universe did JUST that, and then left it alone. No divine intervention, no divine miracles. That is not to say I'm entirely opposed to the supernatural (things such as ghosts) but I think if such things were real, there would be a valid scientific explanation for it, maybe something that we just haven't quite figured out yet.
The above beliefs make me a deist, and I didn't know it. I was just curious if there were other people here who had similar beliefs.
When you sa you've decided to fill in the gaps with your own beliefs, I just want to make the point that that is not new. Things unknown have often been attiributed to gods, until we pushed back the boundaries. Weather, earthquakes, diseases, the beginning of everything, etc. This is called "the god of the gaps".
It's easy to believe stuff because we don't have all the answers but want to act as if we do. Unfortunately we humans often prefer any answer (and I mean ANY answer) to no answer at all. What I say to people in such situations is that "I don't know" is a reasonable response. It is also the only true one.
My question to you is, do you not feel somewhat intellectually dishonest in openly choosing whatever belief appeals to you the most? I tend to examine and re-examine any thoughts i'd have on people, philosophy or religion repeatedly until the most rational answer is left to me. I would feel dishonest to my own mind to believe something like you have, because I would be being mentally lazy. So what are your thoughts on that?
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
It seems like you don't want to take 'this is an unanswerable question' for an answer, so you just grab a thought with no basis and cling on to that for one. As with traditional religion, I don't see any reason to think that this is the case.
On July 14 2011 16:37 ixi.genocide wrote: You could only consider evolution "god" if you think that god is a concept. If you think that god is a being than it is impossible for evolution to be a god.
I think he meant that God could be the cause or even controlling factor of evolution, not that evolution itself was divine.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
It seems like you don't want to take 'this is an unanswerable question' for an answer, so you just grab a thought with no basis and cling on to that for one. As with traditional religion, I don't see any reason to think that this is the case.
I don't see why this has to be viewed negatively. Chances are there will always be gaps in human understanding of the universe. There is no harm in substituting your own personal ideas to fill those gaps. The only "trouble" comes when people refuse to let go of their ideas if scientific evidence shows up that contradicts it. Even then it's only a problem if such a person hinders science / society over their beliefs.
On July 14 2011 16:32 snotboogie wrote: When it comes down to it, the existence of life, consciousness and intelligence on an inhabitable planet is way too coincidental to be random. Yes, I believe in God.
This is one argument, that has never convinced me (don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convert you to atheism/etc. just stating my point).
There is a GIGANTIC, huge, mass of solar systems, planets, etc. out there, I think mankind is still unable to grasp how huge the universe indeed is (me neither, of course) - this exceeds our imagination. Now if we think of this as a given, then how "big" is the probability that on ONE planet, by chance, something like us emerges. Even if there are "only" as many planets as words having been written on the internet...ever...then the probability of intelligent life evolving on at least one of them is actually quite huge.
On July 14 2011 16:30 Timestreamer wrote: I'd use the words of a man much smarter then myself to make my claim for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBCDTsgZomw - Richard Phillips Feynman
Thanks Timestreamer for redirecting me to Feyman! His fire monologue made him a simple voice of authority in my life some indeterminate time ago.
Unfortunatley i'm not very well read concerning astrophysics, quantum physics or any of the really interesting forms of science. However i've been frequently thinking about time and what time really is. I don't understand why a lot of people try to define time as something that "was created" at in a specific way when as i percive it time is only a measurement that actaully works on earth and is only a measurement we created to satisfy our need to be able to percieve things in relation to ourselves.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from.
Exactly. We don't know. So why substitute the clean and reasonable state of not knowing with belief in something that's completely made up and has no objective basis? The only solution to not knowing something is exploring and learning it.
As opposed as I am to religions, most of them make more sense to me than the concept of "Deism" - in the sense that it is understandable why people choose to follow those beliefs. Fear of death, hopes for afterlife, unhappiness with life and all the related stuff - we can all kind of understand the emotional reasoning behind that. There is actual motivation to follow a "standard" brand of religion - people believe they will benefit from worship, and everyone always wants to believe something good will happen to them.
Deism on the other hand is just absurd - you propose a belief in the creator of the universe, and then just "leave it alone"? What's the point? It's still a completely made up story anyway, and if you don't really feel any sort of emotional attachment to it, you don't expect anything from it and you believe that you can never truly learn its nature and it cannot (or will not) affect you - why not just stop believing in the made up story?
What I like about Deism is that it kinda illustrates the religion in its "final form" - the "bare bones" religion that remains once layers and layers of religious beliefs and superstitions have been peeled off and archived as mythology. It's the most glaring example of why beliefs in "higher" powers are pointless and absurd.
I believe in the divine nature of the multiverse and everything in it and that we are all part of one divine eternal conscience experiencing itself through our individual lives and sensations.
I also believe "God" is a construct of evil, manipulative men who themselves do not believe in one but are in essence just corporate executives.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from.
Exactly. We don't know. So why substitute the clean and reasonable state of not knowing with belief in something that's completely made up and has no objective basis? The only solution to not knowing something is exploring and learning it.
As opposed as I am to religions, most of them make more sense to me than the concept of "Deism" - in the sense that it is understandable why people choose to follow those beliefs. Fear of death, hopes for afterlife, unhappiness with life and all the related stuff - we can all kind of understand the emotional reasoning behind that. There is actual motivation to follow a "standard" brand of religion - people believe they will benefit from worship, and everyone always wants to believe something good will happen to them.
Deism on the other hand is just absurd - you propose a belief in the creator of the universe, and then just "leave it alone"? What's the point? It's still a completely made up story anyway, and if you don't really feel any sort of emotional attachment to it, you don't expect anything from it and you believe that you can never truly learn its nature and it cannot (or will not) affect you - why not just stop believing in the made up story?
What I like about Deism is that it kinda illustrates the religion in its "final form" - the "bare bones" religion that remains once layers and layers of religious beliefs and superstitions have been peeled off and archived as mythology. It's the most glaring example of why beliefs in "higher" powers are pointless and absurd.
Best post of this thread. <3
Usually I am not bothered to write that much about this topic, but thats exactly what I am thinking. Especially like the last paragraph.
'I don't know, but I see no evidence supporting any specific theory which leads me to believe that theory is correct' is a statement that sums it up for me.
I don't know how everything came to be like it is. I don't know what if anything was before the universe, or if it even makes sense to look at it that way instead of as time being a property of the universe and not existing outside of it.
But, I don't believe that me not knowing, means I have to make up an answer and infer that there 'must be' some sort of divine being or cause or whatever.
I am an atheist.
In that I see no reason whatsoever to believe in any sort of divine beings.
Doesn't mean I can prove the non-existence of such beings. Now that I can explain how the universe came to be (I don't like to say created, it implies something existed before, and made it).
To me it just seems to be a way of saying 'I believe there must be a cause, something that made it' without any sort of explanation. It doesn't make more sense to me than 'the tide comes in, the tide comes out' argument. Things I can't explain, means I can't explain it. It doesn't mean that I have to explain it - and therefore make up some sort of divinity just to make sense of it.
'I don't know' is a perfectly valid answer. No need to take it any further.
I don't believe in a God but I believe that life can be created, because I remember reading in some magazine that some science person created a life. Does that make me religious?
In such situations it is not sensible to inject your instinctive explanation in place of the knowledge gap. The answer could be anything, we do not have it. That is where it ends. When we do, we will know. Until then, it is a bad idea to start guessing.
I don't necessarily agree with you that it's a bad idea. I'm not exactly DOING anything with my beliefs, I just think it's plausible. Keep in mind that I don't belief in some "image of man" type being responsible for everything. I just think maybe there was some sentient power or something responsible for it. But I could be wrong. And I'm not against that, either.
I'm just "filling the gap" like you said, and if/when the answer is found, I'll accept that without issue.
'I don't know, but I see no evidence supporting any specific theory which leads me to believe that theory is correct' is a statement that sums it up for me.
I don't know how everything came to be like it is. I don't know what if anything was before the universe, or if it even makes sense to look at it that way instead of as time being a property of the universe and not existing outside of it.
But, I don't believe that me not knowing, means I have to make up an answer and infer that there 'must be' some sort of divine being or cause or whatever.
I am an atheist.
In that I see no reason whatsoever to believe in any sort of divine beings.
Doesn't mean I can prove the non-existence of such beings. Now that I can explain how the universe came to be (I don't like to say created, it implies something existed before, and made it).
To me it just seems to be a way of saying 'I believe there must be a cause, something that made it' without any sort of explanation. It doesn't make more sense to me than 'the tide comes in, the tide comes out' argument. Things I can't explain, means I can't explain it. It doesn't mean that I have to explain it - and therefore make up some sort of divinity just to make sense of it.
'I don't know' is a perfectly valid answer. No need to take it any further.
You're not an atheist! You're an agnostic! An atheist believes that there is no God (or equivalent); an agnostic simply doesn't know. I prefer the latter, although I truly hope there's more to our experience than just this life.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: Assuming a linear understanding of "time" as opposed to a circular one, you are always forced to question what was before whatever is commonly accepted as "the beginning." This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
I believe that whoever or whatever was responsible for the creation of our Universe did JUST that, and then left it alone.
But then where did God come from? Who created him? :>
As to my own believe I am what you can call an anti-theist. That is I do not only think there isn't a God but I feel it would be a bad thing if there was.
On July 14 2011 17:15 State wrote: You're not an atheist! You're an agnostic! An atheist believes that there is no God (or equivalent); an agnostic simply doesn't know. I prefer the latter, although I truly hope there's more to our experience than just this life.
I can't prove the non-existence of invisible little green men in my bathroom either.
Doesn't mean I believe they are there.
I don't believe there is any reason for believing there to be any sort of divine being, and as such, I call myself an atheist.
I am not going to say however that I 'know' there are no divine being, as that would require me being able to prove it.
Deities are a wonderful idea, especially as a plot device. I personally enjoyed writing about gods and heroes a bit before I devoted my work solely into science fiction.
is there a term for someone who only thinks about religion on the toilet and always pushes it of his mind at other times because he believes there is no point in thinking about it other than for mild entertainment while pooping? cuz thats what i am.
On July 14 2011 16:37 ixi.genocide wrote: You could only consider evolution "god" if you think that god is a concept. If you think that god is a being than it is impossible for evolution to be a god.
I think he meant that God could be the cause or even controlling factor of evolution, not that evolution itself was divine.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
It seems like you don't want to take 'this is an unanswerable question' for an answer, so you just grab a thought with no basis and cling on to that for one. As with traditional religion, I don't see any reason to think that this is the case.
I don't see why this has to be viewed negatively. Chances are there will always be gaps in human understanding of the universe. There is no harm in substituting your own personal ideas to fill those gaps. The only "trouble" comes when people refuse to let go of their ideas if scientific evidence shows up that contradicts it. Even then it's only a problem if such a person hinders science / society over their beliefs.
The problem is that when you let people to choose random "belief systems" out of a box because we don't have an answer to it after few generations they tend to forget in what source they come to that solution. They just realise that they believe in this and it is the true thing. It's not like teaching science or stuff, religion and it's concepts are not some things you can point out like you teach mathematics so people start to forget things because some people who hold on to that religious idea transfer it to new generations as a "way of truth" not "i chose that because we didn't know, it was more believeable to me you should do the same"
Humans are not that smart and can not always figure out stuff about their own self. What we should always remind humans in our education is that if you can't at some point provide verifyable or measurable evidence, all the arguments in the world not going to establish your point. It's not to say i am against of believing in things though. It's just realizing about the stuff you think on.
On July 14 2011 17:39 saltymango wrote: is there a term for someone who only thinks about religion on the toilet and always pushes it of his mind at other times because he believes there is no point in thinking about it other than for mild entertainment while pooping? cuz thats what i am.
The difference between Deism and Atheism depends on the definition of "Divine" and "intelligence." One could argue that the physical laws inherent to the universe give it a sort of intelligence, and that the big bang, which birthed those laws was effected "intelligently."
On July 14 2011 16:20 acker wrote: Oh, god, a religion thread. Pardon the pun.
Time is intrinsically linked with mass according to standard relativistic theory, and was therefore created 10^–43 seconds after the Big Bang according to standard models.
Which means causality breaks down before 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang, unless you happen to have a model of causality that doesn't use the one-way flow of time as an axiom. Food for thought.
...Or you could ignore the astrophysicists.
Please source these scientific claims.
I've googled 10^-43 and big bang and all I can find is discussion about the symmetry breaking of gravity at this time.
The universe... is a very complicated thing. I mean take any small part of our knowledge of any subject, and you'll see that there's an enormous amount of things we know, but exponentially more things that we do not know. Either way, there's an aura of wonder about it all that you can't quite explain. I'll throw some things out there:
Mathematics - constants such as pi, e, and Euler's formula relating them together. Calculus where things are calculated based on infinite. Probability theory, where you don't know what's going to happen for sure, but you know how frequently it "should" happen. The grandeur of formulas, and the even more beautiful proofs for them.
Biology - DNA - the fact that "code" can produce entire individual organisms that are alive. Also, how a few chemicals that by chance, form together to create the first living thing, and in time it becomes the plethora of living matter we witness today.
Physics - Fundamental forces in the universe. Maxwell's equations. Relativity theory: how the speed of light is actually a fundamental constant of the universe, and how time is just our perception of one dimension, in a multidimensional manifold. Uncertainty principle: how there is data that we can theoretically never know. String theory/other emerging theories.
Computer science - the fact that moving electrons through wires and chips can produce computing machines. The limitless possibilities of programming, yet the existing theoretical limitations of memory, clock speed, and uncomputable problems. The internet which introduced an entire new world.
Humanity, astronomy, art, music, literature, love, politics, society, philosophy, culture... the list goes on.
The universe's existence and its marvel, mystery, complication, and sheer beauty convince me it can't all have been chance... and that there must be some... thing higher out there whatever it could be. Maybe it picked and chose how it wanted it to be, maybe it just lets the universe run without interference, or maybe it influences us to this day. Maybe it exists as we know ourselves or maybe it is entirely unlike anything we've ever known. Maybe it too is part of a universe created by something higher than itself. No matter what it's like, I believe it's out there...
well i totally hate religion and how people believe in god, how can you believe in something that you have never seen before? and how can you believe in jesus christ when there is solid proof that he didnt exist? well there is a movie called zeitgeist 2007 i think, there is perfect explanation why jesus didnt exist and who is our real "lord" as i would say! its the SUN, cause cmon, if there wouldnt be no sun, it would mean no photosynthesis (dont really know how its written in english, but you got my point) and no photosynthesis means no air would be on our planet! and pretty much sun made life on this planet possible, so sun already has a common thing with our so called god who made all living stuff on this planet! and whatelse, if you will watch the whole movie above, you will see and hear, that the sun acts as jesus christ, cause theres the time when jesus christ dies for 3 days i tihnk it was, and then he reincarnates, and the sun does the same thing, on an exact day and exact hour, it stops for 3 days, and then it moves 1 degree closer or further to earth i dont remember anymore, watched the movie like half a year ago, thus reincarnates! and theres proof that theres lots of stuff like jesus christ, like for the egyptians, long ago before christ they had a similiar figure that died and reincarnates, you will hear what im talking about when you watch the movie, but ofcourse christians say that devil made all of those before christ so people think its not real (lol), and the bible is just a story made for christians who are totally insane and believe in something that does not exist, SOUR about that truth ha? and whatelse, sun is real, i can see it every day, i know it exists, so i can believe it! well all i know is that i believe in what i see, if i wont see, i wont believe! its like you tell me that you have a new generation car that runs on water, i wont believe until i see it! so yeah F god and religion! well about the deism i dont really know, i think im not one, cause yes, we actually dont know 100% what happened when the whole universe was made, but we know that its something amazing, as it came of nowhere and its still in nowhere, cause i just dont get this, whats behind the universe? cause as scientists say, the universe expands all the time! so it becomes bigger, it makes more galaxys, more solar systems (yay, for humans, more chance of finding aliens!), more planets! so youre totally wrong, it means that something that made this is still working and making it bigger and better! but i dont believe that, its just unbelievable, that there can be a lifeform, that just came, made something as amazing as universe and just left, like wtf? its somekinda wizard? it should be magic then, but this is totally lame what youre believing in i think, we will never trully know what happened, but that doesnt bother me, dont think about the past, think about today and whats happening right now, and just live on till you die!
On July 14 2011 18:02 Gak2 wrote: The universe's existence and its marvel, mystery, complication, and sheer beauty convince me it can't all have been chance... and that there must be some...
The alternative isn't only "chance". "Chance" is but one of the many alternatives to a creator. No reasonable individual who disbelieves in a creator will assert that the alternative is solely chance. It's still an open question in QM whether there is actual randomness, and it is hence acausal, or whether physics is stochastic - apparently random but is actually deterministic. This is wrt the supposed wavefunction collapse. Nevertheless, macro phenomenon such as the evolution of humans and the formation of planets is, FAPP, determinstic in that it is necessitated by physics. altho I cannot say the same about the spontaneous symmetry breaking which resulted in the forces in the first place.
Even if QM is fundamentally random, this randomness is not noticeable in systems with large amounts of particles which are constantly decohering due to thermal interaction. The reduction of the wavefunction being random has no significance for these systems.
And about the antecedent conditions that preceded the big bang... only speculation without any way of steering clear of crackpottery.
On July 14 2011 16:37 ixi.genocide wrote: You could only consider evolution "god" if you think that god is a concept. If you think that god is a being than it is impossible for evolution to be a god.
I think he meant that God could be the cause or even controlling factor of evolution, not that evolution itself was divine.
On July 14 2011 16:39 AgMaxHammer wrote:
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
It seems like you don't want to take 'this is an unanswerable question' for an answer, so you just grab a thought with no basis and cling on to that for one. As with traditional religion, I don't see any reason to think that this is the case.
I don't see why this has to be viewed negatively. Chances are there will always be gaps in human understanding of the universe. There is no harm in substituting your own personal ideas to fill those gaps. The only "trouble" comes when people refuse to let go of their ideas if scientific evidence shows up that contradicts it. Even then it's only a problem if such a person hinders science / society over their beliefs.
The problem is that when you let people to choose random "belief systems" out of a box because we don't have an answer to it after few generations they tend to forget in what source they come to that solution. They just realise that they believe in this and it is the true thing. It's not like teaching science or stuff, religion and it's concepts are not some things you can point out like you teach mathematics so people start to forget things because some people who hold on to that religious idea transfer it to new generations as a "way of truth" not "i chose that because we didn't know, it was more believeable to me you should do the same"
Humans are not that smart and can not always figure out stuff about their own self. What we should always remind humans in our education is that if you can't at some point provide verifyable or measurable evidence, all the arguments in the world not going to establish your point. It's not to say i am against of believing in things though. It's just realizing about the stuff you think on.
The problem here is that you think I'm the kind of person who tries to force his beliefs on others. I am not. In fact, that is the main reason I HATE organized religion of any kind. I've already stated, if/when scientific gives me an explanation for my questions, I will welcome them.
I am the kind of person who is always questioning things, wondering about stuff other people wouldn't. I think if it weren't for people who shared this characteristic, we'd not know a majority of the things we do today.
Again, I don't see any issue with filling in the gaps with my own ideas. They are my own, and no one forced them upon me, and I'm not forcing it upon anyone else.
EDIT: Additionally, I'm not going to pass my beliefs on to my children. It's not my right to tell them what they should believe, so the generational issue you speak of is not a factor. I understand the sentiment that that IS what happens more often than not, but I'm an exception.
Again, I don't see any issue with filling in the gaps with my own ideas. They are my own, and no one forced them upon me, and I'm not forcing it upon anyone else.
Again, I don't see any issue with filling in the gaps with my own ideas. They are my own, and no one forced them upon me, and I'm not forcing it upon anyone else.
The problem is that it's fallacious.
What's wrong with a little fallacy if it isn't hurting anyone? I don't really understand where the negativity actually comes from.
EDIT: Actually, I disagree. Because we don't know the answer, it's not fallacy. It is presumption, of course, but I don't really think I'm presuming anything. I just think that might be what the deal is.
Again, I don't see any issue with filling in the gaps with my own ideas. They are my own, and no one forced them upon me, and I'm not forcing it upon anyone else.
The problem is that it's fallacious.
What's wrong with a little fallacy if it isn't hurting anyone? I don't really understand where the negativity actually comes from.
I don't really care what other's epistemic standards are. I was just responding to "I don't see any issue with..", by saying that the issue for me is that it's fallacious according to my understanding of the Gaps fallacy.
Again, I don't see any issue with filling in the gaps with my own ideas. They are my own, and no one forced them upon me, and I'm not forcing it upon anyone else.
The problem is that it's fallacious.
What's wrong with a little fallacy if it isn't hurting anyone? I don't really understand where the negativity actually comes from.
It comes down to whether you care if your beliefs are correct. If that's important to you, then "a little fallacy" goes a long way. If it's not important, I'm afraid I don't understand what IS important.
Ideally, you should hold as many true beliefs as possible, while eliminating false beliefs. You're never going to get it perfect, but you can be almost certain that any ideas you create to "fill gaps" are incorrect.
On July 14 2011 18:22 EaryKing wrote: I find it very strange that it bothers people what they should believe in. I don't care about it and I never will.
the best answer ever! i dont really care what others believed in, actually i dont believe in anything, i just have some thoughts of what is and whats not! i posted my wall of text, cause i just like to spend my time writing lots of stuff, that is unarguable (you know what i mean :D) but its really weird how people believe in something thats proven to be wrong
On July 14 2011 17:10 lisward wrote: I don't believe in a God but I believe that life can be created, because I remember reading in some magazine that some science person created a life. Does that make me religious?
F no, science is something that exists, religion is something that doesnt exist! you can see science so you believe it, but religion just words and nothing else, and why does religion always asks for money and they have goldende churches and stuff like that! jesus in the bible is described as a porr man who didnt need money and god as the same, but everyone who believes in it, asks or gives bunch of money for that, what the F????????????????????????????????????????
In my opinion, being a deist is as "bad" as being an atheist, or a christian etc.
The arrogance of attributing truth to these ->theories<- has always baffled me. There is simply no way of knowing whether or not we were created by a God. That is in my opinion the only proper stance you can take on this subject. There are proper arguments for both the existence of a God (In the broadest sense of the word) and the non-existence of a God.
Faith only has meaning, when there are grounds for that faith. Without ->solid<- ground to base your faith upon, your faith has no meaning, and is just a random guess. Which should be acknowledged as such.
On July 14 2011 18:38 Linkirvana wrote: In my opinion, being a deist is as "bad" as being an atheist, or a christian etc.
The arrogance of attributing truth to these ->theories<- has always baffled me. There is simply no way of knowing whether or not we were created by a God. That is in my opinion the only proper stance you can take on this subject. There are proper arguments for both the existence of a God (In the broadest sense of the word) and the non-existence of a God.
Faith only has meaning, when there are grounds for that faith. Without ->solid<- ground to base your faith upon, your faith has no meaning, and is just a random guess. Which should be acknowledged as such.
On July 14 2011 17:10 lisward wrote: I don't believe in a God but I believe that life can be created, because I remember reading in some magazine that some science person created a life. Does that make me religious?
F no, science is something that exists, religion is something that doesnt exist! you can see science so you believe it, but religion just words and nothing else, and why does religion always asks for money and they have goldende churches and stuff like that! jesus in the bible is described as a porr man who didnt need money and god as the same, but everyone who believes in it, asks or gives bunch of money for that, what the F????????????????????????????????????????
What pisses me off even more is that in my country you pay tax money from your salary to the church by default. Ironically the burden is on you to go out of the church system and not the other way around. Kind of like the burden is on atheists to prove that there's no god, according to the idiots of religion.
I saw the first one and it was the guy making claims about things but not attempting to provide any evidence for them or telling people where they can find any evidence. He just said things as fact and added interviewees who were saying the same things, and adding quotes of historical figures who agreed with him.
i dont believe in god and even it exists and comes to me personally i refuse to worship it.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
On July 14 2011 18:38 Linkirvana wrote: In my opinion, being a deist is as "bad" as being an atheist, or a christian etc.
The arrogance of attributing truth to these ->theories<- has always baffled me. There is simply no way of knowing whether or not we were created by a God. That is in my opinion the only proper stance you can take on this subject. There are proper arguments for both the existence of a God (In the broadest sense of the word) and the non-existence of a God.
Faith only has meaning, when there are grounds for that faith. Without ->solid<- ground to base your faith upon, your faith has no meaning, and is just a random guess. Which should be acknowledged as such.
I'm not attributing truth to my beliefs. I'm attributing the possibility of truth to my beliefs. I agree that my beliefs ARE just a guess. But I'm fine with that. And there's no arrogance in it. I have no way of knowing if what I believe is what's right, but my imagination prefers that I come up with something, than rather say "I just don't know, nor do I care."
I believe there are aliens out there in other galaxys, or maybe even in our own. I'm not saying "There are definitely aliens out there," I'm saying "There may be aliens out there, and I think it's probable." There is a huge difference.
Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
What pisses me off even more is that in my country you pay tax money from your salary to the church by default. Ironically the burden is on you to go out of the church system and not the other way around. Kind of like the burden is on atheists to prove that there's no god, according to the idiots of religion.
I guess that for the people claiming there is a God, the burden of proving there is is on them.
However if you claim to be 100% sure there is no God, you should be able to back that up as well.
Either claim is based on half-truths and arrogance. You just can't know.
I'm not attributing truth to my beliefs. I'm attributing the possibility of truth to my beliefs. I agree that my beliefs ARE just a guess. But I'm fine with that. And there's no arrogance in it. I have no way of knowing if what I believe is what's right, but my imagination prefers that I come up with something, than rather say "I just don't know, nor do I care."
I believe there are aliens out there in other galaxys, or maybe even in our own. I'm not saying "There are definitely aliens out there," I'm saying "There may be aliens out there, and I think it's probable." There is a huge difference.
It's really not difficult to understand.
When you use the words "I believe" I don't think you know what those words mean.
As I wrote in my former post, faith only has meaning if it's based on solid ground. If you only recognize your beliefs as a possibility, then you don't truely believe your beliefs. -insert Xzibit's face here-
I also like to think there are aliens out there, however that's as far as it goes. I cannot say that I believe in aliens, because in my opinion beliefs have to be properly justified.
:Edit: What I said above about aliens is not entirely true, actually a belief in aliens can be properly justified. However the for example deist belief is in my opinion not properly justified.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
This is where it gets tricky for me. Because I agree with you 100%. Who created the creator, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him? It's perpetual. But I don't think the answer to that question is something that we will ever have the ability to understand thoroughly, assuming we find it. Instinct tells me there HAS to be a beginning, but where did that come from and where did that come from and where did that come from, and there are undoubtedly answers to these questions, but it's just hard to comprehend that things just "came into being" from nothing in whatever the ACTUAL beginning was. I understand that my belief isn't even really a good explanation, in fact, I'd say it's NOT an explanation, because even in my beliefs I wonder, well what came before that.
I don't even know if this is making any sense to anyone but myself.
there is absolutly no hint towards the existence of a creator, nor has anyone come up with an explanation how this creator was "created". Therefore I see no reason in believing in it, cuz it obviously explains nothing, but shifts the whole Problem. From all I have read the Big Bang Theory seems the most plausible, even if I dont know (by now) why it happened. But thats totally ok for me. People tend to search for meaning, which is very human, but the universe and matter doesn`t care about it.
I'm not attributing truth to my beliefs. I'm attributing the possibility of truth to my beliefs. I agree that my beliefs ARE just a guess. But I'm fine with that. And there's no arrogance in it. I have no way of knowing if what I believe is what's right, but my imagination prefers that I come up with something, than rather say "I just don't know, nor do I care."
I believe there are aliens out there in other galaxys, or maybe even in our own. I'm not saying "There are definitely aliens out there," I'm saying "There may be aliens out there, and I think it's probable." There is a huge difference.
It's really not difficult to understand.
When you use the words "I believe" I don't think you know what those words mean.
As I wrote in my former post, faith only has meaning if it's based on solid ground. If you only recognize your beliefs as a possibility, then you don't truely believe your beliefs. -insert Xzibit's face here-
I also like to think there are aliens out there, however that's as far as it goes. I cannot say that I believe in aliens, because in my opinion beliefs have to be properly justified.
:Edit: What I said above about aliens is not entirely true, actually a belief in aliens can be properly justified. However the for example deist belief is in my opinion not properly justified.
It's really not difficult to understand.
Hmm. I guess you're right. It seems even having this discussion in the first place has helped me better understand what it is that I actually believe. And it seems that I believe in nothing, because I have faith in nothing.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
This is where it gets tricky for me. Because I agree with you 100%. Who created the creator, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him? It's perpetual. But I don't think the answer to that question is something that we will ever have the ability to understand thoroughly, assuming we find it. Instinct tells me there HAS to be a beginning, but where did that come from and where did that come from and where did that come from, and there are undoubtedly answers to these questions, but it's just hard to comprehend that things just "came into being" from nothing in whatever the ACTUAL beginning was. I understand that my belief isn't even really a good explanation, in fact, I'd say it's NOT an explanation, because even in my beliefs I wonder, well what came before that.
I don't even know if this is making any sense to anyone but myself.
It makes sense. It's just self-defeating.
You accept that we can't know where the creator came from, but fail to apply the same rationale to the universe itself. Why not just say we can't know where it came from, how it began, if it began, etc. You recognize the limits of your reasoning, but take it too far.
You refuse to speculate on the origins of a creator, the creator's creator, etc, because it is unknowable. This is wise. Why speculate that such a creator exists in the first place? Isn't that also in the "unknowable" category.
What pisses me off even more is that in my country you pay tax money from your salary to the church by default. Ironically the burden is on you to go out of the church system and not the other way around. Kind of like the burden is on atheists to prove that there's no god, according to the idiots of religion.
I guess that for the people claiming there is a God, the burden of proving there is is on them.
However if you claim to be 100% sure there is no God, you should be able to back that up as well.
Either claim is based on half-truths and arrogance. You just can't know.
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.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
This is where it gets tricky for me. Because I agree with you 100%. Who created the creator, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him? It's perpetual. But I don't think the answer to that question is something that we will ever have the ability to understand thoroughly, assuming we find it. Instinct tells me there HAS to be a beginning, but where did that come from and where did that come from and where did that come from, and there are undoubtedly answers to these questions, but it's just hard to comprehend that things just "came into being" from nothing in whatever the ACTUAL beginning was. I understand that my belief isn't even really a good explanation, in fact, I'd say it's NOT an explanation, because even in my beliefs I wonder, well what came before that.
I don't even know if this is making any sense to anyone but myself.
It makes sense. It's just self-defeating.
You accept that we can't know where the creator came from, but fail to apply the same rationale to the universe itself. Why not just say we can't know where it came from, how it began, if it began, etc. You recognize the limits of your reasoning, but take it too far.
You refuse to speculate on the origins of a creator, the creator's creator, etc, because it is unknowable. This is wise. Why speculate that such a creator exists in the first place? Isn't that also in the "unknowable" category.
That's actually what I meant by "who created him." I'm just too tired to properly sort my words, right now, lol. The hardest thing for me to accept is the "if it began" thing. Everything we know thus far tells us that things begin. The concept of "no beginning" just doesn't seem possible to me. I guess what I've done is apply complete speculation to something simply because I don't and can't understand. It actually seems like a rather weak thing to do, now that I think about it.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
This is where it gets tricky for me. Because I agree with you 100%. Who created the creator, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him? It's perpetual. But I don't think the answer to that question is something that we will ever have the ability to understand thoroughly, assuming we find it. Instinct tells me there HAS to be a beginning, but where did that come from and where did that come from and where did that come from, and there are undoubtedly answers to these questions, but it's just hard to comprehend that things just "came into being" from nothing in whatever the ACTUAL beginning was. I understand that my belief isn't even really a good explanation, in fact, I'd say it's NOT an explanation, because even in my beliefs I wonder, well what came before that.
I don't even know if this is making any sense to anyone but myself.
It makes sense. It's just self-defeating.
You accept that we can't know where the creator came from, but fail to apply the same rationale to the universe itself. Why not just say we can't know where it came from, how it began, if it began, etc. You recognize the limits of your reasoning, but take it too far.
You refuse to speculate on the origins of a creator, the creator's creator, etc, because it is unknowable. This is wise. Why speculate that such a creator exists in the first place? Isn't that also in the "unknowable" category.
That's actually what I meant by "who created him." I'm just too tired to properly sort my words, right now, lol. The hardest thing for me to accept is the "if it began" thing. Everything we know thus far tells us that things begin. The concept of "no beginning" just doesn't seem possible to me. I guess what I've done is apply complete speculation to something simply because I don't and can't understand. It actually seems like a rather weak thing to do, now that I think about it.
Almost as good as trying to imagine the end of the universe or thinking about infinity. Every thing we have experienced in our life is finite, so thinking of anything infinite or unending just doesn't seem possible to our brains.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
This is where it gets tricky for me. Because I agree with you 100%. Who created the creator, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him? It's perpetual. But I don't think the answer to that question is something that we will ever have the ability to understand thoroughly, assuming we find it. Instinct tells me there HAS to be a beginning, but where did that come from and where did that come from and where did that come from, and there are undoubtedly answers to these questions, but it's just hard to comprehend that things just "came into being" from nothing in whatever the ACTUAL beginning was. I understand that my belief isn't even really a good explanation, in fact, I'd say it's NOT an explanation, because even in my beliefs I wonder, well what came before that.
I don't even know if this is making any sense to anyone but myself.
Yeah but, even if we never find out why there was a big bang, or what was before it, it's just arrogant to fill that gap with a God. Imo you jsut need to just say we don't know. It could be a God, it could be chance, it could be Aliens or we could all be in some supercomputer's simulation. We don't know now and if we never find out we need to just admit ignorance. The whole idea of a supernatural being obviously came from religion and using it's concept to fill in a gap of knowledge doesn't really help (not is there any good motivation for doing so)
Atheist because I haven't seen enough evidence to prove to me the existence of a deity or deities, at least not the Abrahamic God. I haven't ruled out Wiccan gods/desses yet due to a lack of information, same with most other religions's gods.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Both sides do not hold a answer to this. The only difference in view is "omnipresent conscious being attributed with the reason of existence" or "Yet to be explained or big bang(which is as fruitless to answer the "existence" question)"
Really, the argument of god and sciences is in the end the argument of if existence has a personal(theist)/impersonal(deist) omni-conscious creation aspect to it or infact has no omni-conscious aspect(scientific thought?)
I hope people instead of assuming they know right, instead seek out the truth for themselves. While also holding respect for all other truth seekers.
On July 14 2011 16:32 snotboogie wrote: When it comes down to it, the existence of life, consciousness and intelligence on an inhabitable planet is way too coincidental to be random. Yes, I believe in God.
The universe is such a big place that the most random/unexpected things happens all the time.
Edit:
Look at this video if you are interested in finding out how the universe was able to come from nothing.
I don't understand how there is something "greater" than the universe. Like, religious people bang on about how the Earth is too pro to just have happened and that everything just works and that a god did it, but man, how can you look up into the sky and not just be absolutely astonished at what the universe has produced? I don't see how anything or anyone can be greater than what is already out there and the monumental forces it takes for these things to occur.
well me? i stopped caring. I admit being agnostic because there is absolutely no way of knowing for sure. But the concept of religion is just too manmade..
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: I believe that everything that is in the Universe, and all of the pieces that tie it together to make it what it is (physics, evolution, etc.), was created by something greater than the Universe, some higher power or being or something.
My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from. It seems like that is a question that very few scientists are even trying to answer.
To me that just feels like saying "I don't know so instead of saying I don't know I'll make something up" which just doesn't satisfy me in anyway. I've seen no evidence ever that anything supernatural or god like in any fashion has ever existed or could ever exist, and until I do I think sugesting something along those lines as an explanation for anything is intellectually dishonest personally.
I'm sorry. I find people who advocated ideas such as Deism even more annoying than the most fundamentalist, evangelical Christians.
It's every possible compromise you could make when analyzing and forming beliefs about the cosmos and spirituality.
Deism was the position that, 200+ years ago, those with scientific minds formulated in absence of adequate scientific understanding.
What invalidates this kind of thinking is not that we now know more, but rather we understand better the depths of exactly how much we cannot understand with our current science. It rejects faith based upon science, but then rejects science when it makes completely un-evidenced observations about things we could not possibly understand short of scientific methods that do not yet exist.
TL:DR, Deism = "derp, I know about the Big Bang and Evolution, and I believe it, but WHO WAS THE WIZARD THAT INVENTED IT?"
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.
I saw the first one and it was the guy making claims about things but not attempting to provide any evidence for them or telling people where they can find any evidence. He just said things as fact and added interviewees who were saying the same things, and adding quotes of historical figures who agreed with him.
Is this one any different?
it is differennt every zeitgeist is better then the last one i would say, but this one convinced me that there is no god or anything 120% more than i didnt believe it before!
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from. It seems like that is a question that very few scientists are even trying to answer.
It's because scientists only care about verifiable knowledge. They don't give a fuck about retarded questions that cannot be answered since we cannot have data about them. Science is productive in it's nature, it won't dabble into something that isn't guaranteed to eventually produce some data. And since according to the modern theories all the Universe appeared from a single point (therefore, storing exactly 0 information about it's previous state had there been any), any question about what came "before" should be readressed to religion, charlatans and your grandmother, while real scientists keep working on something useful.
I demand that any mention of science in later posts should lead to closing the thread, there's been enough bullshit 'science' discrediting serious research already.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: I believe that everything that is in the Universe, and all of the pieces that tie it together to make it what it is (physics, evolution, etc.), was created by something greater than the Universe, some higher power or being or something.
My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from. It seems like that is a question that very few scientists are even trying to answer.
I actually think that Deism (unlike most forms of theism) is a rationally tenable position, in the sense that it can be supported by "good" arguments. However, in order to find out what you "really" believe, you should check your views for internal consistency. For me, a defeater of Deism is the fact that I don't think that "minds" can be immaterial substances floating somewhere in a timeless aether. I think, mind-matter dualism has been thoroughly discredited by what we know about the human brain. Now, I don't say that everybody has to come to this conclusion, but if you do, then an immaterial god concept that can somehow have a mind and a will and even control matter with it completely loses its basis.
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.
Rewatch 1:45 onward, lack of belief isn't a belief. More reading if you wish.
On July 14 2011 16:59 Kickboxer wrote: I also believe "God" is a construct of evil, manipulative men who themselves do not believe in one but are in essence just corporate executives.
Do you really believe that? I might be wrong here but I am pretty sure the concept of some god has been around pretty much as long as humans were able to comunicate\think. And even though atheism might be an accepted belief now, go back a couple of hundred or thousand years, and I am reasonably sure that pretty much everyone believe\worships something, because there is so much stuff they can't explain and don't believe is explainable in any other way. That is not to say that religion has not been exploited by manipulative men though, but i do not believe that it is constructed by them.
As for what I believe in i guess i'll take the approach of a few others in this thread, that currently we don't know, and your guess is as good as mine and anyone elses, and worrying about it seems rather unproductive. I would be pretty surprised if it turns out that there is some sort of all mighty being that cares whether or not we have sex before we put rings on eachothers fingers though.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
This is where it gets tricky for me. Because I agree with you 100%. Who created the creator, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him, and who created him? It's perpetual. But I don't think the answer to that question is something that we will ever have the ability to understand thoroughly, assuming we find it. Instinct tells me there HAS to be a beginning, but where did that come from and where did that come from and where did that come from, and there are undoubtedly answers to these questions, but it's just hard to comprehend that things just "came into being" from nothing in whatever the ACTUAL beginning was. I understand that my belief isn't even really a good explanation, in fact, I'd say it's NOT an explanation, because even in my beliefs I wonder, well what came before that.
I don't even know if this is making any sense to anyone but myself.
It makes sense. It's just self-defeating.
You accept that we can't know where the creator came from, but fail to apply the same rationale to the universe itself. Why not just say we can't know where it came from, how it began, if it began, etc. You recognize the limits of your reasoning, but take it too far.
You refuse to speculate on the origins of a creator, the creator's creator, etc, because it is unknowable. This is wise. Why speculate that such a creator exists in the first place? Isn't that also in the "unknowable" category.
That's actually what I meant by "who created him." I'm just too tired to properly sort my words, right now, lol. The hardest thing for me to accept is the "if it began" thing. Everything we know thus far tells us that things begin. The concept of "no beginning" just doesn't seem possible to me. I guess what I've done is apply complete speculation to something simply because I don't and can't understand. It actually seems like a rather weak thing to do, now that I think about it.
This. Though I would add that the intuition that everything must have a beginning is neither correct according to what we know of, nor is it enough to base such a strong claim off of even if it was consistent with our experience.
You mentioned the obvious example of anything cyclic: can a circle be shown to have a beginning?
There is more though; time is not so simple. In fact, it can be shown that one observer can view two events as happening in a certain order, while another observer sees them happening at the same time. This relativistic example doesn't actually violate causality, so you could argue that causality must be respected; however, the notion of space-time as a manifold makes it exactly like the circle. How can you point to the beginning of a manifold? With certain shapes it is possible, a cone perhaps, with others it isn't.
On July 14 2011 19:41 Linkirvana wrote: 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.
... that's your wording.
'fact'.
Is that used in wikipedia?
Also, it's your assumption that there are 'legit reasoning' leading to the belief that there is a God.
Many would question that statement as well. I don't see it as proven to be true.
Also, you should have continued with the next sentence that sums up what most atheists believe: Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist
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.
Rejection of a specific claim is not the same as positing that claim's opposite. That is, rejecting claims of gods does not mean you're claiming that there definitely isn't a God. You reject the claim based on lack of evidence, false premises, or logical flaws. This is a subtle, but very important, distinction. The result is a lack of belief.
It's unusual to think of a "lack of belief," because it's not a phrase you hear often. However, it's the default position for absolutely everything.
Lets put it this way. Suppose you support supply side economics. Your economic belief system has specific, testable claims. If those claims don't stand up to scrutiny (I'm not looking to argue economics here. This is a Hypothetical), I can reject them. You have failed to prove your case. That doesn't mean I have to support a different school of economic thought. It just means I'm unpersuaded by the one you've proposed.
This is atheism. Most atheists make no positive claim about gods at all (ie, that there definitely is no god). They simply haven't been persuaded that a God/gods exist, and therefore lack a belief in one/many.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: For a long time I walked the tight rope between Atheist and Agnostic, and I've never been a fan of organized religion of any kind (but that's not what this is about.) I've always done my research on religions and all that kind of stuff, because I'm not the kind of person who likes to be against something I know nothing about. Despite this, I had never heard of "deism" until a couple months ago, and I just attributed my beliefs to Agnosticism.
I believe that everything that is in the Universe, and all of the pieces that tie it together to make it what it is (physics, evolution, etc.), was created by something greater than the Universe, some higher power or being or something.
My reason for this, is that even though we have valid, evidenced theories about HOW the Universe was born, we don't know WHERE it came from. It seems like that is a question that very few scientists are even trying to answer.
Assuming a linear understanding of "time" as opposed to a circular one, you are always forced to question what was before whatever is commonly accepted as "the beginning." This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
I believe that whoever or whatever was responsible for the creation of our Universe did JUST that, and then left it alone. No divine intervention, no divine miracles. That is not to say I'm entirely opposed to the supernatural (things such as ghosts) but I think if such things were real, there would be a valid scientific explanation for it, maybe something that we just haven't quite figured out yet.
I've been thinking along the same lines but as others have said the lack of explanation isn't the same as proof for some sort of god. Even if there was *something* before the big bang that doesn't make it a god, just something we don't know about.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the "material" and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the material and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
The difference is that religion says it HAS the answer but science say they DON'T KNOW. Theories are unproven possibilities, not absolute truths.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the material and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
The difference is that religion says it HAS the answer but science say they DON'T KNOW. Theories are unproven possibilities, not absolute truths.
Enter deism. A belief that a being probably had something to do with our belief of how the universe may have been created.
When you put it like that, the religion vs. atheism argument doesn't make sense. Everyone sounds stupid.
On July 14 2011 18:38 Linkirvana wrote: In my opinion, being a deist is as "bad" as being an atheist, or a christian etc.
The arrogance of attributing truth to these ->theories<- has always baffled me. There is simply no way of knowing whether or not we were created by a God. That is in my opinion the only proper stance you can take on this subject. There are proper arguments for both the existence of a God (In the broadest sense of the word) and the non-existence of a God.
Faith only has meaning, when there are grounds for that faith. Without ->solid<- ground to base your faith upon, your faith has no meaning, and is just a random guess. Which should be acknowledged as such.
that means it is valid to believe in the flying spaghetti monster and the invisible teapot. your argument is completely invalid.
I believe there is a being more complex and beyond our understanding that may cause the universe to work the way it does but i dont believe the awful things people write about that being *shudders*
I decided not to re-watch the video, and instead read the arguments from that link you presented.
I heavily disagree with basically everything said there. Belief in a deity is something different from every example given in the text.
Let me first define belief for you:
"Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true."
Hmm, this is actually going to be quite hard for me to put into proper words, but I'll give it a try:
Lacking belief in a deity of some sort, means you are open to any alternative but a deity. Since there are however logical arguments to support the existence of a God in the broadest sense of the word deciding to ignore those logical arguments, and drawing your own conclusion puts you in the position that religious people hold as well.
Therefor I would say a statement such as "Atheists believe there is no God, and that there must be an alternative explanation for our known universe" would be true.
I would use a sentence from the video you posted as an example of why I think belief in a God is different: "Does it take more faith to disbelieve in big foot than it is to believe in it?"
The answer is no, because all evidence skews towards 1 side of the spectrum here. In the case of God however it does not, since once again there are logical reasonings leading to the conclusion that a God of some sort must exist. Therefor a leap of faith is required to go either way.
Once again I am referring to God in the broadest sense of the word. (Which I suspect is not what they are adressing in the video, I suspect they are discussing the Christian God here, which is something completely different from what I'm trying to point out)
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the material and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
The difference is that religion says it HAS the answer but science say they DON'T KNOW. Theories are unproven possibilities, not absolute truths.
Enter deism. A belief that a being probably had something to do with our belief of how the universe may have been created.
When you put it like that, the religion vs. atheism argument doesn't make sense. Everyone sounds stupid.
Last time I went to church (age 7 or 8) I don't remember the preacher saying God might have created the world in X amount of days or that you may go to hell if you are bad person. They preach certainty and absolutes. I rather listen to the scientists that say we don't know but we are figuring it out piece by piece. I thought this was a theist vs atheist thread?
Edit: Deism thread, somehow it turned into a science vs religion or theist vs atheist in my head. I think I'm going to lurk rather than post in this one due to me derailing. Sorry guys.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the material and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
The difference is that religion says it HAS the answer but science say they DON'T KNOW. Theories are unproven possibilities, not absolute truths.
Enter deism. A belief that a being probably had something to do with our belief of how the universe may have been created.
When you put it like that, the religion vs. atheism argument doesn't make sense. Everyone sounds stupid.
Last time I went to church (age 7 or 8) I don't remember the preacher saying God might have created the world in X amount of days or that you may go to hell if you are bad person. They preach certainty and absolutes. I rather listen to the scientists that say we don't know but we are figuring it out piece by piece. I thought this was a theist vs atheist thread?
Enter deism. A belief that a being probably had something to do with our belief of how the universe may have been created.
When you put it like that, the religion vs. atheism argument doesn't make sense. Everyone sounds stupid.
What? You're not even making sense, a belief that a being had something to do with our belief? Deism is not the belief that some God-like creature implented creationism-like ideas into our head?
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the material and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
The difference is that religion says it HAS the answer but science say they DON'T KNOW. Theories are unproven possibilities, not absolute truths.
Enter deism. A belief that a being probably had something to do with our belief of how the universe may have been created.
When you put it like that, the religion vs. atheism argument doesn't make sense. Everyone sounds stupid.
Deism doesn't suggest "that a being probably had something to do with how the universe may have been created" (edited for what I assume you meant to say). Deism makes a positive claim. Deists don't hedge. They believe in a creator, 100%. They simply don't see a need for religious dogma, and generally conceive the creator as non-interventionist.
Deism isn't the reasonable alternative to theism. They just don't focus on a personal God as much. Both make claims that are equally forceful and equally unfounded.
The argument isn't "religion vs atheism." It's theism/deism vs atheism/agnosticism.
"Offensive" bashing on religion gets you a ban here or even interesting discussions on that topic get closed. No idea why this is still open but you maybe should consider richarddawkins.net for honest discussions.
Deists basically exist because everything the Theists claimed got proven wrong more or less. The only thing you can't prove wrong is whether a God created the very first molecule or not. Everything from that point on can be proven wrong (now or in the future).
A good view on this topic is I think: Deists have a slightly different opinion than Atheists which doesn't really change anything (Because the God doesn't intervene in any way and they don't have to worship anything etc). Theists are delusional. Bigots are dangerous.
I decided not to re-watch the video, and instead read the arguments from that link you presented.
I heavily disagree with basically everything said there. Belief in a deity is something different from every example given in the text.
Let me first define belief for you:
"Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true."
Hmm, this is actually going to be quite hard for me to put into proper words, but I'll give it a try:
Lacking belief in a deity of some sort, means you are open to any alternative but a deity. Since there are however logical arguments to support the existence of a God in the broadest sense of the word deciding to ignore those logical arguments, and drawing your own conclusion puts you in the position that religious people hold as well.
Therefor I would say a statement such as "Atheists believe there is no God, and that there must be an alternative explanation for our known universe" would be true.
I would use a sentence from the video you posted as an example of why I think belief in a God is different: "Does it take more faith to disbelieve in big foot than it is to believe in it?"
The answer is no, because all evidence skews towards 1 side of the spectrum here. In the case of God however it does not, since once again there are logical reasonings leading to the conclusion that a God of some sort must exist. Therefor a leap of faith is required to go either way.
Once again I am referring to God in the broadest sense of the word. (Which I suspect is not what they are adressing in the video, I suspect they are discussing the Christian God here, which is something completely different from what I'm trying to point out)
The bold part is a mistake. Lacking a belief in a god doesn't mean you aren't open to any arguments. It simply means there has yet to be a satisfactory logical argument or convincing physical evidence that such a being exists. Atheists are open to such arguments/evidence.
I think you misunderstand how people process logical arguments. It's not "some argue god exists, some argue he doesn't. Therefore you must choose, and either choice requires faith." (my paraphrase of your argument).
It works like this. If I'm going to believe in God, I need to see physical evidence or a logically sound argument. Bring me such an argument, and I'm forced to accept it. The trouble is, no such argument exists. If you think one does, please make it. I'm willing to accept the existence of a god if you can demonstrate it to be true.
Deism is the belief that there is a deity that created the universe and thereafter pretty much left it alone, and the belief that there's evidence in nature that point to this conclusion.
However, proper deism rejects all religions as groundless and provably false.
IE, you are not supposed to be a deist, and a Christian. That's a theist.
Which is weird, and convoluted, and I don't blame people for using the terms without being aware of the difference.
Also, people have then later on decided that it's perfectly fine to be a Christian deist ... ie, existence of a God being proven through science and reason, and faith meaning that the Christian religion is true.
My own position is strong atheist: I find the idea that there should be a God extremely silly given what we currently know about the world and the human mind, so I strongly expect it not to be the case. (I use "expect" instead of "believe" here because using "believe" in the sense of "expect/predict/estimate/bet" often causes confusion in debates like this.) Nevertheless, I would not subscribe to the following position:
On July 14 2011 16:26 Flameberger wrote: Like seemingly a lot of people these days I only believe in what there is evidence to support.
If you think about it, you'll find that a lot of the things you believe (think/expect/estimate) are actually not based on any particular evidence. In rational arguments you may take a position like the one you state, but reality is much too complex to handle with the rational mind alone. People have to work with a million smaller and larger beliefs in order to get anywhere at all. Try to program a computer to do any nontrivial task (such as recognizing a face) based on the rules of logic and you'll find out just how much that approach fails. Much of how we perceive the world is based on hearsay, fuzzy inferences and guesswork, if not downright self-deception.
Much of the discussion about religion is not so much about how we actually perceive the world, because those perceptions are a complete uncategorizable mess, but about culture: which group of people, and what set of ideas, do we identify with and want to support consciously? Also, as far as I know ethics are not evidence-based: according to your statement, you do not believe that "it is wrong to kill", because there is no objective evidence that such a thing is wrong. (What does "wrong" even mean?) Yet I'm pretty sure you subscribe to that particular ethic.
The bold part is a mistake. Lacking a belief in a god doesn't mean you aren't open to any arguments. It simply means there has yet to be a satisfactory logical argument or convincing physical evidence that such a being exists. Atheists are open to such arguments/evidence.
I think you misunderstand how people process logical arguments. It's not "some argue god exists, some argue he doesn't. Therefore you must choose, and either choice requires faith." (my paraphrase of your argument).
It works like this. If I'm going to believe in God, I need to see physical evidence or a logically sound argument. Bring me such an argument, and I'm forced to accept it. The trouble is, no such argument exists. If you think one does, please make it. I'm willing to accept the existence of a god if you can demonstrate it to be true.
Crap, I feel obliged to go into futher detail here, so I'll do my best to find some of the logically valid arguments in favour of the existence of a God. Since obviously you are right, to not take on the position of an atheist there has to be atleast some grounds to do so.
Alright, well, I just spent like 30 minutes looking into it and there's just too much crap to plow through. If you're interested I would recommend Dr William Lane Craig's videos (drcraig on youtube), like I said there's a lot of crap to go through if you want to find some of the good stuff. Atleast I recall some of his arguments to be very compelling, however the arguments that I did find compelling were regarding the existence of a God in general, and I can't seem to find the debates I used to watch with him.
However since the dude's a Christian, there are a lot of videos not relevant to your request. (Some of which I have just watched in the hope to find something good again XD)
So! I suppose I will leave this thread with my tail between my legs now ^^, I hope you find some of the arguments I vaguely remember, since I basically can't give you any right now.
On July 14 2011 21:19 Linkirvana wrote: Since obviously you are right, faith should be justified.
Many great thinkers have tried, but failed to convince people who did not already believe. There is a list of about ten traditional arguments each of which I find utterly unconvincing. On the other hand, even though I'm not a believer myself, I wouldn't necessarily require that you justify your opinion. Just believe your stuff and leave it at that!
If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
I just want to say one more thing - go out to the grand canyon sometime and look at its magnificent wonders. Or just look at a sunset or the mountains. How can you not believe in a creator when there's something so beautiful in this world? It can't have just all happened by chance.
On July 14 2011 18:52 Pholon wrote: Not a deist, and I hold that no reason has ever been forwarded by another primate to believe there is. If you assume that there has to be a creator then I'll ask the clever clever question (who created the creator, who invented the inventor) and it's a slap in the face of science if you just throw up your hands and go "well how else?!"
That argument or "question" is flawed on both sides of 'religious' and 'scientific' domains.
Religion cannot explain "who" or "how" god was created Just like science cannot explain "what" or "how" there is existence
Not sure what you mean with flawed on both domains. Obviously the question only applies to religion cause science doesn't say there is a creator. And even then it only applies to those religious people who forward "there has to be a creator" as a reason for their belief in God rather than, say, those people who believe in God because of voices in their head or a willingness to accept the four-thousand year old ramblings of illiterate desert dwelling illiterate Palestinian goatherds.
Where did the material and energy come from for the Big Bang? Science is flawed. So is religion. Perhaps equally so.
If you go back far enough, and question every step of the way, you'll see all theories rely on belief without proof.
The difference is that religion says it HAS the answer but science say they DON'T KNOW. Theories are unproven possibilities, not absolute truths.
Enter deism. A belief that a being probably had something to do with our belief of how the universe may have been created.
When you put it like that, the religion vs. atheism argument doesn't make sense. Everyone sounds stupid.
Deism doesn't suggest "that a being probably had something to do with how the universe may have been created" (edited for what I assume you meant to say). Deism makes a positive claim. Deists don't hedge. They believe in a creator, 100%. They simply don't see a need for religious dogma, and generally conceive the creator as non-interventionist.
Deism isn't the reasonable alternative to theism. They just don't focus on a personal God as much. Both make claims that are equally forceful and equally unfounded.
The argument isn't "religion vs atheism." It's theism/deism vs atheism/agnosticism.
Being an atheist, I nonetheless strongly disagree with your analysis. Certainly, deists make a claim. But the claim is (typically) not that they "know" a god exists, but that they think it is the best explanation given what we know about existence. This is - I believe - certainly rationally defendable, even though I remain unconvinced by the arguments. In this sense deism is in fact a "rational alternative" to theism since deists don't have to dissolve and defend several problematic positions with regard to the motives and actions of personal deities.
I'd like to add a thought of mine, as there's probably a lot of atheists, like me, reading this thread.
When atheism grew up, with its frontrunner Nietschze there was a blind eye towards the positive things a church community can give, and the feeling of safety that a blind belief in life can give.
I'd like to remind every atheist of the positive effects on life religion also has had and convince you that these things without believing in God can remain in our culture and life.
One short example: When a person had died in a small swedish village back in the 19th century, the priest would arrive and help out with the practical stuff and do it in a respectful way towards the family. He would speak of life and death in a perhaps harsch devil like way or a peaceful way. But the point is that he would speak of it, that's the key to dealing with a death within the family. Afterwards the whole village would come for a visit and ask the family how their doing and what happened. Speaking of this loss with perhaps 40 different persons is in many ways dealing with death and loss. Today we get a letter from the state, a firm with people we don't know arrive to take care of the body.
When we stepped away from God an became our own Gods, we also stepped away from these troubling responsobilites. I think Atheists have a responsibilty to keep these important values alive if we're gonna take away the positive effects of religion from our children and people around us.
Now that's just me, but I think Jesus was on to something when he spoke of loving others and not just ourselves and making our own dreams come true at any cost as our society in many ways looks today.
If this post was judgemental I apologize, I hope the point got through. Thank you.
On July 14 2011 21:25 Dark Stalker wrote: I just want to say one more thing - go out to the grand canyon sometime and look at its magnificent wonders. Or just look at a sunset or the mountains. How can you not believe in a creator when there's something so beautiful in this world? It can't have just all happened by chance.
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.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
What I've taken away from this post as truths.
Atheists have nothing to live for so you should kill yourself. Christians are the only people to have meaning in their lives. If you don't love god, you are a materialistic and have to fill the void with sex money and power. If you don't believe that Jesus died for your sins, you are going to hell. Most people who argue against Christianity are ignorant.
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.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for.
Whoah, that's a bummer. Glad you told me.
Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway?
Wouldn't that be an excellent reason not to kill yourself?
More seriously,
The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power...
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?
If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it?
It has never happened to me, but I suppose I would unless I really felt I deserved it :-)
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
Get out. Why would atheists kill theirselves? Because they do not believe in an afterlife? That's retarded.
The bold part is a mistake. Lacking a belief in a god doesn't mean you aren't open to any arguments. It simply means there has yet to be a satisfactory logical argument or convincing physical evidence that such a being exists. Atheists are open to such arguments/evidence.
I think you misunderstand how people process logical arguments. It's not "some argue god exists, some argue he doesn't. Therefore you must choose, and either choice requires faith." (my paraphrase of your argument).
It works like this. If I'm going to believe in God, I need to see physical evidence or a logically sound argument. Bring me such an argument, and I'm forced to accept it. The trouble is, no such argument exists. If you think one does, please make it. I'm willing to accept the existence of a god if you can demonstrate it to be true.
Crap, I feel obliged to go into futher detail here, so I'll do my best to find some of the logically valid arguments in favour of the existence of a God. Since obviously you are right, to not take on the position of an atheist there has to be atleast some grounds to do so.
Alright, well, I just spent like 30 minutes looking into it and there's just too much crap to plow through. If you're interested I would recommend Dr William Lane Craig's videos (drcraig on youtube), like I said there's a lot of crap to go through if you want to find some of the good stuff. Atleast I recall some of his arguments to be very compelling, however the arguments that I did find compelling were regarding the existence of a God in general, and I can't seem to find the debates I used to watch with him.
However since the dude's a Christian, there are a lot of videos not relevant to your request. (Some of which I have just watched in the hope to find something good again XD)
So! I suppose I will leave this thread with my tail between my legs now ^^, I hope you find some of the arguments I vaguely remember, since I basically can't give you any right now.
William Lane Craig is a very well known theist and Christian apologist. I'm familiar with a lot of his argument, especially the Kalam Cosmological Argument. If you're interested in a response to any particular point or arguments he makes, let me know. Suffice it to say, he's been weighed, measured, and found wanting.
If you prefer a professional take on it, I'd bet a Google search would yield more responses to Craig from prominent atheists than materials from Craig himself.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
I will refrain from discussing Christianity here since i believe that will create this undesirable thing we call "shitfest/flamewar"
I, however, feel obliged to address part of your post. The part that claims Atheists (like me, among many others) lead a meaningless existence, and that we should roll over n die anyway. While i wasn't particularly angry, i do find that offensive.
Despite having no God to believe in, i find many different meanings in life. Whether it is working towards my dream, feeling good about the occasional good deeds that i do, or simply taking a step back to look at life for what it is. I feel full and, for better or for worse, am not at all aware of anything similar to a god-shaped hole in my existence. Since i do not _know_ where i go after i die (probably nowhere), i try to make my time here worthwhile.
Regarding Grand Canyon or similar stuffs, for every wondrous sight that you can show me, i ll show you another hundreds, thousands other sights that arent the least bit pretty, or even downright ugly. If things just randomly go on by themselves, they dont have to produce only ugly stuffs, they can, by chance, make pretty things too.
On July 14 2011 21:25 Dark Stalker wrote: I just want to say one more thing - go out to the grand canyon sometime and look at its magnificent wonders. Or just look at a sunset or the mountains. How can you not believe in a creator when there's something so beautiful in this world? It can't have just all happened by chance.
Why not?
I'm actually amazed that you've never asked the question "Why do I find this beautiful?" (Hint: Because you've evolved on this planet and have learned to appriciate such sights. Not you personally, of course.)
Anyway, as far as your "Your life is devoid of meaning, only my pompous belief in God gives meaning to me and my fellow horde of believers!" goes:
On July 14 2011 16:32 snotboogie wrote: When it comes down to it, the existence of life, consciousness and intelligence on an inhabitable planet is way too coincidental to be random. Yes, I believe in God.
Thats the thing, its not a huge coincidence as every one seems to think, its not a coincidence at all, there is an infinite number of planets on the universe, if we didnt evolve on this particular one you can be sure we would evolve on any other with the right properties.
The universe wasnt "made" perfectly to accommodate life; life, as we know it, evolved and changed to be able to accommodate in this universe.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
Ironic, given that you know nothing about atheism. Just because there is no Ultimate Purpose doesn't make life meaningless, I hope someday you realise how incredibly dense that is. It's telling that you think the alternative to religion is money sex and power.
For a tiny, miniscule split second in the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, I am alive. For the shortest time I can see some of it's wonders, and even better I am surrounded by people to share it with, to be friends with, to have arguments with, to fall in love with. It is often a struggle, but life is beautiful. Why on earth would I want to kill myself? If I were to believe that after death there is an eternal after life anyway, does that not make this life meaningless? The only meaning would be to please and praise Jesus so I get into heaven.
Quite apart from that I find the very idea of all humanity being worthless depraved sinners literally deserving of an eternity of torture to be horrific and deplorable.
EDIT: The first video that HellRoxYa posted says it very well.
On July 14 2011 21:46 ffreakk wrote: If things just randomly go on by themselves, they dont have to produce only ugly stuffs, they can, by chance, make pretty things too.
Although I pretty much agree with your argument, as a statistician I have to put in a note of warning here: there are two errors in this last remark that will feed the believers.
First, science says nature evolves by a process of natural selection, which means that random differences in an individual's genetic makeup will, if beneficial to the chance of reproduction, on average be reinforced in the gene pool. So there is chance involved there, but it is probably the selection bit that makes things pretty.
Second, our sense of beauty is not independent of the way the world looks. It seems to me that it is not a coincidence that the things we find beautiful or ugly are exactly the things that we find in our own environment.
On July 14 2011 21:25 Dark Stalker wrote: I just want to say one more thing - go out to the grand canyon sometime and look at its magnificent wonders. Or just look at a sunset or the mountains. How can you not believe in a creator when there's something so beautiful in this world? It can't have just all happened by chance.
Why not?
I'm actually amazed that you've never asked the question "Why do I find this beautiful?" (Hint: Because you've evolved on this planet and have learned to appriciate such sights. Not you personally, of course.)
Anyway, as far as your "Your life is devoid of meaning, only my pompous belief in God gives meaning to me and my fellow horde of believers!" goes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwEV0xhTzI
It's a shame that there's SITLL people who can't accept that life is given meaning by us, humans, not some outside influence that desires to be praised or will burn you for eternity.
I feel no urge to define my so called beliefs. Something created the universe, but what created the creator? Discussing these matters will always result in a dead end. The universe just exists and has always done so.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
Your logic stumbles me, so if nothing exists after death we should just kill ourselves? That a wierd perception of the world sir., should be the other way, if you do believe theres afterlife, a better life then your actual, than just kill yourself.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
I completely agree with you about a hole that could exist if u left your belief.
A unjust problem lies within the start of the whole discussion, In semantics.
The atheists starts with a huge handicap. Their belief is called not believing. Now from the outside that looks kind of empty. Like a void ray withóut a ray... But somehow these people have survived for a long time, this meaningless their supposed to find hasn't turned them into selfish anarchists who's only purpose is to fck things up for others. Of course atheists do such things, and there are atheist psychopats in this world. But the same argument can be made for religious people.
Anyway to get on with it. - Religion or Atheism. - Beliving or not beliving. - Religion or not religion. - Religion or not beliving in religion.
That's the first look on it. It's the way our society has made our though impulses to understand the difference between them.
But perhaps religion shouldn't have patent on the word beliving. Perhaps belief doesn't necessarily involve religion or something outside of this world. Perhaps people have survived and lived together for as long as the human as we know it has existed.
-Religion or Atheism. -Beliving in a religions worldview or not beliving in a religions worldview.
-Believing in life and having hope for things in life and finding meaning in love, our children, the worlds beauty+ religion or Believing in life and having hope for things in life and finding meaning in love, our children, the worlds beauty - religion.
Enough about semantics, let's move on to the hole.
I believe that when a person lives a religious life he will fill his or her habits and identity and worldview according to his religion and religious people around him or her.
Leaving such a life would involve refilling or refining goals in life which have been effected most of the choices in life. It can in some cases involve leaving your family and relatives which u might feel belonging to, needed by, and needing. When these things are what your legs stand on. Why fall down? For the truth? That's how I fell. I saw holes in the christian belief and I had questions I avoided to be able to call myself a christian.
Leaving this belief didn't hurt my family ties. It didn't hurt my relation to my religious friends. It brought me closer to people who I shared a world view with. In my case I'll always find it completely logical the way I left my view, and filled that hole with new belief. In your case, only you have the choice or answer. Perhaps u might leave your belief and return believing even more.
Just keep in your mind that meaning is life doesn't have to involve a God. Any smiling Atheist around the world is a proof of that. I'll finish this post with Stephen Hawking speaking of meaning, and a awesome song by "The National". Thank you and good bye. The National - Think you can wait
"One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it," he said. "Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away."
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.
On July 14 2011 22:17 Dark Stalker wrote: 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:
Lmfao, really? I posted the video because it contains very wise words by very wise people (several, in fact, not just "a black guy". You'd know if you watched the video and you should). What does skincolor have to do with anything? Do you seriously believe I looked up "that one video with the black guy" to give it more credability or something? I'll go read the rest of your post now but oh my, really felt I had to write something about this first.
On July 14 2011 22:17 Dark Stalker wrote: 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.
And because you stepped in it, please explain the logical conclusion that lead you to believe that pornography has anything to do with rape, suicide and homicide. Because to me, as a rational person reading news, studies and concidering the options it doesn't seem very likely to be the case.
On July 14 2011 22:17 Dark Stalker wrote: 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 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.
I see a lot of this; people who were converted during their teenage years and therefore believe all atheists think like they did when they were teenagers.
Pornography leads to and comes from a lot of awful stuff, yeah. Homosexuality though? Fuck off does it.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
please dont be that offensive. I am an Atheist and why should I kill myself? Life is great. there are so many interesting things on earth and I am a very curious guy. So I use my time to experience as much as I can. Why isnt that enough? why dont all animals kill themselfs? they dont have anything to do with religion and afterlife. they just live and so do humans. We are just more evolved, aware of our existence and have a lot of question. Many of those (unanswered 1.000 years ago) have been solved by now, others haven`t. Maybe some questions will ever be a mystery, but hopefully mankind will never stop searching for answers. 'Religion pretty much counters this.
I want to adress another issue. I`ve read some comments by people who say that atheists "believe" in no god. Imo that`s an uncorrect expression. "Believe" per definition is directed towards something, no matter if there is enough or any kind of hard evidence and this something is wished to be true. Atheist don't "believe" when it comes to god and they dont "believe" that there is none. They just dont see enough evidence and therefore they aren`t convinced that there is a god. And here it ends. Atheist dont choose to not believe in god, they dont want him to not exists and they dont see the point in filling the gap(s). This is a very important point.
I haven't read the entire thread, so I apologize if this point of view has already been mentioned. I am addressing the OP's point about scientists not being able to explain where the universe came from. He posed that a being more powerful than the universe needs to have existed first in order to create the universe.
However, this runs into the problem of where such a being would come from? So, assuming that the universe exists is actually a simpler proposition, since a creator God would, by definition, have to be more complicated than the universe that he creates.
So even though it is a perhaps unsatisfying assumption that the universe can exist by itself, it is even more unsatisfying to assume that God exists.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning.
I am going to just respond to this point you make with an example from Sam Harris.
Let's say you're walking on the street and bump into an old friend of yours you haven't seen in a while. He looks radiantly happy and you ask him what's going on in his life. He replies: "Man, everything changed for me the moment I realised I am destined to marry Angelina Jolie." After your eyebrows return from the back of your head you ask him what made him believe this, as Angeline Jolie one of the most famous and beautiful women on earth and, incidentally, is married to Brad Pitt and they have like 27 children by now. He, sensing your scepticism, responds, "no no, you don't understand. This belief gives my life purpose. It makes me happy and I'm a much better person" He continues by saying "I wouldn't want to live in a world where I don't marry Angelina Jolie". At this point it should be quite clear that your friend has lost his mind and probably is a dangerous person.
Our beliefs cannot be selected purely for what outcome they have on your life. They aren't like clothing that you can put on because they give you comfort and utility. They cannot be criteria for accepting them. To accept a belief you need to have good reasons and what effect they have on your life should not be among them.
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning.
Stupidest thing ever written, yet so common.
Quite simple: the reason for continuing to live, as an atheist, is that I believe that this is all that there ever will be.
The argument for suicide is much better if you believe in some sort of life after death ... after all, if life isn't great, why not just go for the next life? As someone who believes there is nothing after death, living as long as possible and getting the most enjoyment out of it, is only sensible.
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.
I see a lot of this; people who were converted during their teenage years and therefore believe all atheists think like they did when they were teenagers.
Pornography leads to and comes from a lot of awful stuff, yeah. Homosexuality though? Fuck off does it.
Pornography is like video games and violent movies. It can fuck up people that aren't capable of understanding it/dealing with it. I'd agree with you that the porn world isn't squeaky clean and that a lot of awful things happen in the adult industry, but the same can be said about pretty much any commercial product (clothing, food, iphones, you name it).
Chances are that if somebody rapes someone he's probably watching pornography too. Just like it's very likely that a teenager involved in a school shooting plays some kind of FPS or likes violent movies. Doesn't mean the two are related in any way, all it means that people with (sexually) aggressive tendencies tend to be interested in any medium that allows them to live out their fantasy. Not to mention that the majority of teenagers play games in the first place, and the majority of men watch pornography (especially in their late teens to their early 30s).
On July 14 2011 21:24 Dark Stalker wrote: If you are an atheist then you pretty much having nothing to live for. Why don't you just kill yourself, if nothing exists after death anyway? The reason I am a Christian is because it gives my life meaning. If I wasn't a Christian there would be a gap inside... I guess you could call it a 'God-shaped hole' that can't be fulfilled by money, sex, power... Pretty much any worldly thing there is out there. Basically Christianity is about believing that we are all born fallen, but there is still hope for us if only we're willing to accept it. If a judge was going to put you in jail, but someone came in offering to take your place, why wouldn't you take it? Because that's pretty much what Jesus did for us - we are all sinners, and if Jesus didn't die for us we would all be in Hell right now. Most people who argue against Christianity don't know anything about it so it's like trying to debate about the benefits of StarCraft with someone who thinks that all nerds are just wasting their lives and productivity and giving the gaming industry profits with no social benefits by playing computer games.
please dont be that offensive. I am an Atheist and why should I kill myself? Life is great. there are so many interesting things on earth and I am a very curious guy. So I use my time to experience as much as I can. Why isnt that enough? why dont all animals kill themselfs? they dont have anything to do with religion and afterlife. they just live and so do humans. We are just more evolved, aware of our existence and have a lot of question. Many of those (unanswered 1.000 years ago) have been solved by now, others haven`t. Maybe some questions will ever be a mystery, but hopefully mankind will never stop searching for answers. 'Religion pretty much counters this.
I want to adress another issue. I`ve read some comments by people who say that atheists "believe" in no god. Imo that`s an uncorrect expression. "Believe" per definition is directed towards something, no matter if there is enough or any kind of hard evidence and this something is wished to be true. Atheist don't "believe" when it comes to god and they dont "believe" that there is none. They just dont see enough evidence and therefore they aren`t convinced that there is a god. And here it ends. Atheist dont choose to not believe in god, they dont want him to not exists and they dont see the point in filling the gap(s). This is a very important point.
The escape from nihilism can be a tricky prospect for new atheists/agnostics, and it does take some reflection to figure out where one stands on the issue. Taking the Christian perspective, a purpose for life comes 'read-made' so to speak. That is, serve God, love one another, spread His word, and so on. An atheist needs to find his/her own purpose in life, or, deciding that there is no purpose, find a way to be ok with that or not.
To share some of what I believe, I essentially make two basic assumptions, my postulates if you will, and I try to figure out the rest logically. My first postulate is that the universe exists independently from my existence (it has existed before me and will continue after I am dead). A simple postulate I grant you, but necessary to be logically consistent. It is obviously meaningless to make conjectures about a universe about whose existence one is not sure. My second postulate is that we are able to interact with, and discover truths about (or at least approximations to those truths) by using our senses and reason. Here is where my assumptions stop. The rest I try to figure out given this framework. I realize this may not be everybody's cup of tea, but the world makes a lot of sense to me this way.
I concede that there are still a bunch of unexplained phenomena out there, but one just has to be careful here: Is something fundamentally inexplicable, or has a suitable explanation simply not yet been found? I will always gravitate to the latter opinion, and keep looking for answers.
So what then is my purpose of life? To be happy, to leave things a little better than I found them, to have thought about the big questions, to have a meaningful impact on the lives of those around me and, if I'm lucky, to have a little fun along the way!
On July 14 2011 22:48 Grackula wrote: You shouldn't believe in something just because you cannot know how things work.
Back then people believed the sun revolved around the earth because they couldn't observe anything. Were they right? No.
Not to mention believing in a higher power doesn't actually answer any of the questions the OP is interested in (where the universe came from, what the beginning is). Because now you have complicated our understanding of the universe by saying a higher power created it. Now you have to explain where that higher power came from and what its beginning was or you're in the same predicament. That's why I have to laugh at any religion which claims to provide a cleaner explanation of the universe.
In such situations it is not sensible to inject your instinctive explanation in place of the knowledge gap. The answer could be anything, we do not have it. That is where it ends. When we do, we will know. Until then, it is a bad idea to start guessing.
Yes. Pretty much exactly this. If there is a gap in knowledge, then we don't know. You can guess, but you need to acknowledge that its a guess and isn't supported by substantial evidence.
i kind of have a similar POV to the OP, but differes in that i think ....we are all just electrons? think about it. smallest thing in the universe is an atom, atoms make molecules, molecules make organisms and shit, organisms populate a planet, planets make a universe.......but what if the universe....was just another atom in something bigger...thus starting the whole cycle over. ...i watch way too much sci fi .....
No, I am not a deist. The only beliefs that we have in common is we agree that the universe was created by some higher power. We have an idea HOW it was created, but I think it has been adequately explained WHERE it came from.
The main reason I disagree with deism is because I think there is good evidence for a personal creator, a God who oversees and governs us from above, who can answer our prayers. I think there is evidence for his miracles, and his presence in this world.
I believe that anything that began to exist has a cause. I also believe that the universe began to exist. Therefore, I believe that the universe has a cause.
It is also a FACT that the biblical new testament has more and earlier copies of it's manuscripts than any other similarly aged document. By a LONG shot.
Long story short, I believe that a singular being (God) existed outside of space and time when he put the earth into motion. As my first statement goes, this being does not begin to exist, therefore it does not need a cause.
I believe that this world, and all humans who are made in God's image have fallen into evil ways, or ways that are far from what this creator God originally intended.
In order to teach us these ways, as well as forgive us for our wrong doing, he sent his son to us in the form of a human. He was both fully human and fully God.
I believe this being, named Jesus, suffered and died at our hands after living a perfect, "evil-less" life as a sacrificial tool. Through believing that truth and trying to be more like him, we gain that forgiveness, and our evil is washed from us.
Eventually, when we die we will go to a new world that he is building for us. When he returns here, all those who do not believe his truth will accept the opposite truth, that they will spend eternity in hell as all people apart from Jesus deserve.
Well.. trying to avoid biased information about this subject.. I would like to suggest everybody who are here, reading this topic, to just enjoy their lives, to love their families, to make something that they will be proud of when they are older.
I don't believe in anything. Human race is just a product of the colision of lots of particles, there was a chance of 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000003% that we raised up from that particles, and we are now evolving.
What we are living right now, what we will be living in 30 years, we will not have any conscience about that. Becase we are already dead. I mean, we are part of the Universe, we are part of a variable which is called time. We are not eternal, every human being has their ages to live, but we gotta leave room for the next ones.
We will not remember anything that we have lived simply because we will never know what life is. There won't be any rememberings.
I think that people who truly believe in God have fear to death, have fear to be part of the eternity, have fear of what I have stated before. I also have fear, but I accepted that there's no way an after-life could happen.
It is a debate between Laurence Krauss and the Christian theologian and philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig. It is long, but there are arguments presented from both sides. I leave it to you to decide the winner after watching it.
I don't see how claiming that the universe came from a higher power fills in any gaps at all, and it just raises many more questions. No, I'm not a Deist.
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.
Edit: Oh and I hope I can clear it up for people, Atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief in no god. Don't assume grabbing something off wiki will be accurate, it depends very much on whether a theist or atheist wrote it. When someone attempts to attribute a belief system to atheism, they are attempting to drag it down to the level of a religion so it can be quietly ignored like all other faiths.
The rational default is lack of belief. Then when whatever is in question is proven, it can be taken on as fact. This is why it is only the existence of a god that needs proving, not the non existence.
On July 14 2011 16:22 LloydRays wrote: Without going off on a rant, there are other beliefs, such as pantheism, the idea that the universe and its collective are literally god, a belief held by the late Carl Sagan.
Oh wow, this is pretty much what i believe. I didn't know it actually had a term, I just came to this conclusion by using my spare time on buses and in school thinking about it.
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?
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote: 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.
Well there kind of is a trend for educated people to be less religious. Obviously scientists who are very religious are few and far between, and the same can be said for people with most PhDs. It doesn't means that religious people aren't intelligent, but IMO it means that people who care to learn actually tend to come to a different conclusion.
As for most of what you said, well props.
Sigh. Do your research. Have you even read the apologetics? There are many many accurate sources supporting Christianity.
Not really =/ That's why arguments tend to come back to "you have to have faith". Sauces are shady at best. You have to assume many things to call them "accurate sources".
On July 15 2011 00:16 gentile wrote: 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.
In fact it's even worse than this. Not only does one need to come up with axioms from which to argue, one needs to accept a priori that reason is, well, reasonable. That one can arrive at truth via its application. This is due to the unfortunate fact that one cannot prove that reason is reasonable without using reason!
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
On July 15 2011 00:53 krndandaman wrote:lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
The earth wasn' created in seven days, it's 4.5 billion years old. There has been no flood, there is no evidence of it in any sedimentary layers.
I cannot comment on the existence of Jesus since I have never looked into it.
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
If I may be allowed to elucidate. If a statement isn't falsifiable, as the statement "God exists" seems to be, then the statement becomes equivalent to its converse, meaning that there is no logical reason to pick one over the other. In situations like this most people choose the statement which makes the least assumptions. In this case, that would obviously be the negation of the aforementioned statement. That God exists, assumes the existence of an infinitely complex being, so that is one big-ass assumption.
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"
lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
You have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other theists. Those are 'typical' arguments many theists use. just use google and you'll see how stupid it is.
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
What would be wrong with that.
If I may be allowed to elucidate. If a statement isn't falsifiable, as the statement "God exists" seems to be, then the statement becomes equivalent to its converse, meaning that there is no logical reason to pick one over the other. In situations like this most people choose the statement which makes the least assumptions. In this case, that would obviously be the negation of the aforementioned statement. That God exists, assumes the existence of an infinitely complex being, so that is one big-ass assumption.
No, the only logical stance to take would be to continue your life without paying attention to it.
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
Seems accurate to me.
Still not an ad populum.
But yes, a lot more than a third of the world's population is stupid. =)
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!
You are right, it is not logical to believe in something without evidence.
Here, look at the law of conservation of energy: Total energy in a system remains constant overtime, in which energy cannot be created or destroyed.
And before you talk about string theory, give evidence for that first.
On July 15 2011 00:16 gentile wrote: 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.
Why are you studying philsophy? you've got all the answers already... Why do you spend ur time studying the works of men who, in most cases, belong to the very organizations you slander? Why do you study at all?
You seem to be (and correct me if im wrong as your writings leaves me guessing) presenting yourself as an absurdist, a solist and fatalist all at once. None of those concepts are particularly novel and can be found in the angst filled writings of any given adolescent...if you truly don't care then don't speak when you have nothing new to offer the discussion.
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians.
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.
Basically, yeah. And what evidence are you talking about. And how does 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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians. Telling people that they will burn in hell for eternity because they don't believe in the same thing you do is not a Christian thing to do. It's arrogant and most importantly 'not of love'. Loving others is the most important commandment in the Christian religion.
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"
lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
You have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other theists. Those are 'typical' arguments many theists use. just use google and you'll see how stupid it is.
Also 2 posts above me.
... are you just saying that for the sake of mimicking because I highly doubt that
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
yes, exactly.
I was simply demonstrating how your response had absolutely no depth and didn't rebut anything. Just said "lolol heard it a million times USE GOOGLE BRO"
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians. Telling people that they will burn in hell for eternity because they don't believe in the same thing you do is not a Christian thing to do. It's arrogant and most importantly 'not of love'. Loving others is the most important commandment in the Christian religion.
hell was created for satan and his angels but we were dragged into his rebellion and now we are sentenced to die just like he was. However, salvation is available and free to any human being who would call upon his name. (not to fallen angels thats why they super hate us (: )
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
They'll have various explanations from that ranging from "those are special cases and they'll still go to heaven" to "well they're out of luck".
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote: My point is that there should be a basic level of respect and courtesy between people no matter the difference in religion.
I totally agree ... but there is a huge problem about it. A lot of christians don't respect atheists. Most don't behave in a obsiously disrespectful way but rather hidden (and most don't even do it on purpose). Let me give you some examples: - Prayers in schools - faith schools (with public funding / replacing public schools) - words like 'god' on official items like the banknotes, coins, national anthems - public funding for religion - Special rights for christian employers (i.e. to only employ christians) - christian messages on public tv - opposing gay marriage - praying in official ceremonies - banning certain movies - using their lobby to promote self censorship and so on and so on....
Just imagine if atheists would do the same thing i.e. by praying to the flying spaghetti monster in schools, putting the flying spaghetti monster on coins, monuments, in the national anthem, opposing and banning marriages between men and women, not employing any christians etc...
Most people don't notice such behavior because they are used to it. But nontheless it's shameful.
[EDIT] And those are just things that happen in western countries like the usa, germany, great britain, spain etc. I don't wanna image what happens in uganda, paraguay or peru...
On July 15 2011 00:16 gentile wrote: 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.
In fact it's even worse than this. Not only does one need to come up with axioms from which to argue, one needs to accept a priori that reason is, well, reasonable. That one can arrive at truth via its application. This is due to the unfortunate fact that one cannot prove that reason is reasonable without using reason!
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians.
Which logical fallacy is this? I forget.
Edit: No true Scotsman logical fallacy
logical fallacy or not, thats the only way to put it because there are alot of self-proclaimed Christians who don't live the way they preach
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians. Telling people that they will burn in hell for eternity because they don't believe in the same thing you do is not a Christian thing to do. It's arrogant and most importantly 'not of love'. Loving others is the most important commandment in the Christian religion.
I do believe that. doesn't mean I go out and tell someone they're gonna go to hell and burn in eternity forever? That's not gonna get anyone listening to you with that approach. Also, it is wrong in the first place to tell someone they are going to hell because the ultimate decision lies with God. Basically those people are doing 'backseat moderating' which their God will definitely not be happy with.
Irony. You just said the ultimate decision lies with God, implying they should not speak on his behalf, then you say "which God will definitely not be happy with" if they don't know who's going to hell how do you know he won't be happy?
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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:00 krndandaman wrote:
On July 14 2011 23:56 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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"
lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
You have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other theists. Those are 'typical' arguments many theists use. just use google and you'll see how stupid it is.
Also 2 posts above me.
... are you just saying that for the sake of mimicking because I highly doubt that
On July 15 2011 00:55 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:51 Thorakh wrote:
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
yes, exactly.
I was simply demonstrating how your response had absolutely no depth and didn't rebut anything. Just said "lolol heard it a million times USE GOOGLE BRO"
sorry for my lack of effort but I am just way too lazy to research for you lol
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
They'll have various explanations from that ranging from "those are special cases and they'll still go to heaven" to "well they're out of luck".
Christians believe that God is a good and loving God so they trust that he will take care of those without the privilege of hearing the gospel. however, no one can know for sure because it's divine choice.
Well I'm sorry my immortal soul that apparently exists is of such little significance that you won't even bother to do a google search. Almost makes me feel like you don't actually believe in it...but hey what do I know.
Just imagine if atheists would do the same thing i.e. by praying to the flying spaghetti monster in schools, putting the flying spaghetti monster on coins, monuments, in the national anthem, opposing and banning marriages between men and women, not employing any christians etc...
Did you hear about the Austrian who wore a spaghetti strainer on his head for his drivers license?
On July 15 2011 00:16 gentile wrote: 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.
Why are you studying philsophy? you've got all the answers already... Why do you spend ur time studying the works of men who, in most cases, belong to the very organizations you slander? Why do you study at all?
You seem to be (and correct me if im wrong as your writings leaves me guessing) presenting yourself as an absurdist, a solist and fatalist all at once. None of those concepts are particularly novel and can be found in the angst filled writings of any given adolescent...if you truly don't care then don't speak when you have nothing new to offer the discussion.
why? cause philosophy gives me pleasure above everything else I have found yet. Glad that you got what I am and are able to divide me into these 3 crucial parts, these 3 parts by the way are no indication that I cannot understand and follow the arguments of whos literatur I might read or have to read, no matter if I do not agree in many cases and yes (!) nothing is new, I did never claim so, everything was said and is done allready..I saw nothing new in any other post aswell..then again I wasnt aware that you have to come up with something new to be part of a very old discussion..my bad, I was only sharing my view, glad anyway that it is not entirely new to you. And I do care..in fact I do care too much for stuff like this.
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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:00 krndandaman wrote:
On July 14 2011 23:56 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians.
Which logical fallacy is this? I forget.
Edit: No true Scotsman logical fallacy
logical fallacy or not, thats the only way to put it because there are alot of self-proclaimed Christians who don't live the way they preach
On July 15 2011 01:02 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:59 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:54 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:10 Olinim wrote:
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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:00 krndandaman wrote:
On July 14 2011 23:56 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians. Telling people that they will burn in hell for eternity because they don't believe in the same thing you do is not a Christian thing to do. It's arrogant and most importantly 'not of love'. Loving others is the most important commandment in the Christian religion.
I do believe that. doesn't mean I go out and tell someone they're gonna go to hell and burn in eternity forever? That's not gonna get anyone listening to you with that approach. Also, it is wrong in the first place to tell someone they are going to hell because the ultimate decision lies with God. Basically those people are doing 'backseat moderating' which their God will definitely not be happy with.
Irony. You just said the ultimate decision lies with God, implying they should not speak on his behalf, then you say "which God will definitely not be happy with" if they don't know who's going to hell how do you know he won't be happy?
Because it says in the Bible? (which is the core of the Christian faith) there is a bunch of stuff saying not to judge others and self-examine ones self as God has the ultimate call.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
The belief that many Christians have is that the world is a fallen world which Satan rules over. Because of that, there are flaws in a once perfect world made by God.
now if I have to explain why Satan "rules" over the earth (incoming but why?/ isn't god all powerful and rules over everything???) it would go on and on so if you want to find out alot of your questions on your own alot of your answers are on google. ( I know, I'm lazy)
On July 15 2011 00:10 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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"
lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
You have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other theists. Those are 'typical' arguments many theists use. just use google and you'll see how stupid it is.
Also 2 posts above me.
... are you just saying that for the sake of mimicking because I highly doubt that
On July 15 2011 00:55 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:51 Thorakh wrote:
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
yes, exactly.
I was simply demonstrating how your response had absolutely no depth and didn't rebut anything. Just said "lolol heard it a million times USE GOOGLE BRO"
sorry for my lack of effort but I am just way too lazy to research for you lol
On July 15 2011 01:06 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:04 Dreis1337 wrote:
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
They'll have various explanations from that ranging from "those are special cases and they'll still go to heaven" to "well they're out of luck".
Christians believe that God is a good and loving God so they trust that he will take care of those without the privilege of hearing the gospel. however, no one can know for sure because it's divine choice.
Well I'm sorry my immortal soul that apparently exists is of such little significance that you won't even bother to do a google search. Almost makes me feel like you don't actually believe in it...but hey what do I know.
lol sorry but both of us know you're not going to be converted over a tiny discussion on a starcraft forum
i just wanted to give a little insight from a christian's point of view
If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
Sure, but im kinda busy so here's Leibniz's attempt:
for futher clarification on he's belief i suggest reading the monadology, discorse on metaphysics, ethics by spinoz and 6 or 7 more works from this era.
On July 15 2011 01:22 Olinim wrote: If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
Exactly.
If he cannot do it, he is not a god. If he can, but does not want to, he is sadistic.
Tell me this: 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.
it's an issue with sovereignty and having humankind realize the need for divine guidance from God oddly enough, without Satan (author of temptation) we all would be mindless robots praising God 24/7 which it says in the Bible, that God did not want.
That is irrelevant, he still lets us suffer while not doing anything about it, that's the defintion of sadistic.
Tell me this too, there are an infinite amount of possible gods that we can imagine and another infinite amount of gods that we cannot possibly imagine. That means that for every god you follow, there is an infinite amount of other gods that will let you burn in hell for eternity. This is also only the explanation of everything through a divine being, what if we are actually in a computer game and the only way to win is to embrace logic and rationality?
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote: My point is that there should be a basic level of respect and courtesy between people no matter the difference in religion.
I totally agree ... but there is a huge problem about it. A lot of christians don't respect atheists. Most don't behave in a obsiously disrespectful way but rather hidden (and most don't even do it on purpose). Let me give you some examples: - Prayers in schools - faith schools (with public funding / replacing public schools) - words like 'god' on official items like the banknotes, coins, national anthems - public funding for religion - Special rights for christian employers (i.e. to only employ christians) - christian messages on public tv - opposing gay marriage - praying in official ceremonies - banning certain movies - using their lobby to promote self censorship and so on and so on....
Just imagine if atheists would do the same thing i.e. by praying to the flying spaghetti monster in schools, putting the flying spaghetti monster on coins, monuments, in the national anthem, opposing and banning marriages between men and women, not employing any christians etc...
Most people don't notice such behavior because they are used to it. But nontheless it's shameful.
[EDIT] And those are just things that happen in western countries like the usa, germany, great britain, spain etc. I don't wanna image what happens in uganda, paraguay or peru...
That's pretty much all politics and I feel like Christians shouldn't obsess over politics like that. Me personally, I really can't be bothered to worry about the stuff you just listed. I've never in my life once had someone come up to me personally and complain about my belief so I'm going to assume that I am employing a decent enough of respect and courtesy to other people including atheists.
Since we are already on this, i guess i will join in.
The premises we are on would be: (i believe these are the commonly accepted terms of Christianity) - God is omnipotent (he is capable of about anything) - God is benevolent (he would prefer saving me to not doing so) - If i do not believe in him/doubt him, tough luck for all eternity
This is nothing nobody already know about, but i just thought i would like some explanation from a true Christian, since like you said many of them proclaimed to be God's men but do not live the way they should.
Me, being the flawed human being that i am, cant believe in Him due to what i perceive as lack of evidence, even after spending 4 years in Christian schools (2 years in a Methodist school, another 2 in a Catholic school). This likely mean that i will be spending the next eternity screaming in pain. What then prevent him from saving me, talk to me in my dreams, whisper to my conscience, or hell, just manifest in front of my face and tell me straight up. Also, why is he always so mysterious, so intangible? One public appearance and he would likely save millions, if not billions of those children that he so loved from eternal suffering. What would be more important than eternal time from that many people?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
They'll have various explanations from that ranging from "those are special cases and they'll still go to heaven" to "well they're out of luck".
Christians believe that God is a good and loving God so they trust that he will take care of those without the privilege of hearing the gospel. however, no one can know for sure because it's divine choice.
So in my example, if a man killed a 1000 people because he believe it was moral, God would just let it slide? He does NOT know of the Bible or Jesus, so he has no "real" grasp of the "correct" morals, right? Afterall isn't that the point of the Bible?
And if indeed he should just "know" that killing is wrong, then I extend the example to any and all of the sins, what happens then? If you apply the same logic, that he should "know" what is right or wrong, then there is NO point in the Bible at all.
And why don't I get the same luxury? I think the Bible is unbelievable, so I should be let off too, right? As long as I'm moral in the same respect, I should therefore get into heaven.
Even further, why doesn't God just reveal himself in the Americas too? He is omnipotent afterall. Maybe he did and no one believed? Well then Jesus must have been a stroke of luck and that just goes to show that belief is indeed random (if God himself finds it hard to convince people), in which case your fate is random, which is my first point!
On July 15 2011 00:10 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians.
Which logical fallacy is this? I forget.
Edit: No true Scotsman logical fallacy
logical fallacy or not, thats the only way to put it because there are alot of self-proclaimed Christians who don't live the way they preach
On July 15 2011 01:02 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:59 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:54 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:10 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians. Telling people that they will burn in hell for eternity because they don't believe in the same thing you do is not a Christian thing to do. It's arrogant and most importantly 'not of love'. Loving others is the most important commandment in the Christian religion.
I do believe that. doesn't mean I go out and tell someone they're gonna go to hell and burn in eternity forever? That's not gonna get anyone listening to you with that approach. Also, it is wrong in the first place to tell someone they are going to hell because the ultimate decision lies with God. Basically those people are doing 'backseat moderating' which their God will definitely not be happy with.
Irony. You just said the ultimate decision lies with God, implying they should not speak on his behalf, then you say "which God will definitely not be happy with" if they don't know who's going to hell how do you know he won't be happy?
Because it says in the Bible? (which is the core of the Christian faith) there is a bunch of stuff saying not to judge others and self-examine ones self as God has the ultimate call.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
The belief that many Christians have is that the world is a fallen world which Satan rules over. Because of that, there are flaws in a once perfect world made by God.
now if I have to explain why Satan "rules" over the earth (incoming but why?/ isn't god all powerful and rules over everything???) it would go on and on so if you want to find out alot of your questions on your own alot of your answers are on google. ( I know, I'm lazy)
On July 15 2011 01:13 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:10 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:03 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:02 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:55 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:53 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:47 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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"
lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
You have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other theists. Those are 'typical' arguments many theists use. just use google and you'll see how stupid it is.
Also 2 posts above me.
... are you just saying that for the sake of mimicking because I highly doubt that
On July 15 2011 00:55 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:51 Thorakh wrote:
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
yes, exactly.
I was simply demonstrating how your response had absolutely no depth and didn't rebut anything. Just said "lolol heard it a million times USE GOOGLE BRO"
sorry for my lack of effort but I am just way too lazy to research for you lol
On July 15 2011 01:06 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:04 Dreis1337 wrote:
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
They'll have various explanations from that ranging from "those are special cases and they'll still go to heaven" to "well they're out of luck".
Christians believe that God is a good and loving God so they trust that he will take care of those without the privilege of hearing the gospel. however, no one can know for sure because it's divine choice.
Well I'm sorry my immortal soul that apparently exists is of such little significance that you won't even bother to do a google search. Almost makes me feel like you don't actually believe in it...but hey what do I know.
lol sorry but both of us know you're not going to be converted over a tiny discussion on a starcraft forum
i just wanted to give a little insight from a christian's point of view
If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
-_-;; thats another common question "why doesn't god just stop satan if he has the power to do so at any time"
it's an issue with sovereignty and having humankind realize the need for divine guidance from God oddly enough, without Satan (author of temptation) we all would be mindless robots praising God 24/7 which it says in the Bible, that God did not want.
In that situation he's still malevolent. Especially the part where he's fine with "the author of temptation" leading me to reject Jesus Christ and supposedly burn in hell for eternity.
On July 15 2011 00:10 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians.
Which logical fallacy is this? I forget.
Edit: No true Scotsman logical fallacy
logical fallacy or not, thats the only way to put it because there are alot of self-proclaimed Christians who don't live the way they preach
On July 15 2011 01:02 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:59 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:54 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:10 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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.
On July 15 2011 00:18 Vore210 wrote: [quote]
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?
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
If you truly believe that, you seriously need to talk with actual Christians. Telling people that they will burn in hell for eternity because they don't believe in the same thing you do is not a Christian thing to do. It's arrogant and most importantly 'not of love'. Loving others is the most important commandment in the Christian religion.
I do believe that. doesn't mean I go out and tell someone they're gonna go to hell and burn in eternity forever? That's not gonna get anyone listening to you with that approach. Also, it is wrong in the first place to tell someone they are going to hell because the ultimate decision lies with God. Basically those people are doing 'backseat moderating' which their God will definitely not be happy with.
Irony. You just said the ultimate decision lies with God, implying they should not speak on his behalf, then you say "which God will definitely not be happy with" if they don't know who's going to hell how do you know he won't be happy?
Because it says in the Bible? (which is the core of the Christian faith) there is a bunch of stuff saying not to judge others and self-examine ones self as God has the ultimate call.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
The belief that many Christians have is that the world is a fallen world which Satan rules over. Because of that, there are flaws in a once perfect world made by God.
now if I have to explain why Satan "rules" over the earth (incoming but why?/ isn't god all powerful and rules over everything???) it would go on and on so if you want to find out alot of your questions on your own alot of your answers are on google. ( I know, I'm lazy)
On July 15 2011 01:13 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:10 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:03 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:02 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:55 Olinim wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:53 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:47 Olinim wrote: [quote] 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"
lol you have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other atheists. those are just 'typical' objections many atheists use.
just use google and you'll see how much support there is.
You have no idea how many times I heard the same things from other theists. Those are 'typical' arguments many theists use. just use google and you'll see how stupid it is.
Also 2 posts above me.
... are you just saying that for the sake of mimicking because I highly doubt that
On July 15 2011 00:55 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:51 Thorakh wrote:
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.
Ah, argument ad populum. The second worst of them all right behind ad hoc.
If it cannot be proven or disproven the only logical stance to take is agnostic (or 'weak' atheism if you really want) as it would be pointless to believe or disbelieve. Also, watch this video: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU
I don't think it was an ad populum. He was just saying that Calling Christians stupid = Calling a third of the world stupid.
yes, exactly.
I was simply demonstrating how your response had absolutely no depth and didn't rebut anything. Just said "lolol heard it a million times USE GOOGLE BRO"
sorry for my lack of effort but I am just way too lazy to research for you lol
On July 15 2011 01:06 Djzapz wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:04 Dreis1337 wrote:
And I think it's wrong to try to intimidate people by telling them they will burn in hell for eternity if they don't follow your religion with no proof.
Another reason why the Christian god is either sadistic as hell or simply inconsistent
I may be wrong in this, but don't you go to hell if you don't believe in God? So what about everyone that grew up and died with no knowledge of Him? Seems strange that millions of people in (example) the Americas, prior to European discovery and introduction of Christianity, would just helplessly go to hell.
In fact, if they are never introduced to the religion at all then they can never "know" (by a religious definition of knowledge) what is right and wrong, so their fate is completely random.
They'll have various explanations from that ranging from "those are special cases and they'll still go to heaven" to "well they're out of luck".
Christians believe that God is a good and loving God so they trust that he will take care of those without the privilege of hearing the gospel. however, no one can know for sure because it's divine choice.
Well I'm sorry my immortal soul that apparently exists is of such little significance that you won't even bother to do a google search. Almost makes me feel like you don't actually believe in it...but hey what do I know.
lol sorry but both of us know you're not going to be converted over a tiny discussion on a starcraft forum
i just wanted to give a little insight from a christian's point of view
If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
-_-;; thats another common question "why doesn't god just stop satan if he has the power to do so at any time"
it's an issue with sovereignty and having humankind realize the need for divine guidance from God oddly enough, without Satan (author of temptation) we all would be mindless robots praising God 24/7 which it says in the Bible, that God did not want.
If god did not want us to mindlessly praise him 24/7 how come anyone who doesn't do that goes to hell? Doesn't even make sense. If he truely exists, I don't know what to think about him. He makes people suffer all the time, for what? You could say for lessons but there are people who suffer from birth to death.
Also, why should a decision made by me in my ~80 years of life impact all of eternity? He forced me to make a decision, then when he disagrees, sends me to hell for eternity. I don't believe a god would do this, therefor I am atheist.
On July 15 2011 01:33 DoomsVille wrote: Why must any discussion about religion turn into a debate? It is futile. Neither side will convince the other.
Can't we all just respect each others beliefs and use this thread as it was originally intended?
That, or one can actually enjoy the debate/discussion and hopefully even learn something new in the process. I hold no malice when i argue against Christianity (or any other religion for that matter). I, however, dont believe any of that, and have many well thought out reasons as to why i think that way. I would like to hear the opinion of the opposite side too
On July 15 2011 01:33 DoomsVille wrote: Why must any discussion about religion turn into a debate? It is futile. Neither side will convince the other.
Can't we all just respect each others beliefs and use this thread as it was originally intended?
If I can even convince only one person in my entire life, it has been worth it as the world would be a step closer to embrace critical thinking and logic.
On July 15 2011 00:16 gentile wrote: 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.
In fact it's even worse than this. Not only does one need to come up with axioms from which to argue, one needs to accept a priori that reason is, well, reasonable. That one can arrive at truth via its application. This is due to the unfortunate fact that one cannot prove that reason is reasonable without using reason!
I've always loved this argument, that we can never prove reason is reasonable. Unfortunately, the argument is self-terminating; if reason is unreasonable, we can't reason anything and we're doomed. The argument defeats itself, since if we reason the reason is faulty then the argument is debunk. For practical purposes, we need to abandon this argument as anything but an example of the fallibility of reason.
Why do people keep making threads like this, for fucks sake...
Sigh, well while it's still open and not a shitstorm I'll give my own view. I believe in one God and I believe he made everything. I do not believe that hell is a fiery pit, God is far too loving to do that to his own children. Instead, I believe how Pope John Paul II describes it: "the Bible uses 'a symbolic language', which 'must be correctly interpreted … Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.'" Hell is merely the absence of God's love, which only happens when you deny he exists right in front of his face. Therefore if you die and you go to the gates of Heaven and stare God in the face, only an unreasonable person will still deny his existence. If you're reasonable, you have nothing to worry about.
As a religious person I understand my gospel, but I'll admit that really none of it matters. The only thing that matters, the only thing people should strive to do, is mimicing God's unlimited amount of love. If everyone in the world could love their brothers and sister so much that you could walk up to your biggest enemy and give them a hug, everything else would work itself out. That love is truly the only thing that matters.
So please, when you read the responses in this thread and think about how people have different opinions and beliefs than you, don't jump to a "your beliefs are retarded" statement. Don't go to "if you seriously believe that then you're a moron." Understand that everyone is your brother or your sister and only loving them for who they are, for better or for worse, can make this world a better place.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
I'm more of an agnostic so I'm probably not the best person to answer your question... That said, if you read the Old Testament, God is a pretty vengeful guy who'll punish anyone for just about anything, from making them blind to smiting them. The Deluge, Sodom/Gamorrah, putting gay people to death (for being like he made them!), animal sacrifices, Saul on the way to Tarsus, etc. There's tons of examples to draw from. Heck, I've lived a more charitable/affable/altruistic life than most Christians I know and yet I'd be the first one on the way to Hell just because I'm not 100% behind the idea of God.
It's not that big of a stretch to imagine that earthquakes/terrorism/massacres are his way of punishing us for failing to live up to his high expectations. If he once decided to wipe basically everyone out by drowning them, what's a little earthquake in the grand scheme of things?
God has no choice in the matter, if he did have a choice to make about good and evil he/she/it/they/w.e wouldnt be god. Choice implies restriction and lack of omnipotence.
On July 15 2011 01:22 Olinim wrote: If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
Exactly.
If he cannot do it, he is not a god. If he can, but does not want to, he is sadistic.
Tell me this: 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.
it's an issue with sovereignty and having humankind realize the need for divine guidance from God oddly enough, without Satan (author of temptation) we all would be mindless robots praising God 24/7 which it says in the Bible, that God did not want.
That is irrelevant, he still lets us suffer while not doing anything about it, that's the defintion of sadistic.
Tell me this too, there are an infinite amount of possible gods that we can imagine and another infinite amount of gods that we cannot possibly imagine. That means that for every god you follow, there is an infinite amount of other gods that will let you burn in hell for eternity. This is also only the explanation of everything through a divine being, what if we are actually in a computer game and the only way to win is to embrace logic and rationality?
um lets put it this way. you are a baby. you have a mom and a dad. your parents know better than you. (agree?) ist late at night you want this chocolate bar SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad but your parents know that you shouldn't eat it especially when its late night.
they say no but you cry because you want it so bad and you go to bed crying yourself to sleep.
you suffered, didn't you? was it for the best? yes
God knows that being mindless robots praising him 24/7 brings no happiness to both him and us.
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote: My point is that there should be a basic level of respect and courtesy between people no matter the difference in religion.
I totally agree ... but there is a huge problem about it. A lot of christians don't respect atheists. Most don't behave in a obsiously disrespectful way but rather hidden (and most don't even do it on purpose). Let me give you some examples: - Prayers in schools - faith schools (with public funding / replacing public schools) - words like 'god' on official items like the banknotes, coins, national anthems - public funding for religion - Special rights for christian employers (i.e. to only employ christians) - christian messages on public tv - opposing gay marriage - praying in official ceremonies - banning certain movies - using their lobby to promote self censorship and so on and so on....
Just imagine if atheists would do the same thing i.e. by praying to the flying spaghetti monster in schools, putting the flying spaghetti monster on coins, monuments, in the national anthem, opposing and banning marriages between men and women, not employing any christians etc...
Most people don't notice such behavior because they are used to it. But nontheless it's shameful.
[EDIT] And those are just things that happen in western countries like the usa, germany, great britain, spain etc. I don't wanna image what happens in uganda, paraguay or peru...
That's pretty much all politics and I feel like Christians shouldn't obsess over politics like that. Me personally, I really can't be bothered to worry about the stuff you just listed. I've never in my life once had someone come up to me personally and complain about my belief so I'm going to assume that I am employing a decent enough of respect and courtesy to other people including atheists.
Since we are already on this, i guess i will join in.
The premises we are on would be: (i believe these are the commonly accepted terms of Christianity) - God is omnipotent (he is capable of about anything) - God is benevolent (he would prefer saving me to not doing so) - If i do not believe in him/doubt him, tough luck for all eternity
This is nothing nobody already know about, but i just thought i would like some explanation from a true Christian, since like you said many of them proclaimed to be God's men but do not live the way they should.
Me, being the flawed human being that i am, cant believe in Him due to what i perceive as lack of evidence, even after spending 4 years in Christian schools (2 years in a Methodist school, another 2 in a Catholic school). This likely mean that i will be spending the next eternity screaming in pain. What then prevent him from saving me, talk to me in my dreams, whisper to my conscience, or hell, just manifest in front of my face and tell me straight up. Also, why is he always so mysterious, so intangible? One public appearance and he would likely save millions, if not billions of those children that he so loved from eternal suffering. What would be more important than eternal time from that many people?
dude. i've been raised in a christian family for 18 years, attended church my whole life, and now attend christian school and i didn't believe in God until last year. don't feel rushed because if you truly feel like there is truth in Christianity and there is something inside you that just can't dismiss Christianity away, all you are waiting for is evidence. or like you said, personally experiencing God.
even though you don't feel like it works, if you pray to God to help you believe, it will happen. I know it sounds silly and I definitely thought it was stupid and pointless but it works out in the end.
for me it was in a very tough time in my life with depression, meds, counseling, missing school, family problems etc. nothing made me feel better including the meds,counseling,friends,etc. but i really did experience God during that time and that's the only reason how I got out of my depression. as
I know alot of people might call me stupid or delusional but what can I do? it's something that happened to me and I'd be even more delusional to dismiss it false.
anyways u get my point! if you earnestly want and pray for faith you will get it
Except God's punishment is ETERNITY IN HELL, certainly comparable to denying a kid a candy bar. Your comparison is fucking absurd We're not talking about someone not getting a candy bar, God lets people roast in flames, get brutally raped. But it's all for the best right? His lack of empathy doesn't help anyone, and causes nothing but suffering. Just because you're delusional and gullible doesn't mean I should get on my knees and talk to myself.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
Someone get's it!
How can a Christian possibly explain a tsunami that wipes out thousands of people? A hurricane that leaves thousands dead and homeless? Poverty, disease and starvation. Is this the sign of an intelligent creator?
"God" either a) doesn't care or b) isn't there. I tend to think the latter.
Ultimately, arguing about religion is like arguing about whether pepsi is better than coke or which work of art is better than other. It's all just opinions.
Nobody has solid proof of anything. The rest is monkey theory and people acting out of fear because - GASP - there's a chance that nothing happens when we die. This is the reason why people want to believe, which is good for them if it makes them feel better but without proof is pretty irrational IMO.
So does this mean that the "official TL stance" has been abandoned in letting religious threads be posted (I think micronesia posted something along those lines but did let a religion thread in a blog go on)?
um lets put it this way. you are a baby. you have a mom and a dad. your parents know better than you. (agree?) ist late at night you want this chocolate bar SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad but your parents know that you shouldn't eat it especially when its late night.
they say no but you cry because you want it so bad and you go to bed crying yourself to sleep.
you suffered, didn't you? was it for the best? yes
God knows that being mindless robots praising him 24/7 brings no happiness to both him and us.
Letting horrible things happen to random humans is not 'being for the best' in any way possible. This comparison you just drew is ridiculous.
On July 15 2011 01:12 emPER12 wrote: Can someone who believe in God, explain me why he let earquakes happen, massacres, terrorist attacks killing civil people.. etc?
If we're talking about the Christian God, he has bigger problems than "letting" evil happen. He actively commits evil acts and demands that his followers do the same all throughout the Old Testament.
See Deuteronomy 20, wherein YHWH demands that his followers commit genocide.
On July 15 2011 01:22 Olinim wrote: If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
Exactly.
If he cannot do it, he is not a god. If he can, but does not want to, he is sadistic.
Tell me this: 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.
it's an issue with sovereignty and having humankind realize the need for divine guidance from God oddly enough, without Satan (author of temptation) we all would be mindless robots praising God 24/7 which it says in the Bible, that God did not want.
That is irrelevant, he still lets us suffer while not doing anything about it, that's the defintion of sadistic.
Tell me this too, there are an infinite amount of possible gods that we can imagine and another infinite amount of gods that we cannot possibly imagine. That means that for every god you follow, there is an infinite amount of other gods that will let you burn in hell for eternity. This is also only the explanation of everything through a divine being, what if we are actually in a computer game and the only way to win is to embrace logic and rationality?
um lets put it this way. you are a baby. you have a mom and a dad. your parents know better than you. (agree?) ist late at night you want this chocolate bar SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad but your parents know that you shouldn't eat it especially when its late night.
they say no but you cry because you want it so bad and you go to bed crying yourself to sleep.
you suffered, didn't you? was it for the best? yes
God knows that being mindless robots praising him 24/7 brings no happiness to both him and us.
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote: My point is that there should be a basic level of respect and courtesy between people no matter the difference in religion.
I totally agree ... but there is a huge problem about it. A lot of christians don't respect atheists. Most don't behave in a obsiously disrespectful way but rather hidden (and most don't even do it on purpose). Let me give you some examples: - Prayers in schools - faith schools (with public funding / replacing public schools) - words like 'god' on official items like the banknotes, coins, national anthems - public funding for religion - Special rights for christian employers (i.e. to only employ christians) - christian messages on public tv - opposing gay marriage - praying in official ceremonies - banning certain movies - using their lobby to promote self censorship and so on and so on....
Just imagine if atheists would do the same thing i.e. by praying to the flying spaghetti monster in schools, putting the flying spaghetti monster on coins, monuments, in the national anthem, opposing and banning marriages between men and women, not employing any christians etc...
Most people don't notice such behavior because they are used to it. But nontheless it's shameful.
[EDIT] And those are just things that happen in western countries like the usa, germany, great britain, spain etc. I don't wanna image what happens in uganda, paraguay or peru...
That's pretty much all politics and I feel like Christians shouldn't obsess over politics like that. Me personally, I really can't be bothered to worry about the stuff you just listed. I've never in my life once had someone come up to me personally and complain about my belief so I'm going to assume that I am employing a decent enough of respect and courtesy to other people including atheists.
Since we are already on this, i guess i will join in.
The premises we are on would be: (i believe these are the commonly accepted terms of Christianity) - God is omnipotent (he is capable of about anything) - God is benevolent (he would prefer saving me to not doing so) - If i do not believe in him/doubt him, tough luck for all eternity
This is nothing nobody already know about, but i just thought i would like some explanation from a true Christian, since like you said many of them proclaimed to be God's men but do not live the way they should.
Me, being the flawed human being that i am, cant believe in Him due to what i perceive as lack of evidence, even after spending 4 years in Christian schools (2 years in a Methodist school, another 2 in a Catholic school). This likely mean that i will be spending the next eternity screaming in pain. What then prevent him from saving me, talk to me in my dreams, whisper to my conscience, or hell, just manifest in front of my face and tell me straight up. Also, why is he always so mysterious, so intangible? One public appearance and he would likely save millions, if not billions of those children that he so loved from eternal suffering. What would be more important than eternal time from that many people?
dude. i've been raised in a christian family for 18 years, attended church my whole life, and now attend christian school and i didn't believe in God until last year. don't feel rushed because if you truly feel like there is truth in Christianity and there is something inside you that just can't dismiss Christianity away, all you are waiting for is evidence. or like you said, personally experiencing God.
even though you don't feel like it works, if you pray to God to help you believe, it will happen. I know it sounds silly and I definitely thought it was stupid and pointless but it works out in the end.
for me it was in a very tough time in my life with depression, meds, counseling, missing school, family problems etc. nothing made me feel better including the meds,counseling,friends,etc. but i really did experience God during that time and that's the only reason how I got out of my depression.
I know alot of people might call me stupid or delusional but what can I do? it's something that happened to me and I'd be even more delusional to dismiss it as false.
anyways u get my point! if you earnestly want and pray for faith you will get it
1/ Your reply doesnt answer my only question yet: Why doesnt he do something so infinitely trivial as saving me, or the other 4 billions or so people for that matter. Why stay mysterious? Why not appear and save us all? or at least most of us?
2/ Big problem with the argument above (the 1st one before my quote). My parents arent omnipotent. If they are, they should have just made me go to sleep, knowing what is good for me. I would still know what's good, and i wouldnt have to suffer. And quite unlike crying myself to sleep for 1 night in your analogy, this Hell thing is for an eternity.
Same thing for the Satan stuffs. If Satan is bad, get rid of him. If he doesnt want people to worship him 24/7, make them do so only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. There's no need for us to be reminded he is omnipotent right? Why go the round about way with Satan, devil, and all that suffering when he can just make things happen?
Religion is an abomination and cancer that must be cut from society. If you are a religious person, you are delusional and worked on by other delusional people. You are my brothers and sisters, yes. That's why everyone is telling you(religious people) to stop letting others shovel shit in your head.
Ever since you were a baby, people around you, combined with experience in your life, you were molded into a believer. If somehow you were conveyed you that a god exists, these people are not my brothers nor sisters since they are spreading cancer, false beliefs and making you have to change your life to serve a non-existent void, that makes you second guess yourself every turn.
On July 14 2011 16:14 ryanAnger wrote: Assuming a linear understanding of "time" as opposed to a circular one, you are always forced to question what was before whatever is commonly accepted as "the beginning." This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
Bolded the important bit. This is where we differ - I don't know what happened before the big bang, and I probably never will, but I don't understand why people find it necessary to just make stuff up. Is there anything wrong with saying "I dunno?".
I don't know how my microwave works, or how magnets work, or why so many people like shitty "musicians" like justin beiber etc. If mankind has discovered the answer to those questions that's great, but if no-one yet knows the answer that doesn't mean a magic man in the sky is responsible. We just don't know yet.
On July 15 2011 01:22 Olinim wrote: If God allows an evil being like "Satan" to freely terrorize people when he has the power to stop it then he is malevolent.
Exactly.
If he cannot do it, he is not a god. If he can, but does not want to, he is sadistic.
Tell me this: 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.
it's an issue with sovereignty and having humankind realize the need for divine guidance from God oddly enough, without Satan (author of temptation) we all would be mindless robots praising God 24/7 which it says in the Bible, that God did not want.
That is irrelevant, he still lets us suffer while not doing anything about it, that's the defintion of sadistic.
Tell me this too, there are an infinite amount of possible gods that we can imagine and another infinite amount of gods that we cannot possibly imagine. That means that for every god you follow, there is an infinite amount of other gods that will let you burn in hell for eternity. This is also only the explanation of everything through a divine being, what if we are actually in a computer game and the only way to win is to embrace logic and rationality?
um lets put it this way. you are a baby. you have a mom and a dad. your parents know better than you. (agree?) ist late at night you want this chocolate bar SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad but your parents know that you shouldn't eat it especially when its late night.
they say no but you cry because you want it so bad and you go to bed crying yourself to sleep.
you suffered, didn't you? was it for the best? yes
God knows that being mindless robots praising him 24/7 brings no happiness to both him and us.
On July 15 2011 01:29 ffreakk wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:14 krndandaman wrote:
On July 15 2011 01:08 NiNi wrote:
On July 15 2011 00:42 krndandaman wrote: My point is that there should be a basic level of respect and courtesy between people no matter the difference in religion.
I totally agree ... but there is a huge problem about it. A lot of christians don't respect atheists. Most don't behave in a obsiously disrespectful way but rather hidden (and most don't even do it on purpose). Let me give you some examples: - Prayers in schools - faith schools (with public funding / replacing public schools) - words like 'god' on official items like the banknotes, coins, national anthems - public funding for religion - Special rights for christian employers (i.e. to only employ christians) - christian messages on public tv - opposing gay marriage - praying in official ceremonies - banning certain movies - using their lobby to promote self censorship and so on and so on....
Just imagine if atheists would do the same thing i.e. by praying to the flying spaghetti monster in schools, putting the flying spaghetti monster on coins, monuments, in the national anthem, opposing and banning marriages between men and women, not employing any christians etc...
Most people don't notice such behavior because they are used to it. But nontheless it's shameful.
[EDIT] And those are just things that happen in western countries like the usa, germany, great britain, spain etc. I don't wanna image what happens in uganda, paraguay or peru...
That's pretty much all politics and I feel like Christians shouldn't obsess over politics like that. Me personally, I really can't be bothered to worry about the stuff you just listed. I've never in my life once had someone come up to me personally and complain about my belief so I'm going to assume that I am employing a decent enough of respect and courtesy to other people including atheists.
Since we are already on this, i guess i will join in.
The premises we are on would be: (i believe these are the commonly accepted terms of Christianity) - God is omnipotent (he is capable of about anything) - God is benevolent (he would prefer saving me to not doing so) - If i do not believe in him/doubt him, tough luck for all eternity
This is nothing nobody already know about, but i just thought i would like some explanation from a true Christian, since like you said many of them proclaimed to be God's men but do not live the way they should.
Me, being the flawed human being that i am, cant believe in Him due to what i perceive as lack of evidence, even after spending 4 years in Christian schools (2 years in a Methodist school, another 2 in a Catholic school). This likely mean that i will be spending the next eternity screaming in pain. What then prevent him from saving me, talk to me in my dreams, whisper to my conscience, or hell, just manifest in front of my face and tell me straight up. Also, why is he always so mysterious, so intangible? One public appearance and he would likely save millions, if not billions of those children that he so loved from eternal suffering. What would be more important than eternal time from that many people?
dude. i've been raised in a christian family for 18 years, attended church my whole life, and now attend christian school and i didn't believe in God until last year. don't feel rushed because if you truly feel like there is truth in Christianity and there is something inside you that just can't dismiss Christianity away, all you are waiting for is evidence. or like you said, personally experiencing God.
even though you don't feel like it works, if you pray to God to help you believe, it will happen. I know it sounds silly and I definitely thought it was stupid and pointless but it works out in the end.
for me it was in a very tough time in my life with depression, meds, counseling, missing school, family problems etc. nothing made me feel better including the meds,counseling,friends,etc. but i really did experience God during that time and that's the only reason how I got out of my depression.
I know alot of people might call me stupid or delusional but what can I do? it's something that happened to me and I'd be even more delusional to dismiss it as false.
anyways u get my point! if you earnestly want and pray for faith you will get it
Except God's punishment is ETERNITY IN HELL, certainly comparable to denying a kid a candy bar. Your comparison is fucking absurd, his lack of empathy doesn't help anyone, and causes nothing but suffering. Just because you're delusional and gullible doesn't mean I should get on my knees and talk to myself.
um i just saw this before i turn off my internet browser but dude are you sure you're reading correctly? he was talking about satan and temptation so I was referring to that. he was saying why does God allow satan to tempt us and let us suffer? not eternity in hell
also the whole point of the analogy was the concept, not that magnitude
whats up with the condescending attitude and name calling? delusional and gullible?
i mean, goodness, what exactly did i ever do to you to deserve that? lol. at least adhere to teamliquid posting etiquette?
besides i never even told you to start praying. stop putting words in my mouth
either way, really going to sleep now
"if you earnestly want and pray you will get it" You're basically saying that I should start praying and I'll be saved basically. also refer to freaks post to see what's wrong with your analogy.
he was talking about satan and temptation so I was referring to that. he was saying why does God allow satan to tempt us and let us suffer?
Ah, you were referring to my part about Adam and Eve. Then dismantling your explanation becomes even more simple, Adam and Eve did not have any concept of good and wrong before eating from the tree, therefore punishing them for something they could not possibly have known is sadistic and wrong.
A child can distinguish between right and wrong. Adam and Eve couldn't. A child knows he should listen to his parents. All Adam and Eve knew was that there were two conflicting opinions about whether to eat from the tree or not (the snake and god) and as they didn't know right from wrong, God could not have reasonable expected them to make the right choice.
Also, the parents forced the chocolate bar away from the child, God did not force Adam and Eve away from the tree.
If God is omnipotent, he should have known what Adam and Eve were going to do and as such he is sadistic for putting them into a situation where he knew he was going to punish them.
On July 15 2011 01:56 gosublade wrote: Religion is an abomination and cancer that must be cut from society. If you are a religious person, you are delusional and worked on by other delusional people. You are my brothers and sisters, yes. That's why everyone is telling you(religious people) to stop letting others shovel shit in your head.
Ever since you were a baby, people around you, combined with experience in your life, you were molded into a believer. If somehow you were conveyed you that a god exists, these people are not my brothers nor sisters since they are spreading cancer, false beliefs and making you have to change your life to serve a non-existent void, that makes you second guess yourself every turn.
Lack of any argument, proof, evidence or reasons of any sort in your post.
Blind hate gets you nowhere, neither does name-calling n similar actions.
On July 15 2011 02:00 5ukkub wrote: Why do religious people abandon reason?
Why do non-religious people ask such biased leading questions? Why are you a troll?
I'm not going to take sides, but keep in mind that you are essentially being the atheist equivalent of fundamentalism -___-
WHAT? do you know what atheism is?anyone who answers no to the question "Is there any kind of god?" is an atheist, how does is make all of the atheist fundamentalists? do i need to belive in unrusonable stuff to be a resonable person?
This is a question I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to, and that is where I've decided to fill in the gaps with my own beliefs.
It's surprising how many people think they can solve the problem of what actually existed before our universe by imagining that something created it. Doing so just pushes the issue one step forward and one could keep asking what existed before the being that created the universe. So imagining that somebody created the universe and just left it doesn't really explain much, though it seems to give many an ease of mind.
guys please stay on topic or I feel this thread might get closed. The first 8-9 pages were really good, but the last ones pretty much dragged the whole situation into mudd. stop attacking eachother and read!!! the OP, then (if you feel like adding something useful) post it in a manner that presents facts and not your (mostly negative) emotions.
EPT
