Question to Atheists:

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: pyonir
Why do you care so much? You believe in a higher power...i respect that and really don't care what your reasons are because they are yours. I don't believe in a higher power, respect that and know that my reasons are my own. I don't have to share my reasons or my beliefs any further than that, because they are mine...not yours, and i don't care what you believe in.

I'm not asking you to care. I posted my beliefs to show I'm not some fundamentalist idiot bent on bashing Atheists for no reason.

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: Conky
What I've never understood about atheists is that they simply hate that others have any belief besides theirs.

That's a broad generalization. That's like saying all Christians are always trying to covert me and get me to believe.

There are Atheists that respect your decision and expect the same in return, except you never hear from us because we have no need to speak up.

 

[Kadarin]

I'm agnostic. I do not know that there is no God, but on the other hand, there certainly is NO EVIDENCE to support its existence.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: chusteczka

Originally posted by: irishScott
How can you look at something like the Universe, with it's laws, rules, dimensions, shapes, and ORDER and deny, with absolute certainty, that there isn't a higher being behind it?

... Just in the general "God concept" sense, how can you deny it?

It is not so much the situation that a "God concept" is denied since this concept provides little relevance to life the way I live it. I do not deny any god's existence. I just do not give the thought any importance in my life.

To deny a god's existence, I would first have to consider such a concept to be important.

That would make you agnostic?

I live my life by reason as well. This reason leads me to be confident in the existance of a God who wishes us to be moral, among a FEW other things (check out my wiki link).

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: pyonir
Why do you care so much? You believe in a higher power...i respect that and really don't care what your reasons are because they are yours. I don't believe in a higher power, respect that and know that my reasons are my own. I don't have to share my reasons or my beliefs any further than that, because they are mine...not yours, and i don't care what you believe in.

I'm not asking you to care. I posted my beliefs to show I'm not some fundamentalist idiot bent on bashing Atheists for no reason.

So you have your own reasons, so it's okay to bash on them? That makes sense.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: pyonir

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: pyonir
Why do you care so much? You believe in a higher power...i respect that and really don't care what your reasons are because they are yours. I don't believe in a higher power, respect that and know that my reasons are my own. I don't have to share my reasons or my beliefs any further than that, because they are mine...not yours, and i don't care what you believe in.

I'm not asking you to care. I posted my beliefs to show I'm not some fundamentalist idiot bent on bashing Atheists for no reason.

So you have your own reasons, so it's okay to bash on them? That makes sense.

I'm not bashing. I'm asking an honest question about something I don't understand. Stop being so defensive.

 

[Rangoric]

Originally posted by: irishScott
The proof is everywhere. The proof is that 1 + 1 = 2, and that g (on earth) = 9.8 m/s^2
The proof is that mass is not randomly scattered, but takes on the form of stars, planets.

Consider the big-bang theory. If the entirety of our Universe was compressed into something smaller then the head of a pin, and exploded, what are the chances that everything slid neatly into the organized universe we know and love on it's own?

Pretty good actually, why don't you start off the game of pool?

Anyways the math argument is worthless, you are using man made creations to prove a point that god exists. Thus only proving that god is man made. And as such invalidating your point.

Also the Big Bang Theory isn't proven. As such...
Remember, Apollo travels across the sky to provide light for us. They couldn't prove it but nobody could disprove it at the time either.

And also, why are most educated, enlightened people peaceful, while rebels shove knives up women's vaginas in Africa?

You must be new to the internet. Welcome and enjoy your stay. How was that cave you've been living in all these years?

By all the laws of nature, we should all be ultimately selfish and not give something without asking for something in return.

Humans are. Even the most religious.
You want into Heaven. So you act accordingly.

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: pyonir

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: pyonir
Why do you care so much? You believe in a higher power...i respect that and really don't care what your reasons are because they are yours. I don't believe in a higher power, respect that and know that my reasons are my own. I don't have to share my reasons or my beliefs any further than that, because they are mine...not yours, and i don't care what you believe in.

I'm not asking you to care. I posted my beliefs to show I'm not some fundamentalist idiot bent on bashing Atheists for no reason.

So you have your own reasons, so it's okay to bash on them? That makes sense.

I'm not bashing. I'm asking an honest question about something I don't understand. Stop being so defensive.

I'm not being defensive, it's just that this question gets asked so many times and NEVER accomplishes anything.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
You argue that the fact that there is order in the universe means that there should have been something that created such order.

1. There is order in the universe.
2. Order is created.
3. God created such order.

Here's where you'll run into problems:
1. God is a being that has order.
2. Order is created.
3. God was created?

If you counter argue with "God has always been," I can counter argue with "then it's just as safe to say that the universe has always been."

Just because the universe has order doesn't mean it had to have been created. If it were created, then what created God? God is ordered too isn't it?

Still, the very idea of existence (of anything) is a very hard thing to grasp.

I don't claim to know the nature of God or the Universe (outside of my limited human knowledge). I believe this knowledge is obtainable, but we haven't discovered it yet.

For all we know, the Big Bang theory could be wrong and the Universe HAS alway been. Not that I believe that, but I keep the possibility open.

 

[Howard]

Jesus Christ, this thread is full of lose.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: pyonir

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: pyonir

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: pyonir
Why do you care so much? You believe in a higher power...i respect that and really don't care what your reasons are because they are yours. I don't believe in a higher power, respect that and know that my reasons are my own. I don't have to share my reasons or my beliefs any further than that, because they are mine...not yours, and i don't care what you believe in.

I'm not asking you to care. I posted my beliefs to show I'm not some fundamentalist idiot bent on bashing Atheists for no reason.

So you have your own reasons, so it's okay to bash on them? That makes sense.

I'm not bashing. I'm asking an honest question about something I don't understand. Stop being so defensive.

I'm not being defensive, it's just that this question gets asked so many times and NEVER accomplishes anything.

At the very least, we've got a nice little debate going. It'l delay Alzheimer's by a few more hours.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: Flammable
if there was a higher god, why is it that he would let us even think about atheism when creating "us"

EDIT:

Also, in many instances religion was only used to gain power not to ACTUALLY help people/ Look back a couple hundred years ago. Indulgences were a scam yet the archdiocese still supported it and appraised it.

See my wiki link.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo

Originally posted by: irishScott
As for Jesus, Mohammad (sp? no insult intended), and every other religious icon, they definitely existed, and they were definitely great philosophers with a lot of good points to make. As for them being divinely inspired/influenced, I am seriously skeptical. And their magic tricks (walking on water and such) were utter bullsh!t.

great philosophers? thats a stretch, especially in mohammeds case. a few grains of obvious and preexisting "widsom" in a haystack of harmful arbitrary senseless garbage is what their teachings were about. great manipulators of the people, thats what they were.

Philosophers are philosophers. Whether they are great are not is dependent on history. If you look at many of the great "revered" philosophers closely enough, you'll find more disturbing crap then you'd probably expect.

no, whether a philosopher was great or not depends on the quality of their teachings, whether they thought of anything new, and what was the quality of their reasoning. bullsh*t artists that are popular are nothing more than that, bullsh*t artists.

But they're popular for a reason. People like what they say and are willing to follow them. Maybe you or I wouldn't, but I still think that even a wrong philosophy is great if it has the numbers.

Analogy:

The nuke is the greatest weapon invented. It could kill billions.

 

[Rangoric]

Originally posted by: irishScott
For all we know, the Big Bang theory could be wrong and the Universe HAS alway been. Not that I believe that, but I keep the possibility open.

But you are closed minded. You do not accept that there can be no god And as such you are not open, you are only open to certain possibilities and have already discarded ideas that you don't like.

The reason I know this is you ignored my first post. I already countered your proof by saying that it in no way proves anything more then the fact that at some point people thought apollo was responsable for the light we get every day.

 

[senseamp]

The list of things that were once unexplained and attributed to "God" is so long, that people should really stop attributing the unexplained to the supernatural.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: Rangoric

Originally posted by: irishScott
For all we know, the Big Bang theory could be wrong and the Universe HAS alway been. Not that I believe that, but I keep the possibility open.

But you are closed minded. You do not accept that there can be no god And as such you are not open, you are only open to certain possibilities and have already discarded ideas that you don't like.

The reason I know this is you ignored my first post. I already countered your proof by saying that it in no way proves anything more then the fact that at some point people thought apollo was responsable for the light we get every day.

I'll accept that there is no God when you can prove 100% that there isn't one.

As for my lack of response, not intentional. I let the thread sit for a few minutes and came back to 10 responses which turned into 5 sub-debates. My response is:

"Why do those things prove in any fashion that some higher being had to have done it? "

From my earlier post:

The proof is everywhere. The proof is that 1 + 1 = 2, and that g (on earth) = 9.8 m/s^2
The proof is that mass is not randomly scattered, but takes on the form of stars, planets.

Consider the big-bang theory. If the entirety of our Universe was compressed into something smaller then the head of a pin, and exploded, what are the chances that everything slid neatly into the organized universe we know and love on it's own?

And also, why are most educated, enlightened people peaceful, while rebels shove knives up women's vaginas in Africa?

By all the laws of nature, we should all be ultimately selfish and not give something without asking for something in return. Yet there are many people throughout history (and even more today) who give with no thought of a reward, save the good feeling that comes from doing something good. And where does that feeling come from praetell? Once again it violates the laws of nature.


"Why should I take your evidence as proof, when you can not in fact, prove that God caused it to be that way? "

What you take as proof is your choice. To use my previous analogy, you could say that I couldn't "prove" I would Ace a test, even when I'd studied above and beyond for it.


"Why must every unexplained thing (unexplained Order in your case) be cause to believe some higher power did it?"

So organization on the complex scale of our universe rose out of nothing? I find this unlikely.


"Back in the day it was beleived that a God traveled across the sky on a chariot bringing light to everyone. "

A belief that I believe to be wrong, although I suppose it's theoretically possible. I fail to see the relevance.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: senseamp
The list of things that were once unexplained and attributed to "God" is so long, that people should really stop attributing the unexplained to the supernatural.

I'm not talking about the fact that some woman awoke from a coma or that a gun goes "boom". I'm talking the nature of the Universe here.

 

[Rogodin2]

I'm a pragmatist-soon you won't have time to worry about metaphysical quesitons.

Rogo

 

[CKent]

I just don't see how it requires the existence of a deity. How is it any different from looking up at the sun, the moon or a thunderstorm and, not knowing how they work, assuming they too must be the work of a deity, as people did in millenia past?

 

[chusteczka]

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: chusteczka

Originally posted by: irishScott
How can you look at something like the Universe, with it's laws, rules, dimensions, shapes, and ORDER and deny, with absolute certainty, that there isn't a higher being behind it?

... Just in the general "God concept" sense, how can you deny it?

It is not so much the situation that a "God concept" is denied since this concept provides little relevance to life the way I live it. I do not deny any god's existence. I just do not give the thought any importance in my life.

To deny a god's existence, I would first have to consider such a concept to be important.

That would make you agnostic?

I live my life by reason as well. This reason leads me to be confident in the existance of a God who wishes us to be moral, among a FEW other things (check out my wiki link).

This is interesting.

agnostic
?noun

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

atheist
?noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.


These definitions have never seemed to apply to my lack of understanding of the concept of a god. To me, it seems as if these definitions were created by someone who believes in a god and must find a method to classify those who do not likewise believe. For me, the concept of god is not a binary concept with only two possibilities; belief or disbelief.

I suppose, my lack of validating the concept would most likely represent a NULL value. That is, neither equal nor unequal. I, personally, neither believe nor disbelieve in the concept of a god.

I further suppose the first definition of an agnostic would classify me but it still does not feel right to me. Without a believer telling me that I should believe, I do not really care about the issue much at all.


EDIT:
I have found that Buddhism and Shintoism come closest to my more educated understanding of life. The concentration more on life's energy and man's philosophic understanding of life rather than a belief in a higher being. However, one who believes in the concept of a god would probably define life's energy as a higher, god-like being.

My term, "more educated understanding", refers to my own understanding of life in comparison of before learning about religious philosophy to after learning about religious philosophy.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: CKent
I just don't see how it requires the existence of a deity. How is it any different from looking up at the sun, the moon or a thunderstorm and, not knowing how they work, assuming they too must be the work of a deity, as people did in millenia past?

Deism has many (albeit mostly underpopulated) variants, but the majority believe that God does not play an active role in nature or anything else. To a Deist, the fact that the thunderstorm's nature can be understood, even on the most empirical level (Caveman logic: "Big flash with Big Boom), proves there is a god; not because of the thunderstorm itself, but because of the order that it behaves with.

God didn't directly create the thunderstorm, nature did. But the Universe whose laws are responsible for the creation of the thunderstorm was most likely (with confidence) created by God.

 

[bignateyk]

Why bother contemplating something that the human mind simply cannot, and will not EVER be abe to understand? Just as a dog doesnt know that it is going to die, a human cannot possibly comprehend its own existence.

/thread

 

[Rangoric]

A belief that I believe to be wrong, although I suppose it's theoretically possible. I fail to see the relevance.

The fact that a God travels across the sky was not something I made up. It was a part of many, many religions of the past and was disproven as a possibility.

An Atheist only needs to show that other gods have been disproven time and time again to show that your god can in time also be disproven.

As such any proof you offer is the same as saying that the sun goes across the sky and as such Apollo grants us his light by doing so. You are in fact using your knowledge of what a god is to find proof, as opposed to trying to find what caused it.

As such you know that Apollo is there in his Chariot, you are now just finding things that happen in the universe that coincide with your argument.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: CKent
I just don't see how it requires the existence of a deity. How is it any different from looking up at the sun, the moon or a thunderstorm and, not knowing how they work, assuming they too must be the work of a deity, as people did in millenia past?

Deism has many (albeit mostly underpopulated) variants, but the majority believe that God does not play an active role in nature or anything else. To a Deist, the fact that the thunderstorm's nature can be understood, even on the most empirical level (Caveman logic: "Big flash with Big Boom), proves there is a god; not because of the thunderstorm itself, but because of the order that it behaves with.

God didn't directly create the thunderstorm, nature did. But the Universe whose laws are responsible for the creation of the thunderstorm was most likely (with confidence) created by God.

That may be how YOU see it... but to someone a thousand years ago, those things were just as indicative of a controlling deity as the universe is to you now. And a thousand years FROM now, we may well understand many things about the universe which you now consider godlike. And if we still have our god gene then, there'll probably be some new unknown to attribute to Him Same sh!t, different millenia.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: Rangoric

A belief that I believe to be wrong, although I suppose it's theoretically possible. I fail to see the relevance.

The fact that a God travels across the sky was not something I made up. It was a part of many, many religions of the past and was disproven as a possibility.

An Atheist only needs to show that other gods have been disproven time and time again to show that your god can in time also be disproven.

As such any proof you offer is the same as saying that the sun goes across the sky and as such Apollo grants us his light by doing so. You are in fact using your knowledge of what a god is to find proof, as opposed to trying to find what caused it.

As such you know that Apollo is there in his Chariot, you are now just finding things that happen in the universe that coincide with your argument.

The Gods you mention have not been disproven. BELIEFS about said Gods have been disproven. Whether or not those Gods exist or not is anyone's guess.

However, even the polytheistic religions had a King of Gods who could control all others, and other elements of monotheism.

What I and the vast majority of Deists believe is that all religions sprang from one true religion, one founded on confident reason. The evidence I offer is logical, it is simply logic applied beyond the scope of human knowledge, which is the only way humans have of comprehending the Universe.

To use your analogy, a Deist would say: "The Sun goes across the sky in this pattern. There is order. Reason can be applied. There must be some governing law that causes this order. It is highly unlikely that this law came out of nothing. Something that could comprehend and organize things is behind this. What non-being can comprehend and organize?"