Originally posted by: EvilRage
Personally, I believe the idea of a god is a man-made concept; its original design was to manipulate the masses. Give them a god to fear and that will keep them in line.
No one can prove or disprove the existence of a god. That is completely unknowable for the forseeable future. One cannot discount the possibility (however infinitely small) that someday there may be a way to prove it one way or another, but until then, the answer is up in the air.
Still, the question isn't about what can be proven, the question is about belief. I do not believe in any kind of god. The fact that the universe has any kind of order is not evidence to me that some being is responsible for creating order; only that the universe as we know it is only capable of functioning as a system with fundamental rules governing its behavior. Without these rules, the universe would collapse into chaos. It's certainly feasible that before our theorized big bang there were other similar explosions that resulted in flawed systems, which either immediately collapsed or collapsed over some indeterminable amount of time. (Or perhaps they didn't collapse, and there are parallel universes out there with different rules than our own system, which we are currently unable to detect. But I'm getting side-tracked here...) The fact that our universe WORKS is not the result of any special influence from some supreme being. I think it's more likely that the set of rules that are enforced by nature allow the system to exist without collapsing, and have done so long enough for intelligent life to spring up and have a debate about it.
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: A Casual Fitz
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.
Did you meet them or something?
Historical records show them as such, and I believe that the Bible, Koran, etc do contain their teachings. Just a mystified version of them.
There is no Roman record of Jesus.
http://www.carm.org/bible/extrabiblical_accounts.htm
Originally posted by: piasabird
The word "Created" in the Book of Genesis comes from Greek which if literally translated means "To Organize."
This is a difficult subject because to accept God means a person has to admit that they are not in charge. People are vain and try to imagine that they are the masters of their destiny.
Good and Evil are sometimes subjects that some people will try to tell you, They do not exist!. This is the biggest lie there ever was. People know when something nice happens. They know when someone smacks them that is not good. So they truly know what good and evil is. However, some people choose to do evil and or things which are considered bad because of some temporary gratification. I often have wondered why people think Alcohol is considered good. I guess these people never had a hangover, or have spent any time in jail after driving drunk. Many things in life seem good at the time, but are not really that good for you in the long-run.
Jesus had some interesting teachings. He said he came to set us free. Free is an interesting subject. Free means free to choose, but it also means free from addiction, free from slavery, and free to choose what is right and good. The question is often do live to live free, or do you work because you are enslaved by your addictions and you have to keep making money to pay for your addictions?
The biggest mistake an athiest can make is to assume religious people are simple-minded and ignorant. Having a belief in a God or in a higher power, that created the universe or many worlds does not make a person ignorant. Many people have entertained many differring views to explain life. Some say that it is a simple chemical reaction, that just became more complex over time and then evolved into man. Others say that aliens planted us here and check up on us once in a while.
I think that the chance that everything just happened by accident is the least likely. It is extremely hard to make life, and we still do not know how to do this from scratch. With all our knowledge, we still know only a little about how the human body works. If we were so smart we would find a way to prevent alzheimers. We were able to clone a sheep, so why cant we beleive that God could create us? Isnt this just a few steps in advancement ahead of where we are now?
I know I may not convince the Athiest to believe in God. But I feel that inside they know I am right and just dont want to admit that there is something else out there that is more important than they are. To me Athiests make themselves their own God!
Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Because the belief in a Higher Being is a human concept, one used to answer the unanswerable. As Humans it's in out nature to have an answer to all things and when we don't we make answers up and the Higher Being BS is one of those.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?
100%Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: 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.
That's not what I am talking about either. But plagues, famines, earthquakes, volcanoes, motion of the planets, etc were all once attributed to gods only to be supplanted by a natural explanation. So I would be careful of saying anything can only be explained by the presence of a deity simply because it hasn't been scientifically explained yet.
Once again, all of those primitive comprehensions were based on the behavior of the phenomena, not the presence of order within and around them.
Once science can explain the presence of order in our Universe, and why it's laws are what they are, and how that can come out of a non-being, I'll drop the existence of a supreme being.
So you are a deist out of impatience?
No, as I am confident that I am right. My belief is that it is impossible for order to rise from a non-being.
Take for example, the fact that the Universe is governed by laws. What if these laws did not exist. Not that they're in a different from, but they don't exist. Period.
All that would exist would be pure chaos, or nothing. The fact that our universe has order means that absolute chaos is impossible, which means nothing is truly random. But if something is not random, then it must have a purpose. That purpose is dictated by a heiarchy of laws that ascend all the way to the creator of the laws. Who but a being can create a core law? Where else would these laws come from?
The only other answer is that they came from non-being materials, yet what determined these materials to from laws? You can create an infinite hierarchy of order out of this argument. Since the Universe is not infinite, there must be some supreme being.
Even infinite limits have solutions.
You aren't making any sense, because you connect dots that simply aren't there. If the laws didn't exist, there would just be a different universe, but it would still be there. You have no way of knowing if the laws we have are themselves a result of a random outcome. It's like looking at a coin on the ground, if it is heads, you can assume that someone placed it that way on purpose, or maybe that it simply fell that way.
No it's not, because the odds of it being that way are 50/50. What are the odds that a Universe such as ours arose randomly?
Let me rephrase a part of what I said:
Imagine a Universe without laws. You said it would simply be a different Universe. No sh!t. One with complete chaos or nothing. If there's some 3rd possibility I'm all ears.
Originally posted by: Lonyo
This is why I am an atheist. I don't need science to explain the existence of the universe for me to believe it can exist without god. I just assume that it will eventually be discovered and explained. Maybe not in out lifetimes, but there are still a hell of a lot of unexplained and unexplored things, and the formation of the universe should not be one that's a concern of ours in this day and age. There are many processes we don't understand etc etc.Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: 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.
That's not what I am talking about either. But plagues, famines, earthquakes, volcanoes, motion of the planets, etc were all once attributed to gods only to be supplanted by a natural explanation. So I would be careful of saying anything can only be explained by the presence of a deity simply because it hasn't been scientifically explained yet.
Once again, all of those primitive comprehensions were based on the behavior of the phenomena, not the presence of order within and around them.
Once science can explain the presence of order in our Universe, and why it's laws are what they are, and how that can come out of a non-being, I'll drop the existence of a supreme being.
I would contend that the universe is not "neatly ordered", since it's in a constant state of change. Earth alone is definitely not neatly ordered, it's in a constant state of change. Warming/cooling cycles, plate tectonics etc. Jupiter has a huge storm. Random solar flares from the sun etc etc. I would say it's not really all that organised, it's a pretty unstable mess. Add in the still expanding universe. If God created it, why wouldn't he create it in a finished state? Sure, the things that happen happen due to certain rules, but everything has specific properties that govern these rules, and that's just the way they exist.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?
Humans have advanced brains, and when you give, you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and I'd say maybe that's a reward.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.
And if we're thinking "selfish" do you mean personally, or for survival of the species?
Originally posted by: Norris
This is off the original question but how in the hell can people believe in the Christian beliefs? I was raised a Catholic and had Christianity crammed down my throat for my whole life...it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I started to think for myself and stopped believing that silliness! I get so annoyed with my family that is still so obscessed with the Christian beliefs...one sister is married to a preacher and everything is "I pray about it" "I pray and ask 'Jesus God' for the answer and he always tells me what to do"..."WHATEVER!" I used to pray all the time and never...not once did I ever have a prayer answered! I only wish it were that easy!
You ask how someone can be Athiest...I ask how can someone be Christian? How can someone believe in a fairy tale? Noah's Ark?...yeah that's believable...NOT!!!!!
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
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?[/L]
Because it doesn't answer any questions. It just shifts the question over by one step.
Instead of "who created the universe?", it's "who created the being that created the universe?"
I don't consider it to be a sign of rational thought if you accept that God created the universe and leave it at that, because that doesn't address the underlying question that you were trying to answer, namely, "Where did it all begin?"
Originally posted by: mattocs
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?
How can't you?
And how can you think there is a 'God' with all the hate and suffering in this world?
Originally posted by: 911paramedic
Answer: Science explains how those things happened. (Referring to OP's post.)
Question: Why does the religious answer keep changing when new things are discovered or brought to light. (Like now there were dinosaurs on the Ark? (When it was pointed out how large the ark must have been for two of everything the story changed to "Well, not two of everything, but two dogs... from them came wolves, foxes, etc.) The Grand Canyon took months to create? The earth is only 6K years old? (Carbon dating folks, carbon dating.) Two thousand years ago people weren't the sharpest tools in the shed. I myself have seen somebody with the sheet pulled over them, only to see the sheet breathing later. Or stories of people being sent to the morgue only to be found alive.
They wanted to believe, needed to believe.
I'm just not buying it.
Originally posted by: judasmachine
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?
Pretty much the same way you look at it with absolute certainty that there is a higher power behind it.
Originally posted by: IntrinsicValue
Are you really trying to find out other people's ideas, or are you just trying to explain your own? You've already indicated several times in this thread that you are not open to new ideas.
Originally posted by: irishScott
No, as I am confident that I am right. My belief is that it is impossible for order to rise from a non-being.These are not comments from someone who is willing to explore other avenues and possibilities. The fact is, you don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows. We all have our beliefs. This is covered in Philosophy 101. There's not much to gain from this topic unless you have an open mind, which you've already proven you do not.Originally posted by: irishScott
I'll accept that there is no God when you can prove 100% that there isn't one.
Originally posted by: Jeff7
If the Universe didn't happen to be orderly, we wouldn't be around to talk about it.
There may well be an infinite number of Universes out there - other Big Bangs going on all over the infinite expanse of nothingness beyond our own bubble of spacetime. Many of them might have been either too dense or too tenuous to form matter. Maybe their gravitational constant is different. If those places would be disorderly, then no intelligent life would arise to ask, "Why is this place so disorderly?"
We are simply a product of a place which happens to have certain properties. We look at it and give it the property of being "orderly."
I guess it's impossible to prove 100% that something doesn't exist. Burden of proof lies with proving that something does exist. I just don't see a need for a higher being to exist to bring the Universe into existence, anymore than I see a need for a higher being to be responsible for making light reflect off of my walls. They just happen to do that as an inherent property of the matter of which they are made.
Originally posted by: gopunk
i don't deny it with 100% certainty, i just don't think it's the case. i also don't think any observed "order" is proof at all. it's frankly hard to imagine a world without any rules of any sort, where everything is random, so the existence of one tends not to impress me.
Originally posted by: piasabird
The word "Created" in the Book of Genesis comes from Greek which if literally translated means "To Organize."
This is a difficult subject because to accept God means a person has to admit that they are not in charge. People are vain and try to imagine that they are the masters of their destiny.
Good and Evil are sometimes subjects that some people will try to tell you, They do not exist!. This is the biggest lie there ever was. People know when something nice happens. They know when someone smacks them that is not good. So they truly know what good and evil is. However, some people choose to do evil and or things which are considered bad because of some temporary gratification. I often have wondered why people think Alcohol is considered good. I guess these people never had a hangover, or have spent any time in jail after driving drunk. Many things in life seem good at the time, but are not really that good for you in the long-run.
Jesus had some interesting teachings. He said he came to set us free. Free is an interesting subject. Free means free to choose, but it also means free from addiction, free from slavery, and free to choose what is right and good. The question is often do live to live free, or do you work because you are enslaved by your addictions and you have to keep making money to pay for your addictions?
The biggest mistake an athiest can make is to assume religious people are simple-minded and ignorant. Having a belief in a God or in a higher power, that created the universe or many worlds does not make a person ignorant. Many people have entertained many differring views to explain life. Some say that it is a simple chemical reaction, that just became more complex over time and then evolved into man. Others say that aliens planted us here and check up on us once in a while.
I think that the chance that everything just happened by accident is the least likely. It is extremely hard to make life, and we still do not know how to do this from scratch. With all our knowledge, we still know only a little about how the human body works. If we were so smart we would find a way to prevent alzheimers. We were able to clone a sheep, so why cant we beleive that God could create us? Isnt this just a few steps in advancement ahead of where we are now?
I know I may not convince the Athiest to believe in God. But I feel that inside they know I am right and just dont want to admit that there is something else out there that is more important than they are. To me Athiests make themselves their own God!
Originally posted by: Dumac
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: A Casual Fitz
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.
Did you meet them or something?
Historical records show them as such, and I believe that the Bible, Koran, etc do contain their teachings. Just a mystified version of them.
There is no Roman record of Jesus.
http://www.carm.org/bible/extrabiblical_accounts.htm
Records by Flavius Josephus are questioned due ot the nature of the surrounding text. The parts regarding Jesus seem to barely fit in with the existant material, and many doubt the authenticity of those passages. Some believe the articles were edited at a later date.
I don't know much about the other passages, but I've read a few things and watch a show that each referred to the records (about Yeshua) Flavius Josephus as being questionable.
EDIT: They kinda mention that in the article - whoops.
Originally posted by: senseamp
100%Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: 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.
That's not what I am talking about either. But plagues, famines, earthquakes, volcanoes, motion of the planets, etc were all once attributed to gods only to be supplanted by a natural explanation. So I would be careful of saying anything can only be explained by the presence of a deity simply because it hasn't been scientifically explained yet.
Once again, all of those primitive comprehensions were based on the behavior of the phenomena, not the presence of order within and around them.
Once science can explain the presence of order in our Universe, and why it's laws are what they are, and how that can come out of a non-being, I'll drop the existence of a supreme being.
So you are a deist out of impatience?
No, as I am confident that I am right. My belief is that it is impossible for order to rise from a non-being.
Take for example, the fact that the Universe is governed by laws. What if these laws did not exist. Not that they're in a different from, but they don't exist. Period.
All that would exist would be pure chaos, or nothing. The fact that our universe has order means that absolute chaos is impossible, which means nothing is truly random. But if something is not random, then it must have a purpose. That purpose is dictated by a heiarchy of laws that ascend all the way to the creator of the laws. Who but a being can create a core law? Where else would these laws come from?
The only other answer is that they came from non-being materials, yet what determined these materials to from laws? You can create an infinite hierarchy of order out of this argument. Since the Universe is not infinite, there must be some supreme being.
Even infinite limits have solutions.
You aren't making any sense, because you connect dots that simply aren't there. If the laws didn't exist, there would just be a different universe, but it would still be there. You have no way of knowing if the laws we have are themselves a result of a random outcome. It's like looking at a coin on the ground, if it is heads, you can assume that someone placed it that way on purpose, or maybe that it simply fell that way.
No it's not, because the odds of it being that way are 50/50. What are the odds that a Universe such as ours arose randomly?
It arose randomly. There is no imaginary deity planning it and writing laws, if that's what you are asking.
Let me rephrase a part of what I said:
Imagine a Universe without laws. You said it would simply be a different Universe. No sh!t. One with complete chaos or nothing. If there's some 3rd possibility I'm all ears.
Well, you are making assumptions. Also, you don't know if the current universe is not an outcome of a complete chaos and randomness. Even complete chaos sometimes turns out OK at a given moment in time.
Originally posted by: KCfromNC
Yep. Actually, the "order equals god" argument is backwards. What would really be a good argument for the supernatural would be if the universe were totally chaotic and hostile to life and yet life still existed. If we had no naturalistic way at all of explaining how we were able to live and yet we still did - that would be a great reason to look at the supernatural as an explanation.Originally posted by: Jeff7
If the Universe didn't happen to be orderly, we wouldn't be around to talk about it.
There may well be an infinite number of Universes out there - other Big Bangs going on all over the infinite expanse of nothingness beyond our own bubble of spacetime. Many of them might have been either too dense or too tenuous to form matter. Maybe their gravitational constant is different. If those places would be disorderly, then no intelligent life would arise to ask, "Why is this place so disorderly?"
The fact that the normal workings of the universe produced life which is tuned to survive in that universe isn't all that remarkable by comparison.
And the "order equals god" argument ignores that the vast majority of the universe is hostile to life and guess what? Life doesn't exist there. They see that life exists in the small minority of places that make life not totally impossible, and from that conclude god did it. Seems like special pleading to me.
Originally posted by: McGyver
the concept of god is man-made.
Originally posted by: Platypus
Isn't this the 5th or 6th religion thread you've made recently?
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
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?
[/L]
How can you look at something like the Universe, with it's laws, rules, dimensions, shapes, and ORDER and deny, with absolute certainty that a thinking entity is responsible for it?
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
100%Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: 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.
That's not what I am talking about either. But plagues, famines, earthquakes, volcanoes, motion of the planets, etc were all once attributed to gods only to be supplanted by a natural explanation. So I would be careful of saying anything can only be explained by the presence of a deity simply because it hasn't been scientifically explained yet.
Once again, all of those primitive comprehensions were based on the behavior of the phenomena, not the presence of order within and around them.
Once science can explain the presence of order in our Universe, and why it's laws are what they are, and how that can come out of a non-being, I'll drop the existence of a supreme being.
So you are a deist out of impatience?
No, as I am confident that I am right. My belief is that it is impossible for order to rise from a non-being.
Take for example, the fact that the Universe is governed by laws. What if these laws did not exist. Not that they're in a different from, but they don't exist. Period.
All that would exist would be pure chaos, or nothing. The fact that our universe has order means that absolute chaos is impossible, which means nothing is truly random. But if something is not random, then it must have a purpose. That purpose is dictated by a heiarchy of laws that ascend all the way to the creator of the laws. Who but a being can create a core law? Where else would these laws come from?
The only other answer is that they came from non-being materials, yet what determined these materials to from laws? You can create an infinite hierarchy of order out of this argument. Since the Universe is not infinite, there must be some supreme being.
Even infinite limits have solutions.
You aren't making any sense, because you connect dots that simply aren't there. If the laws didn't exist, there would just be a different universe, but it would still be there. You have no way of knowing if the laws we have are themselves a result of a random outcome. It's like looking at a coin on the ground, if it is heads, you can assume that someone placed it that way on purpose, or maybe that it simply fell that way.
No it's not, because the odds of it being that way are 50/50. What are the odds that a Universe such as ours arose randomly?
It arose randomly. There is no imaginary deity planning it and writing laws, if that's what you are asking.
Let me rephrase a part of what I said:
Imagine a Universe without laws. You said it would simply be a different Universe. No sh!t. One with complete chaos or nothing. If there's some 3rd possibility I'm all ears.
Well, you are making assumptions. Also, you don't know if the current universe is not an outcome of a complete chaos and randomness. Even complete chaos sometimes turns out OK at a given moment in time.
I consider anything arising of complete chaos on it's own extremely unlikely.
Originally posted by: irishScott
So the rules just came out of nowhere? Given the probability of this happening, I find it unlikely.
Yes, the Universe continues to exist because it's laws permit it to function, but who/what created those laws?