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Originally Posted by Strange Famous
I found a youtube of the debate between Tony Benn and Richard Dawkins.
I dont know if it is permitted to post links here, but if you were to go to youtube and search on "Benn" "Dawkins" - you would find the same thing... quite interesting I found.
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Why are you so afraid of links? I happen to know that you've seen a link on this forum...
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to say "I have no proof that this thing is true so I do not believe in it"
is entirely different to say "I have no proff that this is true, therefore I know with absolute certainty that it cannot be true"
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I can't quite tell whether you're being deliberately obstinate or if you really don't understand the stance of athiests. In as much as anyone can know anything, an athiest understands that there is no god as much as there is no invisible pixie fairy. It's something for which there is no evidence and can never be disproven...
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In fact, there is much logical AND testimonial evidence to the existence of supernatural powers... people will always ignore what they do not want to see. Atheism is a religion, and I have to say a rather depressing one at that. For all the ills caused by religion in the world, one also should admit that the concept of law comes from religion also and that many people draw great comfort from the belief in God also.
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I've said this before on another thread but, apparently, you didn't read that one so I'll restate it, here. If atheism is a religion then baldness is a hair colour and barefeet is a brand of shoe...
I disagree with your claim that there is much evidence. There is much anecdotal testimony to the existence of supernatural powers but none of it has been substantive. A good question is raised by the site
Why Won't God Heal Amputees.com. The point, of course, is that being an amputee is hard to fake so it's hard to fake healing it...
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If you want evidence for God... try naming a single known society, modern or ancient, that had no concept of the supernatural? If you cannot, then for what reasons is this belief so universal? If you want to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE that God created the universe, then what evidence will you provide that matter was CREATED FROM NOTHING through another method? Or if you would prefer to explain the concept of eternity within our present knowledge of time, that would also be fine.
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The concept of the supernatural is born out of a need to explain things you don't understand. For whatever reason, most people cannot be satisfied with a shrug and a sarcastic "who knows?" and would rather believe in fiction than to admit that they don't know.
On a more personal note (although, really, it's not so personal), I never understood (if you've been reading my posts, lately, you'll see that there's very little about human behaviour that I understand) why people feel that everything must have "begun" and must "end." I can only suppose it comes from the fact that, in a sense, we begin at our birth and we and at our death and we must model all things after ourselves. However, the matter that makes us didn't begin and end with us. They existed before our birth and they will exist after our death. Why is it so hard to believe that the universe was always here? If you can believe in an eternal god why can't you believe in an eternal universe? Why must it be "created from nothing?"