Baraka_Guru

Carbs are our friends. Atheists should know that as much as theists. Are you afraid of bread because of how Christians say it is eating the body of Christ?

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Hain

We'll be right back after these messages!

( - EDIT: , but much longer)

Now back to our regularly scheduled debate...

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casual user

i know this thread is long and i'm a lazy asshole for not bothering to read it, but i believe that the preponderance of atheism in a country is directly proportional to its level of development. the reasons for this should be obvious

filtherton

No, you can use models and observations- they generally work quite well. I never said you couldn't. I'm a big fan of the science.

The only reason the subject came up is that it is fallacious to criticize theology based on notions of absolute provability when there exists a gap in the provability of science. It is another thing entirely to claim that you don't see evidence for the existence of god. The former overstates the scope of what science can say, the latter does not.

While i don't doubt my ability to reason, nor the ability of humanity to create and participate in some sort of collective reality, the fact remains that there are a great many fundamental things that are still unproven, and while it so far has been convenient and utile to treat reality as if these unproven aspects are irrelevant, the fact remains that they exist.

You are working under the notion that i am equating the inherent uncertainties of existence with a rationale for believing in god. I am not. All i am attempting to point out is that it is fallacious to criticize theology for it's reliance on the unprovable whilst holding up science as some sort of alternative.

I think that with all anyone knows about science, it would be just as scientific to predict that some sort of omnipotent diety would catch your apple.

Hain

I meant I could not use them as a basis for the argument.


Then I would have something concrete and would stop this merry -go-round.


Viola! And here is the hang up... Thank you for putting it this way. It isn't science that I praise (well it is but that is shadowed by the passion for reality) but reality itself.

Can I make the statement that there is a reality around me? Yes, I can't prove my observations as fact - BUT I can work towards it. I have something I can put thought into and find answers. When I search for god, I (and obviously other people here) do not find anything other than suspiciously human ideas in the way.

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Infinite_Loser

So... Eastern Europe has a higher development level than the United States? Guess I learn something new every day.

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

jorgelito

Apparently China too, the largest atheist country!! What great morals they have!!

Baraka_Guru

No, I think it is best to look at an avant-garde culture such as the French; namely, their dechristinization of society during the French Revolution.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

Ah, Easter Europe has a high level of Atheism? I lean something wrong every day.

Impetuous1

I just have to chime in that I am somewhat of an atheist. I was raised a catholic. I went to catholic elementary and high schools. My father went to mass every sunday. My school forced us to go to mass at least once a week. Like Ustwo, I had a very similar experience. At a very young age, probably around 7 or 8, when everyone else was taking their first communion (and finally being forced indirectly to really think about the religion we'd been thrown into), I decided I didn't believe in god. I refused to take communion. The whole idea of religion suddenly seemed ridiculous to me. Maybe it was because of some horrible experiences I had earlier in life or the fact that my father is by almost any definition not a good person. Not sure. But, it seemed to me if there were some god that it did not either a) have very much concern for us as his creation or b) it never existed in the first place. I decided b made much more sense. Don't get me wrong. I'd like to believe that there is some benevolent power who watches over us and is concerned with our daily welfare but I just find it hard to swallow.

Master_Shake

There is just as much evidence to convince me of the existence of god as there is to convince me of the existence of Santa Claus. And I'm not going to the center of the universe or the North Pole to check out whether either one is real.

And since neither has any affect on my life whatsoever, I will continue to drink, jerk off, and have impure thoughts about my neighbour's wife.

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

shakran

This can be reversed. I personally find it interesting how much credit God gets without having to take any of the blame. "Oh thank God! We prayed and He saved our house from the wildfire!"
Uhh, what about all those other houses full of praying people that got burned down
"It's all part of His plan!"
So if everything happens according to His plan, why bother praying?
"..."

Trouble is, it's generally the religious groups who run around claiming that science claims to deal in exact fact. The scientists sure as hell don't say it.

What baffles me is the level of evidence required in science vs. religion. We had to have overwhelming evidence that gravity exists before it became a scientific law. And it's still being looked at constantly for refinement and sometimes radical change.

In general, religion does not require ANY evidence. "It says so in the bible, therefore it must be 100% true," is good enough.

It baffles me why people continue to claim there is evidence of God. There is absolutely no evidence that there is a god. The bible is not evidence. It's a single source, written thousands of years ago after being passed down orally for thousands more. It is next to impossible that the version we read today is at all accurate.

Of course, I don't understand WHY people run around claiming there is and must be evidence that God exists. No there isn't, and no there mustn't. It's called faith, not science, for a reason folks.

What? Time is man-observed. It is not man-made. It is not even man-understood, as we can perceive it in such a limited fashion.

Well that would be ridiculous. Fortunately that's not how they do it

Erm. No.

Have you not discounted science when it comes to the existence or lack thereof of God? Why, then, are you now running to science to prove your point for you? Be brave! Be like the athiests. You don't see them saying "Well I won't believe in God 95% of the time but when I REALLLLLLYYYY want something I'll pray," why then should you let them see you saying such about science?

You see, there can only be ONE truth. /// I also practice buddhist principals,[/quote]

These two statements are in direct conflict with one another.

And for what higher purpose does God exist? Does he have a higher power to look up to? If not, is HIS existence meaningless

I can go down to Barnes and Noble and get that many books written this decade that point out the flaws of the bible. . .


I will avoid making a crack about his actual wisdom

Where did you get that, first off. And your argument is so generalized as to be meaningless. By what you're saying the FACT that anything exists is a miracle. The fact that a pornographic magazine exists is no more or less of a miracle under your concept than the fact that the bible exists.



You also act as though the big bang theory and god are mutually exclusive. The bible says god created the world and the heavens. So did the big bang. Ever think maybe the big bang was touched off by God?

I find the likelihood that God exists as is written in the bible, or the koran, or any other religion, to be exceedingly remote. And frankly, if the bible is accurate then God is a needlessly cruel sociopathic jerk. What kind of gentle, loving god would let millions of little kids starve in a miserable existance in the 3rd world? What kind of loving god would allow Hitler to succeed? What kind of loving god would hunt up a father, and tell him he had to kill his own kid to prove he had faith in God? This is the kind of shit that, if you and I did it, they'd lock us up and throw away the key. To be quite frank, if God is as he is portrayed in the bible, I want nothing to do with him.

I'd much rather think, and hope, that if there is a god, that he is a genuinely good god, and not one who gets off on creating creatures and then torturing them in little games that, while they may be amusing to a "higher" being, are really nothing more than cruel torture of the highest degree.

Hain

Strongly agreed. Good stuff: thank God. Bad stuff: His Plan, or our test...


Not exactly... Buddhism as I understood it teaches you peace, serenity, merely a way of understanding. Buddhists praise the universe. Anyone religion can augment that to finding the way of God... if at all possible.


I don't think porn mags are compiled over 1400+ years with the same girl as centerfold... This is the main argument for the bible, that there are so many books with the main character being the same. "It is harmonious in its message." I ask how easily would it have been to manipulate those messages, even back then, over 1400+ years time to make it say whatever you wanted?

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n0nsensical

I think the entire science/religion debate is the result of misunderstanding, not that it is something that can or should actually be debated. Science and religion are not at all exclusive and one is not a replacement for the other. Science is merely the study of nature. Science can't prove or disprove the existence of God any more than the existence of life can. In fact science doesn't purport to prove or disprove anything. A true scientist would know that is impossible. Mathematicians make proofs. Mathematics can be proved as a human construction. Scientists make theories. The nature of the universe is observable, not provable. Evolution is a theory as much as gravity. It is observed that matter is attracted to other matter. It is impossible to prove that all matter is attracted to all other matter in the same fashion. The theory of gravitation is simply accepted to the point of 'law', but it is acknowledged that the laws too, being based in mathematics, are human constructions.

The God belief is also marked by a whole lot of human chauvinism, like the assumption that God is at all concerned with life on earth or its wellbeing. We tend to take humanity as an end in ourselves, but whether that is the case is a more interesting question to me than whether there exists a God who sees us that way, not that there is any more of an answer.

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"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln

tiger777

QFT

Kaimi

My change to Atheism had more to do with the behaviors I saw in people who would call themselves Christians. I would go to church and try to see for myself, on my own I had even tried several different churches as a teenager trying to decide what was right for me. I was led to feel it was wrong to not believe in anything.

In the end, I watched people who claimed their religions living selfish lives and doing seemingly everything against what was being taught. I accepted that I was a good person and full of the ability to carry through with positives things in my life. I did not feel the need to grab onto a religion in effort to make myself a better person, while watching those who did seemingly to make themselves feel better about the mistakes they were making.

I am not sure if this makes sense to you. The bottom line is that I did not feel a need to be validated accepting that I was good in my own healthy ways.

Infinite_Loser

Who's truth?

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

ays

Everybody has valid points, but I agree with the following:

Science is observation.

Religion is just as corrupted as mankind.

Yes, People praise God for the Good, and shunt him for the bad.

But, if my wife is pregnant, and drinks every day, then would it be appropriate to hate God for giving us a baby with mental retardation?

Once again, I can't help but state that the problems of the world are our problems. If God just swooped in everytime we f-ed up, then there would be no choice. We wouldn't learn anything.

I believe that the very fact that we exist is out of love. That even when we deserve death, Grace finds it's place. That every moment is a beautiful gift filled with infinite meaning and possibility.

Look at a book, look at the bible, watch tv, go to school... whatever. I see all the beauty and love in the world, and then I see how we have corrupted it.

And that is precisely what the Bible explains. The Bible is just a large piece to an infinite puzzle. I think it would be foolish to assume it is a certain way, and disregard it completely. But that's just me.

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Strange Famous

let me say this...

The "people of the book" have never been stronger

Whether a few dis-affected American college students reject God, it is not a world wide trend.

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"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

pig

Hmmm....this thread is certainly all over the place. This first point, I think, is somewhat new in the theism/atheism threads around here. I can't really speak to all the people of the book, or how strong they are, or whether you include Islam in that or only the Christians and Jews, or perhaps only the Jews. Regardless, I really don't know how to contextualize that comment. What exactly do you mean by this? Just mildly curious.

As for the second part...I don't think that atheism can accurately be portrayed as a movement like the LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation) concept. Most people I know who identify as atheists now were way too scared of being isolated during college to self-identify as atheists.

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You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

Ourcrazymodern?

May I?

God might say, "Don't think."
God could not say it coldly.
We do it ourselves.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT