Another Atheist...

[grandfather]

Hi Phooney,

Humans are programmed, in is programmed into our nature to seek truth. We examine and investigate and probe and question. There are questions about existence that all peoples, in all times and all cultures ask. Where did it all come from? Why am I here? How should I live? What’s it all about? These questions are unanswerable through the power of intellect alone. We can make up some answers and take a guess. These are called myths. Maybe we can guess correctly, but we will never know for sure if we are right. Assume we had an extremely comlicated math problem and that we never managed to learn algebra. It would be impossible to figure out the answer. Suppose a math genius figured it out and told us the answer. We would know the answer if we believed what we were told. We would know the answer by faith. If life has a purpose we can not figure it out. We do not know why we exist. It is possible that it has no purpose and life is meaningless. That is an option. When individuals believe this they seek to fill their lives with as much pleasure as possible. They want to have as many pleasurable experiences as possible before they die and it is over with. But those end up being empty and meaningless. They can hope for a good job, money, or a great vacation, a new car, fame, esteem of others, or great sex, but then it is on to the next experience and none of it is truly fulfilling. I have a friend who is a good man. He recently told me that he graduated college and set goals for himself. It was like climbing a mountain. He succeeded at reaching his personal goals. For him it was success in business, but it could be anything. Maybe he might have wanted to be a music celebrity. He said I got to the top of the mountain and it is an empty feeling. We are ultimately fulfilled by achieving the purpose for which we are made, which we can not know unless we are given the answer. Nothing else will do. Why are you here. It is obvious that you do not know, and its ok, because you are trying to know. “He who seeks will find”, Jesus says.
So why do you exist? Would you like to know? If you were told the answer would you believe it?

 

[phooney]

@hellisreal

Hi again,

I’ve had a look at it on Amazon and added it to my wishlist so I don’t forget about it. There’s more than a lifetime of stuff to read already though, so I can’t guarantee I will actually get to it. I do appreciate the recommendation though.

Sorry to hear about your friend, I had a friend commit suicide as well once, long ago, so I know it isn’t easy. Try to remain rational though, if you really didn’t have anything to do with it then there is no point in blaming yourself, though this is a perfectly natural part of the grieving process. You have my best wishes to get through this.

 

[phooney]

@Charlie Zeaiter

“I’d be interested if you have any articles from history that claim the virgin birth is a hoax. I’m just amazed at how much history has accepted the virgin birth. But I can prove the virgin birth - I just glad it fulfills prophecy without any real objection from history.”

Off the top of my head, I’m afraid that I don’t have such articles from history that claim the virgin birth was a hoax, they may or may not be out there. However, as I said, all evidence regarding human biology indicates that conception doesn’t happen without sex (just a reminder, IVF is still ‘sex’ for this purpose). The burden of proof isn’t on me to show the virgin birth didn’t happen, it is those that claim the virgin birth DID happen that have that burden. Note that I didn’t make the positive claim that this didn’t happen, I just pointed out that it goes against all evidence about how conception actually happens. Obviously I could point out all kinds of links that show the process of human conception, birth etc, but I’m sure you already know enough about that! So show me, if you please, how a virgin conception can happen.

Thanks for the links, I note that the lunar eclipse corresponding to the alleged crucifixion of christ is the only one with a question mark after it. (not a question mark about the lunar eclipse, but a question mark about the crucifixion of christ). I’d like to see a solar and a lunar eclipse eventually (obviously not in the same day, as you yourself point out, hehe) but I never have yet, due to poor luck with cloud cover and geographical location

“If you choose to deny the stories in the bible simply because the bible is a religious book, well then I can’t help you. But if you get yourself a lesson in the bible and see that it is historically accurate, then you’re in for a treat.”

No, no, certainly not. I just want to try to treat it like any other potential historical source. As a book with much anonymous authorship, editing, and a large potential for copying and translating errors, one that doesn’t site sources and, as far as Jesus Christ was concerned anyway, wasn’t written during the period it attempts to document, I must treat it with a certain amount of skepticism, especially in light of the very important subject matter and claims it makes. All I mean is that to use the bible as evidence for the events in the bible would be like me using the movie Titanic to prove the existence of Jack Dawson, or The Hobbit to prove the existence of Bilbo Baggins.

“This thread is only the beginning. You won’t find the truth in this thread alone. I hope you stick around in these forums for years to come… asking questions and learning.”

I’m all for learning, though who knows what the future will hold? While I AM here, perhaps not only can I learn from you, but perhaps you and anybody who reads this can learn something from me as well.

Thank you as well for your friendliness.

 

[phooney]

@RebeccaJ

Hi Rebecca, nice to meet you.

“One thing to point out to you though. The NT is a compilation of the writings of multiple authors, the Apostles of Christ. They wrote what was taught to them by Christ.”

Not true though. Modern scholarship places the writers of the Gospels as outside the lifetime proposed for Jesus Christ. The earliest new testament fragment found is from the gospel of John called the p52 fragment, if I recall correctly dated at 150 ce. I don’t mean to preclude the possibility that this fragment may have been copied from an earlier example, but it is the consensus of modern scholarship that they are not contemporary to Jesus, the date range sometimes estimated as between the years 60 and 150.

I am quite happy to be at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from suicide bombers! Thanks for the compliment

I’m glad I got you curious at least, I reckon that a little bit of thinking can hardly ever hurt! I certainly don’t doubt that almost every single contradiction I could find could probably be explained away in some fashion, but the verbal gymnastics that are often needed to be employed to make them fit with (at least POTENTIAL) reality is sometimes quite staggering. I’m not sure if you have read or heard of a book called “Losing faith in faith” by a guy named Dan Barker, a former pastor and missionary, but the way he describes what I have called ‘verbal gymnastics’ here is quite amusing and illuminating.

“Let’s see you prove the theory of evolution without knowing that the theory of evolutions exists.”

It’s been done before but not everybody is Charles Darwin.

"Do you really only believe in what your very limited senses “prove” to you? What does love prove to you? You can’t touch, see, hear, smell or taste love?

God is Love. The evidence is all around you, in your very existence."

I understand love on the grounds of biological chemistry. Just because I understand it in no way indicates that I am somehow unable to feel it to its full potential. Same goes for anger, joy, grief, fear, etc. If God is love, then it isn’t the creator of the universe, it’s a naturally explainable reaction going on within our bodies.

 

[phooney]

@grandfather

It is your life force. It animates your body.<<<

Since the animation of my body is already sufficiently explained and backed up by contrary evidence to what you claim, i.e. the field of biology, what is your evidence for the soul? Just giving it another name “life force” doesn’t constitute as evidence, or argument.

“Aquinas had five distinct proofs. You might want to start there.”

Started, finished. Not that compelling. Merely asserting an arbitrary answer to solve what is perceived as a problem of infinite regress without evidence for that answer is literally not evidence for that answer, in this case: God. We are unable to judge different degrees of things without the ultimate and absolute benchmark? Please. Argument from Design? Certainly not designed with humans in mind, so not the god of the bible at the very least.

“Are they all liars? Are the all crazy?”

No, not all of them. Some of them, of course. There is another option of course, they could simply be mistaken, and this wouldn’t classify them as conscious liars or insane. Lots of people have had visions of pink elephants too, lots of people claim to have been abducted by aliens, as you said, the visions you have experienced are not proof, but without any evidence how can we distinguish the true visions from the delusions, the self-delusions and the liars? This raises another point… why would a perfect god use a channel of communication that is so very flawed? Private revelation leaves the one who is communicated to unable to tell the difference between real communication and hallucination. It’s even worse for any people that original communicatee tries to pass the message on to, they don’t know if he was hallucinating, is mistaken, is a liar or is telling the truth. It is especially telling that visions of this nature, in the vast majority, involve the God or associated characters from the religion that is part of their society. As you yourself said, Whether you realise it or not, you are shaped by the civilisation into which you are born.

If you have been looking for evidence and not found it lets apply logic <<<<<<<

Ok! I like logic. Evidence in the form of a personal experience of private revelation is not what I am looking for, due to the low quality of evidence it would be.

God may owe me nothing, but I owe him nothing either. If he did, in fact, bring me into existence then he did so out of his own free will, as I could hardly have asked to exist before I existed. Of course, my existence is explainable by natural phenomena already, so while God may exist, there is not really anything that is needed to be explained by the assertion of a supernatural creator.

I’m not entirely on my own either, I have a loving family, friends and acquaintences who will, with some changes as time goes on, keep me company in this life, the only life we have evidence for.

Everybody makes their own meaning and creates their own purpose in life, there is no need for a God to do that. As already mentioned, a worldview where this is the only life can only increase its inherent value and preciousness. The very fact that you are alive right now is the direct result of a struggle of one against hundreds of millions. Unless of course you too are a virgin birth? You are currently at the pioneering edge of a long line of billions of years of different lives that survived to pass on their genes. This is so mind bogglingly amazing already, without even delving into the realms of physics and discovering how the elements were made and galaxies and stars were formed. You still can’t find any meaning in this for yourself?

I do find pleasure in life, I love life, life is great.

The amount of knowledge humankind posesses about the natural world (again the only world we have evidence for) already surpasses what one person can possibly learn, and you still need to assert things for which you have no evidence? You have claimed much evidence exists but not yet provided any. I want this evidence, so please do point me in the right direction, I can certainly appreciate that other people know things that I don’t.

You mention that without god, there is no meaning and purpose, etc. You then go on to say that if somebody murders another person and there is no god, then that murdered person has no value or purpose anyway. As an Atheist, of course, I derive no moral guidelines from God, so for me the existence of God or otherwise wouldn’t cause me to dismiss a murder so flippantly. Let us do a thought experiment though. If somehow (hypothetically, before you get too defensive) God was proved as non-existent tomorrow, would you head straight out and murder, pillage etc? I don’t think most believers would, so I don’t think most consider life so worthless without God as you have portrayed here.

 

[phooney]

continued @grandfather

“Why do people engage in dialogue like this?”

I don’t really care much about this establishing of intellectual superiority you’ve mentioned, I just think this is an important question, so yes I checked into this forum specifically for those ideas that I haven’t found elsewhere. I admit I haven’t had a chance to browse much outside of this thread I created, but perhaps over the weekend without work taking up most of my waking hours. Life is indeed too short, I think it IS productive to work at coming to a rational conclusion on this question.

I will look forward to anything help or information you can offer, and rest assured I am not angry or hostile. Just because we may not be able to come to a conclusion on this question is no reason whatsoever not to push the boundries of our understanding.

“This is not religious faith, but in a way it is similar.”

Well, not quite. We believe such people as you have described because we have an idea as to how they acquired their knowledge. All questions of honesty aside, if you go to a doctor, you know that their knowledge is built on generations of cumulative evidence. This isn’t faith, this is a forced belief arising from the fact that one person cannot know everything. It is also inductive reasoning, and yes I know about the problem of induction before you bring it up.

As far as witnesses and experts are concerned, where do you turn to when there is no consensus of the witnesses and experts? If you haven’t already done so, you turn to the evidence and reserve judgement until it has been weighed up.

It is, in fact, very reasonable to dismiss the visions, miracles and prophecies and anything else that goes against current evidence.

“These questions are unanswerable through the power of intellect alone.”

I’m very sorry you’ve given up so easily on thinking. I think this problem (if you see it as such) can be alleviated somewhat if you were to read into the sciences a bit more, and read everything with a bit more skepticism.

It’s a nice example of the algebra genious you’ve brought up, but any answer he provided would be meaningless if he was unable to explain how the algebra worked. We would have no way of discerning between truth and fiction if we simply believe because we are told something, and it would fly in the face of the goal of seeking truth, which you feel is programmed in.

I won’t even discuss your opinion as to what people who feel that life is meaningless would do, as it is simply a strawman argument, and not my, Atheist, position anyway.

Funnily enough, I was once in the same position as this friend you mentioned. For the longest time, my goal was to go to university and then spend some time travelling the world. While I was doing the travelling, I was struck with what may very well be the same feeling your friend told you about. For me, I would describe it as a kind of ‘directionless’ state. so I set myself more goals and the problem immediately dissolved. I currently have no regrets in regards to the things I’ve done, so I think they were worthy goals to have. If I can get to the end of my life and think, “that was fun, would recommend to a friend” I will have all the meaning I could want. I say again, we create our own purposes and meaning.

“which we can not know unless we are given the answer”

I don’t see how giving up my own critical thining process will help anything.

“So why do you exist? Would you like to know? If you were told the answer would you believe it?”

Sure, if you can back it up and not just assert something

 

[phooney]

@Socrates4Jesus

Hello again!

I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me

I’d love to hear whatever it is you’d like to present to me.

 

[grandfather]

Sure, if you can back it up and not just assert something

I do not think there is much likelyhood that I can be of assistance to you in your search. Best wishes.

 

[RebeccaJ]

@RebeccaJ

Hi Rebecca, nice to meet you.

“One thing to point out to you though. The NT is a compilation of the writings of multiple authors, the Apostles of Christ. They wrote what was taught to them by Christ.”

Not true though. Modern scholarship places the writers of the Gospels as outside the lifetime proposed for Jesus Christ. The earliest new testament fragment found is from the gospel of John called the p52 fragment, if I recall correctly dated at 150 ce. I don’t mean to preclude the possibility that this fragment may have been copied from an earlier example, but it is the consensus of modern scholarship that they are not contemporary to Jesus, the date range sometimes estimated as between the years 60 and 150.

I am quite happy to be at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from suicide bombers! Thanks for the compliment

I’m glad I got you curious at least, I reckon that a little bit of thinking can hardly ever hurt! I certainly don’t doubt that almost every single contradiction I could find could probably be explained away in some fashion, but the verbal gymnastics that are often needed to be employed to make them fit with (at least POTENTIAL) reality is sometimes quite staggering. I’m not sure if you have read or heard of a book called “Losing faith in faith” by a guy named Dan Barker, a former pastor and missionary, but the way he describes what I have called ‘verbal gymnastics’ here is quite amusing and illuminating.

“Let’s see you prove the theory of evolution without knowing that the theory of evolutions exists.”

It’s been done before but not everybody is Charles Darwin.

"Do you really only believe in what your very limited senses “prove” to you? What does love prove to you? You can’t touch, see, hear, smell or taste love?

God is Love. The evidence is all around you, in your very existence."

I understand love on the grounds of biological chemistry. Just because I understand it in no way indicates that I am somehow unable to feel it to its full potential. Same goes for anger, joy, grief, fear, etc. If God is love, then it isn’t the creator of the universe, it’s a naturally explainable reaction going on within our bodies.

Honestly phooney, I have said the exact same things you have. I was an atheist. Really and truly.

“Mental gymnastics” is only one thing, a derogatory term for describing something that you don’t understand. And yes, I know how to think. I am not a vegetable by the mere fact of being Christian. What kind of statement is that?

Yes, love can be understood at a biological level, but why does it exist? Why do you exist?

And being an atheist…how can you say one way or the other what God is or is not?

 

[phooney]

@RebeccaJ

"“Mental gymnastics” is only one thing, a derogatory term for describing something that you don’t understand. And yes, I know how to think. I am not a vegetable by the mere fact of being Christian. What kind of statement is that?

Yes, love can be understood at a biological level, but why does it exist? Why do you exist?

And being an atheist…how can you say one way or the other what God is or is not?"

Hi Rebecca,

Please note that I didn’t actually say “mental gymnastics” I said “verbal gymnastics”. Of course, “supernatural” may be just another term for something you don’t understand. Where did I say that YOU didn’t know how to think and that being a Christian makes you a vegetable? You are reading a lot more than what I said, and then accusing me of things I didn’t write.

The why of love existing is explainable as an evolutionary adaptive trait increasing fitness for social animals such as us.

How can I say one way or the other? I don’t, I merely lack the belief in God until there is evidence to justify it, I didn’t say there is no God.

Please don’t take any offence, certainly there was none directed towards you from me.

 

[phooney]

I do not think there is much likelyhood that I can be of assistance to you in your search. Best wishes.

Thanks for your honesty, Grandfather. Best wishes to you as well.

 

[RebeccaJ]

@RebeccaJ

"“Mental gymnastics” is only one thing, a derogatory term for describing something that you don’t understand. And yes, I know how to think. I am not a vegetable by the mere fact of being Christian. What kind of statement is that?

Yes, love can be understood at a biological level, but why does it exist? Why do you exist?

And being an atheist…how can you say one way or the other what God is or is not?"

Hi Rebecca,

Please note that I didn’t actually say “mental gymnastics” I said “verbal gymnastics”. Of course, “supernatural” may be just another term for something you don’t understand. Where did I say that YOU didn’t know how to think and that being a Christian makes you a vegetable? You are reading a lot more than what I said, and then accusing me of things I didn’t write.

The why of love existing is explainable as an evolutionary adaptive trait increasing fitness for social animals such as us.

How can I say one way or the other? I don’t, I merely lack the belief in God until there is evidence to justify it, I didn’t say there is no God.

Please don’t take any offence, certainly there was none directed towards you from me.

I took your glad-you’re-thinking-response to mean that I don’t think.

I don’t call the unexplainable supernatural.

I really don’t know what you hope for someone to tell you here. God cannot be “found” for you. No one here can convince you that God exists. It is not likely that God is going to appear to you.

Proof is only found through Faith, and not the sort of faith that says believe something for the sake of believing it.

 

[phooney]

Oh, I see how that may have been misunderstood. No, that’s certainly not what I meant

What sort of faith is that then, if not belief despite a lack of evidence?

As I said already, to have to believe before evidence will be revealed for me then it kind of defeats the purpose of filtering any of my beliefs.

If I attempt to believe everything that I might possibly believe (essentially an infinite set of potential beliefs) it would be not only absurd, but it would be a particularly long time until I got to Yahweh, if I went through alphabetically, lacking any better way to do it.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Oh, I see how that may have been misunderstood. No, that’s certainly not what I meant

What sort of faith is that then, if not belief despite a lack of evidence?

The sort that is God’s grace.

As I said already, to have to believe before evidence will be revealed for me then it kind of defeats the purpose of filtering any of my beliefs.

If I attempt to believe everything that I might possibly believe (essentially an infinite set of potential beliefs) it would be not only absurd, but it would be a particularly long time until I got to Yahweh, if I went through alphabetically, lacking any better way to do it.

Indeed, it is absurd. As absurd as believing that what you believe now, about anything, has reached a logical conclusion based on the limited knowledge that you have.

 

[phooney]

OK, I’ll accept that you seem unwilling to explain to me what your definition of faith is.

Of course, we all have limited knowledge, but whatever it is that I do believe in is fully capable of being changed in the face of compelling evidence. Are your beliefs the same?

 

[CapaxDei]

Hi

I would like to present some rational arguments for belief in GodAllahYHWH presented in Quran

Why? This is a Catholic apologetics board, not a “world religions” open house or a Muslim board.

 

[phooney]

To be fair, this is the “non-catholic religions” section though.

 

[RebeccaJ]

OK, I’ll accept that you seem unwilling to explain to me what your definition of faith is.

Of course, we all have limited knowledge, but whatever it is that I do believe in is fully capable of being changed in the face of compelling evidence. Are your beliefs the same?

I am not evading. Faith is a mystery, to me at least. I have no other way to tell you what it is other than it is one of God’s graces. There are others more articulate than I am for describing such things. Some references have been suggested.

If you are sincere, then pray. Even though you feel like you’re talking to air, and feel ridiculous as hell, it won’t hurt you.

If my beliefs could not be changed then I would not believe what I believe today.

 

[grandfather]

Thanks for your honesty, Grandfather. Best wishes to you as well.

There was one thing I was wondering about. You are doing fine. If there is a God who made you, He did it of His free will and you owe Him nothing. Life is good. You are good. You have no need of this Being yet you say you have spent a lot of time looking for evidence about God’s existence. Why do you spend so much time and effort thinking about a nonexistent being? It would seem you could find something more interesting or better to do than bother yourself about something for which you say there is no evidence of existence. There has to be something more worthwhile to do than waste time with foolish people who believe things without evidence. Do you know why you feel compelled to work so hard at this?

 

[phooney]

Why do you spend so much time and effort thinking about a nonexistent being? It would seem you could find something more interesting or better to do than bother yourself about something for which you say there is no evidence of existence. There has to be something more worthwhile to do than waste time with foolish people who believe things without evidence. Do you know why you feel compelled to work so hard at this?

Well, it wasn’t me that said it was a non-existent being, you must have me confused with somebody else. All I said was that I, personally, lack that particular belief because of never having come across any evidence in all my searching. I didn’t say there was no evidence either, just that nobody has ever been able to provide any, to me anyway. And I have searched more than most. So both of those statements you made don’t have that much to do with me.

Nevertheless, it is a good question you raise anyway. Nevermind the fact that theists can’t even agree amongst themselves as to what god is or does, in the broadest definitions, either there is a god or there isn’t. No matter which ‘side’ is correct, it has absolutely massive implications for where we came from, where we’re going, etc. If God exists, we would need to see if he/she/it expects anything of us. If God doesn’t exist, then billions of people are wasting there valuable limited time in worshipping something that is a figment of their imagination. To answer your question, I think this is both important and interesting.

So people have been trying to answer this question for thousands and thousands of years, I don’t expect I am the one to finally settle it, but as I already kind of said, just because we may not be able to figure it out is no reason not to push the boundaries of our understanding.

Until I find evidence or it is presented to me, it is more rational to lack the belief. You yourself agreed with this particular statement. As you also admit you are unable to provide any evidence, I would suggest you probably don’t have any and would be more rational in doubting as well. This also goes for anybody who also does not have evidence, but believes anyway. In my experience, this would go for the vast majority of theists, dowsers, tarot card readers and alien abductees.

I don’t think you’re foolish either, please don’t think that. I think the odds are that you’ve just never really questioned your belief and your standard of evidence for a God.