Atheist bored at work. Feel free to ask questions

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Bored at work and enjoy having discussions with people of different points of view. Also, get to practice trying to have difficult discussions in a way that does not have to be difficult. I posted this in the appropriate location, 'Non-Catholic Religions". I’ve received a few feedbacks from people stating that I shouldn’t be talking on here, but then what’s the point of having this area of conversation. Want to only have people of catholic faith discussing the catholic faith, then don’t have this area for it. In the mean time, seems like a lot of people are engaging in the conversation. That’s important to me since there is a lot of religious people out there using their religion to promote their own bigotry and social destruction.
 
I believe what is justified in reality that we can understand. You seem to imply that because reality presents consciousness from a functioning brain and that we are products of star dust, this has an emotional response that you just don’t like. What you would prefer reality to be is irrelevant to how reality actually presents itself. We can demonstrate that we are star dust, can you demonstrate that the supernatural realm even exists at all? We have evidence of reality and evidence that we do not know enough about reality to know what it can and can not do. So where is your evidence that you’ve exhausted all natural based solutions for magical ones? or that magic even is an answer? or how magic actual manifests in this realm? and so on and so on. You’ve solved a mystery by another mystery. Just stop and say, this is what we can currently justify for understanding and demonstrate as a solution. Beyond that is just “We don’t know yet.” How many times does religion have to keep moving the goal post of the God of the Gaps before it just gets old?
 
Why do you invoke “magic” and “supernatural”?

Look at nature. Where do you see life originating from non-life?
 
The goal post is artificially set to begin with. It changes for science as well. What is matter? Our ideas about that have certainly changed over the centuries. So you prefer to answer “I don’t know” to the ultimate questions. Well we pretty much do also. That is why we have faith. At a personal level we see and experience enough to justify that faith.

“Supernatural” is only what has not yet been explained. “Magic” does not exist. I do not think of God as some “supernatural” being out there somewhere. But rather, as the ground of our own being, the origin of our own consciousness, the center of a holistic reality. The love of Christ something deeper than quantum entanglement. All creation is interconnected. Isn’t science telling us that?
 
Russell_SA said:
We all know what it is like to be in a relationship with someone that we can put questions to. Since your deity appears to not want a relationship with certain people, we can not ask that deity anything at all. So it appears to us as just not being there at all. We can all see the girl across the room and walk up to her to say hi before knowing anything at all about her character or her knowing our character. We can not do this apparently with your deity. Since you claim that your deity knows our character and is currently ducking all our attempts to discover if it is even real, it’s no different than the girl at the party ducking out when we show up. She could just not exist and it would be no different to us that she does actually exist. We can’t have a relationship with someone that acts like that or even know they exist. So again, your deity either does not exist or is choosing to not reveal itself to us. Either way, not our problem.
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Did you ever try to contact this deity? Relationships don’t happen without effort. What effort have you put into it? The only reason you “know” dozens of posters here on CA is because you reached out and contacted us. You made the first move and we responded. Have you done this with the deity?

You can sit in your cubicle and stare at the monitor all day and you’ll know nothing until you put your fingers to the keyboard and make some kind of effort. It works that way with God. If you don’t know Him, it’s because you don’t want to. And yes, it is your problem. You need to know in this life, and not be caught by surprise in the next.
 
There is only one deity. You have to make an effort. I don’t see any effort here, just “Oh well, God hasn’t said squat to me. He must not exist.” You have to make the first move.
 
I would like you to explain this away.

My family on my mother’s side is considered to be strange. When I was going thru a rough period 25 years ago, I was seeing a VA shrink. She would always by rote ask me this question. “Do you hear voices” I would always reply: “If I did I would be in good company.” She would ask why. I would respond: My mother, 2 sisters, and 2 brothers all hear voices and I suspect that my brother that committed suicide when he was 16 either heard voices or saw the source of the voices like someone else I know". I never told her that I was the one that saw the sources of the voices although I never heard the voices myself. It is like that movie with Bruce Willis…I see dead people…but not on the frequency that the little kid did. They are few and far between. So I guess you could say my family may be clairvoyant to a certain degree. My 3 of my 4 siblings get treated by meds for the voices, the 4th just ignores it.

Which brings us to an event that happened. We lived in the particular house. I would always see this little girl dressed in white, maybe 4 or 5 years of age. Well one day I was playing Euchre online. I got up and got a plastic tall glass, filled it with ice water. Went back to sit down and proceed with the game. 30 seconds later my daughter and son came up behind me to watch me play. I reached down and grabbed the glass and chugged down the water, I was really thirsty, and then set it down. About 1 minute later the glass moved 18 inches across the desk.

My daughter asked: “Dad, how did you do that?”. I replied: “I did not do that, it moved all by itself”. Both my daughter and son vacated the immediate area.

I am a student of Physics. I know what just happened from a Physics standpoint is almost 100% not possible. And don’t give me that “Condensation” nonsense. That was the first thing I checked for half believing that theory. Condensation! NONE, ZILCH, NADA. It was dry sides and bottom.

Couple of years later we moved out of that house. Later my daughter confided in me that while we lived in that house she had nightmares that she could not remember. The night in the new house was the first night nightmare free and has been since then.
 
Well actually there are thousands of equally attested deities. How does Russell know which one to address?
 
Yes, I have yet to run into an Atheist that has not tried what the religious are claiming worked for them. Relationships are both ways. I can’t help but notice that every critique about this point is putting the effort on the Atheist reaching out, but your group never seems to contact your deity and ask it why it’s not reaching out as well. You’re the ones with a “relationship” with this deity. Let me know what it says to your request on this. Why is your deity ducking out when the atheists show up?
 
God of the Gaps it seems. We have scientists looking into Abiogenecists since the only reality we can investigate as to how reality works is this reality, not a reality with supernatural in it at this point. Scientists are looking at solutions for questions in this reality because this is the only reality we can interact with and investigate on how it works. That is because we can not investigate the supernatural in anyway. By default, it is removed from being part of the solution since the evidence of the supernatural makes the supernatural appear as no different than just a made up idea. Imagining a deity that solves all your unknown problems does not make that deity actually exist until you can demonstrated that it actually exists, how it can interact with our realm, and that it has the power to actually make that change in our realm. Ex: you see a burnt piece of wood. Someone comes along and says it’s a blabla, but no one can investigate a blabla to be the cause of anything in reality. So is the blabla allowed to be an actual solution as apposed to a blibiddy or a blobbiddy? Either of which also can’t be invested as the cause of anything in reality. Anything that can not be investigated as being part of reality is not allowed to be a solution to problems in reality. We just have to stop and say, we don’t know yet.
Invoking the supernatural is the exact same as invoking a blabla, blibiddy, blobbidy, etc. It’s using a mystery to explain a mystery. Just be honest and stop making up solutions to questions we haven’t solved yet.
 
Do you serious think that atheists haven’t tried that? That scientists haven’t tried that? I don’t really believe religious people are that thick to believe that. We’re not saying she doesn’t exist, just that she’s still indistinguishable from not being there at all. Apparently she’s responding to your conversation and ignoring us. That, by definition, is no different than an imaginary friend. Only you can see her and everyone else is doing the exact same thing you are for invoking your deity but your deity is choosing to only interact with you. The imaginary friend and your deity are indistinguishable to us.
 
The goal post for science is to understand reality regardless of how we would like it to be. That is the only goal post. It does not change. What does change is our current understanding of reality based on what we currently understand. If we find new information about reality, we adjust our predictive models to reflect that. There is no comparison to the moving goal post of what religion has claimed. Witches, that’s evidence of god. No actually witches never existed. Move the goal post. Demonic possession. Nope that’s actually a psychological disorder or a medial disease. Move the goal post. Now the post is all the way back to the start of the universe. How many times is religion going to move that goal post?
What is Holistic Reality?
What does quantum entanglement have to do with the supernatural other than people throwing out “quantum” science as a reference to spooky science. Depak Chopra makes a living off of throwing around spooky science terms with new age lingo but he’s really not talking about anything at all. How to live the good life is not that complicated to figure out, it’s doing it that makes it hard.
All life has a common ancestor, but life was not a creation from a being or entity as far as the evidence shows.
 
I am glad that you enjoy it,and work hard to keep cool at replying and conversing.
Not long ago I was speaking face to face with someone and I was accused of being
a bigot.All I did was quietly state my unchanging beliefs when challenged and was kind of yelled at
as the other tried to push their ideas and beliefs on me .It was an interesting situation.
 
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It comes down to a leap of faith when we reach the limit of what we currently know.
I take the leap. You do not.
It makes sense to me but not to you.
And it feel right in my bones.

Nothing much else to be said.
 
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Just wondering ,do most atheists believe in overpopulation and population control Russell?
 
Tarsier said:
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steve-b:
You are more concerned about the author than the truth behind the statement attributed to him. I would suggest you prove the statement attributed to Aquinas
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I can’t prove it because I’m arguing it wasn’t from Aquinas. It’s beneath him, as Aquinas spent much of his life proving the very proof that, according to the quote, is pointless.
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On the contrary have you read what Aquinas says about faith? By that I mean faith in a Creator of all things?
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Russell_SA:
I’m not concerned with the author, but with a quote that I think is harmful to the conversation, and I think Aquinas deserves better than to be credited as its author.

The quote is an untrue platitude. Scripture itself asks believers to “test everything”, which calls for reason and evidence. Even doubting Thomas wasn’t scolded for asking for proof, but because he already had enough proof (e.g. miracles of Christ, prophecies come true, the testimony of the other apostles) and still wanted more.
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Jesus actually lets Thomas down gently, and elevates those who believe but haven’t seen John 20:29 RSVCE - Jesus said to him, “Have you believed - Bible Gateway
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Russell_SA:
To say that unbelievers will never find arguments and proof sufficient is an insult to many of the unbelievers who did. Catholic apologists are fond of citing Sr. Anthony Flew, who allegedly became a late-in-life convert due to the evidence he saw presented by design. Just that one case study is enough to disprove the quote. Any believer who ever bought a “Case for …” book or listens to Catholic Answers to learn answers to hard questions is an argument against the other premise in the quote.

No, Aquinas never said that.
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this might be quicker to address your points The First Cause Argument by Peter Kreeft
 
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Interesting your reply was edited in the days after it was given.
Are you all English then ?
 
Russell_SA said:
Do you serious think that atheists haven’t tried that? That scientists haven’t tried that? I don’t really believe religious people are that thick to believe that. We’re not saying she doesn’t exist, just that she’s still indistinguishable from not being there at all. Apparently she’s responding to your conversation and ignoring us. That, by definition, is no different than an imaginary friend. Only you can see her and everyone else is doing the exact same thing you are for invoking your deity but your deity is choosing to only interact with you. The imaginary friend and your deity are indistinguishable to us.
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I am grateful for this post because quite often even believers are on a very apophatic path, a path of darkness and emptiness which can also seem indistinguishable from a Godless path, a “Darkness of Unknowing”.

#25 For the more that we soar upwards the more
our language becomes restricted to the compass of purely
intellectual conceptions, even as in the present instance
plunging into the Darkness which is above the intellect
we shall find ourselves reduced not merely to brevity of
30 speech but even to absolute dumbness both of speech and
thought.


Again, one either takes the leap, or not.
 
Was it? How can you tell? Don’t remember editing it. If I did it was for a typo — I vaguely remember dashing it off, off the cuff, and not being too impressed with it.

Am I all English? 100 per cent (as far as I know!) And you?

Edit: antipodes?

Edit: although I seem to remember changing “within the Church” to “within one Church” so as to minimise replies from folk exercised by the history of Henry VIII. But I think Idid that before posting. Dunno.
 
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