Atheists: Why aren't you theists?

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freesoulhope said:
This is what convinces you to deny the existents of God?
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No. I present it merely as an illustration of the futility of proving god through reason. Believing in god is an act of faith. Faith is not reason. Seems pretty clear to me.
But the Bigbang, makes God high probability, where as there is zero probability, unless you think the world popped out of nothing, that the world came about by natural means; its simply imposible.
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You keep insisting this, but it is simply your opinion. Science has not answered the question; the only people asserting the above are people who seek to support their theology. Isn’t it time you were honest with yourself and admitted that your insistence that the world/universe could not have come about by natural means is a statement of belief, not knowledge?
The guy above has not taken that in to consideration; he has just made statments about what he thinks rather then what the evidence shows; he is a lot like you.
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Nice dig. I would certainly hope we are making statements about what we think, rather than making statements lacking any thought.
Its seems to me, that you accept what this man is saying soely because he is a respected scientist; that means he could lie through his teeth, and you would believe him.
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Hans Kung is a respected theologian and catholic priest. You can accept or reject what he says based on your own point of view, as will I. But please do not reject him as just another atheistic scientist with a godless agenda. Afterall, he is one of your own.
 
MerryAtheist said:
Hans Kung is a respected theologian and catholic priest. You can accept or reject what he says based on your own point of view, as will I. But please do not reject him as just another atheistic scientist with a godless agenda. Afterall, he is one of your own.
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Nice moves!🙂 i like that.

The fact that he is a catholic, is not relevent to what evidence shows.

You have fogged of my evidence for God, as mere opinions, yet not one atheist has given me a good reason or opinon, that supports reasonably, their disbelief in God; yet a wealth of reasons have been given by the theist; this tells me something; it tells me that logical reasoning is on the side of the theist and not on the side of materialism.

To find out if my thinking is just an opinon, which i will humbly accept if the evidences show it to be so, i am going to ask you a question one by one. And if you dis agree with it, you must show me a good reason to disbelieve it rather then show me accertions made by other people. If you can quote a good source that shows my reasoning to be false, then by all means do so, but give me no more hocus pocus!
  1. Do you agree, that the universe must have a cause, in order to exist.
 
MerryAtheist said:
Hans Kung is a respected theologian and catholic priest. You can accept or reject what he says based on your own point of view, as will I. But please do not reject him as just another atheistic scientist with a godless agenda. Afterall, he is one of your own.
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I suppose once you are a Catholic priest you cannot unbecome one, but the Vatican has rescinded Kungs authority to teach Catholic theology.
 
MerryAtheist said:
No. I present it merely as an illustration of the futility of proving god through reason. Believing in god is an act of faith. Faith is not reason. Seems pretty clear to me.

Isn’t it time you were honest with yourself and admitted that your insistence that the world/universe could not have come about by natural means is a statement of belief, not knowledge?
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If you think im being unreasonable, then Prove it. If you think that, then there must be a good reason for thinking it; i want you to lay your cards on the table mister. Instead of pretending you have a good reason.

Science provides truths about the “natural universe”, what ever caused the big bang, trancends the natural universe; it cannot be apart of it, since there was no “before”, yet the universe "began, and so must have a cause.
 
MerryAtheist said:
No. I present it merely as an illustration of the futility of proving god through reason. Believing in god is an act of faith. Faith is not reason. Seems pretty clear to me.
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Is this just one of your ideal beliefs about those who believe in God, or can you actually prove it?
 
freesoulhope said:
  1. Do you agree, that the universe must have a cause, in order to exist.
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To be honest, I really don’t know. I think we can agree that the universe does, in fact, exist (if not then we have no basis for further discussion, since we don’t really exist either).

I think the standard cosmology model (the explanation most widely accepted today) is based on the universe coming into existence at a certain point, which would therefore imply a cause. But that model can only explain the process starting at about the first one hundredth of a second after the Big Bang (the Planck epoch, whatever that means). Anything prior is highly speculative.

If this model is correct, it seems logical to conclude that something caused the BigBang. Of course, you would likely say that God is the cause of the Big Bang, but that is a statement of belief based on your faith, not a statement based on actual knowledge.

Frankly, I don’t know what caused the universe (or if it had a cause at all), and I’m completely comfortable in my ignorance.
 
I_Leatherman said:
I suppose once you are a Catholic priest you cannot unbecome one, but the Vatican has rescinded Kungs authority to teach Catholic theology.
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True. Although I believe the reason for that had to do with Kung’s opinions on infallibility. He’s still a priest, and his status as a theologian and philosopher is not in question, however, and that’s really what we’re talking about here.

But again, you are free to disregard anything you don’t like.
 
freesoulhope said:
Is this just one of your ideal beliefs about those who believe in God, or can you actually prove it?
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What, that the decision to believe in God is based on faith? Are you serious? Perhaps you should ask fellow believers for their answers; I feel no need to explain basic theology to you.
 
MerryAtheist said:
What, that the decision to believe in God is based on faith? Are you serious? Perhaps you should ask fellow believers for their answers; I feel no need to explain basic theology to you.
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No… that somebody who has faith in the existents of God has no good reasons to back it up, and one cannot have a good logical reason to believe. Prove it. Stop dily dalying around please.
 
MerryAtheist said:
Hans Kung is a respected theologian … Afterall, he is one of your own.
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Not entirely accurate. You were trying to use the fact the he is Catholic to press for advantage in your argument. I don’t know why, he was wrong about infallability after all…
 
I_Leatherman said:
Not entirely accurate. You were trying to use the fact the he is Catholic to press for advantage in your argument. I don’t know why, he was wrong about infallability after all…
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Oh, brother! Re-read the posts, for goodness sake. I put his quotes up because the content supported my position, I couldn’t give a fig whether he is Catholic, Lutheran, or belonged to the Church of the Bunny. I assumed everyone would know who Kung was. FreeSoulHope took issue under the mistaken impression that Kung was just another atheist scientist. I corrected that mis-impression.

My purpose for posting here is not to trick anyone. I post honestly and try to do so with humor and good intentions. If you wish to assign ulterior motives to my posts, that’s your business, but you’ll have to pardon me for not responding to you in the future as a result.

I encourage you to respond to the content of the posts, rather than launching ad hominem attacks.

If you wish to apologize, I will graciously accept. Until then, there is nothing to say.
 
MerryAtheist said:
Oh, brother! Re-read the posts, for goodness sake. I put his quotes up because the content supported my position,
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You showed me somebody that “disagreed” with my position, but i didn’t see anything that “supported” your position as an atheist.

Maybe you could point something out for me?
 
freesoulhope said:
No… that somebody who has faith in the existents of God has no good reasons to back it up, and one cannot have a good logical reason to believe.
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Heck no! There are plenty of good reasons to believe, once one has faith. You say as much yourself by assuming that a person who has “faith” has good reasons to back it up.

The decision to believe is in many ways a step into the unknown.

“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1​

Show me the scripture verse and the church Tradition that places more emphasis on reason and knowledge than faith…

Even the Church’s catechism places more importance on faith than reason.

"What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe ‘because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.’ "
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 156​

“Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie.”
Ibid, paragraph 157​

“Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason.”
Ibid, paragraph 159​

In these passages I find the church placing faith in a higher position than reason. From the church’s standpoint, it’s more important “to believe” than it is “to know.” That’s all well and good, but I simply cannot accept it.

That’s one of the reasons I am an atheist.
 
freesoulhope said:
You showed me somebody that “disagreed” with my position, but i didn’t see anything that “supported” your position as an atheist.

Maybe you could point something out for me?
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I never said it supported my position as an atheist. It merely supported my assertion that reason cannot prove god.
 
MerryAtheist said:
I never said it supported my position as an atheist. It merely supported my assertion that reason cannot prove god.
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I don’t understand? What are you saying? Are you trying to say that, just because somebody agree’s with your position, it means that your assertion is true? But what logical reasons are you providing to support your assertions? You have given none so far. The things you have said, neither refute the arguements given, such as the first cause arguements, or provide a logic example of how the universe could possibly come from nothing by itself.
 
MerryAtheist said:
“Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason.”
Ibid, paragraph 159​
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Do you understand what has been quoted hear?

As a Catholic i have never come across the idea, that one must relie totally on faith. Neither does the church demand that you must not use reason to understand God and to know he exists. What the church says is that reason can only take you so far, and then from there one must have faith; such as having faith that God loves you; thats what faith is about. If reason is not held in high regard, then why on earth would St Thomas Aquiness, make all those arguements, such as the first cause arguement, for the existents of God. The church calls him the doctor for reasons such as these.

I think you mis-interpret what the church is saying, and in any case, just because the catholic church places a high value on faith, is not a good reason to not believe that God exists. The arguements i have made, is not to prove “religion”; the aguements i have made in favor of proving that there is a God.

I think you know full well that the Catholic Church places a high value on reason as well.
 
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