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Eucharisted
Guest
Belief is not self-reliant. God revealed Himself to man, and if it were not the case, I can say with certainty that I would have remained an atheist.
- Status
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Borknagar
Guest
Amen
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AnotherAtheist
Guest
Since you can’t show that God is the only god your argument that there is only one god and it is not Thor therefore Thor does not exist is not valid.
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happilycatholic
Guest
Trust is always the flipside of faith. You cannot have one without the other.
I have a question, how does an atheist parent ever teach their children faith in anything? Or trust?
If your child comes to you and tells you what you believe is a lie, what do you do if you don’t have proof? If your child goes into the hospital for sugery and is afraid and you tell him it will be okay, what basis do you give him for believing you? You can’t prove to the child he’ll be okay. He has to have faith in you and trust you.
You can’t prove the child is lying, so do you have faith in him and trust him or do you just assume he’s lying because he can’t prove to you he’s not.
A life without faith is a life without trust.
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swplan76
Guest
Atheism, “The stark acceptance that man is an animal, chained to his impulses, that he is born of accidental copulation and dies unloved is a truly awful vista. I find it difficult to comprehend why proselytising for such a miserable view of life excites so many irrespective of the truth or otherwise of the disharmony that results from this perspective.”
Personally, I remove humanity from the equation. The church has not always been or done the right thing.
Christianity is not about how great the people are who claim to be followers.
Christianity is about how great God is, what He has done, is doing and will do.
It would be very hard for me to be a Christian if I had to accept any or all forms of the formalized church through out all its phases of history - the great thing is that I don’t have to. I believe that the Bible does not point to the authority of a group of people called the church in a way that is set in stone by men. A typical Catholic perspective would be difficult for me to adopt. I believe there are real believers in every denomination of Christianity - I believe scripture points us to that reality:
Matt. 7:21"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.
Personally, I remove humanity from the equation. The church has not always been or done the right thing.
Christianity is not about how great the people are who claim to be followers.
Christianity is about how great God is, what He has done, is doing and will do.
It would be very hard for me to be a Christian if I had to accept any or all forms of the formalized church through out all its phases of history - the great thing is that I don’t have to. I believe that the Bible does not point to the authority of a group of people called the church in a way that is set in stone by men. A typical Catholic perspective would be difficult for me to adopt. I believe there are real believers in every denomination of Christianity - I believe scripture points us to that reality:
Matt. 7:21"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.
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AnotherAtheist
Guest
Faith, like morals and love, do not require the existence of religion or a supreme being.
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aileron
Guest
Actually, there are 10 different types of people. Those who understand binary and those who don’tAnd there are three different people in the world: Those who can count and those who can’t.
- Yes. Until new theories topple them, so to speak.
- Yes. He created all good things.
- No. God is the Truth and the Truth cannot deceive.
(No offense meant)
Anywho…On issue #2,Beside the good things I think it’s safe to assume you would agree he created nature and free will corrupted it, so I’ll continue.
Accepting all three of these things essentially disproves any creator god - conditionally - given your qualification to premise 1. Oh, there may be arguments left to fight for other types of gods, but accepting these three - at least at the moment - rules out any creator gods that would not deceive us.
Current theory - and it’s good current theory based on very reasonable induction - is that there was no beginning to nature. Our universe had what could be termed a beginning, but not all of nature.
So there is no creation ex nihilo. There was never a nihilo in the philosophical or theological sense.
So either our theory is wrong, which it certainty may be, or God created the observable universe in a manner that led his rational creations to the wrong conclusion (I sense a free will counter argument, but I won’t delve into that at length here). I don’t see how to reconcile the latter with most concepts of God.
I used to be in the sort maybe there’s some kind of impersonal deistic or pantheistic creator out there type. Though science is far from perfect, based on what we have before us now there is no reason at present to doubt that nature is eternal. If so, an eternal nature rules out an all beneficent creator. As always, as evidence and theory change, so can my mind.
Does this prove anything? It depends, really. It all comes down to what you trust more - the current scientific theory or the faith that God exists. That’s something only the individual can decide.
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Eucharisted
Guest
LOL!Actually, there are 10 different types of people. Those who understand binary and those who don’t
Oh I see what you did there!
Let us not forget another scientific theory: the Big Bang. Scientists accept this theory, especially since Einstein proved that the Universe has a beginning (unfortunately I don’t have the book where it discusses his discovery; I had to return it to the library after my research paper was finished).
The great thing about the “time” before creation is that we don’t know anything about it. Science cannot examine it, at least not yet. So to say the Universe existed before the Big Bang is a bit of a stretch.
Moreover, science cannot say whether or not God exists, because He is super-natural. Science is restricted to the natural. It could prove some miracles aren’t real, and it could prove some revelations are false, but since God is supernatural, it can’t make a ruling on Him.
What I trust is the Truth. Science is the examination of the Universe. It says how things came to be. Religion is the understanding of the Universe. It says why things came to be. Science and religion both serve the Truth, and they both help us better understand God and His works. (For example, the scientific theory of evolution shows God works slowly and the miracle of transubstantion shows God is Love).
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swplan76
Guest
A friend of mine who is not a believer married an anti-Catholic. His wife grew up around harsh religious people and has discouraged any acceptance of Christianity in their home by their kids. Their 2nd son suffers from night terrors. Nearly every night he wakes up screaming non-sense and runs into their bedroom around 2 or 3 am. They can make no sense of what he is saying and they cannot calm him down.
I know what I would do if it was my son. I would pray, pray, pray. I would bring him to church and have people I know pray for him. I would teach him to pray as soon as he was old enough. Of course there is no way to know how their lives might be different if they did get on their knees and ask for God to heal their son. They don’t want religion in their home.
Instead, my friend spends each night regretting he has ever had children, just waiting for the day that they grow up and leave him alone.
With my own child I wonder how much illness we have avoided because we do pray. Our 2 year old prays (in his own limited way), we have other people praying for us and we are attempting to give everything we face over to God. My experience is that God intervenes - I see God moving in my life and the lives of countless others.
The difficult thing is that I could not use my friend’s life as a proof either way. He refuses to call out to God. If they did call out to God, or if God were to heal their son through the prayers of others, it can just be called coincidence. Its only that I have personal proof (experiences of God) that I can see how life would be different if they were open to how God would likely move in their lives (I says “would likely” because I have found that when God moves it is often in a way that we don’t expect, though sometimes it is predictable).
I personally can’t understand how atheists can face each day. I’m not trying to be rude, I just don’t see how that kind of life makes sense. As I have been a Christian, my need for God has just increased.
Atheism, “The stark acceptance that man is an animal, chained to his impulses, that he is born of accidental copulation and dies unloved is a truly awful vista. I find it difficult to comprehend why proselytising for such a miserable view of life excites so many irrespective of the truth or otherwise of the disharmony that results from this perspective.”
I know what I would do if it was my son. I would pray, pray, pray. I would bring him to church and have people I know pray for him. I would teach him to pray as soon as he was old enough. Of course there is no way to know how their lives might be different if they did get on their knees and ask for God to heal their son. They don’t want religion in their home.
Instead, my friend spends each night regretting he has ever had children, just waiting for the day that they grow up and leave him alone.
With my own child I wonder how much illness we have avoided because we do pray. Our 2 year old prays (in his own limited way), we have other people praying for us and we are attempting to give everything we face over to God. My experience is that God intervenes - I see God moving in my life and the lives of countless others.
The difficult thing is that I could not use my friend’s life as a proof either way. He refuses to call out to God. If they did call out to God, or if God were to heal their son through the prayers of others, it can just be called coincidence. Its only that I have personal proof (experiences of God) that I can see how life would be different if they were open to how God would likely move in their lives (I says “would likely” because I have found that when God moves it is often in a way that we don’t expect, though sometimes it is predictable).
I personally can’t understand how atheists can face each day. I’m not trying to be rude, I just don’t see how that kind of life makes sense. As I have been a Christian, my need for God has just increased.
Atheism, “The stark acceptance that man is an animal, chained to his impulses, that he is born of accidental copulation and dies unloved is a truly awful vista. I find it difficult to comprehend why proselytising for such a miserable view of life excites so many irrespective of the truth or otherwise of the disharmony that results from this perspective.”
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cerad
Guest
Just to save Eucharisted from having to say it: off topic and probably emotional.
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cerad
Guest
God is one of many gods.
Only one Thor exists.
Thor is the only living god.
Hence, God cannot exist.
100% emotion free. Got anything else that needs proving?
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mrhenrik
Guest
Every day is an opportunity, I’ll make the most out of this tiny little spark of life I’ve been lucky enough to recieve, and I do my best to let others enjoy it as well. The quote changes nothing about the fact that religions are at the very most likely not true.
About your friend, they just seem like bad parents.
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Libertarian_FL
Guest
Assuming that the latest theories in physics and related cosmological science is true, noting the problem with proving it. After all I will note Black Holes had to exist according to physics and until we could see them at work with developments they were considered at the same level. Then with untold numbers of other universes that would be likely following these views to the ultimate logical end. One can assume that more likely than not their are gods and goddesses, after all we are talking trillions upon trillions of possibilities.
Does this demonstrate one diety not at all just that logically divine forces as we would consider them as human likely all exist equally, somewhere. I would say to disprove this one would have disprove the odds of infinite universes not having a diety in them.
This is based on real work by science so is not so far fetched as a line of reasoning. I cover this in my website below if your interested in my early thoughts on this.
Does this demonstrate one diety not at all just that logically divine forces as we would consider them as human likely all exist equally, somewhere. I would say to disprove this one would have disprove the odds of infinite universes not having a diety in them.
This is based on real work by science so is not so far fetched as a line of reasoning. I cover this in my website below if your interested in my early thoughts on this.
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aileron
Guest
Actually, a Jesuit Priest Georges Lemaitre (sp?) was the first to propose what we now know as the Big Bang. Einstein as (for all practical use of the word) an atheist essentially rejected it calling Lemaitre a wonderful mathematician but an awful physicist. Einstein thought this sounded much too much like an attempt by a religious creation *ex nihilo * by a Jesuit preist. After some new discoveries, Einstein accepted the broad outlines of the theory, but it did not lead him to God if you were wondering. So even Einstein who accepted theory evidently did not think of this event as a creation ex nihilo, an event with clear religious implications.
That’s not what I wrote. Perhaps you would prefer the term “something”. Nature existed. There’s good scientific reason to conclude this. The main reason at present to reject this area of scientific theory is to support creation ex nihilo. This has happened time and time again when science and religion clashed and if you agree with premise 1 you know that religion gets steamrolled every time.
But science can reasonably conclude that the universe is not 6,000 years old. It can reasonably say that the sun does not orbit the earth. It can say these and many more things who’s principle counter explanation was and is religious wishful thinking. Why can’t science prove it is more likely than not that there has always been something in nature? What people call the Big Bang makes no sense given what we know about astrophysics unless there was energy present beforehand. That is only one of myriad of reasons physicists do not consider the singularity a creation ex nihilo – in fact, they never did. According to at least Hawking, at a meeting of scientists Pope John Paul implored scientists not to investigate or discuss matters pertaining to this at all. In the old days he’d have been able to put an end to it once and for all
Proving anything is dependent on the audience. You can’t prove some things to some people no matter how solid the evidence or reasonable the argument. If people are dead set on believing a miracle happened, no scientific pronouncement will matter. I know people who still think the Shroud of Turin is a miraculous image of Jesus even though it has been dated to the middle ages and pious forgeries were rampant back then.
I think it’s becoming increasingly clear to philosophers, scientists, and scholarly theologians that the so-called non overlapping magisteria concept (coined by S. Gould) is gone. It’s not just astrophysics. Cognitive science is delving into matters religion considers the soul. Biology is exploring hypotheses that makes some religious Biologists uncomfortable. There’s a showdown coming in the core methodology and assumptions used by science, and if we are to learn from history religion will be at the losing end yet again.
What is truth? (sorry for that)
Replace universe with nature and I agree.
No… That’s religion - creation ex nihilo. Science is claiming that nature is more than our universe.
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Kristopher
Guest
You sound like you just hung yourself: a monotheistic god’s existence is based upon your denial of polytheistic gods / goddesses.
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Eucharisted
Guest
You’re making a lot of broad strokes on Christianity. But at any rate, I found articles that should help you better understand the relationship between Christianity and science: catholic.com/library/faith_science.aspActually, a Jesuit Priest Georges Lemaitre (sp?) was the first to propose what we now know as the Big Bang. Einstein as (for all practical use of the word) an atheist essentially rejected it calling Lemaitre a wonderful mathematician but an awful physicist. Einstein thought this sounded much too much like an attempt by a religious creation *ex nihilo * by a Jesuit preist. After some new discoveries, Einstein accepted the broad outlines of the theory, but it did not lead him to God if you were wondering. So even Einstein who accepted theory evidently did not think of this event as a creation ex nihilo, an event with clear religious implications.
That’s not what I wrote. Perhaps you would prefer the term “something”. Nature existed. There’s good scientific reason to conclude this. The main reason at present to reject this area of scientific theory is to support creation ex nihilo. This has happened time and time again when science and religion clashed and if you agree with premise 1 you know that religion gets steamrolled every time.
But science can reasonably conclude that the universe is not 6,000 years old. It can reasonably say that the sun does not orbit the earth. It can say these and many more things who’s principle counter explanation was and is religious wishful thinking. Why can’t science prove it is more likely than not that there has always been something in nature? What people call the Big Bang makes no sense given what we know about astrophysics unless there was energy present beforehand. That is only one of myriad of reasons physicists do not consider the singularity a creation ex nihilo – in fact, they never did. According to at least Hawking, at a meeting of scientists Pope John Paul implored scientists not to investigate or discuss matters pertaining to this at all. In the old days he’d have been able to put an end to it once and for all
Proving anything is dependent on the audience. You can’t prove some things to some people no matter how solid the evidence or reasonable the argument. If people are dead set on believing a miracle happened, no scientific pronouncement will matter. I know people who still think the Shroud of Turin is a miraculous image of Jesus even though it has been dated to the middle ages and pious forgeries were rampant back then.
I think it’s becoming increasingly clear to philosophers, scientists, and scholarly theologians that the so-called non overlapping magisteria concept (coined by S. Gould) is gone. It’s not just astrophysics. Cognitive science is delving into matters religion considers the soul. Biology is exploring hypotheses that makes some religious Biologists uncomfortable. There’s a showdown coming in the core methodology and assumptions used by science, and if we are to learn from history religion will be at the losing end yet again.
What is truth? (sorry for that)
Replace universe with nature and I agree.
No… That’s religion - creation ex nihilo. Science is claiming that nature is more than our universe.
L
Libertarian_FL
Guest
Maybe we should change the debate here to this: Prove that at least one diety cannot exist.
Like I pointed out multiverses means an infinite likely number of realities so thinking of that the odds of one not spawning at least one diety as we would consider them is very unlikely. In fact one would need a huge leap of faith to deny the mathematics involved this not being likely.
Unless the athiests here are willing to deny the work of quantum physics and related areas of study at this point.
Again I agree proving this is a problem as a science but like I said once so were Black Holes, now we know they are there by observational astronomy.
Like I pointed out multiverses means an infinite likely number of realities so thinking of that the odds of one not spawning at least one diety as we would consider them is very unlikely. In fact one would need a huge leap of faith to deny the mathematics involved this not being likely.
Unless the athiests here are willing to deny the work of quantum physics and related areas of study at this point.
Again I agree proving this is a problem as a science but like I said once so were Black Holes, now we know they are there by observational astronomy.
K
Kristopher
Guest
I think, that atheists like to provide reasons for their denial of God’s existence. There is a restriction on such reasons being provided. Being in denial of God’s existence, might well be an emotional matter. It could have been an intellectual one: such as leaving Jesus; when he began to explain, that he is the bread of life, come down from heaven, that humanity should feed upon him, rather than what fell from the heavens; so-to-speak, maybe this admits denial in God, or simply, Jesus. Whose work was it, that Jesus called himself, the bread of life?
I suppose it can be difficult to accept, that denial of God’s existence, is justified.
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cheese_sdc
Guest
Talk to one. I didn’t understand a lot of things until I talked to someone who believes it. I may not agree with it, but at least I understand it.
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Kristopher
Guest
So a denial of God’s existence is based not upon those enumerated emotional appeals at the start of this thread, but upon the absurdity of God’s existence, not seen, not heard, not felt by touch–this leaves the senses of taste, and smell, and as Catholics–we eat God at mass, in the Eucharist and therefore, you will become Catholic to taste, and smell, God, which will undoubtedly lead to a photograph of Jesus, a written account of a woman to whom God appeared as a man, in addition to other stories, confirming God is bread and wine, and all this to fulfill your senses?
Is it strange, that God’s existence may be proven through an absurd arugement?
- Status