I am an atheist thread 3

[NaturalEnquirer]

The stories of Krishna have many followers. Same for Allah. If you just count adherents, you will arrive at the conclusion that the muslims are correct.

As to the Zeus evidence, just the fact that he has been described in an old book is as much evidence as anyone has for their god.

Go ahead and prove that he does not exist, or stop expecting me to offer proof that your god doesn’t.

I’m not interested in just counting adherents. I want to weigh the stories on their merits. But… maybe you don’t know the stories. Maybe you’re just making a blind assertion that the other stories are equally believable. I thought you didn’t like believing on faith? Where’s your objectivity here?

Let me remind you of my specific request:
Got any written testimonials of eyewitness accounts of Zeus?
Got any documented miracles of Zeus?
Has Zeus’s religion withstood millenia of aggression?

Of course the amount of evidence is not equal. It staggers me that you could make such an openly dishonest statement after all this discussion. Just because you don’t like the evidence doesn’t mean it’s not there.

 

[_A]

Actually…not a threat…but God actually follows through with people in how they view Him. If you believe He doesn’t exist, why would you want to go to a place where He does, in the after life? Know what I mean?

Why would anyone need the threat of eternal anything to be a good person?
I know that many catholic adherents say that they don’t fear hell, or get tempted by heaven, but why this ‘carrot and stick’ if there is supposed to be ‘free will’?

 

[_A]

I think you do reject reason because reason in fact affirms the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God and to this you reject.

From Plato to Kant there have been multitudes of thinkers and logicians who have affirmed the existence of a God and used reason heavily in their thought.

Why do you believe in reason? You deny the existence of a God yet you have not denied (at least not here) the existence of reason, which one would think is an easier belief to do away with…

is reason the same for everyone or is it subjective? If it was the same for everyone, I would repeat the same argument you used against the existence of God and ask why is it different from person to another across the world? That is to say why does one person find something to be logical while another does not? Surely if it was objective, they would all know it the same… right?

So if your god is all-knowing and all-powerful, then why does he bother making souls? Shouldn’t he know automatically where a soul will end up?
By the way, if god is *unable *to commit an evil act, he is definitely not all-powerful. If he is able to, then he is not all good. Which characteristic is ‘ungodly’? The omnipotent feature, or the omni-benevolent one?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

The Catholic Church, one of the wealthiest organizations on earth. Oh, and don’t forget that they need more money.

Why do you keep claiming that the Church is unreliable, just because they have x amount of wealth?

So, since priests are far from infallible, why didn’t your god leave a more reliable message for his non-literate children?

I don’t know. Apparently He thought this was sufficient. Why do you disagree?

A literal reading of genesis does yield some interesting ‘piffle’. (I am surprised to hear a catholic use that word when referring to a book of the bible, btw). The genesis story is several ways impossible, and has been disproved. Why still believe the other stories?Yup. I would expect more accuracy from an omnipotent being. Funny how you don’t.

I’m not piffling Genesis, I’m piffling the literal interpretation of the creation story. I see no reason to think that was the point of the book. I’m far from alone there, even among Catholics.

As for the pi thing… come on. You’ve got to be kidding. The author of the text was not writing an engineering manual, he was providing a literary description.

That’s the best you’ve got?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

Why would anyone need the threat of eternal anything to be a good person?
I know that many catholic adherents say that they don’t fear hell, or get tempted by heaven, but why this ‘carrot and stick’ if there is supposed to be ‘free will’?

What catholics say that they are neither scared of hell or tempted by heaven? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that claim. Of course catholics are motivated by the desire for communion with God. It’s absolutely central to the faith. Who are you referring to here?

Why are rewards and punishment incompatible with free will?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

So if your god is all-knowing and all-powerful, then why does he bother making souls? Shouldn’t he know automatically where a soul will end up?

God generally doesn’t answer “why” questions. Let me respond with a “why” for you: Why do you imagine that your intellect should be able to comprehend the behavior of an infinite being?

By the way, if god is *unable *to commit an evil act, he is definitely not all-powerful. If he is able to, then he is not all good. Which characteristic is ‘ungodly’? The omnipotent feature, or the omni-benevolent one?

Ugh. As long as we’re bringing out meaningless cliches that have been buried for centuries: “Can God make a rock that’s so heavy he can’t lift it?”

No. Is that a limit on omnipotence? Only if you misunderstand omnipotence.

 

[whatevergirl]

Why would anyone need the threat of eternal anything to be a good person?
I know that many catholic adherents say that they don’t fear hell, or get tempted by heaven, but why this ‘carrot and stick’ if there is supposed to be ‘free will’?

I never said threat. You said threat. There is no threat…but let’s say you choose to not show up for work…repeatedly. You might be fired. Is that a threat or consequence?

 

[D_M]

So if your god is all-knowing and all-powerful, then why does he bother making souls? Shouldn’t he know automatically where a soul will end up?
By the way, if god is *unable *to commit an evil act, he is definitely not all-powerful. If he is able to, then he is not all good. Which characteristic is ‘ungodly’? The omnipotent feature, or the omni-benevolent one?

You neglected to respond to any of my questions…

Here are the answers to yours:

He does know automatically where a soul will end up. He makes souls because he loves them and therefore he needs them to exist, if he did not love they would not exist and those are ones he did not create.

He can in fact commit an evil act if he chose, and therefore remains all powerful

it is rather the case that he never has and never shall because he loves us, and therefore is all good

thus he is both omnipotent, and all good

Now the question remains for you… why do you believe in the existence of reason? Can you prove it? and why is it that, to repeat your own critique of religion, if it does exist as you say, that it is different from one person to the next, one person finding something to be logical which another does not?

 

[FaithofAbraham]

As for the pi thing… come on. You’ve got to be kidding. The author of the text was not writing an engineering manual, he was providing a literary description.

That’s the best you’ve got?

Actually if you consider the width of the brim in the calculation it is close to pi. The skeptics forget about the brim.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

…and since you similarly cannot disprove Zeus (or any other deity), you have a god with an equal probability.

But you can demonstrate more validity for the God of Israel.

In the prophecies there is a restoration of Israel within 2000 years of Jesus leaving. So it could have been 100 years before or after and off, but it is on target.

Also that it would be best friends with the greatest Gentile power on earth, so it is with the USA.

Also that it would have a religion that rejects Jesus, Judaism does.

Maybe coincidence, maybe no, but there it is, for just a few big ones.

 

[psyche23]

Sorry, I can’t read all 2,000 some posts here. I just joined recently. This is a very interesting thread of the few posts I’ve read…

Just curious if anyone’s mentioned that having a belief in God increases your health. Scientifically, research shows that those who believe in God live longer lives, are happier, better adjusted, healthier people than those who do not believe. I tend to think there’s a reason for this. Scientifically, we get a support system and answers to life’s difficult questions nonbelievers don’t get. I think it’s more than that though. I think God planned it that way. “Take my yoke on your shoulders for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.

As far as proof of exsitence of God goes, there are proofs. Not all of which I’m familiar with. Here’s my favorite though…

Scientists examine the atom, the tiniest thing they know to exist and find that within the atom lies many other dimensions, string theories ect. And what are these strings (ect.) made of? And then those??? How did they come about to exist. You might argue that they always existed. But how can that be? And if you believe in eternal existence, why not believe in an eternal being?

Divine design. The universe is made up of only a few elements. These elements when put together in combinations form different substances which in turn creat different forms and so on… did they all just coincidentally mash together??? Think of it this way. The earth is on an axis. One degree off and we’re sent hurdling into space… I don’t think that’s an accident or a coincidence. there are thousands of other examples just like this one… For me, too much coincidence to turn down the idea of a perfect creator who designed things down to the last minute detail (or even more so!).

If you then can believe in a creator of some sort, then you have something to go off of. That’s when you can really start looking into different religions. But until you can find that a “God” exists in the first place, trying to compare religions is useless.

Sorry if this has been stated already. Like I said, there’s no way I can read all these posts. better to state my views anyway in case no one’s mentioned it before…

 

[_A]

I think you do reject reason because reason in fact affirms the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God and to this you reject.

Reason does not affirm any such thing.

Why do you believe in reason? You deny the existence of a God yet you have not denied (at least not here) the existence of reason, which one would think is an easier belief to do away with…

I understand that it is hard to admit even doubt about the god story you are told. One of the main reasons is that there is a threat of some sort of punishment if you don’t believe.
I do not believe in reason. I do use it, because it provides better answers than prayer.

is reason the same for everyone or is it subjective?

Here is a big problem. I don’t even know how to define reason. It is quite likely that we two would have two different views of it.
If we could make some good rules about it, maybe we could apply it to your god hypothesis.
Is there something that you would accept as a trait of your god, and if it were disproved, reassess your beliefs?

That is to say why does one person find something to be logical while another does not? Surely if it was objective, they would all know it the same… right?

Logic is quite different from reason. Logic is a mathematical discipline, and can be applied as such. Can you make some statements about god which can be quantified and analyzed with such a tool. I barely know how to make a truth-table myself, but if you can come up with some clear statements, we can likely test them.
Got any falsifiable claims about your god that we can examine?

 

[_A]

I’m not interested in just counting adherents. I want to weigh the stories on their merits. But… maybe you don’t know the stories. Maybe you’re just making a blind assertion that the other stories are equally believable. I thought you didn’t like believing on faith? Where’s your objectivity here?

My objectivity took a little shortcut. I don’t think that you are any better than a muslim (or a hindi). Many rational people follow each belief, and if you don’t think the stories they tell are compelling, then you haven’t watched the news. The men who flew planes into the towers in the US were educated, informed, and believed very strongly in their god and their religion. I would not believe either, so I am not a good judge of how ‘believable’ their stories are, but all we have to do is consider how many people believe them.
It would seem, counting believers, that the Qu’ran is quite a bit more believable than all of the different versions of the bible combined, since there are more believers.

Let me remind you of my specific request:
Got any written testimonials of eyewitness accounts of Zeus?

Yes, in old books. (the fact that you have heard of him is evidence enough of that)

Got any documented miracles of Zeus?

He threw thunderbolts. I read that in school.

Has Zeus’s religion withstood millenia of aggression?

Again, you still know his name, don’t you? I think that is evidence that it has survived.

Of course the amount of evidence is not equal. It staggers me that you could make such an openly dishonest statement after all this discussion. Just because you don’t like the evidence doesn’t mean it’s not there.

If you present evidence of a god, say, a god coming to earth and removing the middle east. If I saw this, and accepted it, it still does not prove that you have the right god, and that is what I am trying to show with the Zeus illustration. You can not present any evidence that he does not exist.
It is wrong to place the burden of proof on you to prove he does not exist. You even noticed that when you started asking me for evidence.
If you saw evidence of a god, how did you decide that it was your Yahweh, and not Allah?

Quite a coincidence that most stay with the faith of their fathers, eh?

 

[_A]

Why do you keep claiming that the Church is unreliable, just because they have x amount of wealth?

Because with that much money at stake, the ‘officers’ of the church have an awful lot to lose if they don’t keep the story believable. Look at all the corruption among priests. Do you have some reason to expect that it is any different in the upper echelons?

I don’t know. Apparently He thought this was sufficient. Why do you disagree?

Priests raping children are evidence enough for me that they are not doing their job properly. Why do you think that they are ‘good enough’? Is it their track record, or what church doctrine tells you?

I’m not piffling Genesis, I’m piffling the literal interpretation of the creation story. I see no reason to think that was the point of the book. I’m far from alone there, even among Catholics.

So I should accept that the bible is the word of your god, but some bits are wrong and I should listen to the interpretation of priests? I distrust this considering how much money they make by convincing people that ‘tithe’ is not synonymous with ‘simony’.

As for the pi thing… come on. You’ve got to be kidding. The author of the text was not writing an engineering manual, he was providing a literary description.

Well, if some guy was just writing a story, then it could be expected to be wrong. If it is the work of an all-powerful, all-knowing being, I expect more.
Just so you know, I decided long ago that it was just another book, and it makes much more sense that way.

 

[_A]

What catholics say that they are neither scared of hell or tempted by heaven? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that claim. Of course catholics are motivated by the desire for communion with God. It’s absolutely central to the faith. Who are you referring to here?

Why are rewards and punishment incompatible with free will?

Well, if I were your ‘suitor’, and I said “love me or I will have you tortured. If you do love me I will see that you have a wonderful life”, would you consider that as a free choice? Pretend that you believe that I can enforce all of that. Is your choice still free?

 

[whatevergirl]

Well, if I were your ‘suitor’, and I said “love me or I will have you tortured. If you do love me I will see that you have a wonderful life”, would you consider that as a free choice? Pretend that you believe that I can enforce all of that. Is your choice still free?

Hi A;


This is where the problem lies–God doesn’t give ultimatums. God does give free will…our own free will can lead us to freedom or to bondage. Jesus died for our sins–so a natural desire for most Christians would be to follow Christ’s teachings.

May I ask where do your standards in life come from A? Like do you have a set of moral codes that you follow…how do you know you’re living a ‘holy’ life, or a life that is moral?

I still owe you an explanation of why we don’t eat meat on Fridays.

 

[phooney]

Hi All,

Been busy with work and various extra-curricular activities, which is why I haven’t been posting much, sorry to leave you facing every argument alone, A!

I’d like to point out also that A and myself have different opinions of belief. From what I can gather A won’t believe in anything, he says that will get in the way of learning. I, on the other hand, will believe after sufficient weight of evidence but I have no problems with changing my belief upon finding, or being presented with, new compelling evidence. A seems to classify beliefs as rock solid, unchanging obstacles to learning, whereas I see beliefs only as reasonable expectations about what reality is, and entirely changable. That is not to say I don’t think beliefs are important, because I think they do guide our actions in some way and because of that, I guard my belief forming processes carefully, because it is rare that there are situations where the formation of a belief is required before the consideration of evidence.

A, I also can’t really seem to understand your definition of “faith” (from the last thread). If you had have presented your definition and the example as an “ACT of faith” then it would make sense to me, but still my definition “belief with insufficient, or a lack of evidence” seems to fit the best in every sentence I have seen it used by a theist.

If you all don’t mind, seeing as my posts haven’t had much response lately, I will be replying to posts directed at A, but from my own perspective.

 

[_A]

God generally doesn’t answer “why” questions. Let me respond with a “why” for you: Why do you imagine that your intellect should be able to comprehend the behavior of an infinite being?

If he is imaginary, and has no effect on this world, then I have little hope of understanding. If, however, he does interact with this world, then I could see his effects, and understand that he exists.
Aside from that, according to your books, I was made in the image of your god. Do you think he did a ****** job? If you think he did a perfect job, then I must have the capacity for understanding that he does. Or did he intentionally make us dumb? If he did, then I direct you back to the thing about us being made in his image.

Ugh. As long as we’re bringing out meaningless cliches that have been buried for centuries: “Can God make a rock that’s so heavy he can’t lift it?”

No. Is that a limit on omnipotence? Only if you misunderstand omnipotence.

If you want to change the meanings of words every time your god is found lacking in veracity, you could keep him believable for a long time.
Of course, he is not omnipotent. I must have misread the label.
Once again, if you can offer a description that you wont try to change later, we can give it a logical examination. I am happy that you agree that your god is not omnipotent.

What characteristics does he possess? Anything real, or just things that are in the minds of believers?

 

[_A]

I never said threat. You said threat. There is no threat…but let’s say you choose to not show up for work…repeatedly. You might be fired. Is that a threat or consequence?

There is a difference here that you missed - my boss never offered me free will and unconditional love.
Your god offers free will and unconditional love. Only you had better believe or you will burn forever.
Sounds like a condition to me.

 

[phooney]

@Armor of God

I think it requires a fair amount of humility to acknowledge that there is something greater than ourselves, and that one person is equal to any other. I think the assertion that God doesn’t exist because He has not personally visited someone for coffee requires a lot less humility and is a lot more presumptuous."

I think they are probably approximately equally presumptuous. Atheism isn’t the assertion that there is no God, nothing greater than ourselves and that people are not equal. It is only a lack of belief in a God. I think the universe is greater than me, and I’m an atheist. By what measure would we even use to ascertain equality in people? Those that judge the 100m sprints in the olympics have one measure, those that award academic scholarships have another. I don’t happen to think that all people are equal in all things, but that has nothing to do with my Atheism, which I repeat is only a lack of belief in a God, but I do think that whatever measures are used on people should try to be as fair and unbiased and equally applied as possible.

“I am truly sorry that you have never experienced God’s love and compassion. No, He doesn’t love suffering. He loves us so much that He suffered for us.”

Yet, he didn’t need to do that. He could have just forgiven, but he didn’t. I assume you aren’t going to say it was out of his power? Any suffering he may have incurred upon himself two thousand years ago, has nothing to do with me, I wasn’t even born yet, and I won’t hold myself accountable for the sins/crimes of anybody but myself. Sure, you can take somebody elses punishment for them, but there is no logical way you can make them innocent by doing so.