I am an atheist thread 5

[whiteknite]

But He made us **free to think and choose for ourselves -

We’re not robots.**

NO he never!!
Didnt eve eat the fruit of knowlegde in order for that type of thought??
All he wanted was someone to cultivate his land.

 

[VociMike]

According to your belief, he created humans to the best of his ability.
Perfect ability, if the Catholics are to be believed about it.
He wanted it this way, or he isn’t all powerful. Take your pick.

Or he is all powerful, did not want it this way, but will allow it anyway. I’m willing to accept this - it’s how parents act all the time, and nobody accuses them of wanting the wrongs that their children inevitably commit or experience. In some sense that we do not understand fully, the situation as it exists is better than some alternative, and thus God allows it.

What would that alternative be, in your view. If we made you God and said “make your own universe and your own creatures”, how would your universe be different (better)? How would your creatures be different (better)? How would your humans be different (better)?

 

[Ronald_E]

According to the bible (which you are welcome to treat as fiction - we all do to a point) your god created suffering.
He must have wanted it.

Hello A, I hope you had a good break. Suffering is a reality at this level of existence. Our whole economy in this country is based on the desire to suffer as little as possible. Suffering can be something that harms us and we get stuck in self-absorbed pity or suffering can help us to mature and become stronger. As a matter of opinion, I believe that without suffering there is no possibility for love or for that matter hate.
Is there a purpose in suffering?

 

[_A]

But He made us **free to think and choose for ourselves -

We’re not robots.**

The point is that if your god is all they say he is, he must desire suffering or it would not exist.

What would that alternative be, in your view. If we made you God and said “make your own universe and your own creatures”, how would your universe be different (better)? How would your creatures be different (better)? How would your humans be different (better)?

I would not glorify suffering for it’s own sake. Catholics do that whenever they gather and worship that dead-guy-on-a-stick-icon. It’s downright pornographic.

Hello A, I hope you had a good break. Suffering is a reality at this level of existence. Our whole economy in this country is based on the desire to suffer as little as possible. Suffering can be something that harms us and we get stuck in self-absorbed pity or suffering can help us to mature and become stronger. As a matter of opinion, I believe that without suffering there is no possibility for love or for that matter hate.
Is there a purpose in suffering?

Not in suffering just for the sake of suffering. That is masochism, isn’t it?

 

[phooney]

@VociMike

“That’s just dishonest. If you have seen people doing evil in his name, you have also seen people doing good in his name. Just because Hitler, Stalin and Mao were atheists, I would never deny that atheists do good, sometimes great good.”

Thanks, but in my opinion, Hitler was probably a Theist of some kind. He said some very contradictory things in regards to this, but by him saying he thought he was doing God’s work, the “Gott Mit Uns” belt buckles, numerous photos of him meeting and greeting with Catholic leaders, praying, whatever he was, he was not an atheist. He twisted the vague words of religion to his own purposes, and capitalised from widespread pre-existing anti-semitism.

“There’s no contradiction, no tension between science and faith. People on both sides who think otherwise are either sadly misinformed or are pushing an agenda.”

Sure, if you think that neither has anything to say about the other. However, Theistic claims do encroach on testable scientific questions. Do human virgins give birth? No they do not. Do people come back from the dead after 3 days? No they do not. Was the universe created in its current state in 6-7 days? No it was not.

Obviously science has nothing to say about whether some vague notion of a “god” exists, but if you think you can make any claims about the nature of such an entity, which doesn’t just exist in your head, then such claims should be subject to the same standards of evidence as anything else.

“So the focus should be on God of the First Cause, God of the First Explanation. That which, by definition, has no cause, cannot be explained, and from which all other causes and explanations flow. And this is the reality that atheists gloss over, or even worse, think that science will someday explain (in which case, it wouldn’t be the First Explanation! )”

See (upcoming) response to Eden.

“No, but it makes one point and brings up another. It makes the point that atheism rests every bit as much on faith (things not proved and not explainable) as does theism. Atheists hate to think their position is based on faith, but it is and they should face that truth.”

I find it so funny when one of the worst things that people can say about atheism is that it is like theism. Oh the unrealised irony

“And it raises the question as to whether this uncaused First Cause, this unexplainable First Explanation can be of the natural world, or whether it must lie outside of the natural world.”

See again the response to Eden. Even you call this first cause unexplainable… and also claim to have knowledge about it. How self-contradictory can one be?

 

[phooney]

continued @Vocimike

“I’m curious, if this were all made up and if what you cite is truly a contradiction, don’t you think the people making it up would have noticed the contradiction? If they were just inventing a myth about a perfect, all-good being, would they really be so stupid to write “God says don’t do X” in one place, and “God says do X” in another?”

Well, were they?

“But I didn’t ask why they made up the bible. I asked why they made up a bible with, according to you and others, obvious contradictions. Were they just dumb? I mean, the ones who made this up were the educated elite, they could actually read and write. And yet they didn’t have enough sense to see that they had written ‘X’ in one spot and ‘not X’ in another?”

You’re assuming that they were all written at the same time by the same people who were all intimately familiar and aware of the manuscripts that would become canon.

“And over the centuries, did nobody notice the contradictions and quietly fix them because they were all dumb too? Was 3000 years of Judaism and 2000 years of Christianity all just dumb?”

There are some differences between the earliest manuscripts and what we have now. Let alone the major amount of interpretation employed in translating to english. Oh, and let us not forget the many different versions available even now, when the ability to read and write has been decentralised enough that people KNOW there are different versions out there. This bible browsing website allows one to browse 16 different versions of the bible in english alone biblebrowser.com/

“Yes, but I never assumed an entire nation over 5000 years was so stupid they couldn’t see a blatant contradiction when it stared them in the face.”

They had vested interests in it, these contradictions continue to be explained away to this very day. Attempted to anyway.

“Nevermind First Cause then, and focus on First Explanation. The essence of science is that it explains things in terms of more fundamental things, wouldn’t you agree?”

Many times yes, but there are some terminations of that regression, such as the planck length. Repetition as well. To give an example (which is no longer a very commonly held position, but is a good illustration of the point) is the idea that the universe will expand for a certain amount of time and then contract again, finally ending in a big crunch, and then a big bang again, etc ad infinitum. By explaining what happens in one such cycle, we would explain what happens in every cycle. Another example, is saying one third (1/3) is 0.33 recurring.

“It should be obvious that for any thing X there are ideally (when our knowledge is as complete as it can be) one of two things that can be said about it. Either one can say “X is explained by A (or some combination A, B, C…)” or one must say “X has no explanation”. Would you disagree with that?”

But how do you differentiate between “X has no explanation” and “I don’t know what the explanation of X is” ? It seems you put an arbitrary termination to the regression that isn’t verified by the available evidence.

“Or he is all powerful, did not want it this way, but will allow it anyway. I’m willing to accept this - it’s how parents act all the time, and nobody accuses them of wanting the wrongs that their children inevitably commit or experience.”

The most obvious difference that I can see is that human parents don’t have the option to create their children however they like.

 

[_A]

The most obvious difference that I can see is that human parents don’t have the option to create their children however they like.

Welcome back, phooney. Excellent points, by the way.

 

[phooney]

@Eden

“various discoveries and contributions by Jesuits”

Thanks for that. Were these discoveries made via personal revelation from an unverifiable source, or were they the result of observable, verifiable evidence?

Nobody said that theists couldn’t contribute anything to Science. Long ago, becoming a monk was one of the best way to persue such endeavours, as you freed up a lot of time for study and experiement, like Mendel and his painstaking study of generations of plants to test heredity.

Even now there are theists contributing greatly to the advancement of science. Some of them proclaim great joy in that moment that Archimedes would have called “Eureka!” but they call “Ah, so that’s how God did it!”. Ken Miller, for example, is a Roman Catholic and a wonderful communicator and teacher of the theory of evolution. Francis Collins contributed hugely to the human genome project. His book “The Language of God” was a waste of time unfortunately.

Atheistic Scientists also contributed, but neither “side’s” contribution has any relevance to the existence of God. So what is your point?

"“The $1.6 million Templeton Prize, the richest award made to an individual by a philanthropic organization, was given Wednesday to Michael Heller, 72, a Roman Catholic priest, cosmologist and philosopher who has spent his life asking, and perhaps more impressively answering, questions like “Does the universe need to have a cause?””

The Templeton Prize is usually given to a Scientist who has something nice to say about religion. I haven’t read any of Michael Heller’s work, but from your description, let me guess his conclusions, you tell me how close I am to what he says. He says yes, the Universe does need to have a cause, and he likely believes that cause to be the God worshipped by the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps he tactfully left out the bit about what that cause was, much like when proponents of Intelligent Design say that some bioloical features are too complex to have arisen without an intellient agency. Who or what is that intelligent agency? Oh gee whiz I wonder who they could mean. Apparently his arguments the scientific concensus though. Stephen Hawking, for example, is proposing a boundless universe with no beginning or end and thus no requisite for a creator of any kind.

“So, carry on with your evidence that there is no God, but please find an argument other than one that pits faith and science against each other. It’s just not a legitimate argument.”

Evidence of a universal negative of this sort cannot exist, and that is not the position of most atheists, there is simply no good reason to believe in God, that has ever been presented to me.

“The teachings of the Catholic faith have remained consistent throughout our 2,000+ history, despite the fact that many of our clergy and laity have been, historically, also scientific and mathematic scholars. Where new scientific discoveries were made, those discoveries did not diminish our faith. In other words, the role of God in nature has not gradually reduced in Catholicism. Instead science and mathematics have served to reveal to us, as believers, the order of God’s creation which, in turn, enhances our understanding and knowledge of the Creator.”

So now the position is that the catholic faith never said there was a limbo? That’s rich. The catholic church never considered a heliocentric universe as heresy, and never put Galileo under house arrest? The Catholic church has always supported evolution, despite the directly contradictory sections in the bible?

Sure, you can say that if any evidence arises that contradicts the catholic teaching that the catholic teaching was intended as metaphor or allegory, or that the evidence is wrong. That’s a pretty good way to remain consistent. Not very intellectually honest though. Oh, those things weren’t said by the popes in their infallible-mode? Nor by church council? Then what testable claims does it make that have remained consistent and are considered authoritative?

 

[phooney]

“Can you explain what reasoning would lead you to reject the First Cause argument for the existence of God?”

Without reading over that particular link you posted for the first argument, and thus not making myself aware of it’s particular nuances, and keeping in mind the many competing hypotheses for pre-big bang conditions, the fact that we don’t yet have sufficient information to make reasonable positive claims about whether the universe requires a creator or not, what possible reason could you have for saying that your god is the creator of the universe, let alone claiming knowledge of any of the properties of such a cause. Then of course there’s the point that A brought up, regarding the special pleading that you pull when it comes to “Everything requires a cause… er… except my God”

“So, you believe the past stretches back to infinity?”

Obviously our universe doesn’t stretch back to infinity, but we don’t have enough information to make positive claims about what happened before the planck time. Strawman.

“In other words, if you can convince me that motion (in this case, the creation of the universe and of life) was caused by a succession of infinite previous causes… into infinity mind you… then please do.”

Why would we need to do that? All we have to show is that there’s no reason to believe in your God. Maybe they’re infinite, maybe they’re not. Just because an atheist lacks belief in God doesn’t mean we are forced to believe in something else. Personally, I will wait until there is evidence of some kind, to point to a particular conclusion. This isn’t just to say “One day science will find the answer”. Again, maybe it will and maybe it won’t, but we aren’t forced to believe something for no reason. The theistic scare tactics (“well if you don’t believe by the time you die then you’re going to hell”) don’t work with me, and they are losing their edge to the more educated public all the time.

“If you cannot lay out a reasonable argument for why I should believe that the causes that put the creation of the universe and of life into motion stretch back infinitely into the past, then explain to me how a non-eternal first cause can be possible. A non-eternal “first” cause would have to have been created by a prior cause, which just goes back to the idea of infinite non-eternal causes. Which is irrational.”

Even assuming this was sound, and it is not clear that it is, explain how you go from this to your god? Even in extremely simple terms, all that needs to have existed eternally is energy, part of which is currently in our universe. This would go along just fine with the first law of thermodynamics, and we certainly couldn’t say it contradicted the second law of thermodynamics. M-theory, for example, postulates that the rapid expansion of space time that we know of as the big bang was caused by two ‘branes’ (a special type of string in string theory) colliding in 11 dimensional space. A mathematically sound hypothesis for the creation of our universe, but not worthy of belief just yet, as it is currently untestable, though it does make predictions. Just by being mathematically sound it is already leaps and bounds ahead of “goddidit”.

“If you cannot explain to me how a non-eternal first cause can be possible, then explain to me how the creation of the universe and of life was set into motion by a cause that was created from nothing. This is even less rational. Something came from nothing?”

Strawman again regarding the creation of the universe. You are arguing against an atheist that you have created in your own mind, not anybody that has posted here. In regards to life, you need not invoke magic to explain that either. We already know that if we recreate the conditions of the early earth and supply electricity we get a huge amount of organic molecules. Obviously we’ve never had anything crawl out of the test tube at the end of these experiements, but we wouldn’t expect that. It would certainly be a scientific revolution, as it would overturn the theory of evolution. All that is required to get life going is an autocatalysing molecule. Plenty of these exist. Evolution can take over from there, but not before.

“How can I reasonably believe that the first cause was created out of nothing? This is why the only rational explanation for me for the creation of the universe and of life is that there is an eternal entity which is the first cause. I call this first cause “God”.”

Sure, you can call this first cause “God” but hopefully you’re open to the idea that this cause might at some stage be revealed to be simply mindless energy, or two branes, or one of a multitude of many other options.

 

[VociMike]

phooney,

Your last posts are simply too long for me to reply to. It’s just the nature of how posts grow in length on forums to the point of unwieldliness. So if you’d like to separate out those few points you’d most like addressed, I’d be happy to do so.

 

[phooney]

@Mom of ten

“Do you believe that there is wind?
Have you ever SEEN wind?
You might have seen the effects of wind…but not wind.
It is the same with Our Lord (except that SOME blessed people DID see Him in the person of Jesus Christ).
We see the effects of God all around us…”

hehe, let me try this. Do you believe that there is love? Have you ever SEEN love? … no I can’t keep up this charade. Wind is moving air, get over it.

“You could not so much as BLINK or DRAW A BREATH unless the True, Good, Almighty, and Loving God allows it…for He not only created you; but HOLDS you in existence every moment…praying to Him, and even the ability to do so…IS A GIFT, NOT A STRICT ORDER…He did not have to allow us communication with Him in this way…He could have left us lonely here on Earth…all of the things you mentioned are GIFTS…and He loves you so much that He even allows you to choose to ignore His existence. May God Bless You.”

Says you. He’s never done anything for me that I could reasonably attribute to him.

“As to “dogs worship their masters”…an animal is not capable of worship…nor reason, nor loving, nor choice, etc…an animal lives an acts on instinct alone.”

Humans are just intelligent animals. You need to better define these words “worship” “reason” “loving” and “choice” before you make such far reaching claims. Denying animals “choice” is especially funny.

 

[phooney]

@Macian

“Man was created to act in a certain way, to obey certain innate moral laws. It is the man who disobeys his nature who becomes a slave to his own sense of sin.”

Man evolved to act in a certain way. Many problems come from living in conditions we didn’t evolve in (i.e. modern cities, globalisation) but many other problems are a direct continuation of our evolutionary morality, such as out-group hostility.

“We would say God is not punishing us for the sake of punishing us, but He wants us to act in accord with our created nature because it is thus we will find the true path to happiness.”

Even according to Christian mythos, man seems to have been created somewhat imperfectly if God just wanted a species of loving worshippers. God turned his back for a second (though technically he could have given adam/eve a friendly reminder just before they ate the apple, if he was omniscient) and man disobeyed god. Throughout the old testament the kings and people were constantly going back and forth between walking in the steps of “David his father” (the most righteous) and doing what was “evil in the eyes of the lord”: worshipping Baal, and … the other popular one escapes me… Ashtera?

Regardless, it is just more typical human creation of intelligent agencies affecting their lives, like well-spirits, and all outcomes regardless of what they were confirmed their supernatural preconceptions.

“This requires recognition of our own place in the universe with respect to God.”

For me, that would in turn require evidence for god. And evidence for a particular god.

 

[phooney]

@Grace DK

“The question to pose to an atheist is this though: why do you assume there is anything wrong with killing in the name of religion?”

An excellent argument for atheism, thanks.

“I would advice any atheist to read the works of Løgstrup, a Danish philosopher. He talks for one thing about
Spontaneous life-utterances by which he means the way that human beings respond to each other with trust, before anything else. He says this by pointing to the method of the SS-officer who sneaks in on the subject of his interrogation by means of pretending to being understanding and trustworthy… the subject has to fight the natural inclination of trust and to expose what she knows in the face of this cunning… because at the core, humans trust before they distrust.”

I’d invite you to read up on game theory to go some way in explaining why that is.

“Turn the teodice (problem of evil) up side down and you have the real question: the problem of joy. How do you explain the basic feeling in man that life is worth living?”

That is pretty simple to answer by way of natural selection. Those without the genetic predisposition of the will to live are… less likely to live and pass on their genetic traits. Pretty easy open and shut case, did you really think this was an argument?

“How do you explain that whereas joy is not experienced as an intruder into your existence, evil and catastrophe is?”

The most obvious response seems to be that joy is an internal emotion, whereas evil and catastrophes are external influences from the relative perspective of the person experiencing these three phenomena.

"The problem of asking about why there is evil in the world… shows exactly that suffering is intimately linked with joy,… The eistence of joy is vividly felt in its absense… the expectation of how it should be… and how you long for that… in its non-presense its very evident but if you have joy you fast take it for granted. "

I can somewhat agree with this, many things are only appreciated when we have something to contrast them against. One would be irrational to suppose that one exists solely to bring the other into better focus though.

“We are then found out when we say we dont believe in anything… ergo life holds no meaning, and yet our expectations are dissapointed… We ASSUMED before anything, that life was worth living. But who told us that it is?”

We create our own meaning for our lives.

“As for me, I find it most plausible that there is a God… in terms of all the things I have experienced and seen in my human life I see nothing more logical than to assume the existence of a God… indeed the Christian God… but thats another story.”

If there’s anything you can talk about besides personal experience, in particular personal experiences better explained by natural means, then please tell us your story.

“My sister met a man who believed in free thinking too… nothing wrong with that.
He did not believe himself chained by any particular world view. One day he went up in the tower in Pisa and looked at the sun going up and he thought: I am the king of my life and doing great at it.
BAM he was struck to the ground by an extreme force… a presense from the sky… as he laid there on the ground he heard these words: “I am Jesus Christ, I exist”.
He said:” I dont know how long I was there on my face but when I went down the sun was setting and I was never the same again. I recognized the same presense in the Catholic Church a while later.""

Hilarious. Do you have any information as to when this happened, or who it happened to? Nice anecdote. My sister once told me that she went up the tower in Pisa and she saw a guy looking out at the sun looking pretty contemplative. Out of nowhere, a tyranosaurus rex appeared out of thin air and farted down on his head. The man fell down, and my sister shouted “Jesus Christ!” and ran away. I think we’ve solved your little mystery… or are anecdotes only accepted when you are telling them?

“A similar story was told to me by a hasidid friend… a jew in the strictest Jewish upbringing… out of curiosity he one day went into a Catholic Church… " I should never have done that” -he laughed… cos the presense of God that he felt there blew him off his feet and his life was changed since then. No one was there, he said… But SOMEONE was there…"

A vague feeling. Great.

“I have met so many people with similar stories… I even met a woman who died and went to heaven and came back.”

Sure she did. I also went to heaven, and it was Zeus in charge. Seriously, how credulous are you?

 

[phooney]

continued @ Grace DK

“If you are really an objective person and a free spirit you wont have difficulty saying :” GOD if you are really there… prove yourself to me!"."

At the invitation of some theists, I have challenged/implored God many times. No response as yet, but then other theists will tell me that God obviously has no obligation to respond to me. I would think that IF god actually wanted me to believe in him it wouldn’t be too much trouble though. Especially for an omnipotent being.

“But be careful… I heard about a guy who did this in his bakery one morning… and some crazy things happend to him… heheh…”

Would you like to buy some snake oil?

“Indeed there are holes in your theory… it fails to take into consideration men like Sadhu Sundar Singh who did not know anything about Christ… He was a hindu who called on god in the hour of wanting to kill himself.”

“Sundar Singh’s mother took him week by week to sit at the feet of a Sadhu, an ascetic holy man, who lived in the jungle some miles away, but she also sent him to a Christian mission school where he could learn English.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadhu_Sundar_Singh

Now, I don’t consider wikipedia to be an overly authoritative source, but I do think it’s a great starting point. You tell me, did he or did he not go to a Christian mission school. In a christian mission school are they or are they not aware of Christianity? Next.

“There are so so so many of these testimonies I have heard… both from people of other religions and from people who were sworn atheists. Thank you for reminding me… I am in awe”

All religions and non-religions have conversions too and from them. What is your point?

"I read the story of a man who had lost a leg in the war. One day after prayer he woke up and the leg was back on… "

Seriously, the bottles of snake oil are 2 for 1 for today only. Who did this happen to? What documentation and tests were performed?

“Did you ever here about the Miracle at Fatima in 1917?”

That has been discussed at reasonable length already. I find it funny that the photographs taken that day are only of the crowd, not at the supposed miracle. What do you think happened that day? The sun came down and wobbled around in earth’s atmosphere, or some people were led to believe that there was going to be a miracle, and stared at the sun, which would naturally result in some visual artifacts?

“Another similar phenomenon was reported in Egypt in 2000. for days or weeks there was an apparition of the Madonna on a roof of a coptic church. It made many into believers… millions saw it but as has been predicted in Scripture not even the ones who see are willing to believe …”

Could you provide a link or something for that? Is there a video clip or something? The year 2000 is pretty recent, cameras and camcorders were pretty prolific. Anything that doesn’t look like a lens flare? What do you think about those ghost hunters that take photographs of ‘orbs’ ? Are they demons, spirits, angels, or just dust?

 

[phooney]

@whiteknite

“Grace did you read my Signiture, I am not atheist. I have questions that you or no religous person can EVER answer but im not getting into that because you all have stupid answers for your believe…”

Do you believe in a god? If you lack that belief, then welcome to atheism. Read my signature

“Thats because they wrote the stories as romances, Basic stories that someone came along and took them litiraly.”

I think the term is “midrash”

 

[phooney]

@Ronald E

“When you read futher about the kings of Israel every one of them suffered consequences when they used violence to resolve their problems.”

Actually, Yahweh seemed to reward worship, in particular exclusive worship, with military victory and expansion of territory, and apostacy and polytheism with military defeat and external domination. According to the old testament anway. People have always claimed god was on their side in military conflicts.

 

[phooney]

@IHF

“Is the Bible factual or not?”

False dichotomy. Is the movie “Titanic” directed by James Cameron factual or not?

 

[phooney]

@Pier

"I do like what GK Chesterton has to say on the subject of atheists:

“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”"

Not quite correct. If there were no theists, there would be no atheists.

““Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.””

Everything has always perpetually gone right? Seriously? Where have you been living?

 

[phooney]

phooney,

Your last posts are simply too long for me to reply to. It’s just the nature of how posts grow in length on forums to the point of unwieldliness. So if you’d like to separate out those few points you’d most like addressed, I’d be happy to do so.

Don’t worry, Vocimike. Not many other people have replied to me in equal detail either. If you’re not up to it, you’re not up to it.

I don’t write long posts to be inaccessible, I hope you realise. I write long posts to be thorough and to hopefully head any attempts of intentional and unintentional misinterpretation off at the pass.

 

[phooney]

Welcome back, phooney. Excellent points, by the way.

Thanks for the welcome back, A, and thanks for keeping these threads going. Are your threads up to over half of all the views in this sub forum yet? lol