Will I go to hell?

[Armor_of_Light]

I explained to you a few posts back that atheism isn’t the assertion of a positive claim but rather the lack of theistic claims. Atheism is not accepting claims about the existence of god – not necessarily claiming that no gods exist – on the grounds that those claims do not have sufficient evidence.

You even said earlier in this thread that my explanation made sense, and you thanked me for it.

Are you now revealing that you’re not actually interested in having a real conversation and that you’re just going to say that same things over and over again, even after I’ve demonstrated that you’re wrong?

Or are you saying that when you told me “thanks!” earlier, what you really meant was, 'That’s a lot of double speak and pseudo logic!"?

Well.yeesh that was like 100 posts ago, man! And I thought I thanked the Poseiden. You are correct I did thank you.
OK…grounds of insufficent evidence that God exists…fine. Explain (this is the heart of my rant) the sufficient evidence that God does not exist. My assertion that atheists actually believe something that cannot be proven remains.

 

[NonServiam]

after reading your last post, I think you’re actually more of a nontheist or agnostic

Are you talking to me?

Look, honestly, I could care less about the labels. I don’t believe in any gods, and I call myself an atheist. If you want to call me an “agnostic” or a “nontheist” or whatever, then knock yourself out, but it doesn’t change my arguments, nor does it change the fact that there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that any gods exist.

 

[NonServiam]

Well.yeesh that was like 100 posts ago, man! And I thought I thanked the Poseiden. You are correct I did thank you.
OK…grounds of insufficent evidence that God exists…fine. Explain (this is the heart of my rant) the sufficient evidence that God does not exist. My assertion that atheists actually believe something that cannot be proven remains.

The fact that you can write this indicates that you didn’t actually grasp what I was saying.

Atheism isn’t the assertion (or the belief) that there are no gods.

Atheism is the position that claims about gods have not met their burden of proof. As a result, atheists do not accept these claims.

Not accepting claims about gods is not the same thing as claiming there are no gods.

What about this are you not following?

 

[Armor_of_Light]

The fact that you can write this indicates that you didn’t actually grasp what I was saying. Atheism isn’t the assertion (or the belief) that there are no gods. Atheism is the position that claims about gods have not met their burden of proof. As a result, atheists do not accept these claims. Not accepting claims about gods is not the same thing as claiming there are no gods. What about this are you not following?

Definition of ATHEIST
: one who believes that there is no deity.

Webster says it is the assertion that there is no God.

 

[NonServiam]

Definition of ATHEIST
: one who believes that there is no deity.

Webster says it is the assertion that there is no God.

Well, I don’t care what Webster says. I’m telling you how I use the word “atheist” and how most people I know use the word “atheist.”

If your arugment is, “That’s not what the dictionary says an atheist is!” then my response is that I’m talking about a different kind of atheist.

Sometimes the distinction is made between “weak atheism” (not accepting that gods are real) and “strong atheism” (actively claiming that no gods exist).

In other contexts, there are labels like soft/hard atheists, agnostic/gnostic atheists, etc.

I think that all of the labels are confusing and unnecessary. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t accept the claims about gods, and I don’t accept them for the simple reason that there’s insufficient evidence for them. Call me whatever you like, but the atheist community nowadays defines the word “atheist” in this way.

 

[wcknight]

Are you talking to me?

Look, honestly, I could care less about the labels. I don’t believe in any gods, and I call myself an atheist. If you want to call me an “agnostic” or a “nontheist” or whatever, then knock yourself out, but it doesn’t change my arguments, nor does it change the fact that there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that any gods exist.

The FACT is there is way more than enough evidence to convince most folks to believe that God does exist. In a court of law, if the mountain of first hand eyewitness accounts from proven reliable accounts, any jury would have ruled in our favor.

BUT the atheists has redefined rules of evedence down to their own narrow perspective. Unless some grandiose supernatural event like God speaking to you personnally happens you will not believe. It the same old broken record story with the cynical Scribes and Pharisees , perform some miracles for us, so WE can believe.

Well as Jesus says, you have heard from the prophets and saints, AND even from people who have come back from the dead !!!

Just be honest with yourself, there is no miracle argument or any amount of evidence that will ever convince you because you are just too biased to accept anything whatsoever.

Please define what this so called ‘sufficient evidence’ is supposed to be. Do you want a personal visit from Christ or Mary ?? DO you want God to come down and perfrom some tricks of nature defying miracle right before your eyes ??? He’s done that before so it’s nothing new, and certainly not unheard of.

But you will ultimately get the evidence you seek, when your time is up whether it is soon or much later. You will meet God and you might ask Him first hand, why did You NOT prove yourself to me that You are real ???

And you will get the same answer Jesus told in His parable, Even IF a dead man should rise from the dead, you still would not believe. You have heard Jesus did this, His saints have done this, and even on these boards, some have witnessed this first hand.

BUT you and your atheist friends are too hard headed to believe them. So naturally these folks are all liars or charlatans tryiing to trick you into believing something that is not true. You remind me of the little kids who cover their eyes and call out “you can’t see me”… cute but really stupid.

 

[NonServiam]

if the mountain of first hand eyewitness accounts from proven reliable accounts, any jury would have ruled in our favor.

You mean the “eyewitness accounts” that claim “experience” of various gods of various religions and conflict with each other materially?

Please define what this so called ‘sufficient evidence’ is supposed to be.

Even if I don’t know exactly what would convince me, if there is a God who is all-knowing, then that God already knows exactly what would convince me, and, if he’s all-powerful, he has the ability to present me with evidence that he knows would convince me.

 

[Armor_of_Light]

Well, I don’t care what Webster says. I’m telling you how I use the word “atheist” and how most people I know use the word “atheist.”

Don’t get mad at Webster’s! They mean you no harm and are not trying to talk you into anything.

If your arugment is, “That’s not what the dictionary says an atheist is!” then my response is that I’m talking about a different kind of atheist.

In no way an argument… I had to look it up to find the definition for my own checking. I can’t really expect you guys to accept a common platform.

I think that all of the labels are confusing and unnecessary. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t accept the claims about gods, and I don’t accept them for the simple reason that there’s insufficient evidence for them. Call me whatever you like, but the atheist community nowadays defines the word “atheist” in this way.

Then let me go back to my question…tell me about how you determined it was insufficient or, (in pseudo logic double speak) you gained sufficient evidence to reject the claims.

 

[Cristiano]

You mean the “eyewitness accounts” that claim “experience” of various gods of various religions and conflict with each other materially?

Even if I don’t know exactly what would convince me, if there is a God who is all-knowing, then that God already knows exactly what would convince me, and, if he’s all-powerful, he has the ability to present me with evidence that he knows would convince me.

The sad part is that a lot of us are confident that at one point everybody will know of God’s existence.

 

[NonServiam]

tell me about how you determined it was insufficient or, (in pseudo logic double speak) you gained sufficient evidence to reject the claims.

Again, I didn’t gain evidence to reject the claim. I don’t think that the claim “gods exist” is false…I don’t think that it’s true because there’s insufficient evidence.

How did I determine that? I read up on the subject and reviewed all of the evidence. There’s not a single shred of convincing evidence, nor are there any arguments that are both sound and valid.

 

[NonServiam]

The sad part is that a lot of us are confident that at one point everybody will know of God’s existence.

I think your confidence is misplaced, obviously, because there’s not any good evidence for thinking that this is true.

 

[Cristiano]

I think your confidence is misplace, obviously, because there’s not any good evidence for thinking that this is true.

That is what you believe, and I am fine with that. Just make sure not to mistake complete with good, that is a fallacy.

 

[englishredrose]

If you do not believe in God,

Then you don’t believe in heaven

In turn you don’t believe in hell

so no you will not go to hell

and you will not go to heaven

where you go depends on what you do believe in.

 

[Maryann_C]

.

The clip where he talks about the possibility of aliens seeding life on earth was in response to the question of how intelligent design might be a valid hypothesis: and he says that if aliens had seeded life on earth, then one could perhaps make a case for intelligent design by locating some sort of “signature” in human DNA. However, as he goes on to say, even if this were true, the aliens themselves would have had to evolve by Darwinian means. Elsewhere, Dawkins is emphatic that he does not believe in directed panspermia and that he was discussing the possibility of it as one of the few ways that “intelligent design” could actually work as a hypothesis and a confirmable science.

Here’s Dawkins explaining that he does not believe in directed panspermia: youtube.com/watch?v=nfo0UHY6dSM

Which is, of course, what we would expect for someone who doesn’t believe in those aliens.

So now that you have the facts, it will be interesting to see if you are intellectually honest enough to admit that you are wrong and retract your claim.

Dawkins …is an amusing character but hardly to be taken seriously. I saw his interview with Ben Stein in his docu movie Expelled when he- Dawkins- said that there was possibly an intelligent designer but goes on to say but that is not God that it would have to be an extra terrestrial being. I guess his position is evolving, his ‘logic’ is
His blind faith in Darwinisim is more fanatical than my faith in God because at least we have some miraculous proofs.

What proof is there to make Darwin’s theory of the multiplicity of species having evolved from pond scum? Survival of the fittest simply makes each separate species fitter ( of course we humans now interfere with that by ‘saving’ dying species because they are not fit enough to survive on their own) it does not make them a new species. Genetic mutations only survive within a species when they are good for it ( without human interference- i.e breeding dogs smaller) or ‘desirable’ but they do not make a dog a dolphin!
You have to believe in Darwin’s Theory of evolution by FAITH because it is still something scientists are ‘working on’ to quote your friend Dawkins. SO the burden of proof IS actually on you !

 

[Gorgias]

No atheist is “requesting” to spend eternity without some great reward. Atheists are simply not convinced of a claim.

Again, you’re misstating Catholic doctrine. If you want to believe that it’s all about being convinced about something, then go ahead and keep saying that; however, if you’re all about logic, you need to consider that this is not what it’s about!

(or, allow that person to experience the pains of not having that reward, or allow that person to be tormented forever…whichever flavor of spin you prefer)

Again, I’m not saying “pains” or “tormented”! However, your argument comes down to “what if I’m wrong? will I miss out?”

I don’t think it’s fair to deny someone a great reward simply because that person was not convinced of a claim. You apparently do think it’s fair, which tells us an awful lot about your values.

Nice jab. If insults are the example of your ability to engage in rational discourse, then I think I’m starting to understand why you’re worried you’re going to miss out on heaven…

Anyway, we’re still at your faulty starting point: it’s not about ‘denying a reward because a person is unconvinced of a claim!’ I mean, that’s a nice story to tell yourself, in order to rationalize your (lack of) belief, but that’s not what’s going on here. The notion of Christianity is belief: what you’re missing isn’t an ability to understand, it’s an inability to want to believe. So, that’s where your narrative breaks down: it’s not “hell for those who don’t sufficiently understand (that there’s a) God”, it’s “heaven is for those who have earnestly sought after God”.

Now, I might imagine that your response is “how can I believe something I don’t fully understand?”, and that’s an interesting discussion to have; but, it’s a completely different one than your mantra. in making that turn, you’ve changed from “i don’t understand” to “i won’t believe”… and that, I would assert, is what is at stake. Now, rephrase your statement about my character: “You apparently do think it’s fair… to deny someone a great reward simply because that person refused to believe in it.” Yep, that’s better – and not at all an indictment of values!

 

[Gorgias]

YES!!! You’ve got it!

The burden of proof is necessarily on the believers, because they’re the ones making the claim that a god/God exists. Think if I was trying to prove to you that the Loch Ness Monster exists. The burden of proof is on me, because I’m the one making the extraordinary claim, not you. You do not need to provide any evidence to show that the loch ness monster does not exist, because you’re not the one making the claim. Your job, in that situation, would be to look at my evidence critically, point out the flaws, and ultimately help me discover whether Nessie really exists or not.

Excellent! Now, tell me… what kind of evidence proves the existence of, for instance, the Loch Ness monster?

Well, Nessie is a physical being: therefore, we would want some sort of physical evidence. We would need something that would demonstrate that Nessie is part of this physical world, so we’d need something that we could experience with our senses: a photo, a recording, a piece of her hide – something that speaks to physical existence.

On the other hand, the claim that Christians are making is that God is a spiritual being. God’s existence, then, is outside the physical world. So, then… what kind of evidence are you requiring, in order to consider that God exists?

In the case of life we do know a way for it to come about without intelligent intervention: evolution and natural selection.

Watch yourself, there – you’re making a logical error. You haven’t demonstrated how life comes about, per se – you’ve described “how life comes about, given that there’s a planet with favorable conditions, and given that there’s any planets at all, and given that the universe itself came into being.” That’s a non-starter, of course, unless you can trace it back.

 

[NonServiam]

The notion of Christianity is belief: what you’re missing isn’t an ability to understand, it’s an inability to want to believe. So, that’s where your narrative breaks down: it’s not “hell for those who don’t sufficiently understand (that there’s a) God”, it’s “heaven is for those who have earnestly sought after God”.

Well, I don’t believe in any gods because I’ve investigated the issue and found the evidence lacking. I don’t think tha belief in things not substantiated by evidence or the desire to believe in things not substantiated by evidence are good things.

You, apparently, don’t think I’m going to suffer forever, so fine. You apparently do think I’m going to miss out on something great because I’m not credulous enough to blindly accept something as true.

I still think it’s pretty miserable to reward credulity and to deny reward to people who actually care about whether their beliefs are true.

 

[insideitall]

The leading hypothesis is abiogenesis.

right. a hypothesis. humans still do not know how life came about. there are tons of proposed abiogenesis hypotheses. there are three basic options: spontaneous generation, panspermia, or intentional creation. while the first two are natural and theoretically testable, in reality all three are untestable because we don’t know what conditions were *exactly *like on the early earth and obviously we don’t have time to wait millions of years for results and restesting. and of course, if the aliens came from some other universe where they don’t need to follow the rules of this universe, how would we ever know?

No, he doesn’t.

oops, you’re correct he doesn’t personally believe that. I was thinking of crick. however, he does state that it could be a possibility, which is more than he allows for “god did it”. there is no empirical difference between the two, since neither has solid proof for or against and neither is testable. and he actually wrote about how many cults (his term for religions) started because they came in contact with advanced people, and speculates that christianity could have started in the same way.

whether or not god (or aliens, for that matter) did it is neither here nor there when it comes to being scientific about it. god is, by definition, supernatural, and therefore outside the realm of science to prove or disprove. perhaps god did it using natural means; there is no way to prove or disprove that, either, so it’s a moot point. science and religion are not mutually exclusive for that very reason, which is why the intellectual dishonesty comes from people on both sides who claim as fact that either god did or did not do something. god’s existence or non-existence has nothing to do with science.

as far as “labeling” goes, you are the one who is using the wrong definition. an atheist is someone who does not believe any gods exist. (see here, merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist and here, oxforddictionaries.com/definition/atheist?region=us&q=atheist) if you’re choosing to use that word to identify yourself, but don’t actually believe what the word means, don’t get bent out of shape when people misunderstand you.

obviously no one is going to be convinced here, so I’m done.

 

[NonServiam]

What proof is there to make Darwin’s theory of the multiplicity of species having evolved from pond scum?

So much evidence that it’s staggering, corroborating evidence ranging across numerous disciplines, including paleontology, comparative biology, genetics, immunology, etc.

Francis Collins – a conservative Christian, by the way – is a scientist who was head of the human genome project (which began cracking the genetic code), and he is on record as saying that even if never had one fossil, the evidence from the genetic code alone is sufficient to confirm evolution. He is also on record as saying that nothing in biology makes sense unless evolution is true.

The problem here is that you just assume that all positions are “faith based.”

 

[NonServiam]

oops, you’re correct he doesn’t personally believe that.

Well, it’s refreshing to see someone admit they’re wrong when confronted by evidence. Good form.

god is, by definition, supernatural, and therefore outside the realm of science to prove or disprove. perhaps god did it using natural means; there is no way to prove or disprove that, either, so it’s a moot point. science and religion are not mutually exclusive for that very reason, which is why the intellectual dishonesty comes from people on both sides who claim as fact that either god did or did not do something. god’s existence or non-existence has nothing to do with science.

But in terms of an individual person’s belief, I only accpet claims for which there is sufficient evidence.

If you’re right that there’s no evidence either way, then you acknowledge that the claim “A God exists” does not have sufficient evidence to support it. To me, someone who wants to believe as many true claims as possible and as few false claims as possible, that’s not a claim that I can accept.

So I don’t accept that any gods exist.

So I’m not a believer in gods. I’m “without gods,” or a-theist.

obviously no one is going to be convinced here, so I’m done.

No one’s ever convinced by a single conversation, but the weight of conversations, over long periods of time, can change minds.

See ya.