You can't prove it!

[The_Catholic]

The Spaghetti Monster is an example used by atheist author Richard Dawkins in a popular book “The God Delusion.” Your friend didn’t make up the example; he either got it from Dawkins, or from someone who, in turn, got it from Dawkins.

The theist’s answer is, there is no evidence supporting the existence of the Spaghetti Monster, but there is abundant evidence supporting the existence of God.

I knew what my friend was trying to do: “if you can’t prove there is no speghetti monster, or prove his existence (which sounds so ridulous, the same notion as a God existing) then you can’t prove there’s a God.”

I kind of ignored that circular argument, and just said: “go outside, looks at the stars of heaven, look at a tree, or go in the mirror and gaze at yourself. Think of a red blood cell, how complex it is, with over a million different pages of imformation in this microscopic thing, all following a specific order, think of all of life in general, how complex, beautiful, even wrathful it is, . These are the resons why mankind since the dawn of time has believed in God, a creator. But why would one begin to ebven ponder about a speghetti monster.”

Then he went off the wall and buried me with his voice, saying I didn’t understand his question, I was oblivious. Well, I have always been an airhead, a blonde lol

 

[clmowry]

I will pray for you and your friend.

I’ve never met a true atheist in person, but, quite frankly, from the exchanges I’ve seen with the atheist that frequent this forum your plight is pretty much hopeless if you think “you” can “do” anything to change their minds or “prove” anything to them.

Pray for the poor soul and live a Loving, Faith and Hope filled Christian life and perhaps God will use your example and His grace to help your friend to come to accept the Truth.

i.e. Maybe he’ll be drawn to what he’s missing like a moth to a flame.

I really think that’s the best you can offer him.

If your friend doesn’t want to believe then you can’t, and God won’t, force him to believe.

Chuck

 

[gman421]

Wow, where to start?

Dawkins and the flying spaghetti monster. It is in Dawkins book, but he did not make it up. It is a new religion to show how silly belief in god is.

We all know that there is no flying spaghetti monster, or superman for that matter, but if it was taught in schools, if we murdered people if they said they didn’t believe and so on, for a long enough time, we could convince people that it was real. Just as believers have been convinced that god is real.

I do not believe in religion and all it’s nasty stuff, and it is all religions and their silly completely flawed book, the bible that tells us to believe in god. Therefore I do not believe in god.

If you can not see the silliness and that the bible is flawed, then you need to read it again, cover to cover. After that if you still believe in this book, then it is most likely that you did not understand what you read, because anyone with the slightest amount of common sense would not believe such utter nonsense.

You can pray and pray until you are blue in the face, but it won’t do anything, because prayer doesn’t work, so good luck with that.

I find it amusing that all the different religions think theirs is the true one, but really none of them are true. What one you believe in depends on what brain washing you have been subjected to.

I spend six months each year in a very religious country, a very Catholic country, the Philippines. I see each and every day, the harm, the stupidity, and the poverty that religion, that the Catholic chruch causes to the poor people of the Philippines.

I can not understand how these priest can not see what they have done to these people, how they can not be totally ashamed of themselves for the harm they have caused to all these people. It is disgusting to take so much from poor people and give nothing back. Just to have power and money, that is all that matters to the Catholic church.

I do not like that religion is so eager to lie to children. If I teach a child 1+1=2, or cat is spelled C, A, T, or that is we mix chemical A with B we get result C, I can demonstrate all these to be true. But teaching, forcing religion on children can not be demonstrated to be correct. You can not do an experiment on prayer, be getting the class to pray for candy and then they all get it. Teaching religion is only teaching ignorance and superstition. It is child abuse, just as striking a child in the head is, which I also see done here, by all these deeply religious people.

The world needs, knowledge, intelligence, and common sense, not stupidity, ignorance and 2000 year old superstition.

I am sorry, but you all need to open your eyes to the fact that all religions stand for hatered, murder, ignorance, intolerance, sedregaration and child abuse.

I would not be proud to belong to such a thing as religion.

Yes, as the starter of this thread states, I can’t prove it, but he can’t prove it either. Atheism makes more sense than believing in something so unbelievable.

And please don’t reply with any “god bless you”, because if the Philippines is an example of something blessed by god, I would rather not be blessed by him, or it, or whatever.

 

[Holly3278]

How sad. The fact is, there is more logic behind the existence of God than there is behind a theory where nothing exists outside our universe. You can’t throw a stick of dynamite into a print shop and expect to get Webster’s Dictionary out of it. I’ll pray for your friend.

 

[Jestocost]

Wow, where to start?

Dawkins and the flying spaghetti monster. It is in Dawkins book, but he did not make it up. It is a new religion to show how silly belief in god is.

We all know that there is no flying spaghetti monster, or superman for that matter, but if it was taught in schools, if we murdered people if they said they didn’t believe and so on, for a long enough time, we could convince people that it was real. Just as believers have been convinced that god is real.

I do not believe in religion and all it’s nasty stuff, and it is all religions and their silly completely flawed book, the bible that tells us to believe in god. Therefore I do not believe in god.

If you can not see the silliness and that the bible is flawed, then you need to read it again, cover to cover. After that if you still believe in this book, then it is most likely that you did not understand what you read, because anyone with the slightest amount of common sense would not believe such utter nonsense.

You can pray and pray until you are blue in the face, but it won’t do anything, because prayer doesn’t work, so good luck with that.

I find it amusing that all the different religions think theirs is the true one, but really none of them are true. What one you believe in depends on what brain washing you have been subjected to.

I spend six months each year in a very religious country, a very Catholic country, the Philippines. I see each and every day, the harm, the stupidity, and the poverty that religion, that the Catholic chruch causes to the poor people of the Philippines.

I can not understand how these priest can not see what they have done to these people, how they can not be totally ashamed of themselves for the harm they have caused to all these people. It is disgusting to take so much from poor people and give nothing back. Just to have power and money, that is all that matters to the Catholic church.

I do not like that religion is so eager to lie to children. If I teach a child 1+1=2, or cat is spelled C, A, T, or that is we mix chemical A with B we get result C, I can demonstrate all these to be true. But teaching, forcing religion on children can not be demonstrated to be correct. You can not do an experiment on prayer, be getting the class to pray for candy and then they all get it. Teaching religion is only teaching ignorance and superstition. It is child abuse, just as striking a child in the head is, which I also see done here, by all these deeply religious people.

The world needs, knowledge, intelligence, and common sense, not stupidity, ignorance and 2000 year old superstition.

I am sorry, but you all need to open your eyes to the fact that all religions stand for hatered, murder, ignorance, intolerance, sedregaration and child abuse.

I would not be proud to belong to such a thing as religion.

Yes, as the starter of this thread states, I can’t prove it, but he can’t prove it either. Atheism makes more sense than believing in something so unbelievable.

And please don’t reply with any “god bless you”, because if the Philippines is an example of something blessed by god, I would rather not be blessed by him, or it, or whatever.

I wonder. If you went to China or Russia during the communist days, or traveled back in time to the French revolution and saw similar or worse conditions to what you encountered in the Phillipines, would you conclude that atheism was to blame and therefore must be false?

 

[gman421]

Once again, a believer has supported the fact that religion and religious people do not care about the harm that is caused by it. As long as they have power and money, nothing and no one else matters, that is what is sad to me. But religion and religion’s followers do not seem to be able to see that religion has so much to be sorry for. I could never be proud of belonging to one of these groups.

Prayer does not work, as a matter of fact it causes harm and inaction by the prayer, making the prayer wait for someone else to solve the problem. So please don’t pray for me, it’s just a waste of your time.

If there is or was a god, it is not as religion says it is. If a god did make everything and then retired, then it is as if you are worshiping the law of gravity. When you pray to this, you are only talking to youself.

But to believe that there is a mystical sky fairy, that knows and sees all that everyone in the whole world does and thinks and that you have to worship it is just superstition. It does not help humankind to have these kinds of beliefs.

Do you really believe that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who was his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul, that is present in all humans, because a woman made from a rib, was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree, thereby making angry an invisible wizard that lives in the sky?

Maybe that makes perfect sense to you, but not to me.

To the starter of this thread, your friend is right, there is no god as religion states.

 

[cranster]

Wow, where to start?

Dawkins and the flying spaghetti monster. It is in Dawkins book, but he did not make it up. It is a new religion to show how silly belief in god is…

It only shows that the guy who thought it up thinks religion is silly. It does not show how silly religion is.

You can pray and pray until you are blue in the face, but it won’t do anything, because prayer doesn’t work, so good luck with that.

Oh contraire, there is empirical evidence that shows that hospitalized people who both pray and are prayed for heal faster than those who don’t

I can not understand how these priest can not see what they have done to these people, how they can not be totally ashamed of themselves for the harm they have caused to all these people. It is disgusting to take so much from poor people and give nothing back. Just to have power and money, that is all that matters to the Catholic church.

This statement does not reflect anything about Catholicism. In fact what you are stating is the exact oposite of the Catholic Church.

The world needs, knowledge, intelligence, and common sense, not stupidity, ignorance and 2000 year old superstition.

The only real problem here is that you can’t empirically prove that God doesn’t exist. In fact it requires as much faith on your part to believe there is no God as it requires to believe there is a God. You have to deny logic in looking at the complexity of nature to not think there is evidence of a designer. To believe that something as complex as a human being came into existence because of random combinations of molecules all on their own takes an incredible amount of faith… a staggering amount of faith!

I am sorry, but you all need to open your eyes to the fact that all religions stand for hatered, murder, ignorance, intolerance, sedregaration and child abuse.

You obviously understand nothing about religion, and especially Catholicism.

Yes, as the starter of this thread states, I can’t prove it, but he can’t prove it either. Atheism makes more sense than believing in something so unbelievable.

If atheism makes so much sense then explain love. where did it come from?

 

[Church_Militant]

Did you notice that both the guy the OP was talking to and Gman, both make only an opinionated assertion?

The fact is that they cannot prove their case either, though they will make all kinds of effort. (Hey we do too… ) But what I mean by this is that to them, no amount of evidence short of God coming down for an eyeball to eyeball with them personally will suffice as the “Proof” they say they want.

My feeling is that most all of those who decree that they do not believe in God and end their discussions with, “You can’t prove it” really are not interested in proof one way or another. They simply hold their beliefs (or lack thereof) and really are not interested in talking to believers.

Let it drop. Pray for them and don’t lose sleep about it. I have found that God is perfectly capable of taking care of Himself. If you’ve made your best case with charity and are living your faith, the rest is in His hands.

 

[Jestocost]

Wow, where to start?

Dawkins and the flying spaghetti monster. It is in Dawkins book, but he did not make it up. It is a new religion to show how silly belief in god is.

We all know that there is no flying spaghetti monster, or superman for that matter, but if it was taught in schools, if we murdered people if they said they didn’t believe and so on, for a long enough time, we could convince people that it was real. Just as believers have been convinced that god is real.

Murdering people for their beliefs certainly did help convince people of the truth or Christianity, but not in the way you suggest. It was the Christians who were murdered. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Murdering people may create obedience, but not faith. Notice the resurgence of religion in Russia following the collapse of communism and people were no longer being murdered for not believing in Atheism.

I do not believe in religion and all it’s nasty stuff, and it is all religions and their silly completely flawed book, the bible that tells us to believe in god. Therefore I do not believe in god.

If you can not see the silliness and that the bible is flawed, then you need to read it again, cover to cover. After that if you still believe in this book, then it is most likely that you did not understand what you read, because anyone with the slightest amount of common sense would not believe such utter nonsense.

Replace Bible with the title of your favorite quantum physics textbook above. Perhaps if it doesn’t make sense it is you who don’t understand it.

You can pray and pray until you are blue in the face, but it won’t do anything, because prayer doesn’t work, so good luck with that.

And you can prove this negative how?

I find it amusing that all the different religions think theirs is the true one, but really none of them are true. What one you believe in depends on what brain washing you have been subjected to.

What brain-washing have you been subject to to believe in Atheism?

I spend six months each year in a very religious country, a very Catholic country, the Philippines. I see each and every day, the harm, the stupidity, and the poverty that religion, that the Catholic chruch causes to the poor people of the Philippines.

See my previous post.

Continued…

 

[Jestocost]

I can not understand how these priest can not see what they have done to these people, how they can not be totally ashamed of themselves for the harm they have caused to all these people. It is disgusting to take so much from poor people and give nothing back. Just to have power and money, that is all that matters to the Catholic church.

I’m not familiar with the situation there so I can’t speak to the local issues, but I’ve heard the reverse about Catholic Charities in many parts of the world, for example, after the tsunami. Does that prove the rightness of the Catholic faith. If not how does your example show the wrongness?

I do not like that religion is so eager to lie to children. If I teach a child 1+1=2, or cat is spelled C, A, T, or that is we mix chemical A with B we get result C, I can demonstrate all these to be true. But teaching, forcing religion on children can not be demonstrated to be correct. You can not do an experiment on prayer, be getting the class to pray for candy and then they all get it. Teaching religion is only teaching ignorance and superstition. It is child abuse, just as striking a child in the head is, which I also see done here, by all these deeply religious people.

Science changes theories constantly. It is actually part of the strength of the scientific method. Look to medicine and nutrition for examples where things change very rapidly. Is it child abuse to teach these things? You cannot prove love exists. Is it child abuse to teach your children love? As for the examples of true child abuse, see above.

The world needs, knowledge, intelligence, and common sense, not stupidity, ignorance and 2000 year old superstition.

It needs the more modern superstition of Atheism? If everyone truly believed and followed Christ’s teachings, the world would be paradise. Unfortunately our fallen nature prevents that from happening before the end of time. I don’t see how an Atheistic world could ever achieve that.

I am sorry, but you all need to open your eyes to the fact that all religions stand for hatered, murder, ignorance, intolerance, sedregaration and child abuse.

Our fallen human nature accounts for these things. They all exist independant of any religion. Religion, all religion, is an attempt to overcome them.

I would not be proud to belong to such a thing as religion.

Atheism is a religion.

Yes, as the starter of this thread states, I can’t prove it, but he can’t prove it either. Atheism makes more sense than believing in something so unbelievable.

Believablilty is in the eye of the beholder.

And please don’t reply with any “god bless you”, because if the Philippines is an example of something blessed by god, I would rather not be blessed by him, or it, or whatever.

I do pray that God blesses you and relieves from you some of your hatred and anger, as well as whatever hurt might be behind it.

 

[gman421]

The rulers of China and Russia of the time and the Japanese emperor demanded to be obeyed and worshiped as if they where gods themselves. Who do you think the kamikaze pilots prayed to before they went on their missions? This is still a religion is a sense. You forgot to mention Hitler. Oh ya, he was a closet Catholic. About the French revolution, I don’t know enough about it to comment.

But brutality is a sign of weakness, just as god, as in the old testament and religion has been brutal, because religion is weak.

So you managed to come up with 3 things that where evil to defend religion. Religion has done and caused tens of thousands of evil things throughout history.

But you are talking about time travel, going back in time. I am talking about now, when we, humans should have enough knowledge to know better than to still have these kinds of silly beliefs.

It is time for religion to go the way of the dinosaur, we don’t need it anymore, because we are smarter now than we were in the past.

I have spent a lot of time in the Philippines and studied the history. It sickens me everyday to see what religion, and more specifically the Catholic church has done to this country and its people. I would be ashamed to be a member of this group or any other religious group.

But as I said before, religious people and religion does not care about what harm is caused in god’s name.

 

[tabcom]

Anyway, an athiest friend of mine . . . .

Pardon me for not reading beyond this opening sentence. Scripture gives clear instruction as to who Believers can be friends with.

Ephesians 5:11
have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness: but rather rebuke them.

Titus 3:9
Avoid foolish arguments . . . . 10 After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, 11 realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.

 

[gman421]

It only shows that the guy who thought it up thinks religion is silly. It does not show how silly religion is.

It shows how silly religious belief is.

Oh contraire, there is empirical evidence that shows that hospitalized people who both pray and are prayed for heal faster than those who don’t

Sorry, read the American Heart Journal, April 2006. Prayer had the opposite effect. The Templeton Foundation spent 2.4 million on this double blind study, most of the other studies done where flawed.

This statement does not reflect anything about Catholicism. In fact what you are stating is the exact oposite of the Catholic Church.

The oposite? Not at all from my view. What about the thousands of child sex abuse that the church tries to cover up. Ya, now that is good. You really need to see the harm done by the Catholic church in the 3rd world. What do you think keeps 3rd world countries in the 3rd world?

The only real problem here is that you can’t empirically prove that God doesn’t exist. In fact it requires as much faith on your part to believe there is no God as it requires to believe there is a God. You have to deny logic in looking at the complexity of nature to not think there is evidence of a designer. To believe that something as complex as a human being came into existence because of random combinations of molecules all on their own takes an incredible amount of faith… a staggering amount of faith!

Not faith to not beleive in god, it takes common sense to know that the chances of a god as religion claims is next to impossible.

You obviously understand nothing about religion, and especially Catholicism.

I observe, I see the big picture about religion, where as you are to close to the forest to see the trees. Step back and get the big picture. I know more about religion and the bible than most regilious believes that I know do. And you can believe me, I know all about Catholicism, most likely more than you do. I love to ask believers if they have ever read the bible, cover to cover. Not one that I have asked has read it, they say they don’t want to, but they believe in it because they have been told for thier whole live to.

If atheism makes so much sense then explain love. where did it come from?

Ok, I’ll explain love to you. It is part of our reproductive system, our natural need to reproduce. Simple huh.

Don’t even try to say that religion is needed for humans to be moral, because then I will have to give you a thousand examples of how immoral religion is.

 

[Jestocost]

The rulers of China and Russia of the time and the Japanese emperor demanded to be obeyed and worshiped as if they where gods themselves. Who do you think the kamikaze pilots prayed to before they went on their missions? This is still a religion is a sense. You forgot to mention Hitler. Oh ya, he was a closet Catholic. About the French revolution, I don’t know enough about it to comment.

My point is that evil occurs in men in spite of religion, not because of it. Japan was not atheistic, so that is a red herring. I agree that for the others it was still religion. Atheism and Communism are religions. Hitler was not an Atheist or a Catholic, he was a secular cultist. He killed people for faithful Catholicism. Religious people were nearly all his victims. His reasons came from the secular science of egenics.

But brutality is a sign of weakness, just as god, as in the old testament and religion has been brutal, because religion is weak.

So you managed to come up with 3 things that where evil to defend religion. Religion has done and caused tens of thousands of evil things throughout history.

Atheism has only managed to come to power recently, but they have certainly made up for lost time. Russia, China, Cambodia, North Korea, the Revoltionary France, all very brutal regiems.

But you are talking about time travel, going back in time. I am talking about now, when we, humans should have enough knowledge to know better than to still have these kinds of silly beliefs.

China is today. It is not my fault that atheistic regeims are rare and fail rapidly. Besides I have gone back less than 200 years to get examples, you are going back to the beginning of time.

It is time for religion to go the way of the dinosaur, we don’t need it anymore, because we are smarter now than we were in the past.

And the evidence for this is? We may have some knowledge about some things, but I see no evidence of greater intelligence and certainly no greater wisdom.

I have spent a lot of time in the Philippines and studied the history. It sickens me everyday to see what religion, and more specifically the Catholic church has done to this country and its people. I would be ashamed to be a member of this group or any other religious group.

But as I said before, religious people and religion does not care about what harm is caused in god’s name.

I care a great deal about all evil that is done, not just that done in the name of religion. Do you really think that making religion a boogeyman has or is going to do anything but cause even hatred and strife? Blame for evil should be placed on those who are perpetrating it first. Some religions may be at fault if they advocate such things. Please show me where in the Catechism it says we should do the unspecified evils you are talking about.

 

[tabcom]

I’ll pray for your friend.

Pray for an atheist?



The Bible gives clear instruction as to what to do in this situation – separate from them.

2Co 6:17 -
“Therefore, COME OUT FROM (non Beleivers) MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.

 

[Jestocost]

Ok, I’ll explain love to you. It is part of our reproductive system, our natural need to reproduce. Simple huh.

Don’t even try to say that religion is needed for humans to be moral, because then I will have to give you a thousand examples of how immoral religion is.

Do you love your Grandfather?

 

[tabcom]

Ok, I’ll explain love to you. It is part of our reproductive system, our natural need to reproduce. Simple huh.

In the interest of not dumbing down your simpleton answer to the meaning of love . . . .

2 John 1:6 -
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.

I John 4:8 - He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Galations 5:14 - All the law is fulfilled in one word even this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

* law - Greek: nomos - from the primary root nemo meaning to parcel out food or grazing to animals; prescriptive usage; instruction.
* love - Greek: agape - to regard the "spiritual" welfare of another; specifically in giving them the word (instruction) of God; love/agape is a "him" manifested in the person of Jesus Christ when he died for his people (Rom. 13:10; I John 4:9,10); the Biblical definition of love/agape is found in II John 6 "this is love (agape) that we walk after his commandments".

There is no word in the New Testament Greek for our word love. We have incorporated several Greek words into our English word “love”. In 20th century America we have confused and misused two of these Greek words: agape and phileo. They are both translated “love” in the New Testament. The word phileo (love) means to be affectionate. Men corrupt the word agape (love) when they quote the Bible and imply that that agape is affection. John said, “God is love (agape)”. Jesus said we are to love (agapeo - verb form of agape) our neighbor and our enemy (Mark 12:31; Matt. 5:44). He was not saying that we are to be affectionate (phileo) to them. He was saying that we are to “God” (agapeo) them, since God is love (agape). We are to give our neighbor and our enemy all that God is --his instruction. When we love (agape) our enemies we feed them the only food that is legal (prescribed) for sheep to consume (the law - instruction in God’s word). The Lord defined legal food for his people when he said to Adam, “You may eat of all the trees of the garden except – (Gen. 2:16,17)”. Love (agape) is feeding on the word of God. We love (agape) others when we fellowship (eating at the Lord’s “spiritual” table) with them, as we instruct in God’s word. If a man does not believe God and read his Bible (understanding instruction himself), he cannot possibly love ( agapeo/agape) his neighbor or his enemy as Christ commanded us to do. To love (agape) does not mean to show affection (phileo) to them, but rather to give them the truth of God’s word. “All the law (nomos - legal food - instruction) is fulfilled (finished or accomplished) in one word – thou shalt love (agapeo - give God’s instruction) thy neighbor (Gal. 5:14).” “Love (agape) worketh no ill (evil) to “his” (agape is the person, God) neighbor: therefore love (agape) is the fulfilling of the law (Rom. 13:10).” God is not affection (phileo). He is instruction in truth. “Thy word (instruction) is truth (John 17:17).” There will be a shortage of love (agape) at the end of time. Jesus said, "because iniquity (unlawful food) shall abound, the love (agape - instruction in the word) of many shall wax cold (Matt. 24:12; Amos 8:11,12).

 

[Gamera]

… because we are smarter now than we were in the past.

 

[tabcom]

Do you love your Grandfather?

To love (agape) does not mean to show affection (phileo) to them, but rather to give them the truth of God’s word.

 

[gman421]

Pardon me for not reading beyond this opening sentence. Scripture gives clear instruction as to who Believers can be friends with.

Ephesians 5:11
have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness: but rather rebuke them.

Titus 3:9
Avoid foolish arguments . . . . 10 After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, 11 realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.

Segregation!!! thank you for supporting what I say about religion.

I have friends from many religions, Catholic, Hindu, even JW, just to name a few.

Sorry about my last post, I don’t seem to know how to use the quote funtion. I’ll work on that.