Any atheists in here?

POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38267
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ZEKE023

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 9:19 PM

I actually think we largely agree... just from two different perspectives.

We define our words a little differently and that makes us somewhat inflamatory towards eachother... but I think that we're mostly in agreement.
?

SIGNYM

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 9:21 PM

One last comment- Religions, as I have known them, usually contain three aspects:

1) A set of rules of behavior, right and wrong, etc
2) An attempt to control the uncontrollable- bring the rains, bring the game, ward off disease, etc
3) Belief in a supernatural deity which is not (necessarily) connected to real-world evidence.

IMHO, the first function is ethics. The second is science. Only the third- belief in a supernatural deity- can properly be called "religion". That is whay I said that zazen sitting is not a religion- it doesn't fall into MY definition of religion.

---------------------------------
"Your results may vary"

CITIZEN

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 9:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by zeke023:
Gravity is a theory and no one knows how it works - we just all know it does (are you old enough to remember Gravitons or Ether?

Actually Gravitons are still alive and well as a theory. Ether I suppose is still kind of around in the form of Gravity and Inertia arising from the Zero Point energy Field.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, March 3, 2006 3:04 AM

There is plenty of evidence that God doesn't exist
Could you point to it please, because nothing in your post even hints at it.

I can't be sure my roommate wasn't just eaten by a bear a second ago, because I just saw him walk into his room....but to say this is thus based on “blind faith” is something I suspect you wouldn't subscribe to; you'd say it was based on evidence. The disbelief in god is no different.

How? How is it the same? If you want me to believe that they are the same offer proof because I've already taken my leaps of faith, three of them, and I'm not in the mood for more.

((I am however willing to reject the one that relates to god if anyone can produce any mildly convincing evidence. My other two leaps of faith support science and logic, if it looks like those clash with the existance of god I'll certainly move into nonbelief while I think it over, depending on the outcome I might return to the ranks of hard atheists.))

-

If you want proof of the existence of god then pick a god, how about the Hindu god? God is everything, you exist, you are part of everything, therefore God exists.

It is a sound proof provided that the definition of god as everything is correct. However many people (notably atheists, agnostics, and Christians) disagree with that definition.

What if you define god as supernatural?

Well then we go:
Everything is a part of nature.
God is not a part of nature.
Therefore god is not a part of everything (and thus does not exist.)

Of course things like the Judeo-Christian-Islamic family of faiths believe that god is not only a part of nature, but the most important part (the founding part no less) and thus not supernatural. ((Though they will use the non-literal definition of supernatural which is more accurately referred to as, "supernormal."))

Try another way of describing god:
God is the ultimate being:

There exist many beings in the universe.
Of those some are lesser and some are greater.
There must be at least one being which none are greater than.
This can be described as "The/a ultimate being."
At least one god exists.

Another definition of god:
God is that which controls everything in the universe.

All things in the universe obey the laws of physics and are in this way controlled by them.
So, by definition, God is the laws of physics.
The laws of physics exist.
Therefore God exists

Yet another definition of god:
God is the conscious controller of all things in the universe.
We have no clear understanding of that which controls the universe (hence ongoing scientific study) and thus we can not yet speculate on whether it is conscious or not.

God is the force that caused the Plagues of Egypt.
In that case God is the weather, the red tide, and cause and effect the weather and the red tide exist, cause and effect is one of our axioms, thus god exists.

God is the creator of the universe.
The universe exists, since existence can be defined as the state of being after creation and before destruction the universe must have been created (or the entire concept of existence must be overthrown, which I wouldn‘t mind because the chaos it would cause would be interesting.) To be created it needs a creator be that creator random chance or a goat named bob.
God (the creator), be he/she/it random chance or a goat named bob, must exist.

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Ok, I've given a couple of silly definitions and a couple that are in common use. The problem is that no agreed upon definition exists. For example the dictionary gives this:

"A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions."

Well if you use one definition of "conceived" this is the very thing that hard atheists claim exists. In fact they go a step further and claim that this is the only version of god that exists.

If you use another definition of "conceived" it has a variable meaning ranging from what the hard atheists claim exists to what the t

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, March 3, 2006 3:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Then they keep clinging to this artificial distinction between the 'not believing' and 'believing not' - (ie "I don't believe in god. I believe god doesn't exist). The second is a nonsensical statement that they foisted on a hypothetical "Strong Atheist". There's never any point in 'believing' in the non-existence of something.

You know it’s not all that easy to piss me off but you've done it. Fuck you.

I'll let you attack my religious beliefs, my honesty and my merit as a person but not the basis of mathematics you son of a bitch. Maybe it isn't the universal language or any of those other things people like to say about it but it is what brought you this fucking message board and you should show a little respect before calling it bullshit.

Maybe you don't like the fact that it is based on the belief that existence and non-existence are both things that need to be proven and when proven believed in but it doesn’t change the fact that the progress we have made in most areas of life is based on this very simple thing.

A thing that rests all of it's power on the idea that things must be proven to (and thus believed to) exist, or they must be proven to (and thus believed to) not exist, and until that time the only rational position is to reserve judgment and thus not believe it exists AND not believe it doesn’t exist. Every proof rests on the idea that believing something doesn’t exist is fundamentally different from not believing it does exist.

But no. You think we should just throw all of that out the fucking window. Why not? After all what good did math ever do anyone?

You’re right. There's never any point in believing in the nonexistence of something, that’s why people worked for hundreds of years to prove that their belief in the non-existence of the non-zero integer solution to x^n + y^n = z^n (n>2) was well founded. (Actually you might be right about that one not having a point, bad example.)

You know what, you converted me, first thing when I wake up tomorrow I'm going to set fire to everything in my house that employed a mathematical proof which placed value in believing in the non-existence of something.

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On second thought, no I won't.

If you missed the point here it is: I don't give a damn if you insult my beliefs but leave the foundations of math out of it you gorram asshole. To much rests on it for you to try to convince people to reject it all. But I hope with all the poetic justice in my soul that someday you buy a house built by a carpenter who holds math in the same esteem you do.

Quote:
I don't want to be a smart-ass, but have you considered where this sort of logic leads?

Have you? She claimed that becasue god does not exist god does not exist and used that as a proof.

He said that was bad logic. It is bad logic. Since I'm still on the topic of math let me tell you the fist thing they tell you about a proof: Don't assume your conclsion.

I can claim that 1=2 and prove that 1=2 as a result but no matter how many steps I shove in between it is still bad logic because all it does is come around in a circle and prove nothing.

But since you're supporting britet's logic and coming out against Finn mac Cumhal's critisim of it, and you've already gone against one of the fundamentals of math, let's reject all others too.

From now on it is ok to "prove" something is true by assuming it is true.

Let's redefine all of science too, since you're on such a great roll. I mean you just decided to rip appart the concept of "proof" so why not throw away experimentation too?

Hell since all that we need to do to prove something is to assume that it is true why don't you assume that you rule the world so we'll all be your slaves?

SERGEANTX

Friday, March 3, 2006 3:58 AM

So, chris, I'm wondering if you'd care to address the tongue-in-cheek parody of intelligent design put forth by followers of the "Flying Spaghetti Monster"? The thing is, by your reasoning we can't reject His existence any more than we can reject the Jewish or Christian god.

I guess that's what I don't get about your insistence that non-believers supply some kind of proof of non-existence (a thoroughly fallacious stance). It essentially makes any claim at all subject to the same rules. If you can't find proof that something doesn't exist, you can't reject those who claim it does.

If you're saying that there is proof of god, and that atheists ignore it, well, that's another argument altogether - one that can at least make some sense. I don't find any of the 'proof' you mentioned compelling at all, but at least you're acknowledging that the burden of proof is on the positive claim.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

SERGEANTX

Friday, March 3, 2006 4:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
You know it’s not all that easy to piss me off but you’ve done it. Fuck you.

I’ll let you attack my religious beliefs, my honesty and my merit as a person but not the basis of mathematics you son of a bitch...

OK... this has gone much too far. It was never my intent to enrage you. I thought we were having an interesting debate. My apologies. I'll drop it at this point.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

BRITET

Friday, March 3, 2006 5:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
If you want proof of the existence of god then pick a god, how about the Hindu god? God is everything, you exist, you are part of everything, therefore God exists.

You're right--I wasn't explicit enough with my definitions. Generally, by “God” I meant the Primary Mover of any major religion; the creator of the universe, the consciousness directing all being. Since there is considerable disagreement even among the same faith as to what this means, the waters will remain inevitably muddy; basically, I am using “god” to cover the belief systems of any organized religion.

This post will be somewhat disjointed, as i have two previous posts in this thread and won't reiterate certain points; I refer you to them if something seems confused.

Quote:
If you take the Christan-and Jewish versions than god is more or less the forces of nature and probability

I doubt there are many, if any, christians or jews who would agree with that statement. There is a tremendous difference between the unfolding of physical laws and the guided, conscious agent that most religions envision God being. I'll admit to not knowing a whole lot about Hinduism, but I'd be willing to bet that “god is everything” is a mischaracterization. At the very least, I'm reasonably sure, mainstream Hinduism makes some contentions about a universal consciousness and everlasting life (as part of this consciousness) not to mention reincarnation. If you want to say “god is the universe” or “god is nature” then I have no immediate quarrel, it's just that it's tautological and of little use for any purpose. If, however, you feel that saying “god is the universe” ascribes some consciousness or intentionality to the workings of nature, I most vigorously dissent. And here is why.

Quote:
(my words):I can't be sure my roommate wasn't just eaten by a bear a second ago, because I just saw him walk into his room....but to say this is thus based on “blind faith” is something I suspect you wouldn't subscribe to; you'd say it was based on evidence. The disbelief in god is no different.

(christhecynic's words): How? How is it the same? If you want me to believe that they are the same offer proof because I've already taken my leaps of faith, three of them, and I'm not in the mood for more.

I'd ask you first to suggest to me how it IS different--aside, that is, from the fact that my roommate's continued existence intact is verifiable by me peeking in the room....my point was that conclusions drawn from evidence need not be based on direct, incontrovertible evidence for probable certainty but can (and often are) based on inferences made from evidence and on inductive reasoning.

The crux of my argument is that every major extant religion has relatively recent origin compared to the emergence of modern humans and language/complex culture. They were predated by a multiplicity of various religious traditions with a vast array of gods and godlike figures and all sorts of shamanistic and other practices. This variety itself renders each rather suspect. The fact that the modern major religions persisted so long when so many others died out before them may have something to do with the fact that writing was invented soon after their origins, and not because they were any more accurate. The fact that even these religions have morphed and changed over time is further evidence of their ad-hoc quality and arbitrariness of doctrine.
Furthermore, (and sticking to judeo-christian-islamic tradition, which I actually know something about), vast quantities of the bible/koran/torah are patently false. these (creation, etc.) are illustrious enough to omit here. When these portions are so clearly based on myth, it renders the rest of the texts decidedly unreliable.
One cannot blame early humans from inventing such spectacular myths--indeed, one would expect it, given our evolved passion for making sense of things we observe. Being sentient, intelligent creatures, and recognizing the uniquenes

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, March 3, 2006 12:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
OK... this has gone much too far. It was never my intent to enrage you. I thought we were having an interesting debate. My apologies. I'll drop it at this point.

Yeah, we were, when it was about religion. And as long as you stuck on the topic of relgion you could say anything and I wouldn't mind. You could say my god was a delusion only held by childmolesters and I'd let it fly.

But you took a step further than that and made generalizations that, if true, would invalidate things such as math, science and logic. That I won't stand for. There's no place for that kind of thing in a relgious debate. Not even creationists push as far as you did.

I enjoy religious debate, I enjoy debate in general. What I don't like is when someone decides to change the basis of the whole thing just to win.

If you want to say that our entire system of logic is wrong, which you did (twice), at least tell us what system you want to replace it with. Whatever you do don't just say it like it is commonly accepted fact and then offer no explanation beyond useing it as fact in a sentance.

I'm not saying this should stop, I'm just saying be civil.

HAZE

Friday, March 3, 2006 1:32 PM

I’m going to relate some personal stuff here. I make no pretence of being right and I mean no offence this is just personal stuff.

I went to Catholic school. Just before my first communion a very young and “down with the kids” priest came to class to explain to us the process of transubstantiation. Afterwards he asked us we had any questions. I throw up my hand and asked and quite innocently asked “If I am eating the body and blood of Christ does that make me a cannibal?” Let me be honest here, I have some mental heath issues (I’m not going into what, that’s my business) but some of the social breaks you have, I don’t. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to logically stop myself from asking the obvious question but when I was younger my habit of indiscriminately cutting to the heart of a subject got me into a lot of trouble. That was the only example involving an actual priest so I consider it the worst. Needless to say he wasn’t happy. But I never did get an answer. Other questions I never got answers to where (There went to various teachers) “If Adam and Eve only had sons did they have sex with there mother?” And “If God wants us to worship him does that make him a narcissist?”

Still though years went by and I was still a catholic. What finally killed my faith was a heated argument I had with a member of the legion of Mary. He was explaining how protestants and none Christians where all going to hell along with people who didn’t go to church enough. For the first time in years I didn’t hold back and asked the obvious question. “Are you saying that all loving God would condemn a good and kind person to eternal damnation ETURNAL unending torture just for not worshiping him right?” “Yes” was the basic response. It was at that point I realised, if God is what this man says he is, if God created us just to worship him and would condemn us just for doing it wrong then I don’t want to worship him. I wont bow my knee to God the tyrant .

But then I realised something. This man does not know God. God has not spoken to him. He has no access to a grand high vault of the invisible. He access to no information that I don’t. And that’s as true of the Pop as it is of Priest or a bishop or a leader of one of the other religions. There information comes from what was written down. And it was not God who wrote it, it was men. Men with agendas. Agendas that God has been made to fit. God hates homosexuality because the men who use his name do. God thinks women are inferior because men the men who use him name do.

The problem is not with God, the problem is with organised religion. As the bard said the fault is not in the stars it is in ourselves. Look around you at the horrible things religion has been used to justify, this was not the work of God this was the work of men.

I don’t know if there is a God or not but I do know one thing, needier does anyone else that walks this earth and I wont take stock in the word of men who say they do.

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Who do you suppose is in there?

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