Any atheists in here?
POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38267
PAGE 11 of 18
Yeah, I was raised catholic too. Attended Catholic school, attended Mass every day for a while. I even sang in the choir (it was required). I remember the Latin Mass and the Latin responses. (Which we changed, of course, to "Who's got the dominos? Benny's got the Dominos. Dominos two bits come" 
) There was something comforting on the stories about your own guardian angel, the clink of the censer and the smell of incense, the high arches and stained glass windows of the church...
But at some point I realized that nobody could "prove" reality, much less prove god(s).
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Free as in freedom, not beer.
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In logic you can never start by assuming your conclusion. (Well actually if you work based entirely on bi-conditionals you can, but no one in this thread has been doing that so we can ignore it for the moment.)
If you start with the assumption, “There is no god,” it is very easy to prove there is no god. But if I start with the assumption 1 - 1 = 2 I can prove that is true as well. Watch:
1 + -1 = 2
Add -1 to both sides.
-1 = 1
Thus:
1 + -1 = 1 + (1) = 1 + 1 = 2
Equality is transitive therefore:
1 + -1 = 2.
Except it's BS because we've come round in a circle. You did the same thing with god, you started with the assumption that there was no god, and then went on to claim that as a result there was no god.
Of course there being no god follows from their being no god P implies P is a tautology. But then again there being a god follows from there being a god just as nicely.
You said there wasn't a god presented evidence based on the assumption, and then said that the evidence supported the belief that there was no god. Of course the evidence supported the belief that there was no god, it was based on that belief.
The thing is that if you start with the assumption that there is no god all that you can prove from there is that there is one (by showing that it the assumption leads to a contradiction.) If you want to actually show that there isn't a god you can't assume there isn't, you have to earn that. You could, for example, assume that there is and then show a contradiction. That would show that there is not a god. But you didn't do that.
Even though I was talking about proof the same holds true for evidence, evidence based on the assumption your conclusion is right will always support that conclusion, but it doesn't make your conclusion any more valid than the flying spaghetti monster.
No one wants to be equated with that, least of all atheists.
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If you want to know what I mean than look at your example, forget about your roommate, just think about the grizzly bear. How can you say that there isn't one in your house? Well it's exactly what you just said:
"There has never been a bear in my house, and we'd know if there was." There was not one in your house, the size of a bear would mean that its entrance would have left noticeable indications (unless it was assisted) none of which are there (and it is very, very unlikely that someone would assist it) thus it is logical to conclude that there is not one there now either unless presented with compelling evidence to the contrary.
Then you changed what you were saying:
"one just might have been lying in wait, and just finished my buddy off."
How does, "We'd know if one was," change to, "There might have been one lying in wait"? I mean does house include enough accessible bear sized nooks and crannies which it could hide in that it would be able to get out of sight in time every time it might be seen?
More importantly:
Is there enough food available for the bear to survive?
Are there places where the bear could leave its droppings that you would never see nor smell?
Is there a magic system to remove its fur?
I mean if I said, "There's a bear in your house," and, "There's a mouse in your house," which would you find more likely? Well if we start with the assumption that there is not one in your house and use your style of logic I can logically prove that they are both equally unlikely.
If there was not a bear we would not see it or smell it. We would observe no droppings. We would not notice the disappearance of any food that was eaten by it.
-We have not seen or smelled it, he have observed no droppings, we have not noticed the disappearance of any food eaten by it. Therefore the probability of their being a bear is nil.
If there was not a mouse we would not see it or smell it. We would observe no droppings. We would not notice the disappearance of any food that was eaten by it.
-We have not seen or smelled it, he have observed no droppings, we have not noticed the disappearance of any
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It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God.
It’s the old thought excrement about the tea pot in orbit of mars. You cant prove its existence because we have no telescopes that could detect such a small object. You also cant disprove it. The most you can say is your teapot agnostic.
Of course in the end everyone on earth is atheist in some way, most everyone does not believe in Anubis or Zeus or Thor. And again you cannot disprove there existence. The fact that God cannot be disproved does not prove his existence. It mealy proves he cannot be disproved.
But religion on the other hand. That can be traced. We can fallow its inception from our early history, we can see religions grow and fall, then new one emerge. We can see the emergence of the Judo Christian one God from the suppression of Hebraic goddess. God and Religion are two completely different things.
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Who do you suppose is in there?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haze:
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.
Slightly different from when Pope John Paul II said isn't it? Of course god's judgement is a thing that's been talked about quite often, no point in going into detail here.
What I like about John Paul II can be summed up in one of his quotations:
"Believers have a duty to treat all men and women as brothers and sisters in the one human family; prejudice and enmity have o place in true religion and can never be justified on religious grounds"
Of course I'm not a Catholic so my stance on a Pope is hardly significant.
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Someone has pointed out that beliefs about the nature of god have changed over the years, so have beliefs about the nature of the universe. Our current beliefs haven't been around very long but I don't see that as a reason to reject them, as time goes on things get refined.
They recently found what appears to be the oldest writing, in Egypt instead of Samaria. This redefines our basic concept of the origin of writing, turned what would be considered heresy for ages into canon. Fun, fun.
Relativity comes around and says that the reason things go towards the ground is different from what we thought it was, which gravity had done before it. That does not mean we reject the idea that there is a reason. We just change our minds on what that reason is.
I think that some say there were about 124,000 prophets, it seems like a disgustingly small number to me, but even so that would allow for a seemingly infinite number of beliefs if one allows for corruption, interpretation, translation, and combination over time. But with a mere 124,000 sources to draw from, all of them open to interpretation, it would be difficult to build any coherent picture of things.
I mean do you think you could understand the whole universe based on 124,000 experiments? It's too much to ask for.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haze:
Of course in the end everyone on earth is atheist in some way, most everyone does not believe in Anubis or Zeus or Thor.
Well in that case everyone on earth is Christian in some way because they agree with some of the Christian doctrines, some just believe in more than others.
All atheists are Christians. Wow! I had no idea, but you're right it does logically follow, it is also why I think that groups, such as athiests, should not be defined by the beliefs they hold in common (which would create one big group that included all people) but rather by a lack of difference of belief.
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No by that logic all atheists are Judaic Zoroastrians as are all Christians, because virtually the entirety of Christian doctrine can be traced back to these two religions. And there doctrines can be traced back father still to earlier religions which can be traced back further until we find the basis of it all. Human morality and human ambition, both of which are functions of the human brain.
To say that to believe morals espoused by Christianity there for makes you Christine is a complete false synergism as these are things not owned by Christianity. To say a man is an atheist because he does not believe in Anubis is fallowing the definition of the word “disbeliever, nonbeliever, unbeliever - someone who refuses to believe (as in a divinity)”
And I totally agree with you about Science getting it wrong. But the thing is when science gets it wrong it changes its beliefs accordingly. Mostly religion does not. That said science can come close to being religion at times, particularly cosmology.
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Who do you suppose is in there?
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
In logic you can never start by assuming your conclusion. (Well actually if you work based entirely on bi-conditionals you can, but no one in this thread has be
I AM NOT MAKING A STRICLY LOGICAL ARGUMENT. I don't know how many times I have to say this. Logic is elegant and highly effective but extremely limited in how much it can describe about the world.
I'm also rather frustrated that people keep insisting I begin with the assumption god does not exist. I strove to show that I began with NO assumptions beyond a trust in my senses and ability to reason, took a look at the world and body of knowledge out there, and drew conclusions from it. I haven't seen an argument for god's existence by anybody here that doesn't assume his existence. On your construction, every person would either begin with the assumption that god exists or god doesn't, with each resulting in that respective conclusion, and then any debate would be ludicrously futile.
Don't get tied down in the logistics of the bear analogy. Let's say it was a rabid raccoon (far more likely than the bear, but I'm still all but absolutely sure it didn't happen). one needs to assume nothing about whether it is or is not in the house, one simply notes: I do not know whether there is a rabid raccoon in my friend's room. I do know I have never seen a rabid raccoon in here, nor have I ever heard of one entering a person's house. We keep the doors shut so it has no means of ingress or egress beyond when we enter or exit, so we would notice it coming in. I conclude BASED ON THIS EVIDENCE that my roommate has not now been attacked. My argument about religion shared a similar approach.
I and others have repeatedly (exhaustingly) conceded that one can't dispositively say that no conscious entity created the universe or LOGICALLY DISPROVE any particular religion. Nor, i should add, do I mean to disparage anybody personally or convert anybody. But since the question was put at issue in the debate I weighed in, and I haven't seen anything posted as yet that really addresses the argument, nor have I seen anyone try to justify religious belief as reasonable given our understanding of the world, which was my only point.
If someone responds to this with “your argument is based on the assumption god doesn't exist” i may lose it. Also, if you're just joining us, please do not respond unless you have read a substantial number of these posts--I realize this thread is wearyingly long at this point but it does no good to rehash points that have already been beaten into the ground.
"If God can do anything, could he microwave a burrito so hot that even he could not eat it?"
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Ok, I can do with some peril.
Look around you, at all of the world, the intricate system of shifting forces, electrons and quarks, predators and prey, all moving in one perfect system better designed than any watch, the cogs so subtle yet important that they must have had a designer, and intelligent one at that.
Oh ... wait a minute, I have to try to convert you to my own faith?
Come back in another twenty years, I'll proselytize you then.
This is what Einstein was working on leading up to his death. His "theory of everything". He believed in absoulte order and symmetry in God's universe and in his pursuit to find it he illiminated the - at the time- "New Science" of Quantumn physics, which went opposite to him in the notion of chaos and disorder.
Ironically as has recently been discovered he would have reached his formula alot sooner had he embraced quantumn physics, which now has made some serious steps towards completing that formula.
Basically the link between science and religion is now much closer as a conseqence of both parties standing contrary to one another.
The
Somnambulist
www.cirqus.com
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The Christian God (which is the same God as that of Judaism and Islam, since they split from the same cult) is a war God.
That's where the three biggest religions come from, an ancient War God Cult. The Cult of YHWH, which became the cult of the God which cannot be named, which became Judaism. Christianity grew directly from that, and Islam more indirectly.
There was just a comment made about the histories of religions, that's the history of those three, in a very small Nutshell.
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
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Actually that particular god told Moses to tell the people that they had to swear (as in take oaths) by his name. Not using it in that manner would be to disobey his word as delivered by Moses and as related and translated into English within the Revised Standard Edition of the Christian Bble in Deuteronomy 6:13.
Personally I serve no god so I don't swear by the name of any god, but the god of Deuteronomy must be named by commandment.
Though I did once ask Jesus for help and get it, and just yesterday I thanked every Holy man I could think of from Abraham to Buddha to various other people to Zachariah.
Still help and thanks are hardly enough to make me swear by a gods name.
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