So do you believe in God?

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I disagree. If you prove the existence of God, then all religions end. Religions are based on faith, and you can't have faith in God if you are absolutely sure he is there. You can believe in him, much as I believe in the Red Sox to win a World Series again. But you can't have faith when there is proof.

So atheists wouldn't have to believe because religions would cease to exist.

 

Indeed, should some god prove it's existence, then it all would become more like a servant-master thing than faith.

 

@ Rallymama:

Because, as you and Chev mentioned, they are generally related. It is very hard to imagine some form of later existance if you have nothing immortal to carry on with and no specific way to go.

Religions tend to teach the existance of both god and an after-life in the same breath: if you follow this god, then you go to this after-life. There would probably be a fair drop in worshippers if there was no later reward for living a good life. After all, is there is no reward or punishment, then why would people not live to get the most pleasure out of life?

 

I have moved from openminded agnostic to strong athiest who reject the notion of any kind of supreme being. The possible existence of somekind of supreme being may not be on level with purple ninja monkeys at Alpha Centauri but the Biblical/Islamic/Hinduistic god/gods are.

It is nothing but comfort for weak individuals who cannot cope with reality. Kinda like imaginary friends for lonely children or various addictive substances for adult addicts.

 

Then what's with the Bible, the so called Red Sea scrolls, pieces of the true cross, citing historical references as proof that Jesus walked the earth? Etc. etc.

Many religions try to _prove_ their god exists. Also when speaking of gods to a person who is religious you would ask them "Does your god exist?" and they would say "Yes." therefore they are convinced that the god is real. They have had their proof either through conditioning as a child or some major event in their life they foolishly viewed as some form of sign or divine intervention.

Still I can't help but look at it this way. If you prove a god exists... he doesn't. And if you don't prove a god exists... he does? See it's conversations like this that convince me that most religious people are becoming more and more deluded as they make up more and more whacky excuses to justify their demented belief in some spiritual overlord.

 

Oaz:

Stardust and Abomination are completely right there. If someone where to come to me and say here is the reasons they believe a divine being exists and sets down some testable criteria then I would be more inclined. I have never been one to believe anything blindly. Currently, according to most people I have spoken to, there is no way to disprove the existance of a divine being. This makes it completely redundent, IMO, and not worth given a second thought to (if it didn't play such a big part in the world, that is).

Stating that there is no god is not taking a big leap in assumptions, IMO. I'm going to paraphrase the way Douglas Adams here, as I loved the way he explained the point - better than I ever could.

Nakia:

You are both right and wrong there, IMO. You are absolutely right when you say just because no evidence exists does not mean something does not exist. But in the case of a new speices, a new theory, etc - it goes back to what I said before - all these can be disproved. If someone came to be and claimed to have found a giant five legged species of duck, living on a tiny island in the northern pacific, I could search all the islands there to disprove (or support, if they turn out to be right) the persons claim.

Yet on the other hand, if someone came to me and said that they'd found a five legged speices of duck, but told me that if I tried to search for it it would certainly hide from me and be impossible to find, then there is no way of me to disprove this claim so it does not has little grounds.

When it comes to the matter of science (such as speicies, the creation of the universe, the origins of life, what happens after we die, and so on), science is as absolute as we have got. No scientist worth their money would ever claim to know everything. But then nor would a scientist claim that a theory that they had written was impossible to disprove.

 

The thing is that I don't believe you can really test for the existence of God like you can test for the existence of dinosaurs or evolution, especially when you are discussing an omnipotent entity.

For example, perhaps -- as someone somewhere must have put forth -- we are not seeing evidence of God because he is hiding that evidence from us. (For whatever reason: he's cruel, he wants to test our faith, etc.) Just because you cannot use God to explain something scientifcally, doesn't mean he doesn't exist. God is, I think, not a theory that you can discard or accept like evolution, because I am inclined to think that God works outside reason.

Getting to this working-outside-reason, yes, I believe in faith. I think that faith goes off where reason stops, and this is why scientists -- logical reasonable types -- often are atheists/agnostics. I don't believe faith can be communicated intelligibly (perhaps it's a fault of language). I think that "blind faith" is a loaded term; faith, in a sense, is blind, because it transcends what you can sense and reason out.

Faith can be terrifying, since you can use it to justify violence and other bad things, but I think the same goes for any idea or emotion: anarchy, vengeance, communism, atheism, and yes, even love and compassion. Faith sometimes scares me, but on the whole atheism and nihilism (I don't think most of you are nihilsts, however), scare me more, because I have found that atheists and nihilists (?) make hard and fast ideas* that seem to forego compassion and understanding.

I believe in compassion and faith, and I also believe in sense and reason. I think we have to balance the two -- recognize the role of compassion and faith in our lives, but also to utilize sense and reason to make sure we don't end up like Robespierres or Grand Inquisitors or Lenins.

* -- an idea like "we would all be better off if we destroyed every church in the country."

 

Pretty close, however I think we would be better off if they never existed. This doesn't mean I think we would be better off if we destroyed them.

As for saying you can't test the existence of gods then how does this faith come about? Through human actions. Humans telling other humans what to believe. The Bible was written by people. People preach in temples. Get em young and brainwash people into thinking something exists up there but you just can't see it or touch it or smell it or hear it, it probably will have nothing to do with you, if you go looking for it then it'll hide from you and if you try and prove it then it won't help you - but it's there, trust me, I KNOW it's there, my local priest told me... as his priest told him etc. etc.

As for athiests foregoing compassion and understanding I'd dare say that athiests and agnostics are the only 'true' compassionate people on the planet. They have no motive for being nice to people bar the fact that it's just the damn right thing to do. They're not going to be rewarded with endless paradise for being kind to others or be punished for not being kind. They do it because it's the right thing to do.

 

@ DS
Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. If you actually read what I posted then you would see I didn't say

What I said is you get forgiveness but you still must pay the consequences. What those consequences are depend on what you have done. Jesus stated in the Bible that we are still subject to the laws of man. (referring to society, government, etc.... not male or female)

@ Abomination
I don't believe anyone is just kind because they think they will be rewarded if they are or punished if they are not. People care just because they do but those who don't and try to fake will show their true colors eventually. I don't think those people hide it all that well anyway. Again I say this what I think of people and their intensions.

 

Abomination, I think you have a less than nuanced grasp of theists, atheists, and agnostics. I believe faith comes about through subjective human experience, but it is tempered with theories and ideas and reason. I do not think Christians (for example) are unfit to be leaders because they are all less compassionate than atheists, nor do I think it the other way around. People are not (typically) driven by solely an idea or -ism -- and so you do have cruel atheists (Mao? Stalin?) and cruel Christians (some crusaders, let's say).

 

Indeed but you said that athiests tend to forego compassion and I was just pointing out that a religious person's compassion can be fure purely selfish reasons and based on fear and not on actually wanting to help the other person.

My opinions based on my agnostic/athiest view come from the fact that I WAS a Christian but after 9/11 I realised that so many people must be wrong because what is happening is not right. How could any god that claims to be compassionate and just allow people to continue to kill each other when all he has to do is step in somehow and say "Hey, I'm real. I understand you've been misled in the past but these are the facts. Now can you please stop killing each other? Thank you." Whatever path he wants people to follow simply isn't happening because whoever he is, he's one lazy god. 2000 years have passed, if there was fact it's been mixed with myth, legend and simple lies. If this god is compassionate he would realise that it's time to tell everybody what the true way is because there are so many people who believe their way is the right way and everybody else is wrong.

If god is real he isn't worth worshipping and if he isn't then there isn't anything to worship.

 

This is exactly what makes religion of any kind unreasonable and not suited for me. To me, believing in something outside of reason is (I hesitate to use the word, but none other jump to mind) foolish. What's the reason to do so? I guess many people view it from the opposite side though, and may find it comforting to 'know' that there is some greater entity out there that is outside the realms of reason and logic.

I see so many arguments against the belief of any divine being that I honestly cannot fathom any reason to believe in such. No, prehaps that's not the best way of saying it. I cannot fathom a reason for believing in such unless it is ignorance or willingness to ignore the arguments against it out of the need for comfort or what ever (which there is nothing bad with at all, as long as one keeps an open mind).

Just shooting out a few arguments that we disucssed in a philosophy tutorial the other week.
-> First and most obvious, god created the universe but who created god?
-> Being defined as omnipotent and omniscient, a god should know everything that will happen in the future, including all of it's own actions. Yet following the lines of omnipotent, god should be able to act in a manner different than he predicted. So an omnipotent and omniscient god cannot exist.
-> Is it possible to god to bring into existance a rock which he cannot throw?
-> Then there are the obvious scientific ones, such as the ability to disprove a great global floor, and the idea that the world is only [6000] years old (or what ever the number may be).

The thing I find most facinating about religions is their ability to convince so many people to believe in something with no proof or evidence. With roughly 85% of the worlds population claiming to be religous, it is certainly a force to be thought about.

That is a curious statement. Atleast from where I'm looking. It seems similar to me saying that I have found that Christians like to rage wars such as the crusades, and I have found Musliums all support terrorists.

As an atheist, I dislike anyone making hard and fast ideas. IMO, doing so is unreasonable and in itself goes against the reasons for not been religous. I have known two people who think that the country would be better off with all churches destroied. One was an 'extreme atheist' - he use to love arguing with anyone about religion, but I always found his arguments just as illogical as those put foward by the opposing side. The other person was religous. And this is from a country where (from memory) over half the population claimed in the 2001 census to not be religous.

 

You needn't take this as a general statement, but this has been the case in my experience. Again, I'm not saying atheists are bad, or that theists are good, but that ideas (like "let's get rid of all churches/scientists/Jehovah's Witnesses/Jews") can forego compassion.

To elaborate: I do not think an atheist president will become the next Hitler or Mao. What I am afraid of is a belief that works solely as a reaction to Christianity. What I am afraid of is an ability for the religious and the atheists to communicate out of intolerance, fear, and hate. Pat Robertson telling me that all atheists will burn in hell disturbs me as much as a scientist telling me that churches should be converted into factories.

And for what it's worth -- I don't think compassion out of fear is compassion at all. Regarding this, I don't know any Christians around me who are nice out of fear. I genuinely believe they are genuinely nice people (and would be even if they stopped believing in God).

Rotku:

I do happen to agree with you -- faith isn't something I feel I can communicate via bulletin board. It's not even something I feel I can proselytize or preach. I do like to discuss it with other people who are willing to consider the idea of faith, but I want to do it on a personal level, not online.

An interesting point. I think if I went back in time to the Crusades or went to the Middle East and saw murder/terrorism/bombings justified in the name of Islam, I would be more disturbed by the idea of religion. However, I also believe in the goodness of religion, because religious people (in general) I have met are (I think) good people.

Are atheists and agnostics good? They can be, as much as religious people. Some days I feel more like an atheist than a theist, and some days I feel more like a theist than an atheist. But mainly, it's just the irreligious idea of progress -- that you should make things better by abolishing religion and faith and (yes) superstition in one giant sweep - -that bothers me.

[ September 07, 2006, 07:43: Message edited by: Oaz ]

 

Is that a commonly held idea? Like I said in my last post, personally I only know of one person who holds such an extreme view. I think religion has many benefits. It brings hope to millions. It's a way of teaching good ethics and morals. There are many things that religion does in this world that are good.

If all the big world leaders, whether it be Bush or the Pope, were to get together tomorrow and decide that religion is wrong and everyone should swear some oath about forsaking all belief of divine entities and become an atheist, I believe it would have terrible bad effects on the world in its current state and would be strongly against it.

Where religion can get bad though, is when it teaches not to question. That is my main gripe about religion. But then I would say the same for atheism. If a person claims that this IS correct and refuses to ever question their beliefs then we have a problem. [Edit]I also don't like people teaching children one religion. It should be up to them to look into these things after they have developed a proper base of knowledge (but that's another topic for another day, I think ).[/Edit] As long as people are constantly asking themselves 'why?' then I have no problems with religion at all, even if I would never follow any myself (how's that for a contradiction?) and honestly believe that religion is a dying trend.

[Edit]

Agreed completely here. But I would extend it to people (in general) are good.


Wiley One:

You'd be surprised. I've known a few people who, upon hearing someone is an atheist, have remarked something along the lines of "why are you such a kind person then?" or "what makes you strive to be good then?". Believe it or not, it's true

 

First of all, I'd like to thank Rotku for the Adams quote. I'm inclined to think along the same lines, and since Oaz - who accused strong atheism of being illogical and unscientific - didn't in any way answer directly back to this issue, I think we might safely say that we have established strong atheism as a logical albeit not compulsory view.

Which brings me to some dissatisfying remarks of Oaz concerning atheists.

* You classify ideas not only as being bad or good but rather as being inherently atheistical or theistical respectively. There is, however, just one idea that merits being called atheistical: the lack of god-belief. Which isn't even really an idea but more the absence of an idea. Now, e.g. burning churches may be classified as having a positive or a negative impact on society, but it hardly is possible to state that this is an atheistical idea - ask your common crusader about razing mosques and you'll understand my point.

* This leads to the false dichotomy of there being good and bad atheists as well as good and bad theists. I think Stalin/Mao and the crusaders were your examples. This is clearly misguiding, since (letting aside political issues and painting a somewhat simple picture - but hey, it was your example, not mine) the crusaders behaved ill-mannered and rude (yay!) because of their beliefs concerning the god/no-god question. I think you will be hard pressed to say the same about Stalin or Mao.

In other words: whereas the belief was a defining factor for a crusader, the absence of belief is no more defining than, say, the color of hair or the size of shoe for Stalin. Atheism is an attribute (and a minor one, if it comes to that) and not a philosophy or ideology. I understand, however, that the painting of atheism as a dogmatic ideology usually serves the purposes of people with religion, because it soothes them ("see, the others are irrational as well!") and gives them a feeling of superiority ("irrational, yes, but at least we're not empty inside, we have hope, have love, etc.").

Finally, I'd like to say that I personally share Russell's view concerning the goodness of religion: it simply is not there at all. I hold this view for the following reason. Please let's have a look at the good/bad issue at first. Speaking of good and bad is rather clouding than clearing up the issue, because some deed may be considered bad in a given society and good in another one. Another deed may be bad in general circumstances (murder) but may be considered good in others (murder of Hitler). Referring your set of good/bad standards to an absolute and higher power is just dodging the issue – which you can easily see when considering the fact that there are many high powers in this world, each coming with slightly (or even vastly) differing moral standards.

Usually it serves us better to speak of minimizing or maximizing negative consequences for society (and I have to thank Cliff Walker and his “Positive Atheism” magazine at this point for the inspiration http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9993.htm), i.e. out of all possible choices we should choose the action that minimizes the overall negative consequences and avoid those that don’t. Now, central to religion is a set of morals and an associated theme of guilt and shame. There’s talk of salvation also, granted, but the predominant idea is that we’re all sinners. I can’t help the feeling that guilt is the most basic and intimate problem that prevents most people from leading happy and content lives – be it guilt directed towards one’s parents, towards your other relations or towards an idea. Religion does not help in minimizing the negative effects of guilt, but rather strives for the maximum impact and pain. Guilt is the basic tool of religion and has the potential to crush the most happy of lives.

A side note: when talking about religion, I refer to the generally acknowledged official religions like Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, whatever. Some Spinozian, pantheistic “weltgeist” one has created in his own mind may be rather helpful in one’s life – but it is in most cases not detailed enough to be debated in depth with others, isn’t it.

Another side note: please do not confuse the good some people have done whilst claiming to do so in the name of religion with what the specific religion really teaches at its core. Mother Theresa may or may not have been a shining example of goodness in this world, it is in any case improper to claim that the teachings of the church will lead eventually to a person like her. A Christian rightly refuses to be reduced to an inquisitor or crusader (as Gnarfflinger doesn’t tire to point out), so what right do we have to reduce him to Mother Theresa?

 

Only skimmed the rest of this thread - but in reply to what Oaz said aimed at me and Rotku above:

There are two phrases which I've run into which I think sum up why I hold my position perfectly;

'Something proposed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.'

'Absence of evidence is evidence for absence.'

So not only do I not need any evidence in order to dismiss these rather outrageous claims, but I also have some for the very same reason that I can dismiss them.

And for those who claim that there is evidence:

'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.'

Claiming that your prayer works one in five times is not extraordinary evidence, and your claim is very very extraordinary.

Unless you are truely open to the idea of their being purple ninja monkeys on the dark side of the moon if I say that there could be, I don't think that your position is that strong. And if you are open to that possibility ... well ... maybe you should go see a psychiatrist or something.

So my point is: you don't need proof of something to say that it does not exist, you just need to have no reason to believe that it does (though if we're talking about the Christian god - there is so much evidence for that one not existing it's ridiculous. It's just one great big contradictory mess).

Personally I think that this video does a good job at summing up some things - and is brilliant besides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzHlMs2rSIM&mode=related&search (contains lots of swearing, mind you...)

 

Mother Theresa is an example of what we, as Christians ought to be. Most of us don't do that well. So Like I ask that you not drag us down by lumping us with Torquemada, it is not right for us to take credit by being lumped in with Mother Theresa. I hope this makes sense...

Suppose I use a rope and strangle a neighbour who annoys me. Of course there will be no witnesses to this. Assume that I have ways to dispose of the body that will result in it's complete destruction, as well as the complete destruction of the rope I used to commit the murder. Does this mean that no murder has taken place? By your logic, no. BUt in this example, the crime DID exist.

Abscence of obvious, incontrovertable evidence does not disprove the existence of God. Further, such evidence may be subjective. By this, I mean information I am privy to that others may not be. I have personal experiences in my life which support what is taught in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. While you don't likely have that evidence, you have my witness of that evidence. I propose that as evidence. It doesn't tell the full story, but it does indicate that there is indeed a story to tell.

If you have proof of something, then it must exist.

But that proves nothing either. Just because you have no reason to believe that God does not exist does not mean he does not.

Are you suggesting that the evidence against God is a big contradictory mess?

As for the stories of the Christian God, there are such discrepencies in translations of the Bible that there may be some contradictions between the variations of the Bible. I've seen a couple passages where the differences in translation makes a huge difference.

 

However there will be records of this person no longer turning up to work, friends will have realised that the person was missing and so forth. Fact of the matter is there are records of this persons birth but not of their death so it will be considered a missing person for awhile or maybe some evidence could lead to foul play. We can not be 100% sure if the person was murdered but we can be 100% sure that a person lived there and now for reasons so far unknown they are not there. It's speculation but there would be reasonable grounds to ASSUME a murder.

Proof that can be verified. There is no way in our current legal system that a person could be convicted on testimony alone. There needs to be physical evidence of a crime taking place.

Just because you have no way of proving there aren't ninja monkeys on the dark side of the moon doesn't mean they aren't there. Aikanaro put it best

and claiming there's this all-powerful, all-seeing, all-everything type being that doesn't do 'anything' physical is the most extraordinary claim imaginable.

As for the contradictionary evidence against the Christan god, just read and compare the old testament to the new. God takes a complete 180 from this vengeful, smite the heathens with rains of fire and plagues of frogs and whatever to this whole love thy neighbor even if they don't believe in the god we worship, a crime we would have killed them, their family and even their dog for a few years back. Apparently he's all powerful and all seeing yet he admits he stuffed up, that's why he sent Jesus to fix things (apparently). The contradictions within the Bible are more than those and they're so easy to find.

And as for supporting what is written in the bible and in the book of mormon if I remember correctly part of the foundation of the book of mormon was some gold tablets found in a tree but were later destroyed to test the faithful or something. It's pretty much saying "The fact that there is no poof of this happening IS the proof of this happening." We go by ONE man's claim that he found then subsequently lost/destroyed an item that would prove God's hand in something.

 

Most? How many Christians are out there? And how many Mother Theresas have you got? Maybe there's a communication problem? The church wants all of you to become like Mother Theresa and somehow the Chrisitans don't get it? No, Gnarfflinger. The church doesn't need and doesn't want you to become Mother Theresas, not on this scale anyway.

I wonder, are you setting up this faulty example deliberately or was it a mistake? Of course there is evidence. You had a walking, living, breathing, interacting human being before the crime - and none after the crime. This is clearly a perceivable change in the condition of the world. Someone disappeared, something must have happened. It is not easy to jump from there to "he strangled him with a rope", but that's not the point. The point is: there's evidence, plain for everyone to see (and not just on a personal, heresay basis).

To anticipate your next clever move: what if your victim did have virtually no interaction with others, what if he lived totally remote? What if noone knew of his existence? Do we still have evidence? Of course not! Does this in any way strengthen your position? Again: of course not!

If I came to you, claiming that in America, each and every day, hundreds of people were disappearing without a trace - wouldn't you ask why you don't seem to hear anything about it in the news? And if I proceeded with telling you that we can't know about them people disappering because they are living remotely and, well in a way invisibly - wouldn't you take a few steps back and say "Wow, my dear friend, you are one mentelly retarded bastard for sure!"?

See?

But tell me: do you really think that there's no evidence concerning god? You keep talking about personal experience. Other theists take the existence of love or compassion as evidence for a benign higher being. This comes with a variety of problems.

First of all, declaring love and compassion as exclusive for theists is wrong and maybe a lie. Yes, someone who claims that I don't love my wife and my daughter is flat out lying. But many bad things happened to atheists because it was the commonly held view that a godless human is heartless as well and therefore a threat for the community.

The other point is that you universalize your personal experience. That cannot be right, can it? I don't want to take your experience from you, live your life, believe in god, do what you think your moral code dictates you. But why should you declare that your moral standards that are based on your personal experience that no one else ever had nor ever can have should be universally accaptable for all of humankind? Does this really make sense to you?

I don't share your experience, why should I share your beliefs?

 

Thank you Abomination and Darkthrone