Atheism is practically a core value of the internet: atheism, progress, transhumanism, Mario, the Federation of Planets, all riding in the same boat, going nowhere.
I hate the way that progress goes nowhere. If you want get anywhere, you have to stand still.
You should probably sit down. It’s not a very big boat.
I’ve noticed that in internet forum debates w/ atheists vs religious people (99% of the time christians), that the atheists are often arguing against the existence of a God that doesn’t at all represent my position (I am not a Christian), or the position of most moderate Christians I know. I grew up in a family of African Methodist Episcopalians.
I think this is somewhat the fault of Christianity which tries to over-explain for things that humans simply do not know about God and the afterlife. Christianity can never say, “We don’t know exactly”, because it has to be RIGHT about everything.
I consider God unknowable for all but a TINY percentage of humans throughout history, the same way ants cannot fathom humans, but both exist. The fact that religions do not all agree with each other seems to be a favorite type of atheist ammunition, but I disagree that this points towards the non-existence of a God…human beings are flawed, and argue history and facts all of the time, it does not mean that there is no ultimate truth. Using the argument that God does not exist because religions all contradict each other is like denying that there is a Sea of Japan because Korea calls it something else.
I’m quite willing to believe that my beliefs about God could be wrong, and I am going to be happy when I die to find out the truth about the universe, and what I had figured right and what I figured wrong. Until I am dead and will KNOW either way, then the only choice I have as someone who believes in God, is to find what I believe here on the physical Earth and hope that I’m mostly right.
I’d be happy to argue against your specific god if you could tell me what I’m dealing with. Like, did he create the universe? Does he intervene in it? Did he used to? Is he benevolent? To everyone, or just some specific group? Is the bible accurate? Inspired? Vaguely accurate at all if you look at it with one eye squinted under an ultraviolet lamp? Does God answer prayers? Is any church even vaguely right?
Absent details like that, it’s tough to discuss at all. The god of the literalists and fundamentalists is at least a somewhat-vaguely-defined quantity.
It’s not an argument for the non-existence of the kind of poorly-defined mumbling God you’re talking about, it’s an argument against the existence of the Christian God.
More likely, you’ll die, and turn off. Your consciousness will end and you’ll never know one way or the other. Which is actually good for you, you can live in fantasy and will never have to deal with the disappointment of learning you never faced reality.
I’m a baha’i. To answer your specific questions as best I know the answers:
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- I would have to have you define benevolent first, but most likely yes.
- To everyone. I can see where you are going with this, and the question of evil and inequality is definitely the hardest thing to understand about God to me. I think that humanity is going through it’s adolescence right now, and that if we all worked together with modern communication and technology instead of building weapons, we could live in a place that is almost Eutopian. TODAY. But we don’t, because we are still selfish and primitive.
- Is the Bible accurate… down to a word, no, but Jesus’ message held great value for the people of his time and in his place. There is a lot of value within the Bible but passages that are wrong, or don’t make sense don’t bother me whatsoever. I have read books by Elaine Pagels and also this excellent book to know that it is just silly to take the modern Bible as pure, 100% accurate and divinely inspired. It’s formation itself was a political decision by decree of the emperor of Roma to hold the Council of Nicea.
- Inspired, parts of it. But the inspiration was aimed at a certain people to do a certain purpose, there are progressive revelations throughout human history that aim Humanity where it should go.
- Ignoring this one…
- Does God answer prayers, in the literal sense that children do not get every toy when they ask for their parent in the sky, obviously no. But I do believe prayers have powers, and I have witnessed what I percieve to be miracles that were not brought on by prayer, so I definitely think at least some of them are answered. It is a hard question, but we don’t believe that the purpose of prayer is to “get something”. Even when I was a Christian, that was not the point of prayer (Atheists do not seem to digest this well in my experience).
I will remark on a story an atheist friend once told me. He was jumped by a group who came out of an alleyway he was walking past. At the time, he was a Christian and had a picture of Jesus in his wallet. When the teenage boys took his wallet out to take his money, they said “Jesus…” (imagine a spanish accent here) and gave him the wallet and walked away. He considers it evidence AGAINST Jesus that the boys would act like brutes but be stopped as soon as they were reminded of him. I silently thought to myself, that he should look at it the other way: That God was watching over him. I am not arguing that this was a supernatural experience, but IMO some people’s brains are just wired the way they are wired, and no experience either way will ever convince them otherwise.
It reminds me of the story of the guy in the flood on the roof of his house. A boat comes by, and the guy says “No, God will save me”, and the boat goes away. Then a helicopter comes to rescue him, and he says “No, God will save me”. When the man drowns, he asks God why he didn’t save him, and God says “I sent a boat, a helicopter…”
- Vaguely by there being a God, and they recognize some of God’s former manifestations, yes, even more than vaguely right!
Who is inviting the Minister to speak again? Who owns the program?
I have attending many funerals, and each one had an invite list, and a program of speakers. Somebody, usually the family member closest, sets up the entire setting. Later there was sometimes an open microphone moment where others could speak.
Again, if there is an issue going on, it behooves the organizers to let the speakers know. At my wedding we instructed the Minister to NOT ask if anyone objects, and to NOT have any part of the ceremony include my family. Easily done, easily managed, and easily controlled.
Well, I don’t know nothin’ about baha’i, so I must restrict myself to addressing the answers given:
If you saw where I was going, then you’re probably aware that the POE disproves your god. God having created humanity in an immature and primitive state is no excuse or counterargument: he’s still thoroughly disproven.
There’s another thread running right now where we’re engaged in violate debate over the POE, if you’re interested.
You’re immune to the easiest and most blatant biblical arguments, then, though one might ask whether the fact that nobody can agree as to where the revelations are pointing is a challenge to the claim that they are divinely inspired and point towards any one direction at all.
You’ll excuse me if I don’t put too much time in addressing the anecdote or the joke, aside from to point out that to claim that that photo had any divine effect at all would be to explicity deny that the mugger had free will. As for the rest, it’s rather extremely unclear whether you think that prayer can cause miracles or not. But assuming you think it can - why does a benevolent god wait for the prayer before intervening? What’s his motive? All the ones I can think of are at best manipulative and usually selfish, to use lies to incentivize otherwise-pointless prayer and/or to reap accolades for Himself.
Most religions explicity contradict regarding which manefestations they believe in; if you can claim the religions are correct at all, then the god is changing masks and messages to a dramatic degree, such as could only be executed by a manipulative or trickster god. I doubt that’s what you meant, though: you probably are falling into the “big tent/small tent” trap of religion. Succinctly, if you think all theists are right then God is twitting with humanity and deliberately turning it against itself; if you think that most theists are wrong you admit that mistaken belief in gods is a common disease of epidemic proportions that it stands to reason you might share too. There’s really no good way out of that one except atheism, really.
But regardless of all that, the POE finishes your god all on its own, so that’s pretty much that. QED.
For what it’s worth, this comment triggered a whole train of thought in my mind about what it really means to “face reality,” and generated several possible replies, including:
In that case, it would mean there is no reality to face.
or
Theists face the same reality as atheists; they just face some extra reality as well.
or
Every one of us has experienced or thought about—and therefore faced—only a mere fraction of reality.
or
Nobody in this world has faced reality. We only perceive it filtered through our own consciousness, not face to face.
I’m reminded of the story of the young girl who was kidnapped, raped repeatedly, tortured, and murdered. Why wasn’t God watching over her?
I would say that facing reality involves living a life based on rationality and evidence. Since there is no evidence for God, why believe in Him, aside from wishful thinking?
He sent her a boat.
Oh man. Sometimes black humor is the funniest stuff. That gave me quite a laugh. It was almost Hellerian. Helleristic? Hellerish?
I like this post of yours, Thudlow Boink. It’s good meat to work with.
Well, there’s certainly something real, per Descartes.
God will limit/destroy atheists just for not believing?
There’s ample evidence that you can’t expand your reality in any objectively real (heh) manner just by thinking or facing differently.
Note that if you’re making it up as you dream it, that’s not the same as there being a large undiscovere fraction of it already existing out there.
The fact that our experience of objective reality is filtered through our senses is a given.
I find it interesting that so many here cannot affirm their position without taking pokes at those who disagree.
When I see this phenomenon I tend to dismiss the arguments of those who cannot resist the snide remark, the insult, the air of superiority.
If you cannot discuss your belief or non-belief on its own merits, maybe your (personal) position is not as sturdy as you pretend it to be.
mmm
Or maybe it is. You get back to us when you have something more substantial to hang your hat on than “maybe”.
If you evaluate an argument based on its tone rather than its merits, maybe you’re not qualified to engage in rational debate.
Mote. Beam.
I can see already that some of you misunderstood my point. I should have worded it more clearly.
Allow me to try again:
Al believes A is true. Larry believes B is true.
Al says A is true because this and this and this.
Larry says B is true because this and this and this, and also (insults Al).
I, the observer, still weigh each argument based on its merits. But I also question whether Larry is truly confident in his own position, because if he were, why the desire to give Al a verbal wedgie? Such behavior seems a bit immature and transparent to me.
That’s all.
mmm