All of those things existed… but I wouldn’t have changed my life based on someone’s guess that bacteria existed. Would you use something called antibacterial soap if nobody showed you any evidence bacteria existed? Few atheists claim that God doesn’t exist; we claim that there is no evidence that He/She/It exists, so we will not alter our lives to fit what someone says this God wants.
I have no problem with people searching for God. It’s the ones who are sure they’ve found him without any evidence thereof (that I can see) whose beliefs I find silly.
I do not equate religion with christianity. I live in Independence, a stones throw from the RLDS Temple, grew up baptist, and live in the USA. Of course my experience is predominately christian ones. My post was one example, and certainly was not the prime motivator in my attitude.
The thing you seem to not be able to grasp is that in my worldview, those that believe in god, gods, or mystical forces, etc, etc, are the ignorant ones, and I am fighting ignorance. If somebody started continuously debated the fact that a ducks quack doesn’t echo, and you were always arguing against it, that other person could claim that you have a narrow minded view of things, and you are just prejudice against them. In my view, the idea of some benign (snicker) and loving (snicker, snicker), christian god, or any god for that matter, is just as ignorant.
Now can I construct confusing and dubious “proofs” showing that God doesn’t exist, some perfect anti-ontological modal “logic” that shows conclusively that there is no such thing? Nope. Don’t really care either. This is my view point, one that has been led up to by my experiences, and my worldview seems perfectly flawless. I certainly am not going to waste away my life trying to prove or disprove something like this on a message board, as arguments at that level seem to be nothing more than semantical agreements that lead to some twisted and unreasonable ends. Usually with neither end having nothing.
The heart of my current hatred of religion is mostly directed at Christianity/Judaism/Islam for the simple fact that they all seem to be against what I firmly believe in. Becoming gods ourself through the use of reason, technology and adaptation. I am a transhumanist. I tire of hearing how we should not implant chips to our neverous system to enhance our memory/cognition because we are playing “god.” And all I hear is “you cannot do what you want, because my mental construct of some ancient belief system tells us not to, and that it is evil.”
Thank you for assuming I am also ignorant, considering your wealth of demonstrated knowledge. That’s like being called dirty by a puddle of mud.
What ever happened to “believe anything you want as long as you don’t try to force your beliefs on me?” Nothing is quite as silly looking as a pious-atheist who resents being “preached to” but at the same time takes it upon himself to preach to others. Your behavior structure is exactly the same as that of Jehova’s Witnesses. I’m surprised you don’t go door to door advertising it.
shrugs That is your perogative.
I’ll step out on a limb and guess: You aren’t one for philosophy, are you?
I’m glad you feel that way. Nothing feels better than being self-assured.
If I may venture to fight some ignorance, that is exactly what you are, in fact, doing, and as stated above, that it is your intent to continue doing.
For someone nobly “fighting ignorance,” you certainly do behave irreguarly. Not being a student of philosophy, I’m sure you do not comprehend the idea of understanding what you oppose, much less the debate skill of being able to argue the opponent’s side.
So, let me get this straight… in interest of fighting ignorance, you enact a private prejudice against billions of people without attempting to understand their position, insisting that they don’t bother you, but stating your blind hatred for them and desire to convince each to convert to your belief structure, which you do not even care to define.
That about right?
You are ignorant of what a god is.
Don’t ask me, I don’t even know how you can sleep with yourself at night, with all the hate in your heart. But to each his own.
You realize that I now win the argument, because you died of the Black Plague, right?
My only point is that it is inaccurate and imprecise to say “God does not exist” in a debate, because that is not provable. Any more that I can prove He does. I try to be very careful on these boards to state “I believe that…” or “my religion teaches that…” because I know quite well that other do not agree with my perception of reality, and I’m careful to take that into account and respect it. I want to be accurate. Inaccuracy, btw, is unscientific. It is unscientific to announce that God does not exist as if it were a fact, because it is not. It is an opinion or belief, and should be labeled as such.
Ahh, but we can accurately say that there is no being which is both all powerful and all benevolent, can’t we. Problem of evil and all that. Shoots a nice clean hole through the Christain version of god at least.
Not really. Nothing in Christian religion says diddly squat about the world being a perfect place of harmony and belief. In fact, it goes to great lengths to point out the opposite, and implies that life is a trial of faith.
Not using power does not mean it does not exist, and it could certainly be said that the Christian god’s benevolence is manifest in the afterlife, as a reward for living a good life and having faith.
I take an alternate view of the above. I’m partially sympathetic to the fundamentalist sheep you mention as I figure they are just wholy brainwashed into believing what they do and it really isn’t their fault, those poor bastards. However for the ones who have put a lot of thought into it, and say they have really weighed the evidence, I think they should have been able to figure out they’ve been duped, seen their own confirmational biases as well as be able to recognize when cognative dissonance is slapping them in the face. I think they should really recognize when they activly start recreating the morality of their religion to match their own and pretending its really the morality originally stated by god. I’m talking about Christains, here I’m not that familiar with other religions.
As for “well founded arguments,” in favor of the Christain god, I’m still waiting to hear one.
This is so hard isn’t it, no, I wasn’t calling you a christian- I was calling you an old testement revisionist. You revise or ignore the old testament. Sorry those words were too big for you.
You look, but you don’t understand, typical. I gave an example, explained myself and you still don’t understand.
Oh, because I showed a lack of interest in Modal logic, I am ignorant? I know just as much or perhaps more about other religions. Take Greek mythology for example. (you do know that my name comes from that right?, pats Zagdka on the head)
??? Are you lost? This is Great debates pal, a thread opened not by myself about respecting religion. It is hardly forcing beliefs on anybody. It isn’t like I am making laws restricting stem cell research or anything…
So me having doubts about ontological proofs and modal logic means I hate philosophy eh? Great leap of logic there.
Yes, like you feeling self-assured there is a god, gods, or some other form of self-assurance, right? Fool yourself so that you can feel better about this big, bad, nasty world?
Well, your wrong. I am not wasting my life doing so, I hardly think a few posts on a message board are going to count towards anything. The point of the matter is that even if I did give up my goals, drop Pharmacy school and learn as much as I could about Philosophy and Modal logic, butted heads with Libertarian, came up with a brilliant counterpoint that tore his “theory” down, and proved inconclusively that god did not exist (or any other diety, wouldn’t want you to think that I feel christianity is the only religion :rolleyes: …), all I would have is a worthless post that only a few people are going to understand, and even if a few more people did understand, they would rationalize it away and say that they still believe. So what does it matter. Showing all the evidence in the world to a person that they are Delusional will not convience the delusional they are in fact, delusional.
Well, since you are obviously so much more informed, and you can tell from a handful of posts in the thread what I know, and what I don’t know, why don’t you educate me.
Not understand their position? You certainly make a few blind assumptions there. You think I have never read anything about any other religion? Do you truely think that I have not spent time thinking about other peoples positions? Do you truely think I have been an Athiest all my life, never once experiencing any sort of religious beliefs, ever? Who is the ignorant one?
I am ignorant of what you think a god is, that is about all.
Ahh, yes, more personality reading from a few posts. Good deducing there sherlock.
a. Not using your power, when you have such power available, to prevent evil means you are not being benevolent. Now, if you take the view that the god of the Bible is not presented as omnibenevolent, you’ve got no logical impasse. But you’ve also got a being of questionable worshipfulness.
b. Nothing is manifest in the afterlife. We can not examine or prove the afterlife. It may become manifest after we turn into worm food, but for everyone now at their keyboards it’s merely speculative.
c. Omnipotence is a logical non-starter as it is. Can god create a rock so heavy he can’t lift it? Can he reach his limitations? Can he overcome a past obstacle at which he has already failed? Yes-no on all counts. There is no need to insert the tri-omni condition in order to find inconsistency.
Either god wants the world to be good and can’t make it so (i.e. gods not all powerful) or he can make it good but doesn’t want to (god’s not all good). Throw in all the arguments you want about freewill bla bla bla and you still aren’t going to come up with a solution for the problem of evil, unless you want to try to say that what we think is evil really isn’t which sure contradicts a whole lot of the bible while at the same time making Hitler just as swell a fellow as Gandhi.
Sounds like you’re admitting that that god’s benevolence is not here now but will be here later. As such he might still be all powerful but he would only be sometimes benevolent, maybe even mostly benevolent but certainly not all benevolent. BTW, according to Christianity, god lays out a lot of wrath after death too does he not?
Don’t sprain something. I’ll try not to point out your atrocious spelling and grammar this time around, as well.
Ooh, cheap shot!
You presumed that I give a flying fark what the old testament says. Kinda quaint.
Go on, exalt us with your god-like knowledge of shamanistic cultures of central Asia.
Neither am I. I don’t see how your much-vaunted “logic” makes you assume I have anything against stem cell research. Doesn’t surprise me, though, since you can’t even follow your own logic.
I was just pointing out the fact that you “don’t care” what can’t be proved by your own logic. I would not be making too great a statement to ask you to prove that science exists at all.
Like much of your post, that was fairly randomly hostile. I congratulate you on your self-assurance, and you respond by snapping your maw like a rabid wolverine. But hey, if that’s your debate style, that’s what it is.
I do hope you appreciate how hard I am trying here to be tolerant of your ignorance.
shrugs You obviously care deeply about it if a few simple comments about your logic make you get all touchy.
That’s right. Heaven forbid you actually spend more than casual study of a subject before expressing your opinions on it, much less presuming to convince anyone else of your beliefs.
Wouldn’t know where I would get that idea. Oh, yea. You. Though you obviously know about “Greek mythology,” so I should assume that you are a theological scholar.
That probably has nothing to do with them, sugar.
Well spoken.
Given five lifetimes, I don’t think I could educate you on a tenth of religious understanding. You said something about the delusional…
As you yourself have stated, once I see proof, I’ll believe it.
You did say that you don’t care.
Did I ever say that?
Um… six?
Excellent, now we’re getting somewhere! Admitting ignorance is the first step in a larger direction. Now all we have to do is get you to somehow extend your newfound concept of not being omniscient to other people, as well.
Define “good.” No, seriously. Greater good? Individual good? Moral good? Legal good? Christian good?
… define “evil?”
Once again, this is an important theological discussion. First you have to define, as I ask above, which benevolence he is working for. Benevolence for god may not be the same as benevolence for you. I dunno, I’m not god, and I don’t claim to understand him. My god isn’t even a thinking entity, so I’m not used to coming up with motivations for the supernatural. I’m quite sure that Zev could answer the questions regarding the thought on god’s intentions. In any case, I never stated that god is always benevolent.
On the other hand, is letting you walk across fiery coals for a really yummy cookie benevolent or not?
Ask a Christian?
If you want to discuss my beliefs, I’m (obviously) your guy. I’m just filling in for the Christians, who seem to be doing more important things right now. I always viewed it not as punishment, but the denial of eternal bliss - two different things.
Common Zag, your so smart, how come you don’t know the definition of evil and good? All that theological scholarship of yours and you can’t figure it out? Oh, I shouldn’t post this, Zag might drag out one of my posts for three pages posting asanine grammatical nitpicks. Or as me to define something. Scary.
Actually my credentials are not in this thread because it is not what this thread is about. Your hijack already led to this, and your need to show off to us is bordering on insulting. This isn’t the pit btw.
(yes, this means I crossed that blurry line too, and I appologize)
Of course I can. I was wondering if he could define his use of the terms.
Speaking of nitpicks…
I don’t think that my “asanine” grammatical nitpicks were the only thing in that post. Then again, I wasn’t the one who claimed to be fighting a crusade against ignorance, either.
You seem to be keen on the concept of defining people based on their beliefs. shrugs Too bad you can’t take it like you can give it.
