Cite, please? And be precise.
While I doubt that religious persecution was commonplace for most religions throughout history, I’d suspect that this is mostly an artifact of the 99% rule. Most people were of the religion to begin with. But it was a handy way to dislike other tribes. Whether you want to categorize that as tribal warfare or religious intolerance, though, is pretty difficult to say. I probably wouldn’t say it, but I wouldn’t mark off Clothahump’s version as being particularly hyperbolic either.
Firstly, both those links are to Wikipedia articles. Secondly, neither of them backs up what Clothahump says. There is no country on earth where participation in a specific Christian church is mandatory. For most the Middle Ages in most of Europe, participation in the Catholic Church was not mandatory. Even at the height of its powers, participation in the Church of England was not mandatory. What Clothahump says is out-and-out false and that’s that.
Your cites list various instances of religious intolerance, which nobody here would deny occurs. Even if we were to grant that the Wikipedia articles are 100% accurate, none of that supports Clothahump’s specific claim. Remember, we are discussing the claim that “Throughout history, the vast majority of religious traditions were based on the concept of ‘it is better to believe in God as we preach it, because we’ll kill you otherwise.’”
Obviously, the two are not logically equivalent. It’s one thing to point to situations wherein people of one religion treat others badly, or even atrociously. It’s yet another to say that this proves that this religion is deadset on killing everyone who believes in God differently. And of course, this still falls far, far short of proving that “the vast majority of religious traditions” demand forced conversions upon penalty of death.
So let’s dispense with all this irrelevant, bait-and-switch “evidence.” Can someone please provide thorough citations which prove that “the vast majority of religious traditions” believe that everyone who believes differently must be put to death?
Well, of course. Theologians wouldn’t come up with any other conclusion. Given that their entire subject of study is made up, they are operating from a position of faith ( aka self delusion ) just by taking it more seriously than a discussion about Star Wars.
And I’m not that impressed by anyone’s status as a “great thinker” if they are wasting their time as a theologican.
By what logic are you declaring it more likely? How are you measuring complexity? Why should there be any relationship between complexity and likelihood?
The concept that the entire universe emerged out of nothing as singularity of infinite density, possessing just the right particles and just the right physical laws to support life, flies completely in the face of observed reality. If you insist that God does as well, so what? Why should that make the “stuff just existed” hypothesis more likely?
Further your questions have been answered already. You ask, “who created that being”? Nobody created God. God has no beginning, hence no creator. “Why does he have the power to create stuff?” Any thinking being must have the power to create; it’s practically the definition of thinking.
There is plenty of evidence for the existence of God. For starters, billions of people have had experiences and relationships with Him. You have tried to explain away those relationships, but your explanations are what turned to not be based on real evidence.
In principle I agree with where you’re coming from. Given any particular person we make a decision about how trustworthy they are. Many people do let personal desires and prejudices cloud their judgment and end up believing untrue things as a result. So for each individual who makes claims, we have to evaluate whether they’re the sort of person who’s worth trusting.
With John Newton, I find him trustworthy. His writings have the ring of honest self-evaluation and careful study. He has written a great deal that has been accepted by many people and endured for a long time. In fact, Newton’s writings are probably the single best first-hand description of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and much of what history books say on the subject could be traced back to him.
Moreover, his beliefs do not fit in with your attempts at debunking. Did Newton use his beliefs to justify what he wanted to do? No. By all accounts he was completely unreligious in through young adulthood, until God acted on him. Was it the result of prior prejudice? No, because that experience forced him to realize that what he’d though to be right was actually wrong, and to make a major change in his life.
If you have actual reasons to believe that Newton’s own narrative should not be trusted, I’d be happy to explore them. Right now you’re merely saying that you don’t credit Newton because humanity in general sometimes makes mistakes.
Because the more complex something is, the less likely it is to appear by chance.
The Big Bang perfectly fits observed reality. Which is why it’s the overwhelmingly prevalent theory among cosmologists.
In other words, saying “God did it” isn’t an explanation at all. You just push the question back one step to God, then say he’s always been there. It’s a version of the origin of the universe tailored for people who find arithmetic just too challenging.
And there’s no connection between the ability to think and the ability to create.
NO ONE has ever had any “experiences” or “relationships” with God, any more than they have with fairies. You can’t provide any better “evidence” than people unsupported, contradictory word because you and all your fellow believers are utterly wrong. God is no more real than Sauron or Superman.
Good sincere people can also be wrong on certain aspects of their belief system. Disagreeing with them is not always a matter of trust. I can trust someone to be perfectly honest about what they think, and still think they are incorrect.
Let’s be clear, It’s not just many people. It’s* all* people to varying degrees are influenced by personal prejudice and other influences.
The measurement of complexity, I believe, is that adding God simplifies nothing and makes everying harder - you go from “stuff happened” to “stuff happened, and amazingly enough it was a sentient being with a complex mind and memory and impossible powers besides!”
And I measure it pretty likely that stuff happened. I mean, look at all the stuff all over the place - it got here somehow. I don’t see any gods lying around though.
No no no no no no no. The universe didn’t come into existence possessing just the right particles and just the right physical laws to support life. The universe happened, and (given a hell of a long time), eventually the right kind of life developed to survive in the conditions that had just happened to occur. We see this all the time - life adapts to the environment, not the other way around. Anerobic bactieria anyone?
Arguing that the universe as it is exists is unlikely is a fool’s game - the universe does exist, so whatever long-odds dice roll that took to happen, clearly happened. That’s quite apparent. The existence of some god…that’s not so apparent. In fact, it’s not apparant at all.
No beginning, no creator, no location, and -wait for it- no existence! It goes together masterfully.
And if thinking were creation, I’d never have to go shopping again - I can think of food just fine.
Billions of people have had experiences and relationships with gods that were partially or totally animals in their form. Until you can explain those away, I can handily explain your god away, simply by saying that your supposed experiences with it were caused by the same human tendencies to believe superstitious nonsense that enabled people to believe in their animalistic pantheons.
Can you explain away those human tendencies in a way that cannot also explain away your diety?
i view things simply and i can’t keep up with your arguments. for me it all comes back to how did the universe start, from nothing or something? please tell me something that came from nothing? if you can i would have to reconsider what i believe. i think you can’t, therefore the something at the beginning was God, for what other something, one which had not been itself created, but simply was, could create the universe.
Particles/antiparticles come from nothing all the time, don’t they? In pairs.
And where did god come from again? 'Cause I can’t think of any thing that has existed for infinitely long without having a beginning. Some non-things have of course, like the truth of abstract axioms, but no ‘thing’ that’s enough of a thing to have a mind like God supposedly has, has always existed, that I know of.
Please tell me some thing that has existed for infinitely long without having a beginning. If you can I would have to reconsider what I believe. I thing you can’t, therefore the universe came from nothing.
On re-re-read, I noticed this - you’re also committing the fallacy of excluded middle by leaping to the unjustified conclusion that, if creation ex nihilio was impossible, the Christian God must exist and have done it. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of creation myths throughout history. Unless you are fallaciously assuming your conclusion, there is no justification for picking the Christian creation myth and the Christian God-creator as the one that happened. The actual evidence doesn’t favor it (it favors the big bang theory), and absent evidence, there’s no logical reason whatsoever to select the Christian creation myth over the Norse or Egyptian or any other ones.
as i understand it, the “creation” of particles/antiparticles requires energy, which is something, so they aren’t the answer to my question.
Random fluxuations in the quantum field.
Particles appear “out of nothing” on a quantum level all the time.
There’s also the multiverse theory. Positing a magical super wizard, aside from being ridiculous, also does not solve your problem but only pushes it back a step. If everything has to be “created,” then so does the super wizard.
i do favor the christian “myth”, but that is an opinion only. and the big bang is something, so the quesiton becomes where did that something come from, certainly not nothing…
Why not nothing? Why not a multiverse? Where did your magic fairy come from?
And certainly not “something that has existed infinitely without beginning”. (Unless you have an example of such a thing, in the real world? I’m waiting…)
I can’t think of a third option, so it looks like one of us must be wrong. Me and established scientific conclusions based on observations of the real world vote that it’s you.
energy is something and it’s needed for particles to appear
i see your problem as larger than mine, you seemingly propose that something can come from nothing and that does not seem reasonable. and i’m not positing God was created, as the creator God already existed
Small note: the big bang (as currently theorized) was the beginning of time as well as space. Asking about something occurring or existing “before” the big bang is meaningless. A better question is simply “Why is there something rather than nothing?”