Atheists.
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- digdre0
god is something the average dude invented for when things aren't going as planned.
- Renegade0
Who's religion and God is best?
- morilla0
I was wondering, If this little story happened in the presetn ( this would be a Disney production, starring Ice Cube, Tim Allen & Ellen Degeneres) What would the 3 wise men bring the little whippersnapper?
- moth0
I would ask anyone who believes in god to read this thread again and replace the word "God" with "Batman", "Superman", "The tooth Fairy", or some other deity you know to be fictitious and then you'll see how stupid the idea sounds to the rest of us.
It's like standing in front of us all, claiming to have two heads, and then expecting us to entertain the idea.
No. Fuck off with it.
I'm sure there's a few thousand incarcerated schizophrenics who would love you as their parole officers.
- pango0
um.... what's different between atheists and none-religious?
- gramme0
moth, the breakdown in your ridiculous comparison is that God has nothing in common with any of those comic book characters. You can't place comic books and children's stories on the same plane with Scripture, because one can easily be proven to have been produced by man, the other cannot. Sure people offer reasons and excuses for why Scripture could not be God-ordained, but those reasons are philosophical and certainly not conclusive.
If God claims to be the original creator, and neither you nor anyone else can disprove that fact, then why must it be so insane to believe in him? Why is it impossible for Scripture to be God-inspired rather than man-inspired? Is it the fact that we cannot now physically see him? Is that your hangup? There are a hell of a lot of things we all believe in but cannot see—ideas and abstract concepts, like the fact that murder is wrong. Why exactly is it wrong? Who wrote that moral code on your mind? Did you write it? Your parents? The tooth fairy? Where does your conscience come from? Why don't other animals seem to possess consciences? Does it have something to do with our higher evolved state? Where is the scientific proof for this conscience gene?
If I stood in front of you claiming to have two heads when I clearly have one, then yes it would be ludicrous for you to entertain the idea. However, such is not the case with belief in God. You cannot prove his non-existence. Nevermind the typical response that the onus of proof is on me. The point here is that you can scientifically prove that I do not have two heads. You cannot scientifically prove the non-existence of the metaphysical. Because science is a man-made system of gathering knowledge, it is inherently limited to this physical plane. It is also inherently flawed and finite because it was conceived by flawed creatures. The notion of divinity is only insane when you assume that science is the best there is. You cannot claim to understand something you lack. PERIOD.
Do you really, truly believe that a person like myself is insane, or even deluded? Do I not seem rational, clear-headed and self-controlled to you? Granted, I am far from perfect and could well read you my laundry list of shortcomings; but a madman I am certainly not.
- what makes you think other animals have no conscience? my dog seems to have more than most people i work withgentleman
- animals do right or wrong only insofar as it is beneficial to their safety and comfort.gramme
- Us silly humans actually do selfless things from time to time. We also have the capacity for abstract reasoning.gramme
- so your deepest defense of god is but you can't disprove it! no but we can whittle down the probability of it.spifflink
- and that is a weak blanket statement about animals. there is gradients of reasoning and conscience within animalsspifflink
- there are*spifflink
- mikotondria30
Indeed not sir, we all find the majority of your insights, knowledge and wit to be first class on the vast majority of topics that roll past us all on here.
But then these seems to take a back seat with statements such as "You cannot prove his non-existence. Nevermind the typical response that the onus of proof is on me."
No - er, UNmind that the onus of proof IS on you.
You are claiming that something IS true. We are claiming that it is not. We are not countering your claim with another solid claim, that x does not equal y, but equals p, we are saying categorically that your claim of x=y is not demonstrably true, that is stands alone as an unproven entity, with no ties to the rest of logic.
In this case, we the above find that with all the love and respect in the word that you are marginally sweetly deluded about this particular aspect of your thinking.
We are all deluded to one degree or another about many things, and to some extent our internal lives and that which we share with others are a carefully orchestrated dance of illusions and delusions; people spend a lifetime convincing themselves that the grand and the tiny fictions they live with are true enough to live out because the counterpart to them is unbearable. That the universe is a hugely incomprehensible infinitely complex place of which we are but a tiny yet wonderful brief and mysterious event, or that our parents arent the people we need them to be, that we are not half as smart nor have half as many answers as we think we do, or need, or that people really take as much notice of rambling responses like these some 150 posts into a topic.
I too am slightly deluded in this respect, and as a fellow delusionist we share far more in who we are and how we live our lives, despite my techical atheism, than we might suppose. Here's to the sweet, brief fantasy that flashes past us all every day, lets get together once a year and stick a tree in the corner of the room and eat too much and just relax and love each other, theres far more truth in our lies than the real world could ever muster.
- ukit0
^ I would like to nominate the above for best comment on NT, ever.
- gung_hoek0
this discussion is odd, because both sides really argue for the same thing. basically god is really just a reflection of your own conscience. religious people project themselves onto a higher being ("god"), others experience the same thing by meditating (e.g. buddhists and tantraists, if I´m not mistaken). Atheists can experience a similar thing by auto-suggestion/auto-suggestive techniques (which are recognized and measurable by scienctific research).
how you get in touch with yourself (sounds like a mindwank now :)) is really just a matter of taste and/or culture and/or upbringing. therefore an argument about that is futile.
the important thing is IMO, that every human being shares the same precondition to experience this (call it god, call it slef-conscience, whatever), it doesn´t really matter what the package for "god" is.
many atheists misinterprate and mock the belief in god as believing in some kind of person with a beard, while the majority of christians actually believes in a SPIRIT (+trinity thing...), if I´m not mistaken. If the fundamentalists from both sides would take a step back, you would notice that there´s much more common ground than differences in this debate. like e.g. the fundamental moral values, they´re really the same for all alike, global, timeless.
attacking people for their beliefs, or their non-beliefs for that matter, is like attacking someone for not having the same taste in music like yourself. does taht make sense?
- ukit0
There's got to more to it than that...otherwise religion wouldn't deal with questions like ...how was the universe created, what happens when we die, and how should we live our lives.
In a way, I've got more respect for people who follow their faith to the letter than those who try to pick and choose, if something is the word of god it can't be only partly true.
- We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience..mikotondria3
- gung_hoek0
To the letter, to the shmatter; these specific rules (praying 5,4,3 times a day, eat this, don´t eat it that, this day´s holy, this number is unholy) are not the essence of any belief; they´re just rituals, rites.
I was referring to fundamental values (not harming others, love, self-discipline, yadayda) and the according state of mind. that´s what´s important, that´s the basic message a belief system conveys.
- Milan0
everyone shown in this video should be sodomized by a giant sequoia log
- ukit0
Sure, common values, great...but doesn't it matter whether the Earth is tens of thousands or billions of years old? Or whether there's an afterlife? I think that in Europe, more people have moved past the literal conception of religion and treat it more a metaphor, but I can assure you that here in the States, people take their religion very seriously indeed.
For instance, we could have been doing stem cell research for the past decade to find cures for many terminal diseases, but Bush blocked it because he believes it's immoral. Or the ban on gays marrying being another example.
The stuff that riles me up the most is this "intelligent design" thing, which is what "teleos" aka "discipler" is going on about all the time. The Christian fundamentalists have actually created fake science foundations (including one here in Seattle) to try to change the education system and get creationism taught alongside evolution and biology. Fortunately, most of their attempts have been overturned, showing that even in a religious country like this one, common sense eventually prevails.
- uberdesigner0
The answer is 'yes, there is a god'.
- trooperbill0
As an agnostic i have the following challenge to any religious persons here:
Who is right? Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Athiests, Scientologists etc
with so many conflicting religious view points what happens to your immortal soul if YOU'RE WRONG !
- epete220
what if you believe in god and aliens?
- VectorMasked0
that's an odd concept. gawd & aliens.
That'd mean aliens believe in the exact same gawd and also have some tiny book on dated stories. But then they probably violated all gawd's laws or rules and advanced as a species, meaning it's better not to believe in a fake gawd or ignore gawd and be as effective and advanced as aliens, since sorta translate into never advancing as a species and live as caveman just to satisfy the rules of some delusional ebing that crated silly rules for absolutely no reason nor purpose.
Just had a few beers btw :o)
- i like that : gawd. never liked the word g.o.d. cheers.sea_sea
- KwesiJ0
people are a alien genetic invention
- eating_tv0
I believe in leak.