Atheists.
- Started
- Last post
- 184 Responses
- Renegade0
Fucking Jesus Christ who the fuck cares... Santa Claus is coming to town next week and i am making my list and checking it twice!
- ukit0
I am not absolutely ruling out there is a God...there well could be, despite the fact there isn't much evidence for one that I can see. But there could also be millions of other possible explanations, all equally likely or unlikely. The universe could be riding on the back of a giant tortoise for all I know.
Think about this though...if we zoom down to the cellular level, you wouldn't see much that reminded you of a full sized, intelligent human being. It would be a completely alien world. Similarly, if we zoom up many more orders of magnitude to the meta level, it strikes me as highly unlikely that there's a human-like consciousness at the root of everything, much less an old man with a beard. The actual nature of reality is probably far too bizarre for us to ever imagine, much less for primitive humans to have grasped thousands of years ago when the Bible was written.
- primative humans are aware of the exact same reality we are and they still know GodKwesiJ
- TheBlueOne0
- Sorry. Couldn't help myself.TheBlueOne
- I'd hit itLillebo
- 'malkingrabies.jpg' haha
nice set, tBO, no apology necessary/Nairn
- KwesiJ0
you think about it backwards...its not a humanlike conciousness at the root of everything, there's a god like conciousness at the heart of all conciousness. Thats God, we're a small reflection of that. Just like our bodies are composed of psychsical matter our human conciousnes is an effect of cosmic intellegence.
- teleos0
blueOne: You need to tell me specifically where I'm using "pseudo-science" babble. All I am doing is pointing at evidence that is there for everyone to observe and claiming that it supports the theistic position. This is nothing new. The founders of modern science were theists, Mendell, Pasteur, Newton, the list goes on and on. They constantly testified about how their work demonstrated the wonder and glory of God.
- ZZZZzzz...not playing your game. Have a nice day.TheBlueOne
- i see.teleos
- wow an pretty lame appeal to authority there.spifflink
- cellular nanotechnology, qualia, fine tuning of constants, DNA programming and replication != authority argumentation.teleos
- I was responding to blueOne's specific post. What, are you his cheerleader?teleos
- haha oh my hell, no your 'mendell, pasteur, newton' part was an appeal to authority.spifflink
- get your head out of your ass and read your own posts.spifflink
- emukid0
i absolutely hate michelle malkin.
- pango0
um.... what's different between atheists and none-religious?
- ukit0
I have no doubt that the world we see is a reflection of some kind of larger reality. But a reflection of a thinking God that answers our prayers, gets angry at individual people, and beams his son down to Earth in human form to be gruesomely murdered? You lost me there.
- no you lost yourself when you so narrowly define God as a story book sort of character.KwesiJ
- you're trivialising the 'higher reality' as something that can't be this so called God...when it should be acknowledged as that which is most like God, God.KwesiJ
- ...that which is most like God, so logically as God itself, the REAL God.KwesiJ
- I'm trivializing it? I think the Bible and organized religion are doing that.ukit
- no you're trivialism religion and history and many people's knoweldge and ideas.KwesiJ
- If you want to call whatever is at the root of reality God, fine, so be it.ukit
- And i don't mean to trivialise what you're saying but you're trivialising for the sake of upholding staunch atheismKwesiJ
- But do you agree or disagree with the literal interpretation of the Bible? That's kind of what we're arguing here.ukit
- no i disagree with the literal interpretation of the bible but thats not to say it holds some hefty weight historically and intellectually.KwesiJ
- there's lots philosophy and early forms of history writing in it, its facinating really.KwesiJ
- but the discussion around God should have some real persepective beyond the BIble itself just like its always been. Aristotle didn't have the Bible.KwesiJ
- Aristotle didn't have a Bible.KwesiJ
- designbot0
Hhahahahah!
For anyone getting pissed about this, and Fox news being one-sided (not saying it's not) Just remember besides Fox and maybe a few others, the media is overwhelmingly secular. If it was a pro-athiest clip, this probably wouldn't have even gotten it's own thread....or if it did, there would be little to no complaints about it.
oh the drama...
- *stirs coffeeTheBlueOne
- good morning TBD :)designbot
- 'sup. I'm home today.TheBlueOne
- well that's the secular leaning of this site. what of it? everyone is an atheist?spifflink
- gramme0
It's really tough because the physical and the metaphysical intersect in intrinsic ways which cannot be fully displayed with scientific principles. I can see evidence of God in nature, but cannot use nature to prove his existence beyond a reasonable doubt. The full proof is in revelation and relationship, and the hope that I will one day gaze into his eyes. And as anyone knows, I cannot prove that. Though my life shows evidence of divine intervention, nothing outside of the Holy Spirit can convince the skeptic.
- gramme0
Tommyo, I agree with you. I for one have no interest in controlling people. If I share my faith with a friend or acquaintance and they become a Christian, that's brilliant but it's not me who saves, it's not me who changes people so that they are "born again", it's the Holy Spirit. It's insufferably arrogant for anyone to believe they can control another person's religious persuasion. Also, it's insufferably obtuse, counterproductive and anti-social to flip out on people with whom we disagree on matters of faith and/or philosophy.
I read on a Christian blog recently where a guy in my very own church was ridiculing someone who chastised him about his tone. He was saying (they guy in my church whose tone was in question) that maybe we need to worry more about the truth and less about tone. The thing is, if in my tone I come across as a self-righteous asshole who cares chiefly about being correct, then I am no longer speaking the truth—because love is THE ultimate truth. If I lack love and respect for fellow men, then who gives a shit if I speak truth—no one will listen to me anyway.
We do need to be very careful when differentiating between defending one's faith and attempting to control other people. Everyone with half a backbone defends whatever they believe. Controlling people is another thing entirely.
- gramme0
For the record Khurram (and anyone else who may be curious), a Christian fundamentalist is a person who is so wrapped up with the "letter" of the law, rather than the "spirit" of the law, that they create rules and boundaries in areas where the Bible is completely silent. They add to the word of God, because they dive headfirst into God's laws while missing the POINT of those laws.
Christian fundamentalism gets caught up in adding good works to justification. Fundies are the ones who say it's sinful for a woman to wear a skirt which rises above the knee, that it's sinful to listen to rock music, and that 9/11 was God's retribution against gays and liberals.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible to support these sort of claims made by fundies, and you should know that I have absolutely nothing to do with these people. I abhor it when Christians discount the sovereignty of God and detract from the infallibility of his word, but I also abhor it when they ADD to the word of God, as if we have anything worthwhile to contribute to our salvation or any way of making ourselves holier.
- DrBombay0
Fox isn't news, it is commentary. It should be called Fox Commentary.
- *stirs coffee. nods sagelyTheBlueOne
- heheukit
- I agree, I hate Fox "News".gramme
- moth0
"The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. "
~ Stephen W. Hawking
- designbot0
Where I have not seen Jesus, I have had experiences that are simply not-logical....that is, they defy all human understanding. There is no way for me to prove any of these experiences with anyone, but never the less they are as real as the air I breathe. People can look at my life, and see as a result of these experiences, how dramatically it has changed me (I hope :) This is evidence to suggest something did indeed happen, but there technically is no "proof".
I do believe God reveals himself to anyone who genuinely seeks him. He proves himself beyond shadow of doubt to the person, and takes away uncertainty and unbelief. For the people that already know everything, and are arrogant, I don't think there is much room for God to reveal himself, as this would be forcing himself upon such a person.
- btw, that last comment was not directed at anyone here...just a general comment that applies to me as well.designbot
- TheBlueOne0
An Athiest On Miracles.
I don't think much of miracles. Miracles maybe divinely caused. They simply could be someone on the narrow receiving end of raw statistics. I wouldn't doubt that people can,with enough practice, perform feats that approach "miraculous effects". Even if they were divinely inspired or caused I see it more as simple and quite frankly, cheap, spiritual trickery.
I think an everyday commitment without fail to simple, basic goodness is far more convincing than any stories or examples of a miracle. Miracles are cheap parlor tricks as far as I am concerned.
It is also far far harder to achieve and live with simple everyday resolve to living a good life. And nothing serves as a better real example of spiritual depth and awe. At least IMHO.
- KwesiJ0
'creator' doesn't have to mean 'first cause' so much as a continual cause, so within infinite realms the God is still the absolute 'creator' force
- ukit0
KweisJ, what you are describing is so abstract that it's almost neither here nor there whether it even exists or not. If God is just some kind of cosmic force at the root of everything, why would it matter if we call it God or not? What good would praying do? What impact would it have on morality?
- It seems like you are just calling it God for the sake of having something to call Godukit
- because morality is rational and human and priority in this sense for GodKwesiJ
- God is as much a word game as a reality game. its a logic itself interwoven with experience.KwesiJ
- Well, I can say that we have evolved a certain kind of morality and it has the same implication/ meaningukit
- You are basically reducing God to nothing in an effort to make his existence plausibleukit
- there's no room for nihilism in meaningful and substantial existanceKwesiJ
- i'm reducing God i'm improving its image to explain its presenseKwesiJ
- sorry typo: NOT reducing god.KwesiJ
- Just because you don't believe in God, doesn't mean you are a nihilistukit
- The idea of "meaning" and "purpose" are very human concepts IMO, not necessarily relevant to any kind of larger truthukit
- truth or realityukit
- not calling anyone a nihilist i'm saying acknowledging 'meaning' in existance suggests an intellegenct 'God'. the reverse is nihilistic atheism.KwesiJ
- ....reverse is nihilistic atheism.KwesiJ
- it si a bit of a word game but becomes closer to the ancient notion of God and gods in human life. i don't think God will go away.KwesiJ
- ...will go away in future.KwesiJ
