Evidence Against God, I Hope

Originally posted by Columbus
Look up the Barber Paradox. God cannot create himself. The rest is irrelevant.

Oh really, and the universe can? Theres seems to be a double standard here, don't you think?

[edit on 20-4-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by thehumbleone

Originally posted by Columbus
Look up the Barber Paradox. God cannot create himself. The rest is irrelevant.

Oh, and the universe can?

Theres seems to be a double standard here, don't you think?

The universe is not defined as it's own creator. It is a chaotic emergence from a singularity. There is no paradox in that.

God is defined as having created himself, thus it is the Barber Paradox. Only something that does not exist can be created and if it does not exist how can it create anything?

Originally posted by Columbus
The universe is not defined as it's own creator. It is a chaotic emergence from a singularity. There is no paradox in that.

But the chaos exists in the universe, it is part of it, so you can say that it did create itself.

Do you believe the universe always existed, or do you believe it popped out of thin air?

If you can believe the universe has always existed in one form or another, why can you not believe God has always existed?

Originally posted by thehumbleone
But the chaos exists in the universe, it is part of it, so you can say that it did create itself.

Creation implies design and therefore requires a complex mind. Chaos originating from a singularity requires only random chance.

Do you believe the universe always existed, or do you believe it popped out of thin air?

I don't believe. If the universe were infinity large or infinitely old there would be paradoxes.

If you can believe the universe has always existed in one form or another, why can you not believe God has always existed?

I can't believe either of those things because "always existed" is an infinity. No infinities can exist in reality.

Originally posted by Columbus
I didn't come here to debate and I can assure you debating is not what I am doing here.
.....................
My points are proofs in themselves. Convincing people is really the problem.

I see. What you are saying is you are correct, and that your mission is to be here and convince people you're correct by the points you make, which are proofs? Yet, I admit that there is no proof of God, and the majority of atheists would agree with that as well. Tell me that you are not trying to disprove something that there is no evidence for? To me that makes no sense. When someone states they have faith for the sake of faith alone, you try to disprove them based on so-called logic of something that cannot be proven. Sounds similar to President Bush demanding that Saddam prove he didn't have WMD's. How do you prove that something doesn't exist? That is a little difficult.

Look up the Barber Paradox. God cannot create himself. The rest is irrelevant.

I am not sure who said God did create himself. I know I never did, because I have always believed that God is eternal, therefore he has no beginning nor end........my proof is my faith.

You only ignore the fact that god has already been thoroughly disproven. I posted a short list in the Faith or Science thread for you to continue to ignore.

God can only be disproved if you have evidence that he exists first, no? Are you now saying that he exists? I never intended to ignore the other thread, it is just that I never knew it was mandatory to always respond to every single one of your points or proofs.

I am familiar with this concept. It's called gullibility.

You only call it that because you obviously think science will answer everything, as if what you see is all there possibly is.

...elevated in hierarchy...

Uh-huh. You above them. Do you really think like this?

To serve someone, you must be greater than them, otherwise they would be serving you. Weakness does not serve Strength, a master does not serve his slave, and darkness doesn't feed the light. All things being equal and the universe would cease to exist.

...legitimate judgment from everyone else...

Uh-huh. Anyone elses judgment matters? Again, do you really think like this?

If there is nothing to judge, then it cannot matter. Faith is not debatable is it?

...believing in something without evidence ...rather than a person making up evidence...

Uh-huh. No evidence, made-up evidence, what about real evidence?

You have real evidence of God or are you trying to disprove some more of something you profess not to believe in?

There are no untestable claims in real science.
They are only exposed when pseudoscientists are trying to pull something. Pseudoscientists always have an agenda, to get their magical claims recognized by common people as legitimate science. They of course include all the Intelligent Design Creationists.

Have you tested the big bang yet and built your own universe to prove the opposing theory? I bet you could not prove to me that Abraham Lincoln existed. Honestly, I don't remember anything before I was 3 years old....the rest was just hearsay.

First, I cannot explain to you why it gets you salvation. There is no rhyme or reason as to why we are saved.

You already said belief automatically gets you saved.

True belief does, but there is no evidence to believe so the only conclusion is that you believe because God makes you believe. I have no reason to believe, it is contrary to everything logical, and yet I am drawn to it and I do. Therefore I cannot answer why God chooses some to know him and some not. I am no better than anyone else, but yet I was called. It could have been anyone else, but it wasn't.

You were supposed to recite that believing alone is not enough, and accepting Christ as your savior is not enough either, and there is something else that no one can explain, and on top of all that God has to choose you. Then there's WiseSheep who knows who is saved and who isn't.

I can't speak for WiseSheep. They are their own person and have their own truth revealed to them as the Father sees fit, and I cannot judge whether WS can or cannot know who is and isn't saved. It seems to me you have based your entire knowledge of Christianity, and God on observation of others and listening to others about what the truth is.

It is similar to the concept that some people live in poverty and some born rich all because of fate.

Why not just say fate and dispense with god entirely. There's a big difference between a person-god who chooses and random chance fate and ancestor guided fate and on and on.

You pretend to know how consciousness enters into bodies or something. It wouldn't be ancestor guided fate, probably called genetics now, and most likely by your atheistic philosophy that it is just random chance. But how can atheists love the idea of randomness explaining things so much yet embrace scientific theory as a cornerstone of everything else? Do your World of Warcraft characters stop to ask if the game is real or not?

The world is a deck of cards and so is salvation. The only thing I can say is that it is God's will that some are presented with salvation.

You die, stand before God, and he fans a deck of cards at you? Uh-huh.

No. The circumstances of life are unpredictable to us and so who is saved or not, unless of course you are a prophet, which I am not.

Maybe you see where the "uh-huhs" are going?

No, not really. It seemed kind of childish to me so I ignored it as a trademark fault of yours......random evolution if you will.

For the latter, I actually do not know that you exist.

Study philosophy. You do have justification for believing it though, unlike for god.

I only have justification to know that I am corresponding to an entity known as Columbus on ATS, beyond that I have no justification in saying anything more factual about you. I can however attest to the things you say you believe in.

I would have every reason to believe that you could not excuse me from hell, unless of course, you actually did just that.

Hell is a concept created to control you through fear. You are hereby excused. What more do you want? A certificate?

Well you can start with the same courtesy you ask of Christians and that is the burden of proof. If it is just a concept, then prove it with evidence. The fact is, you cannot prove something that there is no evidence for. Your philosophy studies should have yielded to you where and when hell is.

This is just figurative language not to be taken at face value. All is God's but there always has to be a pecking order or the universe would be stagnant.

Back to the uh-huhs. You do not see that "pecking order" has no need of god.

By your understanding it wouldn't. Man becomes elevated and one with God. They merge so that one God becomes many, and many men become like one God. God does not get shoved aside, he just gets distributed well.

You are not very good at explaining what you mean.

It is really that my students have their minds on other things.

Thanking me already like a theist would are you? Usually an atheist would wait for the evidence of what I have said.

I only thank you for not condemning me to hell. Christians usually take it as their own authority to judge me and hell is the place they sell tickets for.

We agree on something.

People die because they are physical mortals. No physical thing can be infinitely indestructible. The only way to eliminate death is to cease to be physical by direct ascendancy and remain that way indefinitely. Unfortunately infinity is not a real thing.

By science life is mortal, because science acknowledges the inherent nature of physical matter as being two opposing forces separated by a void of resistance. Science does not dictate the universe, it merely observes it, but the universe is not dependent on science either. There will come a time when matter ceases to observe physical laws, then death will become obsolete. It is not dependent on matter or laws, but the force driving all of it. My camera lense told me that infinity is at least one focal setting.

Uh-huh. God shouldn't require anything. Say I built a robot, did I build it to praise me? If I didn't need anything, why would I build it? If I built it for my pleasure, why would I be angry about it or destroy it? Especially if I am perfect! If I intend to destroy it, why would I give it self-awareness? Because I must be cruel.

Why shouldn't God require something? If you were wealthy enough to have everything, wouldn't you still lack something? Of course, because everything includes nothing and the two are always at odds with each other. You have to lose something so you can gain it back. You could create something just for the fun of it or if you had the ability to give something consciousness you could give them everything you have. Destruction, Columbus, is an illusion. You will find this out again some day.

Perhaps you should reduce your morphine drip.

You think I am on morphine because of what other people think?

That was; a joke. Take it or leave it.

Seriously, not everyone lives a pleasant existence, so your perspective of life may be better than others.

You must have me confused with someone else. I am not the one making condemnations or tormenting others with threats of hellfire.

I hope you aren't asking me to defend them or answer for them. I am not condemning you to anywhere.

As long as your making analogies, heaven also has all the facets of hell. Everything is perfect and rainbow brite, and there's nothing to do except praise some stupid god with a pitchfork throwing people into hell.

You seem to be upset. You do listen to people way too much. Heaven is inside you. It is what you make it to be. If you create it to be as you say, then count me out. Fair enough?

Originally posted by Columbus
I can't believe either of those things because "always existed" is an infinity. No infinities can exist in reality.

So then you believe it just popped out of thin air?


There are two notions every atheist accepts whether they realize it or not, and those are:

1. The universe has always existed, since some argue something can't pop out of nothing.

2. The second is the universe popped out of thin air.

So which do you accept as "fact?"

What I don't get is people can easily believe the above two, yet they refuse to believe in God.

Is believing the above two really easier?

[edit on 21-4-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by Columbus
No. By definition, an immortal cannot experience death. Here again we see the brainwashed Christian confusing First Death and Second Death with real death. Real death is an ultimate end. If god could face an ultimate end, he would cease to exist.

By what definition? who made that definition? Dont give me that brainwashing christian bullcrap. I never went to church growing up, in fact, I never read a passage from the bible until like 4 years ago. So believe me, the spirit is real in me. No dont believe me, like pharaoh your heart has been set to stone and you can't believe because you require too much that cannot be given to you. you want direct scientific proof of God, which im about to explain why you cannot have. also, first death second death? im only vaguely familiar with that part of revelation.

Listen friend. You continue believing that "by definition" that death means ultimate end ceasing to exist in all forms even forms that you yourself cannot prove do not exist. you cannot prove that things you dont know, or arent capable of knowing, dont exist with scientific proof. you cant prove that when you die that theres no afterlife. you cant prove it, and i cant prove there is. hmm .. i wonder why that is. it sounds like some kind of .. ultimate balance in the cosmos, faith type of thing.. where a person has to use their free will and their knowledge to make their own personal decision? You continue believe that, and ill continue believe there is an afterlife, and when we die, we'll both see for ourselves now wont we? And theres nothing else to say about it, truly, is there?

Interference does not contradict Free Will. Schoepenhauer does. You can't want what you want. Someone interfering with you getting what you want doesn't change what you want.

Yes it does in this circumstance. If God performs scientifically provable miracles, God is no longer something that you need to put faith in. God becomes a scientifically provable entity, something as real as the computer you're reading this on, in the dictionary, you name it. God would be REAL and provable to all men and women. Science would be forever changed, the big bang theory altered, and Intelligent Design would take over as the regular and only course, not Evolution. IF God did something thats been suggested like helping the people in Darfur *instantly*

No. Free Will isn't about believing it's about wanting. A person can believe in a future plague that will wipe out mankind without wanting it to be true.

Want what you'd like, continue to be a crack smoker, not you, but for example. A crack head will still want their crack, yes, even if God performs scientifically provable miracles crack heads will still be addicts and smoke their crack because they want it. And im sure God wouldnt be happy with that, but oh well. He's not going to upset the ultimate balance, so ultimate that even extremely intelligent people can't even figure out what is truly going on and that theres more to them than their fleshy bits, thats a damn good balance if you ask me. Those planets, weighing bizillions of pounds, just suspended in "dark matter" and always making their rotations? Thats some marvelous sh#t, I dont think he wants to blow the show right now, if you were him, would you?

In other words, you, runetang have volunteered to suffer a long, painful death, and 50:50 chance of being sent to Hell on a whim, so that god doesn't look stupid.

I didn't volunteer to suffer what I have, but I've suffered my fair share. I hope my life is relatively long, but it may not be, I don't know what's going to happen in that regard. Personally, I think Hell as a seperate dimension where evil people are tortured until endlessly is a silly concept and doesnt exist as described. Thats my opinion. My opinion is closer to the Old Testament Judaic opinion on this one thing, where theres a Sheol, a waiting place for ALL people until Judgement, when all are judged by their works on this Earth, even Atheists. And if they 'done good', their disbelief, in my opinion, isn't enough alone to make them unfit for what some call "heaven". What happens to the soul that doesn't make it I don't know and don't want to find out. I think it's akin to that eternity of nothingness bit that you touched on when saying death is an ultimate end.

God is an ultimate being, eternal, existing outside of time itself. So wise, so intelligent, so powerful. Everything has its place, its purpose, and its meaning. Everything takes time in this physical world because God is much like a computer programmer. A programmer doesnt make a program that when you click the button, everything happens in the blink of an eye, a number of things have to occur. And just like a programmer, in my opinion, he can edit the future which we have yet to experience, based on the present.

In other words we aren't ultimately doomed to experience the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation at all. I think if more people start living decent lives, not greedy a$$hole lives where they sh#t on their coworkers, best friend, loved ones, and family, but decent lives where they can be proud of themself. and if enough people do this, along with fixing the precursors to apocalypse (global warming and the eventual reprocussions of it), the whole damn thing can be averted.. no apocalypse, just happy living.

I hope to meet your soul after we both die to poke harmless fun at you.

God is my guide. If I listen to Him, he makes my journey filled with mystery, excitement and challenge. Why. Because He has a purpose for me. What is this purpose? It must be something important, because the mystery has been mysterious, the excitement exciting, and the challenges oh so challenging. But, he hasn't revealed His ultimate purpose to me yet, so I must go on faith. It always gets back to faith. You either have it or you don't. But for as with any difficult thing to master, it takes practice. The more I practice, the less I rely on faith and the more I find truth, honesty and integrity.
We are powerful beings. The most powerful in the universe under God. We are fascinating to the other beings of the universe. Some are curious, some are jealous. We are the most spiritual too, because we are the "most like" God. We, just like God, have the power to give love, or hate. To heal or to hurt. We also have the greatest gift of all. Free will. Without free will, we are slaves.
God had Moses lead the Isrealites to freedom not because He loved the Isrealites more than the Egyptians, but to set an example for future generations. Got allowed His only begotten son to die on the cross, not because He couldn't intervene, but because he wanted to set an example for future generations. Life is not about death. Death is about life.
Try this. Next time your taking a shower, and the hot water feels soooo good, in your mind, thank God for it. See if it doesn't make you tingle.
That's God saying, your welcome.

Debates like this amuse me no end. Why? Because everyone is arguing over something they BELIEVE to be true. There's no proof one way or the other. Yet for thousands of years, people have killed and died for a belief in something for which there is ultimately no proof, either for or against.

If something can't be seen/heard/felt/tasted/heard on the material plane, as far as I'm concerned I have no use for it and therefore in my world it doesn't exist.

The "God" concept falls into that category. I'm glad other people find comfort in this concept, but I don't. In fact, the idea that a being of some kind is constantly watching me creeps me out.

Life's wonderful, complicated and dangerous enough without adding some guy in the sky to add to the confusion.

Certain evangelical types in my life are always trying to convert me. "Why don't you believe?" they ask. "What would it hurt to just pretend until it feels right?" "What does feeling like a hypocrite matter?"

I don't like the overwhelming arrogance of these people. Assuming that they're the only ones with the answer and the rest of us somehow haven't heard the "good news." Well, I heard it, I rejected it, and I'm not interested in it. To me it's as much superstition as believing in Thor, Inanna and Kuan Yin.

Either they're all real or none of them are. The rest is just fairy tales people tell themselves to find comfort in a mysterious infinite universe. I like the universe the way it is. Quantum physics is infinitely more interesting and wonderful to me than the concept of the Cosmic Watchmaker.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
So then you believe it just popped out of thin air?

It popped out of a singularity. Christians don't like the fact that before the universe began is like what's north of the north pole, but they know that there was no "time" before the universe began.

What I don't get is people can easily believe the above two, yet they refuse to believe in God.

What I don't get is why Christians insist God is the answer to a question that can also be asked of God. This is the Barber Paradox. The Creator can't create himself.

Originally posted by runetang
...you want direct scientific proof of God, which im about to explain why you cannot have.

I do not seek proof of God. God has already been conclusively disproven. Why would I seek proof for something that is already disproven?

...first death second death? im only vaguely familiar with that...

You don't need to be familiar with it, only confused by it. Dismissal of death is fundamental to all religions and gives power to each individual member to kill for God and to commit suicide for God.

you cannot prove that things you dont know, or arent capable of knowing, dont exist with scientific proof.

I know that the concept of God varies from group to group and person to person but still has properties which are known scientifically to be impossible, unreal, and cannot exist, regardless of your empty protesting.

What is Infinity? - It is not a real number. And by that they do not mean it is an integer. They mean it can not exist in reality.

you cant prove that when you die that theres no afterlife.

But who amongst us is most urgent to prove it? Religious fundamentalists.

...where a person has to use their free will and their knowledge to make their own personal decision?

But you must seek unbiased knowledge, the kind that science provides, not sectarian religious teachings. WiseSheep just linked me a video telling me that seeking knowledge is Satanic, and God wants me to be stupid. Boy, that's really helpful!

I never went to church growing up, in fact, I never read a passage from the bible until like 4 years ago. So believe me, the spirit is real in me.

Exactly as I was. I didn't go to church until I was in my 20's. I had to inform my friends after my mind was lit up and I became certain that Christ had come into my heart. They did not just know it, even though Christ was supposedly in all of us as a third person who could confirm it! Today, I remember those days when my mind was being torn down step by step and violated by my own friends. I have a hard time today believing they were evil. They were only deceived as I was.

By what definition? who made that definition?

Definitions are our common frame of reference by which we are able to communicate. When I was in the church I was not aware that I was being conditioned with the replacement of definitions of many words like death, truth, love, fear, freedom, morality, cult, and so on. Each of these words has a different definition to someone who is brainwashed relative to someone who is not.

A crack head will still want their crack,...

They don't want crack, they want what crack gives them, instant happiness and forgetting their problems. If you say God is real, why do people have problems that require things like crack?

I didn't volunteer to suffer...

You do volunteer, because you accept God's stupid excuse that you must suffer so he doesn't have to change his mind about forcing you to suffer. I refuse to accept this excuse.

the whole damn thing can be averted.. no apocalypse, just happy living.

Why don't you just live your life towards this goal without the end-of-the-world cult mentality? It would be so much healthier.

If I listen to Him, he makes my journey filled with mystery, excitement and challenge.

If you don't listen to him (I doubt you really have anyway) life will not be a big mystery but make more sense, and the only serious challenge you will face is religious nuts.

Christians used to say that the most important difference between Christ and other religions is the lack of secrecy. Anyone can attain salvation, but these days, everyone is trying to convince me that I never was and something, they don't say what, a mystery apparently, was missing in my life. It just wasn't true at the time. I just came to realize eventually that it was all BS.

Next time your taking a shower, and the hot water feels soooo good, in your mind, thank God for it. See if it doesn't make you tingle.

It made me laugh for fifteen minutes straight.

The more I practice, the less I rely on faith and the more I find truth, honesty and integrity.

You try to deceive me, but you are yourself deceived, so honesty or integrity are debatable. Just because you believe you are telling the truth doesn't mean you are.

Life is not about death. Death is about life.

Death is the end of life, as an aspect, but I agree. You should not be motivated by a fear of death into accepting a faith, yet that is what you have done.

Originally posted by Columbus

It popped out of a singularity. Christians don't like the fact that before the universe began is like what's north of the north pole, but they know that there was no "time" before the universe began.

Nice way to evade the question, AGAIN.

I will ask you once more, where did the first thing that existed come from?

Did it always exist, or did it pop out of thin air?

What I don't get is why Christians insist God is the answer to a question that can also be asked of God. This is the Barber Paradox. The Creator can't create himself.

That's easy, God doesn't need to create himself, he is "I AM".



[edit on 22-4-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by thehumbleone
I will ask you once more, where did the first thing that existed come from?

I think we can agree that there must have been a first thing.

The real question is whether this first thing was:

1) an incredibly simple, random, chaotic net-zero mass-energy singularity.

2) an incredibly complex, intelligent being.

Occam's Razor tilts 100% to #1, while #2 begs the question of where this complexity originated.

That's easy, God doesn't need to create himself, he is "I AM".

See my previous statement.

So then you agree that something had to have always existed?

Originally posted by Columbus
I think we can agree that there must have been a first thing.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
So then you agree that something had to have always existed?

See the problem here?

The thing about people who believe in science vs. people who believe in "god" is that the scientifically inclined are perfectly willing to admit they don't have the whole answer and are still trying to figure it out. That's why a scientific paradigm is called a "theory" -- not like laymen believe, because it's untested and needs to be proved or disproved (which is actually the definition of "hypothesis"), but because we know that there are always more answers that will need to be integrated into the explanation, i.e., theory.

Religious types always "have the answer" and already "know" the truth.

One mindset is closed, the other is open. Personally, I prefer to have my mind open.

At this moment in time we don't know what was "there" in the "beginning." And nobody's ashamed to admit it. They're still trying to figure it out. That's the fun.

Galileo was excommunicated for believing the earth went around the sun. And who turned out to be right, him or the Catholic church? This is why people like me do not believe in "god." The people -- priests -- who "speak" for him are just men and to me it's the height of arrogance to presume to speak for the unknowable.

Originally posted by Columbus

See the problem here?

So what you're saying is it had to be eternal, right?

Eternal is infinite time. Infinite is not real. See the problem? See the problem? See the problem?

Originally posted by Columbus
Eternal is infinite time. Infinite is not real. See the problem? See the problem? See the problem?

What about Pi or Phi? Those are both an infinite series of numbers. Math has a formula for both, its just that they have never found the exact value of either.

Originally posted by ben91069
What about Pi or Phi? Those are both an infinite series of numbers. Math has a formula for both, its just that they have never found the exact value of either.

I discussed pi in another thread:
When does a number become so large it's infinite?

What you are talking about is transcendental numbers. These numbers are not infinite at all, but have exact mathematical values.

In mathematics, the last significant figure of pi is undefined. It does not exist. It is not 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9.

Mathematics defines that 0.99999999... with an infinite series of nines is exactly equal to 1. The last significant figure of 0.999999... is undefined, it is not 9. This seems counterintuitive, but it is mathematically proven.

1/3 = 0.3333...
3 * 1/3 = 1
3 * 0.333... = 0.999...
0.999... = 1

Simple. And for the same reason, an infinite god cannot exist.