Riddle me this Athiests...

Originally posted by slank
To me we live in sort of [necessary?] chaos.

& it is up to us, IF we choose, to impose whatever order we are both inspired [compelled] AND capably empowered to impose.

Not trying to be overly personal, just using this as a starting point [spur?] of discussion of our common conceptions.
novastrike81:

and then I stand before my superiors and give an account of why I made the decision I did instead of making the right decision based on my emotions

Who are your 'superiors'?
I accept that we are all part of the undifferentiated Universe. Only if we [choose to?] aggregate into some form of society do we attribute or elect to give someone/something the assignment of 'authority'.

Everyone is in large part as authoritative or not as anyone else.
the only increase or decrease with which i might regard their experience is if they have been paying as neutral/objective attention or less so much.
Pre-conceptions can sometime color our actual experience. Of course previous experience can color it too, but at least that is something of actual experience.

If one or something is going to do judging with actual possible real ramifications i would like it to come from someone with as broad an experience base & considered thoughtful reasoning as possible.

The presumption of some magic/mystic pre-existing order obviates the need to create it if we actually want it.

Honestly it is a cop-out.

And excuse me all to heck, but i am not going to give a pretense or absurd presumption credit for being in any way reality & sound logic based.

Religion's pretense to be 'moral' means we don't do the hard thinking of how do we create an ethical, functionally workable system to live in.
It panders invariably to our evolutionary instincts, & really has very little to do with a higher, inspired or visionary perspective on a possibly better future.

A better future doesn't happen by magic.
Religion is peddling magic & in all probability not only doesn't lead to a better future it leads to a worse & very likely extinguishment of our species.

One doesn't have to care about the species or anything else. That is perfectly logical. It is also an evolutionary inclination, but as long as we acknowledge it as such i don't find it a problematic as a base for a systematic, shared perspective.

To me our concern of our collective & personal future survival & hopefully prosperity is both far more real than religion as well as far more fragile.

It is a much harder commitment than religion, because it is an actual conscious choice of something we all know is loaded with ambiguity & choices & subject to the whims of the macro-universe.
But i feel certain it is the only sensibly viable path to any kind of better, more productive & enjoyable future,
as well as far more likely a path for humanity to survive.

People, humanity & life are real & god is imaginary.
Imagination [including religious] may be a source of ideas,
but it is only usefully productive if it is applied to real things.

I am on the side of reality, religion is on the side of imagination, often psychotic imagination.

[edit on 20-5-2010 by slank]

WOW

That is without doubt one of the best things I have ever read on the net - I have a very, very strong suspicion that something as lucid, cogent, concise, intelligent and all other manner of superlatives was not written by any old layman - who are you ?

I am occasionally shocked on this site with great posts - generally by scientific minds - but to see such a wonderful rational post is just fantastic.

Thanks. Really - spot on.

No Flags, or Stars or anything for you - you don't need them. As you know - you are made of stars.

Originally posted by slank
novastrike81:

and then I stand before my superiors and give an account of why I made the decision I did instead of making the right decision based on my emotions

Who are your 'superiors'?
I accept that we are all part of the undifferentiated Universe. Only if we [choose to?] aggregate into some form of society do we attribute or elect to give someone/something the assignment of 'authority'.

I suppose it depends on the severity of the situation. It could be my immediate supervisor. It could be my Station Captain/Chief (different areas call it captain/chief) and then it can goes as far as the Assistant Chief. If you're a fire fighter then it makes more sense. I was using my job as the reference. If you want a hierarchy I can put one down.

reply to post by novastrike81


Yeah, YEC is definitely a part of it. The other part are people like Kirk Cameron, Ray Comfort (the banana man) and others who go around attempting to debate against evolution and just end up embarrassing all other Creationists out there.

I don't know why there is such an aversion to Evolution amongst some religious people, if God can make the world in a week why is it so hard for them to accept he could have made life via natural processes?

I don't wanna derail the thread.

As an agnostic-atheist the way I look at it is this way: If there is a God and this is his/her universe there still isn't any harm in studying it and learning about it. Studying the Universe leads us to better answers than myth and religion do and better answers would bring us closer to finding God if there is one. Right now there is no evidence of one so I don't believe in one but if science finds evidence I'll have to change my mind ...

reply to post by novastrike81


You do understand that there is no difference between your claim that God made the universe - and my claim that Jam did. They are absolutely, utterly equal in there veracity in every way.

I have as much right, in fact even MORE RIGHT to claim that Jam made the universe because we know it exists in the first place. Your claim of some mythical being making the universe is even LESS tenuous - your being does not even exist - mine does. Its YUMMY !

reply to post by slank


Another post slamming religion for all the problems in the world. Did religion destroy two cities with the Atomic bomb? No that was science. Most of the pain and suffering in the world is caused by man's greed and selfishness. Science has paved the way to better technology and faster and more extreme was to kill us all.

If I recall correctly, my "religion" says magic is forbidden and only cults use magic. You can say God used magic but that's just using anthropomorphism to explain something you can't comprehend. We can't comprehend time before we existed, for example.

Caveat,

sometimes we pose the notion that something 'exists' [or more realistically can or might possibly exist]

Like we demarcate a presumed origin point on the number line as our zero or point of 'origin'.

It can be kind of arbitrary & works serviceably until we find some hopefully rational reason to reconsider & perhaps assign a new point of zero/origin, perhaps because it is at the center of a flatter span of our potential number line.

Religion [& their attendant cultures] can work as an arbitrary starting point, but i can see many flaws with it from the get go.

I suppose the best idea is to deconstruct religion(s) for their working parts, contemplate as well as experiment with them to see how they work &/or might be used vastly better or stored away as apparently problematic for now, but maybe useful later.

We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater,
but we do want to make the effort to rid ourselves of [ALL] the dirty bathwater.

Of course we have to decide what 'the baby' is first & foremost.

Originally posted by audas
reply to post by novastrike81

 

You do understand that there is no difference between your claim that God made the universe - and my claim that Jam did. They are absolutely, utterly equal in there veracity in every way.

I have as much right, in fact even MORE RIGHT to claim that Jam made the universe because we know it exists in the first place. Your claim of some mythical being making the universe is even LESS tenuous - your being does not even exist - mine does. Its YUMMY !

You don't seem to understand that Jam is created here on Earth and that it exists only on Earth. You can keep contradicting yourself all you want but you aren't being logical at all. Once you get your story straight; either Jam made everything, or was it man made God and jam but jam made everything? You can't keep your story in line so I'm inclined to not believe you.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


Isn't agnostic-atheism an oxymoron?

OT post.

reply to post by novastrike81


No actually.

Agnostic Atheism

Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not have belief in the existence of any deity, and agnostic because they do not claim to know that a deity does not exist

Did religion destroy two cities with the Atomic bomb?

Boy does this open a can of worms. The bible is full of stories where god slaughters all sorts even babies. He wipes out cities and tells his chosen to go on a genocidal rampage to take the chosen land. In the Noah's flood story you have god wiping out men, women, and babies. So you support a baby killer god? That's a downright nasty story.

Originally posted by novastrike81

Originally posted by audas
reply to post by novastrike81

 

You do understand that there is no difference between your claim that God made the universe - and my claim that Jam did. They are absolutely, utterly equal in there veracity in every way.

I have as much right, in fact even MORE RIGHT to claim that Jam made the universe because we know it exists in the first place. Your claim of some mythical being making the universe is even LESS tenuous - your being does not even exist - mine does. Its YUMMY !

You don't seem to understand that Jam is created here on Earth and that it exists only on Earth. You can keep contradicting yourself all you want but you aren't being logical at all. Once you get your story straight; either Jam made everything, or was it man made God and jam but jam made everything? You can't keep your story in line so I'm inclined to not believe you.

No you just don't get it - God is a MAN MADE THING - we made GOD just like we MADE JAM !!

Sheesh - uptake son, uptake.

Originally posted by novastrike81
reply to post by slank

 

Another post slamming religion for all the problems in the world. Did religion destroy two cities with the Atomic bomb? No that was science. Most of the pain and suffering in the world is caused by man's greed and selfishness. Science has paved the way to better technology and faster and more extreme was to kill us all.

If I recall correctly, my "religion" says magic is forbidden and only cults use magic. You can say God used magic but that's just using anthropomorphism to explain something you can't comprehend. We can't comprehend time before we existed, for example.

We do not wage wars in the name of science, we do not wage wars in the name of atheism - we wage wars in the name of ideologies - democracy, communism and for vast majority of our history - RELIGION.

Science is a tool - religion is the cause.

reply to post by audas


That's your opinion. The Bible was written down by man, doesn't mean man created him. Try to think outside of the box if you can. The Bible is the inspired word of God; meaning He is the author passed down through the divine hands of man (the 40 authors). If you don't want to believe that it's okay I won't look at you differently. I'll never understand why there is such hostility between believers and non-believers.

reply to post by audas


Do you believe in life after death? Do you beleive in a higher power? Do you have a purpose? Do you drink water? For all of time things have changed and grown and you are part of this process and it started a long time ago. Tell me how do you get something from nothing? You dont.The something started a long time ago and that something exists everywhere. It is the building blocks of something that started long ago. The some-thing is GOD. PEACE.

Originally posted by audas

Originally posted by novastrike81
reply to post by slank

 

Another post slamming religion for all the problems in the world. Did religion destroy two cities with the Atomic bomb? No that was science. Most of the pain and suffering in the world is caused by man's greed and selfishness. Science has paved the way to better technology and faster and more extreme was to kill us all.

If I recall correctly, my "religion" says magic is forbidden and only cults use magic. You can say God used magic but that's just using anthropomorphism to explain something you can't comprehend. We can't comprehend time before we existed, for example.

We do not wage wars in the name of science, we do not wage wars in the name of atheism - we wage wars in the name of ideologies - democracy, communism and for vast majority of our history - RELIGION.

Science is a tool - religion is the cause.

No, religion is a scapegoat. The war in Iraq is based on a religious war but it's really for oil and land dominance.

Nice try though.

reply to post by stereologist


Yeah, I was hoping it wouldn't get opened but it's my fault for at least presenting it.

In the OT, God isn't "wrathful, violent, tyrannical" as so many people claim. He certainly helped the Israelites against their Canaanite foes, but what would you do if your neighbors wanted to ravage your towns. The OT laws of Deuteronomy, though certainly unacceptable in today's more "civilized" society, were the norm back in the olden days of the ancient Hebrews and, therefore, must be seen in a proper context. However, the OT God was also merciful, from hearing the cries of his people and aiding them to even forgiving King David of his crime of murder/adultery.

God in the OT was trying to teach the people what life would be like without the concept grace and forgiveness.....'eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth'....every crime/sin had to be punished.

The constant theme of the Old was God repeatedly calling His people to return to Him so they would live...

Exodus 34:6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,

Psalm 86:5 5 You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.

Psalm 108:4 For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Joel 2:13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

People like to pick the bad out of the OT God and assume He was a d-bag. The Noah flood being one of those situations.

[edit on 20-5-2010 by novastrike81]

reply to post by novastrike81


I have to disagree with you. The God depicted by the authors of the Old Testament is tyrannical and genocidal. The part that makes it truly odd for me is that God is meant to be good and gives the Israelites the ten commandments one of which is Thou Shalt Not Kill but not only does God kill he commits outright genocide and slaughters innocent children. A God who cannot follow his own commandments, sounds like primitive thinking to me.

God killing the first born of Egypt was one of my main complaints even when I was a believer, its disgusting that anyone could believe a good merciful God would slaughter innocent children.

The Bible is a very poor moral code not that other religions are much better, many of them have similar violence issues hence why I've rejected them all and am now an atheist.

I'd post the verses that show the disgustingly bad moral code and evil's of both the Old Testament and New testament God (as though throwing people into infinite Hell for finite sin isn't enough) but this thread is about atheism and the existence of God not really about the specific religious beliefs or tenants of the Bible.




[edit on 20-5-2010 by Titen-Sxull]

Originally posted by CHA0S
Now as many may know, I'm agnostic, and I strongly oppose most organized religions. However, I'm sick of always picking on the "believers", Christians particularly.

If I lived in Syria, I'd pick on Muslims. if I lived in India, I'd pick on Hindus. if I lived in Cambodia, I'd pick on Buddhists. if I lived in Israel I'd pick on Jews. Christians get it because most out-and-about atheists hail from "Christian" societies. There's plenty of outspoken Atheists from Muslim societies who go on about Islam, and the jews have more than their share of atheists who think the whole Moses-and-Foreskin thing is nutballs, and I'm sure there's a fair share of "Hindu" atheists.

Of course, the christians are the ones who get off on being martyrs so...

It's high time I pointed my "finger of blame", so to speak, away from those with faith, and towards those with an absence of faith. I'm talking about Atheists of course, those who try to argue "there is no God".

The proper argument is "there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of god" - Which can be shorthanded into "there is no god".

Now, I can see exactly why you might be against religion, but why do you reject the whole idea of God, or a higher power, a super-consciousness, it doesn't really matter what you call it, I want to know how you can be so sure no such being exists. You proclaim those with faith have belief in something totally fictional and man-made - and that could be true, but you have no evidence of your proclamation either.

Find me some evidence that there are no unicorns. Find some evidence that dinosaurs did not have twelve testicles. Find some evidence that there is no James Brown-like organism living in the far arm of our galaxy.

You can't do it. There is no such thing as evidence of absence; you cannot prove a negative, in other words. However, there is absence of evidence.

We have absolutely no evidence of unicorns, or dinosaurs with lots of balls, or that Civilization of James Brown aliens. Until such evidence is discovered, the assumption is that these things do no exist.

Bring me one science textbook which states God does not exist. At least Christians have a book (however laughable that may be) to back them up. Don't get me wrong, I believe the bible, and the teachings of any organized religion are probably wrong, but they still have a right to believe in a higher being, working for the greater good, from which they can draw strength.

Your argument is "they have a book"? Uhm. Yeah.

My problem is when they dilute what faith is all about, and turn it into an organization which manipulates and deceives people, which results in an army of brainwashed dummies storming around like the saviors of the Earth trying to force feed you a whole bunch of utterly ridiculous crap...but despite all this, it still gives you no right to claim there is no God.

If you happen across a man who is entirely convinced that he has a boon companion who is an invisible, seven-foot tall hedgehog named Waldo, what would you think? Charming eccentric, perhaps? What if he insists that those other people he deal with greet Waldo, and make accommodations for him, and include him in the conversation? ooookay, getting a little weird now, huh? Now what if this fellow becomes hostile, even violent, if the reality of Waldo is questioned or denied? That man becomes scary.

In our elderly, this mindset is referred to as dementia, and has a variety of causes, and as many treatments. In younger populations, this is severely delusional schizophrenia, and sufferers are often quite medicated (though rarely comitted, these days). In children, Waldo is an imaginary friend who is not going to be tolerated past age six or so.

However, make Waldo into a Jewish carpenter who came back from the dead, or an Arabian carpet salesman, or a fat man with the head of an elephant, and the crazy guy is now a "respectable man of faith." He's just as delusional, he's just as insistent on his delusion's existence, and is just as hostile to those who don't share his faith in the existence of Waldo. But because several other people buy into Waldo as well, he is now a figure to be respected for his crippling, dangerous psychosis.

Faith is the problem. Faith is the unswerving belief in something you know is pretty much impossible. At least the guy with the invisible hedgehog is probably suffering trauma or a chemical imbalance, rather than simply forcing himself to believe in it because he thinks it'll make him a more popular guy in his given society.

You don't know there is definitely no God, and neither do I. No one on Earth does.

No, but we do know that we have definitely nno evidence for the existence of God, or many gods, or even a slightly godlike being (Sorry Hercules, that includes demigods). Much as with the aforementioned Unicorn (and giant invisible hedgehog) lack of evidence, for all intents and purposes, menas we default to a critical position, rather than an accepting one.

You do the same in your life; if you ask "Hey, do we have salsa?" and someone says "yeah, I think we do" do you check? probably so, because you want some salsa for your party tonight, and some dude saying "I think so" doesn't cut it.

You Atheists aren't as smart as you think,

In fact we tend to be smarter. And our sexual endowments are legendary in scope!

in fact, whilst claiming to be the most rational and down to Earth people, you are completely ignoring the scientific method all together, and jumping to conclusions. So how can you explain this?

Actually this stance is the product of the scientific method. You see, contrary to what a lot of fist-bangers think, science is a very conservative field. The default position in science is "no" - no, it doesn't work that way, no, that thing doesn't exist, no, that can't happen, etc. it is the province of the scientists then to change the default from "no" to "yes" through rigorous examination and experimentation.

There is no evidence of deity to examine
Experiments run to prove the existence of such a thing have all come up with a negative (this could simply be due to lack of evidence to build the experiments on, though)

In other words, there simply is not enough information to change science's default position of "no" on the god question.

The way I see it, you need to refine your scope of scrutiny to the aspects of organized religion which are extremely detrimental to society and our collective growth.

Considering the entire premise of religion is based on children being psychologically abused into accepting their given society's mass delusion, one could easily argue that the whole shebang is detrimental to society. if that weren't enough, each given society's delusion seems to be directly antagonistic to the delusions of other societies, which causes further problems. Seeing as how it is completely possible to have al lthe good parts of religion without religion, but it is impossible to have religion without the bad parts of it...

Until you do that, you'll look just as stupid as them, and be violently opposed.

No, violently opposed would be atheists sawing off the heads of Muslims for not renouncing Allah, or Atheists blowing up churches for daring to worship the most Nordic-looking Jewish guy in history.

It's just as arrogant to say God does exist as it is to say he doesn't.

Except saying that god doesn't exist is, with our current knowledge of the universe, completely factual. I know there are people who feel that following the lead of fact is "arrogant" but whatever. It beats the alternative.

In the end, you Atheists do nothing but promote the idea that you must be on one "side" of the team or the other.

You can be crazy, you can be a crazy person enabler, or you can be sane. Though granted you can be sane with cultural observances, too.

You can tell them they are wrong about everything, but you can't tell them it's wrong to have faith.

[edit on 18/5/10 by CHA0S]

Yes, in fact I can. They're suffering under a psychosis, one beaten into them by years of abuse, either from their families or from themselves. That's what "faith" is.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by TheWalkingFox]

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


I don't want to sound judgmental but it sounds like you're just reading the bad and not taking any of the good with it. It is pretty clear that the God in the OT is the same as the one in the NT. Throughout the Bible we see God lovingly and mercifully calling people into a special relationship with Himself, not because they deserve it, but because He is a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth. Yet we also see a holy and righteous God who is the Judge of all those who disobey His Word and refuse to worship Him, turning instead to worship gods of their own creation. Which explains the 10 plagues. The plagues were to mock the Egyptian gods; I'll break each plague down and relate them to each god if you wish.

We live in a society now where killing children is morally wrong but back then it was okay. If you know the story of Ruth, then you'll realize that those people would sacrifice young girls to their gods. Those girls were around the age of 7 and they were brainwashed into believing this was okay.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by novastrike81]

reply to post by novastrike81


The problem is we are debating the 'God' the man has written it to be or how one group believes it to be when in reality human speech and thought is impoverished to comprehend such a reality. You can say God doesnt exist and I will have to agree that 'Your' version of God or the version of God you think doesnt exist, doesnt exist because it is so narrow minded and quite human.

You must understand that Humans do not have the faculties, instruments or capacity to understand what 'God' really is but I guess it is fun to argue about it in a 'my beliefs are better than yours' way. Childish but expected.


I said in one other thread that we are like an and on crawling around on the floor, we look up at the book shelf and see a book or walk along a credit card, we see it, feel it and know it exists but will never comprehend the purpose, reason, creator and uses for it. Try to convince an ant that there is a president of a country. It will never comprehend. Neither shall we.

Not anytime soon. Just because you close your eyes or do not understand does not mean it is not there.