The Nonsense of Atheists

the point is even morality has to be understood or else it's potential destructive dogma. that's why reason is important. without reason, it doesn't matter if one believes in the long-term.

morals don't exist just because it was 'decreed' by a god. it's to safeguard as well as to respect life.

 

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I think a better analogy would be to treat the universe like an operating system, a God would have to be some how tied to every operation that occurs. This would be much like a systems logger utilised by systems administrators would keep track of operations or in the rogue instance a "Trojan" hooked to processes for a hacker.

Considering the nature of the world in regards to the internet, I'm pretty sure the latter is more likely.

Although you could suggest the whole OS could be your "God", it would explain why peoples prayers aren't answered, although somebody obviously didn't rig it to output a local terminal to them with the Bluescreen of God death to them.

 

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prime example;

his preconceived notions of what a christian/theist is, keeps pidgeonholeing me into the same category as his preconceived notions, he never admits that my views are unique (as other users have said) to me and not to christianity at large..
I am NOT religious..I believe in God..PERIOD. any discussion slamming religion will be met with my approval..any discussion slamming God will be met with me blaming humans for screwing up God.
I DO NOT think the bible is the WORD of god..i have stated this in SEVERAL posts..
I have NEVER said i do not care about morality or said anything about laws of nature,
being evasive about quoteing from the bible for two reasons..one, i have a tough time finding what i am looking for when i want to quote (i have quoted several times in other threads) AND i have noticed that quoteing from the bible usually gets met with a negative response from atheists, they immediately try and invalidate any quote from the bible saying the bible is BS and do not value any referance from it..

AND you say 'they don't take the bible literaly' AND 'almost never quoteing from it'
like duh..those who don't take the bible literally tend not to quote from it..

my thought is if it can't be explained without bringing scripture into it then the scripture shouldn't be there..
IOW the bible was written as a base for moral codes to be communicated to the masses, if you can't understand why you should do something moral, then no amount of quoting will change your mind.

this i will agree with..as evidence see how christmas came to be..

birch
why can't you accept that there are ppl out there who do believe in god but do not believe in religion?
your continuing attempts to pidgeon hole me with your preconceived ideas is VERY arrogant of you..(you think you know more of what i believe than i do..)

If you told me you did not believe X but did believe Y, i would not keep telling you you believed in X because you believe in Y..

found a quote from another user in another thread that sums up my attitude about religion..

 

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Because what you claim is not possible. Belief in a supernatural god IS a religion even if that is all it is.

 

religion is the ceremony,traditions,etc..

as per wiki;
The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviors, including congregations for prayer, priestly hierarchies, holy places, and/or scriptures.

belief in god does not equal religion.

are you saying belief in UFO's have an associated term like religion?

religion requires indoctrination..belief does not.
religion is man made..god is not.

 

You can call it that if you want, but the common definition is belief in a supernatural god or gods. That is not the initial definition from wikipedia in any case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

And from the etymology section: Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,"[4] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"[5]) is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect," which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius.[6][7] The medieval usage alternates with order in designaing bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".[8]

According to the philologist Max Müller, the root of the English word "religion", the Latin religio, was originally used to mean only "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety" (which Cicero further derived to mean "diligence").[9][10] Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What is called ancient religion today, they would have only called "law".[11]


Belief requires nothing.
Religion is man made
god is man made.

 

bold indicates a group function or discrepency, italicized indicates i have no clue what that means..

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most of that is ancient definitions, that although play a part in the definition, the current definition (or soon in the future definition) will separate religion from god,as so many religions think they have a monopoly on god,god does not belong to any one religion, he belongs to everyone.
to discuss god in a neutral way requires him to be separated from any religion, otherwise it just become a doctrinal argument.(which usually ends with one side hating the other)

belief requires faith, otherwise it is knowledge and not belief
religion IS man made (we both agree there)
god is man made..im not gonna argue about that as i will respect that you think that..(respect me when i say god is not man made..)

 

Gotta agree with the squirrel on this one.

Personal philosophy does not have to include any religion. Even if the philosophy includes a god.

 

NM, my main Squirrel, you are the first I have heard voice what I believe is a very tenable position. Suppose someone were born to a family where there had never been any discussion of any religion whatsoever. Now suppose that individual were brilliant and had learned the equivalent of a PhD in physics, chemistry, and mathematics.

He objectively assesses the data and concludes that given numerous finely tuned physical constants, the elegance and interconnectedness and majesterium of the universe, from the top down, that Somebody had to make all this. It didn't just pop here by itself. To pretend otherwise is the height of folly and dependence on absolutely nothing. Who and where that Somebody is far beyond our power to deduce, in our present condition.

 

You could just answer the question, simply and honestly, and quit best guessing the reasons behind the questions, and cut out the vitriol.

 

You are simply wrong. I am an atheist, don't presume to tell me what I think.

 

That's not true. The Earth was formed ~4.5Bn years ago, and life emerged some 0.5Bn years after. Evolution has been taking place ever since. Not necessarily at a uniform rate, granted, but the Cambrian explosion was half a billion years ago, and lasted 80million years. Given that humans as we know our species have only been around ~250,000 years, it's us who have just been here for an 'instant'.

But anyway, all of this simply proves the myths in the OT false. That's the basis for your belief in your God, falsified. The Earth is not 6,000 years old. There was no week of creation, but billions of years, no flood and mass extinction, but rather, an explosion.

 

Then it's not philosophy, it's religion. :shrug:

 

This thread is really quite sad – calling people arrogant is usually what happens when all of your other crackpot hypotheses have been debunked. The only way to keep the status quo is to make the subject taboo; sorry but we are way past that point, it's 2010 not 210.
For me personally there can never be a god. It's doubtful, but if it was proven that the universe was created by a single being then he would simple be that – a creator. Worthy of my respect?- Maybe, that's unknown to me. Powerful? - Sure. Would I fall to my knees and worship it? - No, never.

It simply comes down to this – do you want to be a sheep or in a flock? If yes, then kneel away but don't force me to my knees. You may think that is arrogant but I think it is a reasonable position. I've lived in a society (apartheid South Africa) who's philosophy was might = right; a position I have never agreed with. I simply want to get on with my life and not have to be bowing down to anybody, even if their capacity is greater than mine. Arrogance or self-respect? - you decide.

 

Just my opinion, but to me, religion implies tradition and community. If someone is just "figuring it out for themselves", are they a religion of one? :shrug:

 

you should know by now that's not the basis of my belief by a long shot. i'm the one who said that i think reading the bible as a history or science text is missing the whole point.

 

i began recognizing god and receiving messages when i was in my early to mid twenties, after graduating from college. i worked in accounting for about a decade, got burnt out in the corporate world and went back to waitressing, which is a very flexible job that allowed me to have some fun, travel, do some writing, and focus on other more personal areas of my life that i thought could use some work until i figured out where to go from there. during that time i decided i wanted to become a foster parent. so i went back into accounting, which allowed me to get a home equity loan so i could remodel my house to be more accommodating for children, and it's close to being finished.

now then, would you please explain to me how this is relevant to anything?

 

Yeah, but you also think that there is some truth in it's entirety if you take a holistic view of it, when it's a sum of incorrect parts. I don't understand how you can excuse it's errors, and see more than there is to see.

 

I'm trying to understand what drives someone to think like you.

 

She clearly has a direct conduit to god, he/she/it talks to her directly. No "accounting" needed.