Reason To be athiest?

Well, how would that effect my life? It most likely wouldn't. On the other hand, God would greatly affect the world.

 

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How? Where is the effect?

 

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We haven't done anything, but identify God.

 

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You haven't even done that yet.

 

"Motion denied. Immaterial."

 

kx000

This is not evidence, it is an unevidenced statement. And that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without concideration. Since you have "proved" nothing, disproof is not required, dismissed.

Grumpy

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Then help me seek evidence for such a being.

 

How do you identify something that's everywhere and invisible?

 

I guess I have to say I gave a bad example of who I am suggesting, I'll return with a better definition of this God I claim.

 

kx000

It really doesn't matter what your definition is, the thing called god has no supporting evidence unless you define it so it fits reality, but then it no longer fits with any definition of god I've ever seen and becomes irrelevant. And without positive evidence of such a being Occam's Razor tells us to reject it. It's called the Null Hypothesis.

To much chance of Confirmation Bias. If you start with an answer and then go looking for evidence that answer is true, you tend to ignore evidence that doesn't support your conclusion and give more weight than is justified to evidence that confirms your forgone conclusion. If someone is in a Hospital, near death, the theist prays for him, the scientist(doctor)treats him with his best care. If the person recovers the theist takes it as evidence of the efficacy of prayer, while the scientist tends to credit the treatment. If you are interested in finding the truth you must look deeper without a goal or outcome in mind other than to determine the facts.

Grumpy

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Let me preface my response to this thread with a quick back story. My parents were not religious, and my mother in particular did not believe that a god existed. However, she allowed me to make my own decision on how, who, or what I wanted to believe and for this I thank her. Around 9 or 10 I started attending a southern baptist church with a friend of mine. I believed in God and for the first couple years never questioned his existence. As a young teenager, though, I started having questions about the existence of a god. I would say about a year later I stopped attending church. I still believed, but was not that interested in church anymore. I had endeavored in getting back into the church and all, but I couldn't completely rationalize it anymore and I wasn't sure why. I am now 29 and it was about 5 years ago that I started claiming agnostic. I couldn't quite let go of the idea that a god existed. I rationed this by not understanding the origins of the Universe and felt that there had to be a creator of this vast, majestic, unknown place.

Now let's fast forward to the recent past, about 4 months ago. I was still clinging to the existence of a god but it was all about to change. I started doing my own research to satisfy my questions, and I got them. I can say now that I am an atheist, and I will give you some of MY reasons.

For one the Theory of evolution has shown, at least here on Earth, that there isn't a need for a creator for us to be here. Then if you look at the Big Bang Theory there was "nothing" (for lack of a better term) before the bang. Since there was nothing there was no need for a creator. By rewinding the solar system it all goes back to a singular point that held all time, space, and matter. Before this time did not exist.

Now, to get away from my scientific reasoning, I will tell you my issues with religion, namely Christianity. For one the Bible was written by man. Man who has translated numerous times a book that was written in an old Hebrew language that no one knows anymore. With each generation a new edition comes out to fit the needs of today's Christian society. There is no evidence in this book, humans are just expected to blindly accept what it says to be truth. No thank you. The God in the bible is supposed to be loving of all people, non-judgmental, and all-knowing. Loving of all people, then why do people use the Bible to discriminate against one another. People pick verses out of context to make a point to judge one another. That doesn't seem right. In the Bible God says that we should fear him, so perhaps people respect Him out of fear and not out of love. It also says that he is a jealous God. Well that it odd I thought that jealousy was frowned upon. So do what he says, not what he does.

I know this is a long-winded explanation, but it was the best way to explain myself and my evolutionary process. I think that everyone's reason is different, this is just mine. It has been very liberating to finally let go of that last thread that I was trying to connect to a god.

 

Take a stab, Grump, what is our reality?

What do former ideas of God have to do with anything? I didn't come up with them.

That would make me a liar, I uphold myself to a gold standard.

In the end, maybe God guided the correct surgeon that night to be ready for that very patient. Maybe the prayer, and science both are due credit.

My goal is to determine the facts!

 

curioscience,

Even if the theory wasn't filled with gaping holes, it is still not a basis to believe there is no creator.

I think you're correct, you do need a better term.

Can you say for sure that the people who wrote that ''actual'' texts weren't inspired by God, the Supreme Intelligence?

Just because something has been translated to death, doesn't mean the original scribes weren't acting from inspiration.

You said you would tell us your issues with religion, and stopped at christianity. Are there any others?

So what?

Why is God ''supposed'' to be these things?




jan.

 

James R,

It becomes a conclusion when one pov is to be the only pov, which is what is being attempted by
modern atheism.

Evidence isn't the key issue here, because there is no way of objectively knowing (through the senses) whether or not a transcendental, Supreme Being exists. By stating that one has to physically show God, lest God does not exist, is jiggery-pokery.

I'm not talking about religion.
Secondly, the job of modern scientists is to understand the physical world, not God, or spirituality.

It may be possible to conclude that the earth is round, especially now. But one could have been forgiven for thinking that the earth was flat, before technology was able to clarify, or if they'd never studied the Bhagavat Purana.

Why would you ''believe in Venus'' in the first place?
People don't believe in God, because they read it in a book, although that may confirm notions.
Most people believe in God because they instinctively know they are connected to something,
more that the sum total of their physical body.

I hear what you're saying, but you're treating this ''belief in God'' on the same level as believing in happy endings, fairies at the bottom of the garden. I'd go as far as to say you've been conditioned to think like that, because you don't seem able to get away from that mindset. If God exists, then we have a connection to Him.

That's not for me to do.
If you're interested then you do it.

What are you basing the standard of evidence on, science?
The science dictated by modern atheism? It's little wonder you see no convincing evidence, and I doubt you ever will, while under it's totalitarien spell.

I can see why you don't believe in God, and I can see how you validate that position.

There you go. Maybe you can draw something from that.
For me belief in God is something that one awakens within themselves, not something one learns about.
Those, like alot of former theists, never actually awakened that side to their humanity, and their belief was superficial.

jan.

 

the thing is Jan ..... is god more important to you than your own Humanity ?

 

I regard my own humanity as a temporary, but crusial stage of development in the search for truth. In the short term it is more important because it has to function in the world. But in the long term when the functional capabilities of the body decline eventually ceasing to be. And the realisation that there is more to my existence than the body, and all it's relations, God is more important. The real trick is to balance the two, which is where religion is supposed to step in.

jan.

 

You gave a good explanation of how a person can discover their way into atheism. Although it's sometimes tossed around in the negative (godless, even anti-God) you demonsrated how it's a positive accumulation of information that leads to the conclusion. Also, if we hadn't been indoctrinated as children, when we were highly suggestible, there wouldn't be any religious idea to overcome. Plus, if the schools had taken more care to ensure that we understood better that evolution and Big Bang theories account for "creation" (i.e. Genesis), then the discovery like you went through would have taken place earlier, at about the same time you were learning the names of the planets, or perhaps who Newton was.

You pointed out a couple of things that creationists overlook. One is that Hebrew was already a dead language by about 300 BC, around the era of Alexander's conquests. For this reason the so-call Apocrypha is written in Greek, and Protestants generally don't regard it as part of scripture. Yet much of what they believe (heaven, hell, angels and Satan, resurrection, an immortal soul, and the concept of a coming Messiah) developed during that era. Yet the New Testament was written in Greek. So the rationale for accepting or denying what was "inspired word" is just arbitrary. This dovetails with what you said about the Bible being man-made. It's a combination of what people put in and what they left out that makes it so obvious.

Another point you mentioned which creationists tend to ignore is the lesser known part of the Big Bang theory that generally requires that time and space were created "in the beginning". This renders the possibility of God nil, since even by the most elaborate of definitions of God, He has to interact with the universe to create it. Even God cannot exist outside of time, since there can be no sequence, motion, will, or action that occurs without the ticking of a clock. And it makes no sense to say God just happened to "come into existence" in the Big Bang, which of course the creationist will not accept. A finite God conflicts with the post-Alexandrian apocryphal idea that was dreamed up concerning immortality, and the need for an infinite future. They presumably will argue that time extends into an infinite past, which scientists won't necessarily argue, other than to say that as you look back into the Big Bang time grinds to a halt slower and slower without ever actually meeting the point at which it did not exist. (What mathematicians call convergence.) Again, even if the creationist is stuck regarding God as a being that existed into the infinite past, that past converges at the Big Bang. And "just before" that moment (at the boundary of the convergence) we conclude that neither time nor space existed, and thus God cannot have existed. I doubt if many creationists can follow this thinking, unless they took enough math to recognize what convergence even means. And if they did take the math, it probably eats away a little at their blind faith.

One more thing I would add to what you said about the Bible being man made is that anyone with just a little curiosity can search online and learn about how it was stitched together from other pre-existing mythologies. For example Elohim (the "we" that creates man in "our" image) is probably taken from the Phoenician mythology of Ugarit as well as Yahweh (Jehovah) and a God's wife, Asherah. The Flood story with its creation of a man from clay, comes from the earlier Sumerian mythology. And Jesus resembles Mithra (Mithras) from the Persians, who probably gave Christianity its angels and Satan, the immortal soul, resurrection, etc., as well as mystical nature of Jesus, the 12 followers, crucifixion, a last supper etc.

But since all of that gets complicated most creationists would prefer to settle on trying to undermine the teaching of evolution, and to do what they can to ridicule the Big Bang theory, and/or science in general. Of course what they're ignoring is that it isn't just physics that religion overrules every time a miracle is needed in the story--it's all of the knowledge accessible to us - history, artifacts and the fields of study that strive to reconstruct what actually was going on at the dawn of history - according to best evidence.

Pretty soon it's not just a battle against science anymore, but against any and all academics. But for atheists, it's all a state of neutrality. Whatever the sciences assemble as the explanation for how things work, or what people used to believe, and why, is an explanation that simply doesn't impact atheism one way or the other.

It's this harmony between atheism and science, and the clash between religion and science, which makes atheism the new normal...at least within that minority of folks like you who have done some fact checking and have seen the writing on the wall. Or (we might say): in the fossil record, the DNA, and the stars.

 

Of course you do, just in this post, you did it again.

It's called "teaching by example" or "modeling; being a role model."

Yes.

You are jumping to conclusions again.

And yet your manner of communication continues to prove our assumption.

You mean I refuse to simply subject myself to your judgments of me?
You mean I refuse to simply introject the things you project onto and into me?

So you are actually ready to believe that people are simply lying, pretending and denying when they say they can't relate to something you've said?

I gave one just below the part you're quoting.

No, that won't do: because the whole communication on theistic topics depends on one's stance toward this assumption, and one cannot but make it one way or another.

I keep telling you that I think that you do not care about the people you are actually talking to.

You have a completely different conversation going on than they. You are not actually talking to them. You repeatedly ignore and dismiss, and also ridicule their fears and concerns.
(This is actually typical for theists in general - they tend to have a monologue.)

But since you are the one talking about "God," thus you are the one coming across as knowing better, the greater onus is on you.

I am expressing my concerns. Which you repeatedly ignore and dismiss. As if I don't matter.

You are the one who carries on regardless.

To have a meaningful communication: ie. where you feel you are understood, and where the other party feels you understand them, and where you both care about understanding eachother and being understood.

For one, most people have fears and concerns anyway, so this is something to always consider.

For two, people also often state their fears and concerns.
Which, however, you often simply write off as "tangents" and "distractions" and such.

 

My point was that people sometimes say they believe or disbelieve on the grounds of evidence, but that this isn't necessarily all that goes on for them.

I refuse to believe that humans are essentially idiots and simpletons.

 

Not just atheism, but knowledge in general. A pov that's consistent with the body of human understanding about the world is being attempted by schooling, don't you think?

The other pov says: unless there's evidence of something, why propose it?

However, once the evidence exists that wipes out the prevailing superstitions, there needs to be reconciliation. It isn't just the evidence of physics involved here, but the evidence of history, literature, culture, and how and why people created gods to explain the phenomena for which they had no science. Once that's examined, the premise for the word "God" and the concept "God", which are tied to the ancient superstitions, becomes understood, within the realm of science, as a proliferation, by tradition, of a cultural fabrication.

I wonder if that was conceived at a high elevation. It's hard to imagine that the world is flat when you can see for miles and a slight curvature seems evident. Nevertheless, the Bhagavata don't really supplement science, do they?

Because its visible, and so it can't be denied.

I don't know how to characterize all believers, but among typical Americans--who are 50% Protestant and 25% Catholic--they would necessarily have a book definition in mind. I would imagine you see this in England and Western Europe as well. In fact "God" is a word so tightly connected to the majority religious view of the Western World, that I doubt any of them would think you meant anything different, unless you were to qualify your remarks.

I think we wonder about the intangible mind, but I'm not sure what the average Western religious believers would have to say about it without the tradition and writing to steer their thinking. To wonder how the mind works can be the end of the line for the atheists. They don't have to tunnel through into the ideation that hinges on a connectedness like you speak of it. One question is: what is the likelihood that that idea would even come up, in a world in which there was no religion at all.

It's hard to describe a person without conditioning. Education is conditioning. But education is also the growth in basic skills for dealing with all kinds of ideation, internal and external. Thus the association of "bad ideation" or "good ideation" based on whether the needle points to "fairy tale" or to "documented proof" isn't exactly conditioning as you mean it. It's the deconditioning, from some culturally-influenced norm, one which inhibits or reacts to such questions, to a more neutral position, one free of cultural baggage.

But God probably doesn't exist, for the reasons given above.

Science is dictated by Nature. Scientists are the ones taking the dictation. We can't reject science without rejecting Nature, which gets pretty dicey (like hallucinating). As long as we're grounded in reality, we turn to Nature for its own definitions of how it works. Then we have science to help us make sense of it when complexity or extenuating circumstances require. Atheism is on the sidelines, unaffected by any of science. It's religion that clashes with science, and the atheist sees this go down as a slaughter from their vantage point in the bleachers. The scoreboard is constantly increasing for the scientists, while the believers are unable to score a single point.

That's of course one of the problems atheists have with religions--that they tamper with the minds of the young and impressionable to the point of totalitarianism. For science or education in general, you can't expect democracy or individual freedom. We are not free to deny what Nature is telling us. There's plenty of freedom in designing experiments and creating hypotheses, etc., but not in dealing with nature. We can't force Nature to be the way we want it to be. Thus, you may conclude that the laws of Nature are irreversible, but it would be wrong to call them totalitarian without saying it strictly poetically.

Atheists see atheism as the view, from the sidelines, of how religion was slaughtered by science, and the "lessons earned" from that.

I think one would need to be raised by dogs in the wilderness to have anything awaken within oneself that is not culturally introduced.

Earlier I referred to tunneling through a normative ideation, into one you might call transcendental. It may appear to be an awakening, but if you could sit on the sidelines within your own mind, as it went down, and simply observe, you might just as well characterize it as something else--like "tripping" or "trancing out". At some point we need to draw a boundary around the "sane" kinds of ideation and the ones that are insane, or, at least, so extremely likely and/or contradictory as to justify thinking it's insane, rather than "awakened".