Religion

[TheSHiFT]

http://canadianatheist.com/wp-conten...2/02/image.png

[Vecha]

Originally Posted by TheSHiFT

http://canadianatheist.com/wp-conten...2/02/image.png

Very nice graph.

I'll concede to say that I was wrong in trying to argue a strict definition versus a cultural definition.

[Elude]

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

What created the universe out of the nothingness? It had to come from somewhere.

What created god out of nothingness, could he have evolved? Maybe god was created, does that make him an atheist?

[Quovatis]

How do you know the universe came out of nothingness? Scientists don't make that claim, so I don't know where that's coming from. Can you give an example of nothingness? We have no example of what "nothingness" is for which to make that comparison.

Asking what happened before the Big Bang is nonsensical. Time had no meaning until the big bang, thus there can not be a "before". Scientists are working on the origins of the universe, but just because we don't know something doesn't mean it has a supernatural explanation.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Effective

I'm an atheist, yet if evidence were shown that a god actually existed, I'm not going to go "DERP, I STILL DON'T BELIEVE IN YOU, IF I JUST PRETEND YOU'RE NOT THERE, YOU'LL GO AWAY"

I agree, but I've seen it done.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

but just because we don't know something doesn't mean it has a supernatural explanation.

It also doesn't mean that it doesn't, just because people choose not to believe that anything supernatural exists. And claiming that belief in God is stupid?

It's always a choice. People who don't want to believe in God, or have him as their lord can continue to do so no matter the evidence. Pharaoh driving his army into the Red Sea after the children of Israel, as an historic example.

God is not required to make people believe he exists. He can't MAKE people do anything, otherwise he would MAKE some of you quit downloading/producing child porn, cheating on your wives/girlfriends, lying to your customers, etc. etc, but he doesn't, does he?

It's all a matter of submission or rebellion. Adam rebelled against God's rulership, and he had a perfect planet, wife, and everything else. It isn't valid to say "I would believe in/serve God if the world wasn't full of suffering." Adam had a world that was devoid of anything but perfection, and he still rejected God.

Christians know God exists, atheists/agnostics/whoever wish he didn't. Either way, they end up with what they wanted: the Christian will spend eternity with the God he knows exists, and the atheists who have rejected God will spend eternity as far removed from his influence as can be. Each will get what they truly want, a life with or without God.

Every system requires belief. Daily life requires belief. Did you have team of engineers examine that chair before you sat in it? Did you check every sex partner for HIV? Do you comb through every email and text message of whoever you are currently dating, and have them followed 24/7 to verify their whereabouts and affections?

We go by what we believe. Believing in Jesus AND accepting his lordship leads to life eternal with him. Rejecting him and his lordship leads to eternal damnation. However, everyone is free to choose. Someone who hates God or the very idea of him would be in endless torment to be subjected to him forever in heaven, so that person has to be stored somewhere after they die. You can't expect a die-hard Nazi to enjoy a party full of gay, black **** can you? How much less an atheist in heaven, all those Jesus freaks running around loving Jesus Christ? What indescribable torture that would be. "Excuse me, atheist guest in heaven, why are you so upset?"
"I'm surrounded by all these idiots who believe in God and Jesus!"
"But, I'm Jesus. I do exist."
"No you don't."
"Here's God the father now. He also exists."
"No, he doesn't."
"You're in heaven."
"No I'm not."
"Have it your way."

Faster just to say "Depart ye cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels"

Only two ultimate destinations: with God or without. But, without God is without his blessings, love, comfort, environment or anything else. You can't separate the two. It's like having water but with the stipulation that the wet can't go with it. Water, by definition is wet. If you don't want water, ANY water, you have complete absence of moisture, and would die.

However, people make that choice daily. Then rail against Christians for offering the choice.

It's like Jesus is standing at the door of a private club. There is a gang of protesters outside, rioting because they are angry they can't get in the club. Only members can get in. The protesters say the club should be open to everyone.

But Jesus is handing out free membership cards at the door!
"We don't want the membership cards! Anyone should be able to get in without a card!"
"But, the cards are free."
"We don't care. It is unjust for us to be here in the streets of Dresden while the firestorm is raging, and you have a safe haven in that club."
"But anyone can get in. Membership cards are free!"
"We don't BELIEVE IN MEMBERSHIP CARDS!"
"Then you will burn with the other people in the fires of Dresden."
"That's unfair! We want all the benefits of being in the club, and take no personal responsibility whatsoever for the fact that we refuse to ask Jesus Christ to be our savior!"
"So you want all the benefits, none of the responsibility."
"God doesn't exist, I'm not listening lalalalalala!"

Everlasting fire was prepared not for man, but for the devil and his angels. Refusing the free membership card of accepting Jesus Christ as your savior, then blaming God for people going to said everlasting fire is irresponsible.

Blaming God for people going to hell is like blaming God for creating a valley floor onto which you splatter having jumped off the cliff above. God isn't mean because you reject truth. It's his will for all men to be saved. We are all responsible for whatever truth from God we have heard or witnessed.

All children go to heaven if they die, from the aborted murder victim on up to whatever age that child would have reached accountability, morally, for it's actions. Adults, morally, are responsible for whatever truth they have heard. Some have heard more than others. God will not hold people responsible for anything they never knew about.

But, what we have experienced or been told, we are responsible for that, not God.

[Quovatis]

Traak, people don't "choose" to believe something. People cannot "choose" to believe in god when they know there is no evidence for it. Belief is a state of mind, not a choice. And I love how you completely ignored the rest of my post, as always.

Edit: Atheists don't "wish" god doesn't exist, they simply see no evidence that a god does exist.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Traak

It also doesn't mean that it doesn't, just because people choose not to believe that anything supernatural exists. And claiming that belief in God is stupid?

When given no proof for something, not believing is the reasonable decision to make. It's the same concept behind not believing in arbitrary things like unicorns. If one believes things without proof people would see them as gullible.

Originally Posted by Traak

It's always a choice. People who don't want to believe in God, or have him as their lord can continue to do so no matter the evidence.

People who want to believe in God given no evidence can do so. You worded your statement to make it sound like there was evidence for a God, which is unfounded.

Originally Posted by Traak

God is not required to make people believe he exists. He can't MAKE people do anything, otherwise he would MAKE some of you quit downloading/producing child porn, cheating on your wives/girlfriends, lying to your customers, etc. etc, but he doesn't, does he?

Because? Continue that train of thought. Because he probably doesn't exist?

Originally Posted by Traak

Christians know God exists

To a Christian that statement makes sense.

Originally Posted by Traak

atheists/agnostics/whoever wish he didn't

To a Christian that statement makes sense since they believe in a deity. To form that phrase though assumes that an Atheist believes in a deity, but they lack that belief so such a statement can't be made. They can't wish for something that doesn't exist to not exist. This is a common misconception and is related to Pascal's Wager.

Originally Posted by Traak

Every system requires belief. Daily life requires belief. Did you have team of engineers examine that chair before you sat in it? Did you check every sex partner for HIV? Do you comb through every email and text message of whoever you are currently dating, and have them followed 24/7 to verify their whereabouts and affections?

Sure you can believe an assumption you make. I'm not seeing the connection to any religious concept. Having an assumption about a system is logical when no proof contradicts it. Chairs aren't normally broke so why would you have an engineer inspect it. Doing that for every chair would be paranoia caused by a fear or extreme pessimistic viewpoint toward outcomes. The same goes for checking a partner for HIV, or not trusting someone. These beliefs or assumptions are logically based, unlike religion.

Originally Posted by Traak

We go by what we believe. Believing in Jesus AND accepting his lordship leads to life eternal with him. Rejecting him and his lordship leads to eternal damnation. However, everyone is free to choose.

You only have to choose if you find evidence that makes the criteria believable. A common conjecture goes along the lines of: I could tell you that my friend Bob offers eternal life. With no evidence the logical thing is to not accept that. The religious viewpoint would be to accept it. Accepting every God in hopes for a Heaven becomes the logical motive. However, there's a problem with that. You have multiple religions that are all mutually exclusive forcing a religious person to use reason and logic to decide on the most likely person to follow. Some might choose Jesus while others pick Muhammad and other choose that Jesus is simply a prophet (another messenger). These decisions though are made with no evidence supporting which one is right. Often the decision comes down to, as Richard Dawkins would put it "regional". That is where you're born dictates what religion you follow. People born in the US might default to Christianity while those born in the Middle East might default to Islam. Most Atheists recognize this and decide that the only winning move is not to play.

Originally Posted by Traak

Someone who hates God or the very idea of him would be in endless torment to be subjected to him forever in heaven, so that person has to be stored somewhere after they die.

I will point out that Atheists don't hate God. As hating something that doesn't exist is illogical. Also the concept that an Atheist would go someplace after death is a purely religious point of view. Atheists normally don't believe in an after-life. That is the time after they die is exactly like the time before they were born.

Originally Posted by Traak

Only two ultimate destinations: with God or without. But, without God is without his blessings, love, comfort, environment or anything else. You can't separate the two.

Again a purely religious point of view. You assume that this "blessing, love, comfort, environment" exists in some form. A humanist would say those qualities one seeks from a deity are simply manifestations one creates to believe the deity is doing something. There's often a fear mechanism that makes one crave something they believe they can't create themselves. It would be like saying with a Dog in your life you can never experience a full life. Obviously such a statement is absurd, but people will fixate on it and believe it to be true that they are missing something. In the case of a religious reward these are often intangible like the ones you've listed so having them can preoccupy one even when such a criteria is completely arbitrary.

Originally Posted by Traak

Blaming God for people going to hell is like blaming God for creating a valley floor onto which you splatter having jumped off the cliff above. God isn't mean because you reject truth. It's his will for all men to be saved.

Atheists wouldn't blame anyone for such a premise. Only someone who believe in Hell could blame their deity for sending people there. For an Atheist it would be illogical to assume that something that doesn't exist could send a person to a place. There is no evidence that a person goes anywhere after they die.

Originally Posted by Traak

We are all responsible for whatever truth from God we have heard or witnessed.

From an Atheist point of view such redirecting of one's "truths" or beliefs as coming from a deity is irresponsible.

Originally Posted by Traak

All children go to heaven if they die, from the aborted murder victim on up to whatever age that child would have reached accountability, morally, for it's actions. Adults, morally, are responsible for whatever truth they have heard. Some have heard more than others. God will not hold people responsible for anything they never knew about.

Common misconception actually. People are born Atheists without the concept of a deity. It is only through indoctrination that they gain religion. That's actually why Baptism exists to bring someone into Christianity in some forms of Christianity. It's also the reason why some religions have rules for posthumously baptising a person. (Mormonism being the more well known one).

Originally Posted by Traak

But, what we have experienced or been told, we are responsible for that, not God.

How very humanist of you. Knowing there is no one watching and still doing the right thing tends to be the highest form of morality. (Subjectivism aside).

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

Traak, people don't "choose" to believe something.

Have you ever read any chronicles of private investigators? One private investigator told about this, when he shows the video/photo/audio evidence to someone that his girl is cheating on him, often the person who hired the private investigator completely ignores the facts and doesn't believe she is unfaithful.

People choose to believe stuff all the time. Our choices determine our beliefs far more than our beliefs determine our choices.

In a rape trial, where one person is saying he did it, other person is saying he didn't. If people have no evidence whatsoever to prove either side, they still choose to believe one side or another. What people choose to believe will be determined often by many factors, one of which is logic.

That's why most fathers believe their little Buffy is a halo-polishing angel of light, instead of a slut. The number of girls whose fathers have an accurate tally of how many people they have slept with is pretty small, I think, because of what fathers choose to believe.

[Warborn]

Yeah, take it from us, non-believers aren't in denial. If you could see how ghastly most religions look from the outside you'd understand what we're talking about when we say it isn't a choice. For example, the idea of the Christian god being a real thing is a pretty frightening prospect. What would it mean to live in a world where every disease that kills and maims us was hand-crafted by a being that supposedly loves us? What would it be like to be lorded over by an entity that is so petty and jealous that, if you don't love it, it will torture you for eternity? There isn't any denial here. The God of Abraham is a frightening creature indeed, a petty, vain, blood-spattered tyrant who kills for fun and demands you love him OR ELSE. Not even the worst human dictators can compare to how evil such a god would be if it were real.

But, fortunately, there is zero evidence that either the Abrahamic God or any other god or gods are a real thing. The world works exactly the way you'd expect it to work if there were no gods at all.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Traak

Have you ever read any chronicles of private investigators? One private investigator told about this, when he shows the video/photo/audio evidence to someone that his girl is cheating on him, often the person who hired the private investigator completely ignores the facts and doesn't believe she is unfaithful.

People choose to believe stuff all the time. Our choices determine our beliefs far more than our beliefs determine our choices.

In a rape trial, where one person is saying he did it, other person is saying he didn't. If people have no evidence whatsoever to prove either side, they still choose to believe one side or another. What people choose to believe will be determined often by many factors, one of which is logic.

That's why most fathers believe their little Buffy is a halo-polishing angel of light, instead of a slut. The number of girls whose fathers have an accurate tally of how many people they have slept with is pretty small, I think, because of what fathers choose to believe.

Wait.. wait.. whoa there. Are you using the fact that people can be delusional.. to support your claims that gods and religions are real?




Now, I have officially seen everything.



Oh, and my opinion:

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

3 options, 3 different results, but only one real course of action: Doing what you were going to do anyway, be a decent person.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong, and god exists, and is a colossal prick. Well then, I guess I'm joining the resistance! If it wants a war, I'll give him a war.

[Effective]

Traak is not ready to be unplugged from the matrix.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by Traak

blah

I'm glad you made my point for me. Being delusional and denying clear evidence that your spouse is cheating on you is very similar to believing something without evidence (e.g. a god). That's generally how I think of highly religious people such as yourself. In both cases, emotions are so high that people stop relying on logic and become delusional. I know, because I was once a believer.

[NivexQ]

Who is this god we're all talking about? I thought everyone believed that there's a giant space bunny guarding us from the evil of the intergalactic death ponies, like I do... "It's my faith and no one can make be think otherwise!!!!!!!!!!"

I just don't get how some people can look at something like Scientology and laugh at it's stupidity and then go back to believing in a cosmic Jewish Zombie named Jesus will make you live forever if you worship him and eat him weekly.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

I am still here. Unlike most that have been through a PHENOMINAL fraction of that who got permanently fucked up, I am still 100% functional.

I'm having a problem following that logic. You've had a lot of near death experiences so you credited a higher power? I had a semi-religious best friend (volunteered at soup kitchens and helped a lot of people) who had some interesting things happen also. The only difference is that he hit a tree and didn't get as lucky. I'm using the word "luck" here to denote just that. I'm kind of surprised you can list so many bad things in your life and then credit one thing (being alive) to your deity. As a longstanding Atheist, it's a perplexing way to think.

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

To put it scientifically and statistically, BILLIONS of people can't be wrong. Granted, other people have different views of the higher power. But how can 85% of the popuation be wrong?

This is going to seem odd, but ask children between the age of like 3 to 7 if Santa Claus is real. You might get similar statistics. Children and even adults can be extremely gullible especially if you give them proof or teach them not to question the belief.

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

There is something out there that created us, the everything didn't come from NOTHING. Period. End. No discussion.

As explained before nothing is an interesting concept. I mean you can backtrack and say we came from stars and stars came from other stars. Scientifically speaking going back to the big bang, but at no point in our current understanding of science was there "nothing". That concept actually contradicts a lot of things in physics. (Namely conservation of mass and energy).

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

I choose to believe in God, Jesus and the bible. If I'm wrong, at least I believed in something.

You make it sound like not believing in something is a bad thing. Like it somehow destroys your meaning of life. From an Atheist point of view you can still hold onto beliefs such as life, liberty and happiness. Some might argue those beliefs are better. Though that might be my secular bias.

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

You have all heard this before from various movies; (believe in nothing or die for nothing)

It rings true. If you die and didn't give one single ounce of fuck, your bad if you're wrong. There-in if you at least believe, then if you die you have a chance.

Pascal's wager doesn't work for religion sadly. You have to already believe in a god for the outcome to be favorable. If you don't the outcomes break down.

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

I am not trying to convince anyone to believe in God... The fact remains, you are who you are. You are going to believe in what you want to believe in no matter what and that makes this entire discussion's point moot.

Discussion only leads to debates that will never change anyone's aspect and enrage people who have different opinions. Regardless, I know who I am, and I KNOW I'm right. DAMN anyone who opposes me, because I'd die for it, literally fucking die for it.

It's good to see both sides if anything. If it helps to hold onto a religious view you can always view this discussion as a test of your faith.