Is Faith In God Reasonable? Faith is Foolish Debate

[Hasbinbad]

William Lane Craig does a really good job, but is still shit on out of hand.

You guys aren't even trying.

Your god is dead. Get over it.

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[Ahldagor]

hbb, the sentence, "Your god is dead," implies that there was a god to begin with. Stop saying it in order to better validate your position. And this whole debate is pointless. Best way to get rid of "God" is to stop talking about it.

[Rhambuk]

hbb, the sentence, "Your god is dead," implies that there was a god to begin with. Stop saying it in order to better validate your position. And this whole debate is pointless. Best way to get rid of "God" is to stop talking about it.

hmmmmmmm
...
...
...

[Ahldagor]

hmmmmmmm
...
...
...

precisely

[quido]

http://www.msu.edu/~oconne53/fascinating.jpg

[Ahldagor]

http://www.msu.edu/~oconne53/fascinating.jpg

where was this found? creepily looks like my uncle.

[GODPARTICLE]

I like when stupid atheists are like where's the proof for God's existence I'm like any fix your brain to recognize any of your senses because existence of anything is existence of God and is proof DUh

[Rhambuk]

I like when stupid atheists are like where's the proof for God's existence I'm like any fix your brain to recognize any of your senses because existence of anything is existence of God and is proof DUh

i wish i was so simple...

To take every problem I don't understand and just say God did it and move on.

[GODPARTICLE]

ok so what is scientific explanation on the origin of existence?

[Eliseus]

I'm more curious as to why the assumption God doesn't exist because science was able to prove things like the "Big Bang." Just because science has proved something does that mean God didn't create it or doesn't still make it miraculous? I also think people under the assumption that acts of randomness for such perfect things like the human body is absurd. I mean look at the thriving striving creation that has the ability to create more life. People really assume that this was random? That somehow all the stars aligned in the universe at precisely the perfect moment to somehow allow man and woman to be made, not only that but this random act also created an even more random act of allowing man/woman to reproduce with each other?

Now of course this doesn't necessarily say that the "God" that is believed in exists, and like he mentions may be "dead", but, either God does exist or a higher power definitely exists in some for somewhere that created what we know.

I mean, if you read the news, since 4years ago when NASA launched Kepler, they have found 2,700 possible planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, and 100 of those have been confirmed Earth like planets. This in itself should be proof at the possibility of a more powerful race maybe then ours, Gods maybe? Now, if you think that we never traveled to the moon or into space along with God not existing, I don't think there is any hope for you people at all lol.

I personally believe in God and Jesus Christ, but even without them, I would believe in a higher power or more advanced race somewhere that is the reason we are on this Earth.

[Ahldagor]

I'm more curious as to why the assumption God doesn't exist because science was able to prove things like the "Big Bang." Just because science has proved something does that mean God didn't create it or doesn't still make it miraculous? I also think people under the assumption that acts of randomness for such perfect things like the human body is absurd. I mean look at the thriving striving creation that has the ability to create more life. People really assume that this was random? That somehow all the stars aligned in the universe at precisely the perfect moment to somehow allow man and woman to be made, not only that but this random act also created an even more random act of allowing man/woman to reproduce with each other?

Now of course this doesn't necessarily say that the "God" that is believed in exists, and like he mentions may be "dead", but, either God does exist or a higher power definitely exists in some for somewhere that created what we know.

I mean, if you read the news, since 4years ago when NASA launched Kepler, they have found 2,700 possible planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, and 100 of those have been confirmed Earth like planets. This in itself should be proof at the possibility of a more powerful race maybe then ours, Gods maybe? Now, if you think that we never traveled to the moon or into space along with God not existing, I don't think there is any hope for you people at all lol.

I personally believe in God and Jesus Christ, but even without them, I would believe in a higher power or more advanced race somewhere that is the reason we are on this Earth.

it wasn't random. apes fucked that evolved into humans who continued to keep on fucking.

[Eliseus]

ok so what is scientific explanation on the origin of existence?

A lot of peoples assumption has a lot to do with Evolution which is surprisingly funny, because the time it would take for us to evolve cant really be explained anyways since it would take so long for something like that to happen no one would ever be around to see it. I mean hell, like in our other thread, people already have hard enough time validating/not validation the bible which is only a few thousand years ago. Also, science shows that the structure of the bones in birds are almost similar to humans, does that mean we came from birds? Now, adaption is entirely possible, but the assumption that I will one day grow wings and fly away because its required for my race to survive is stupid.

[Eliseus]

it wasn't random. apes fucked that evolved into humans who continued to keep on fucking.

Did you just try saying it wasn't random by throwing in another scenario of randomness? Even if evolution really existed (IDK if it does or not, but it being a "theory" just like the big bang, there is not proof, I'll define theory for you if you would like) then what did the apes come from? The randomness I pointed out in my post.

[GODPARTICLE]

the big bang is actually proof of SUPERNATURAL FORCES since it violated the 2nd law of thermodynamics (retard atheist scientists say it couldn't technically violate it because nothing existed yet you kno)

[Eliseus]

Speaking of Atheist, here is what I thought was a good read.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/atheist-believes-in-god/


Famous Atheist Now Believes in God

One of World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or
Less, Based on Scientific Evidence


Dec. 9, 2004 - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Flew said he’s best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people’s lives.

“I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,” he said. “It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.”

Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article “Theology and Falsification,” based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.

Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists’ investigation of DNA “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,” Flew says in the new video, “Has Science Discovered God?”

The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese’s Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews.

The first hint of Flew’s turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain’s Philosophy Now magazine. “It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism,” he wrote.

The letter commended arguments in Schroeder’s “The Hidden Face of God” and “The Wonder of the World” by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.

This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his “God and Philosophy,” scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press.

Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well “that’s too bad,” Flew said. “My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato’s Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a “minimal God” and believes in no afterlife.

Flew’s “name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up,” Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew’s reversal, “apart from curiosity, I don’t think it’s like a big deal.”

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American “intelligent design” theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

A Methodist minister’s son, Flew became an atheist at 15.

Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.

Another landmark was his 1984 “The Presumption of Atheism,” playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.

[Ephirith]

It's everyone's favorite pastime-- arguing about religion on the internet! en garde

People really assume that this was random? That somehow all the stars aligned in the universe at precisely the perfect moment to somehow allow man and woman to be made, not only that but this random act also created an even more random act of allowing man/woman to reproduce with each other?

Now of course this doesn't necessarily say that the "God" that is believed in exists, and like he mentions may be "dead", but, either God does exist or a higher power definitely exists in some for somewhere that created what we know./QUOTE]

How is the notion of biological complexity needing to be 'created' any less absurd than billions of years of stellar and biochemical evolution?

If you believe we had to have been created, then who created the creator? If you say he always existed, or created himself, then why not save a step and apply the same freewheeling principles to primordial humanity?

[QUOTE=Eliseus;964138]A lot of peoples assumption has a lot to do with Evolution which is surprisingly funny, because the time it would take for us to evolve cant really be explained anyways since it would take so long for something like that to happen no one would ever be around to see it. I mean hell, like in our other thread, people already have hard enough time validating/not validation the bible which is only a few thousand years ago. Also, science shows that the structure of the bones in birds are almost similar to humans, does that mean we came from birds? Now, adaption is entirely possible, but the assumption that I will one day grow wings and fly away because its required for my race to survive is stupid.

I'm sorry to insult you but you are woefully uneducated... read a biology book. Science doesn't make very strong claims on the origin of the universe nor does it purport to factually explain the origin of life itself. For these questions it has theories supported by whatever empirical evidence can be gathered.

The principles of biological evolution and their role in the formation of humanity, however, are objective fact. We are similar to birds because we share a common ancestor. We didn't evolve from monkeys, but we do share a common ancestor with monkeys. These things are not debatable. If you refuse to accept them at this point, you're just opting for ignorance.

There's one important consideration: It's not just that you believe in God and Christ, you also believe in God and Christ's 'teachings'. You live your life a certain way based on faith, and you expect others to do the same. If you want me to walk into church on sundays and worship a God, then the burden of evidence is on you to prove to me that God exists. Creationism is a joke. I don't find faith compelling. You have no compelling evidence.

And scientists aren't asking you to live your life a certain way, so they don't need to prove anything. Their claims are by necessity grounded in fact. If something has poor support, it isn't accepted. If you can find substantial evidence for your claims, my mind is open! Until then, you can keep your backwards fucking superstition out of my schools and politics kkthx.

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." -Carl Sagan

[Hasbinbad]

hbb, the sentence, "Your god is dead," implies that there was a god to begin with.
I'm not speaking of a deity as an actual thing, I'm saying that it is a concept. That concept is dead by any metric that means anything.

[Hasbinbad]

oh gosh 99% of ignorant ass rednecks believe dat shit, it muss be tru. best redneckognize.

[kingsBlend]

It does require more FAITH to be an atheist.

[Hasbinbad]

atheists just as bad as fundamentalists

[Clark]

Get outta here with your atheist nonsense. Garbage boy.

[Hasbinbad]

and agnostics should quit calling themselves atheists coz thas jus ignurint

[Eliseus]

It's everyone's favorite pastime-- arguing about religion on the internet! en garde

[QUOTE=Eliseus;964134] People really assume that this was random? That somehow all the stars aligned in the universe at precisely the perfect moment to somehow allow man and woman to be made, not only that but this random act also created an even more random act of allowing man/woman to reproduce with each other?

Now of course this doesn't necessarily say that the "God" that is believed in exists, and like he mentions may be "dead", but, either God does exist or a higher power definitely exists in some for somewhere that created what we know./QUOTE]

How is the notion of biological complexity needing to be 'created' any less absurd than billions of years of stellar and biochemical evolution?

If you believe we had to have been created, then who created the creator? If you say he always existed, or created himself, then why not save a step and apply the same freewheeling principles to primordial humanity?



I'm sorry to insult you but you are woefully uneducated... read a biology book. Science doesn't make very strong claims on the origin of the universe nor does it purport to factually explain the origin of life itself. For these questions it has theories supported by whatever empirical evidence can be gathered.

The principles of biological evolution and their role in the formation of humanity, however, are objective fact. We are similar to birds because we share a common ancestor. We didn't evolve from monkeys, but we do share a common ancestor with monkeys. These things are not debatable. If you refuse to accept them at this point, you're just opting for ignorance.

There's one important consideration: It's not just that you believe in God and Christ, you also believe in God and Christ's 'teachings'. You live your life a certain way based on faith, and you expect others to do the same. If you want me to walk into church on sundays and worship a God, then the burden of evidence is on you to prove to me that God exists. Creationism is a joke. I don't find faith compelling. You have no compelling evidence.

And scientists aren't asking you to live your life a certain way, so they don't need to prove anything. Their claims are by necessity grounded in fact. If something has poor support, it isn't accepted. If you can find substantial evidence for your claims, my mind is open! Until then, you can keep your backwards fucking superstition out of my schools and politics kkthx.

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." -Carl Sagan

I don't even know where to start to pick this thread apart. You also want the burden of evidence, yet you agree with posts like the OPs, which would actually result in YOU to prove a burden of evidence. Don't try to twist things around that we would have to prove anything to you. I don't see a thread telling you to come to church or what to and not to believe in. Also, considering the U.S. was founded under god, you can take your backwards fucking superstition and get the fuck out of my country or shut the fuck up and let people believe in and be happy with whatever God they want.

Your biology comment is pretty laughable since it talks about "theories" which you don't seem to grasp. Maybe if you come into this thread and not throw around "fuck you" types of arguments people would be more willing to agree with your wall of text. When you try to make a point, it helps if you don't show how unintelligent you really are.

[Ahldagor]

I'm not speaking of a deity as an actual thing, I'm saying that it is a concept. That concept is dead by any metric that means anything.

I know, but when they hear that it validates their side more in their head. That's the problem with arguing with believers, they don't separate the concept from an actual thing, but it's hard to communicate with the limited word usage we have. Hence my notion of abandoning that language.

[Hasbinbad]

[QUOTE=Ephirith;964174]Also, considering the U.S. was founded under god, you can take your backwards fucking superstition and get the fuck out of my country or shut the fuck up and let people believe in and be happy with whatever God they want.
Thread success.

[Hasbinbad]

fail quoting, but if you're paying attention you know who I quoted.

[Ahldagor]

Did you just try saying it wasn't random by throwing in another scenario of randomness? Even if evolution really existed (IDK if it does or not, but it being a "theory" just like the big bang, there is not proof, I'll define theory for you if you would like) then what did the apes come from? The randomness I pointed out in my post.

nope, your parents fucked, sex cells merged, and out you came from your mother's body. physical things that are provable. that's not random, but a measurable chain of events.

[Hasbinbad]

nope, your parents fucked, sex cells merged, and out you came from your mother's body. physical things that are provable. that's not random, but a measurable chain of events.
physical things aren't provable.

[Clark]

Atheist, agnostic, nonbeliever not really all that difference. Takes a true dumbass to be anyone of the three.

[Ephirith]

Also, considering the U.S. was founded under god, you can take your backwards fucking superstition and get the fuck out of my country or shut the fuck up and let people believe in and be happy with whatever God they want.

Yea we've made quite a few mistakes as a nation but I like to think we're improving. I mean it wasn't just God, we were founded under slavery too. One pernicious institution down, one to go.

[Clark]

Different*

[Hasbinbad]

Yea we've made quite a few mistakes as a nation but I like to think we're improving. I mean it wasn't just God, we were founded under slavery too. One pernicious institution down, one to go.
don't forget genocide, labor camps, indentured servitude, racism other than slavery and genocide, isolationism, and last but certainly not least capitalism .. just to name a few.

[Ahldagor]

physical things aren't provable.

existential bad faith thing?

[Hasbinbad]

the west was won on the backs of starving chinese

[Hasbinbad]

existential bad faith thing?
sensory / perception wall thing. only conceptual things like deductive logic and mathematics are provable.

[Hasbinbad]

sensory / perception wall thing. only conceptual things like deductive logic and mathematics are provable.
everything else is measured with relative degrees of certainty, approaching but never reaching 1/1

[Eliseus]

nope, your parents fucked, sex cells merged, and out you came from your mother's body. physical things that are provable. that's not random, but a measurable chain of events.

Ok, I laughed hard when reading this. Seriously, thank you for this lol.

[Ahldagor]

sensory / perception wall thing. only conceptual things like deductive logic and mathematics are provable.

ah

[GODPARTICLE]

Yea we've made quite a few mistakes as a nation but I like to think we're improving. I mean it wasn't just God, we were founded under slavery too. One pernicious institution down, one to go.

Quite the opposite we need to bring back slavery (and we are, slowly)

[Hasbinbad]

everything else is measured with relative degrees of certainty, approaching but never reaching 1/1
Statisticians would argue that these degrees of certainty can be predictive, which is useful, but these physical things are not "provable" in the absolute philosophical sense.

[Eliseus]

Quite the opposite we need to bring back slavery (and we are, slowly)

Whites are minority!

[Hasbinbad]

You guys know that originally slavery was not racial in this country. The implications of Bacon's rebellion should be studied.

[Ephirith]

Ok, I laughed hard when reading this. Seriously, thank you for this lol.

Your parents consummated their marriage in the missionary position for the sole intent of procreation. Your dad gave your mom his naughty sauce and God shined His Divine Light on her womb, and at that very instant that little wad of goo was no longer goo, but a human life with an immortal soul. Amen

[Hasbinbad]

Make sure to get the baby baptised or if it dies it will go to limbo because that is gods divine, inalterable, absolute plan.

Oh wait some dude changed that.

[Hasbinbad]

Atheist, agnostic, nonbeliever not really all that difference. Takes a true dumbass to be anyone of the three.
So I don't think you know what agnostic means. Would you like me to explain it to you?

[Eliseus]

Yea we've made quite a few mistakes as a nation but I like to think we're improving. I mean it wasn't just God, we were founded under slavery too. One pernicious institution down, one to go.

We weren't founded under slavery actually. When the meeting in the convention happened for the Constitution, slavery was a goal that the north was looking to abolish. They was many things in place to be accepted to get rid of slavery, for example, 20 years to stop slavery so you can get your economic things in order.

So if you mean that the U.S. was founded under the idea of abolishing slavery, you are correct.

[Eliseus]

Your parents consummated their marriage in the missionary position for the sole intent of procreation. Your dad gave your mom his naughty sauce and God shined His Divine Light on her womb, and at that very instant that little wad of goo was no longer goo, but a human life with an immortal soul. Amen

LMAO WTF. Good read. Would read again.

[Ahldagor]

Make sure to get the baby baptised or if it dies it will go to limbo because that is gods divine, inalterable, absolute plan.

Oh wait some dude changed that.

Catholic church did away with limbo a couple years ago. Just poof gone after, I dunno, nearly 2k years of existence.

[Hasbinbad]

Hay guiz i took philo 101 and lernd nuttin is real
I'm not saying the real world isn't out there, but I am saying that you and I have never experienced it.

[quido]

stfu faggots

[Eliseus]

stfu faggots

Bro story cool.

[kotton05]

God gave us free will then said to hell with ya.. Leaving to devil to help influence us.

[Versus]

These are the worst fucking RnF threads. There should be a separate forum for this crap, no one cares.

[kotton05]

stfu faggots

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[Eliseus]

So how do these RnF threads work? Once this Jeremy guy posts in a thread, the train of FE/TMO trolls finally decide to ride on in?

[Hasbinbad]

So how do these RnF threads work? Once this Jeremy guy posts in a thread, the train of FE/TMO trolls finally decide to ride on in?
someone gets mad; thread declared a success by OP, but a failure by OP's detractors (itself evidence of thread success); everyone laughs at dredge and tiggles RL pictures.

[Hasbinbad]

someone gets mad; thread declared a success by OP, but a failure by OP's detractors (itself evidence of thread success); everyone laughs at dredge and tiggles RL pictures.
and then pico posts that picture of me with the speech bubble saying this quote

[Clark]

These are the worst fucking RnF threads. There should be a separate forum for this crap, no one cares.

Agreed they think they're smart. Look like jackasses though.

[Kagatob]

HBB you worry too much about labels. Just saying, it lowers your credibility a bit more than you realize. Yes zealous Dawkinsish Atheists are just as bad or in some cases worse than the others, however even Dawkins isn't Dawkinsish anymore. Worry less about labels and more about presentation, content and evidence. :D

[Kagatob]

Agreed they think they're smart. Look like jackasses though.

Christians are one of those groups that you can't kill with kindness. They've been indoctrinated to believe that you are going to burn in hell and that you are threat to their well being. Sugarcoating the truth only makes the journey longer and your own base less creditable.

[quido]

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRp0JV5gJEtc8FOStPvXU-7kpGvSVyZWl4vZxo5_VeovvCHMsl2Lw

[Ephirith]

HBB you worry too much about labels. Just saying, it lowers your credibility a bit more than you realize.

HBB you worry too much about labels. Just saying, it lowers your credibility a bit more than you realize.

HBB you worry too much about labels. Just saying, it lowers your credibility a bit more than you realize.

[Hasbinbad]

HBB you worry too much about labels.
I like precision in language. Without that, you may as well call the sky green, arguing with someone who is saying the sky is blue, when what you mean by green is blue.
..it lowers your credibility a bit more than you realize.
Argumentum ad populum holds absolutely none of my interest.

[Hasbinbad]

Ephirith, i c wat u did ther, but i don't see you disagreeing with what i have to say in any meaningful way.

[Reapin]

We are all a part of one gigantic chemical reaction. There could be a god, but it is not some magic sky jew or some muslim child molester floating on a cloud. God is just the energy that makes up everything we are able to observe and all the other stuff we cannot. The narcissistic notion of god invented by men is merely a tool used to control you and rob you of your wealth and freedom.

There is no good and evil. Those are social values determined by the society we live in. The times and conditions humans are nurtured in determine the level of intolerance, empathy and greed we have. These things in varying degrees determine the morality of a society. This of course is a general rule and there are always the oddball people who go against the status quo (I call them progressives) who change the morality of a society in large or small ways.

There is only evolution. There is no such thing as devolution. Things change over time due to the stimuli around us. Humans could very well evolve gills again and crawl back into the ocean if things changed slow enough for us to evolve that way again. But judging by the rate of climate change we will not succeed in surviving another 2000 years.

Life is far grander and much more wondrous than any religion as been able to grasp. This is why as we gain more knowledge, religion tends to pool around communities of the ignorant, weak minded and cowardly portions of the human race.

Christianity in particular is nothing but a selfish death cult. Its members content of killing themselves and everyone else to hasten the speed of their believed salvation. For everyone else, salvation would be the end of Christianity.

[youtube]We are all a part of one gigantic chemical reaction. There could be a god, but it is not some magic sky jew or some muslim child molester floating on a cloud. God is just the energy that makes up everything we are able to observe and all the other stuff we cannot. The narcissistic notion of god invented by men is merely a tool used to control you and rob you of your wealth and freedom.

There is no good and evil. Those are social values determined by the society we live in. The times and conditions humans are nurtured in determine the level of intolerance, empathy and greed we have. These things in varying degrees determine the morality of a society. This of course is a general rule and there are always the oddball people who go against the status quo (I call them progressives) who change the morality of a society in large or small ways.

There is only evolution. There is no such thing as devolution. Things change over time due to the stimuli around us. Humans could very well evolve gills again and crawl back into the ocean if things changed slow enough for us to evolve that way again. But judging by the rate of climate change we will not succeed in surviving another 2000 years.

Life is far grander and much more wondrous than any religion as been able to grasp. This is why as we gain more knowledge, religion tends to pool around communities of the ignorant, weak minded and cowardly portions of the human race.

Christianity in particular is nothing but a selfish death cult. Its members content of killing themselves and everyone else to hasten the speed of their believed salvation. For everyone else, salvation would be the end of Christianity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqKb5ViN_Q

[Reapin]

Sorry for the double tap...

[Daldolma]

We are all a part of one gigantic chemical reaction. There could be a god, but it is not some magic sky jew or some muslim child molester floating on a cloud. God is just the energy that makes up everything we are able to observe and all the other stuff we cannot. The narcissistic notion of god invented by men is merely a tool used to control you and rob you of your wealth and freedom.

There is no good and evil. Those are social values determined by the society we live in. The times and conditions humans are nurtured in determine the level of intolerance, empathy and greed we have. These things in varying degrees determine the morality of a society. This of course is a general rule and there are always the oddball people who go against the status quo (I call them progressives) who change the morality of a society in large or small ways.

There is only evolution. There is no such thing as devolution. Things change over time due to the stimuli around us. Humans could very well evolve gills again and crawl back into the ocean if things changed slow enough for us to evolve that way again. But judging by the rate of climate change we will not succeed in surviving another 2000 years.

Life is far grander and much more wondrous than any religion as been able to grasp. This is why as we gain more knowledge, religion tends to pool around communities of the ignorant, weak minded and cowardly portions of the human race.

Christianity in particular is nothing but a selfish death cult. Its members content of killing themselves and everyone else to hasten the speed of their believed salvation. For everyone else, salvation would be the end of Christianity.

[youtube]We are all a part of one gigantic chemical reaction. There could be a god, but it is not some magic sky jew or some muslim child molester floating on a cloud. God is just the energy that makes up everything we are able to observe and all the other stuff we cannot. The narcissistic notion of god invented by men is merely a tool used to control you and rob you of your wealth and freedom.

There is no good and evil. Those are social values determined by the society we live in. The times and conditions humans are nurtured in determine the level of intolerance, empathy and greed we have. These things in varying degrees determine the morality of a society. This of course is a general rule and there are always the oddball people who go against the status quo (I call them progressives) who change the morality of a society in large or small ways.

There is only evolution. There is no such thing as devolution. Things change over time due to the stimuli around us. Humans could very well evolve gills again and crawl back into the ocean if things changed slow enough for us to evolve that way again. But judging by the rate of climate change we will not succeed in surviving another 2000 years.

Life is far grander and much more wondrous than any religion as been able to grasp. This is why as we gain more knowledge, religion tends to pool around communities of the ignorant, weak minded and cowardly portions of the human race.

Christianity in particular is nothing but a selfish death cult. Its members content of killing themselves and everyone else to hasten the speed of their believed salvation. For everyone else, salvation would be the end of Christianity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqKb5ViN_Q

will pray for your immortal soul

[Reapin]

Spend your time masturbating. It's more productive.

[Kagatob]

will pray for your immortal soul

Is this the same immortal soul that God created perfectly that he decided to test anyway for imperfections, giving it free will and sending it to hell when it exercises that free will by not doing exactly what he wanted it to do in the first place?

[Ephirith]

We don't have free will by the way, everything that is ever going to happen was determined at the instant the universe began. Or if the universe never began or ended, everything was determined at the point(s) and time of origination of all visible matter. Quantum uncertainty only creates randomness at the particle level, and it evens out at the macro scale to result in the complete and utter absence of randomness and uncertainty. And we don't know how much of that 'uncertainty" results from limitations of observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

Ladies and gentlemen, you do what you will, but you do not will what you will.

[Kagatob]

I like precision in language. Without that, you may as well call the sky green, arguing with someone who is saying the sky is blue, when what you mean by green is blue.

Your choice in languages to converse in is pretty poor then.

Argumentum ad populum holds absolutely none of my interest.
I find this hard to believe, were this true you would have not posted anything in the first place.

[Reapin]

Speaking of Atheist, here is what I thought was a good read.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/atheist-believes-in-god/


Famous Atheist Now Believes in God

One of World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or
Less, Based on Scientific Evidence


Dec. 9, 2004 - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Flew said he’s best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people’s lives.

“I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,” he said. “It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.”

Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article “Theology and Falsification,” based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.

Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists’ investigation of DNA “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,” Flew says in the new video, “Has Science Discovered God?”

The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese’s Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews.

The first hint of Flew’s turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain’s Philosophy Now magazine. “It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism,” he wrote.

The letter commended arguments in Schroeder’s “The Hidden Face of God” and “The Wonder of the World” by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.

This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his “God and Philosophy,” scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press.

Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well “that’s too bad,” Flew said. “My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato’s Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a “minimal God” and believes in no afterlife.

Flew’s “name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up,” Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew’s reversal, “apart from curiosity, I don’t think it’s like a big deal.”

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American “intelligent design” theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

A Methodist minister’s son, Flew became an atheist at 15.

Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.

Another landmark was his 1984 “The Presumption of Atheism,” playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.



Some old geezer is hedging his bets like a coward is supposed to impress me? All this proves is that the fear of death is powerful indeed.

[Kagatob]

Some old geezer is hedging his bets like a coward is supposed to impress me? All this proves is that the fear of death is powerful indeed.

[Daldolma]

Is this the same immortal soul that God created perfectly that he decided to test anyway for imperfections, giving it free will and sending it to hell when it exercises that free will by not doing exactly what he wanted it to do in the first place?

yes that is the one

[Hasbinbad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg

I win.

[Hasbinbad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
While we're quoting wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_decay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-238

[Eliseus]

Some old geezer is hedging his bets like a coward is supposed to impress me? All this proves is that the fear of death is powerful indeed.

Say it however you want, there is many "Famous" Atheists that have changed their view.

Just because you don't agree with it, doesn't mean he's wrong. He not only gave his opinion but gave supported facts about DNA etc... to give his opinion. In the end, do whatever you want as long as you are happy, but the denial of a "higher being" is idiotic. Even if it is just a more powerful human race, the likely hood is more possible then nothing existing.

[Kagatob]

Say it however you want, there is many "Famous" Atheists that have changed their view.

Just because you don't agree with it, doesn't mean he's wrong. He not only gave his opinion but gave supported facts about DNA etc... to give his opinion. In the end, do whatever you want as long as you are happy, but the denial of a "higher being" is idiotic. Even if it is just a more powerful human race, the likely hood is more possible then nothing existing.

That's called agnosticism.

You also are ignoring the great number of people who hide their lack of faith and proclaim that they are Christian for fear of being ousted. For an example see: All politicians. :)

[Eliseus]

That's called agnosticism.

You also are ignoring the great number of people who hide their lack of faith and proclaim that they are Christian for fear of being ousted. For an example see: All politicians. :)

Actually it's not, I stated that you believe in a higher being, even if its a more advanced human race. Not that you feel there may or may not be a higher being and don't claim there is or isn't a higher being.

Also, it's just like faggots haha, hide their gayness. Though you can't really tell someone what they do and don't believe in, people can have complete faith in something without living their life that way that their belief would assume they would live.

[Kagatob]

Another person too worried about labels.

[Eliseus]

Another person too worried about labels.

Worried about labels? I think that is a valid thing for someone to be worried about since the things that keep being tossed around in this thread have been used to define so many wrong things for their definition.

Atheists =/= Agnostics, matter of fact, they aren't even close.

[Kagatob]

Worried about labels? I think that is a valid thing for someone to be worried about since the things that keep being tossed around in this thread have been used to define so many wrong things for their definition.

Atheists =/= Agnostics, matter of fact, they aren't even close.

The evidence shows the inverse to be true. If what you claim were true you wouldn't have the issue in the first place. Most non-believers don't even know which one to label themselves with nor do they care. Why do you care so much? What is it that you're trying to prove here?

[Eliseus]

The evidence shows the inverse to be true. If what you claim were true you wouldn't have the issue in the first place. Most non-believers don't even know which one to label themselves with nor do they care. Why do you care so much? What is it that you're trying to prove here?

I have my reasons. None that I have to share with you. I've simply tried point out how people such of yourself really aren't very educated in this subject nor are/provide any credible sources for your arguments. Also, before it gets pointed out neither did I or anyone else, it's not our job to post any credibility in your thread. I have a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ and felt like joining in on this discussion. Matter of fact, I enjoy a lot talking about this stuff with all kinds of believers/non-believers because I really do enjoy peoples opinions and their views, because it makes me think a little more and sometimes ponder on what-if situations that lead me into my own little world sometimes haha. I also sometimes come upon really cool things that have either been proven or haven't been proven yet that I didn't know before, like scientific stuff. Sadly, that hasn't really happened here yet.

Why do you care so much?

[Kagatob]

I have my reasons. None that I have to share with you. I've simply tried point out how people such of yourself really aren't very educated in this subject nor are/provide any credible sources for your arguments. Also, before it gets pointed out neither did I or anyone else, it's not our job to post any credibility in your thread. I have a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ and felt like joining in on this discussion. Matter of fact, I enjoy a lot talking about this stuff with all kinds of believers/non-believers because I really do enjoy peoples opinions and their views, because it makes me think a little more and sometimes ponder on what-if situations that lead me into my own little world sometimes haha. I also sometimes come upon really cool things that have either been proven or haven't been proven yet that I didn't know before, like scientific stuff. Sadly, that hasn't really happened here yet.

Why do you care so much?
It's not my thread but that's semantics. Having a strong belief in God and Jesus and living in a nation that publicly endorses only such belief systems means that you really wouldn't understand why it's important.

The "war on Christmas", One nation 'under God', school prayer shrouded under the guise of 'moment of silence', swearing upon the Bible in court, tax exemptions for churches, the uproar that they would 'dare to build a mosque near the site of the twin towers', the list goes on. Freedom of religion? You mean freedom for your religion to reign supreme.

That's one of several reasons that I care.

[Ephirith]

the denial of a "higher being" is idiotic.

The scientific community in the United States and elsewhere overwhelmingly disagrees. There are exceptions, and they are extremely uncommon.

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2006/pdf/0219boardstatement.pdf

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6024&page=1

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/4:Whether_ID_Is_Science#Page_83_of_139

Regarding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Science_Education_Act

However, scientific societies collectively representing millions of scientists have opposed the bill, and every scientific society that has given a position about the bill has opposed it.[7][8] Alan Leshner, the executive publisher of Science sent a letter to the Speaker of the House of Louisiana condemning the bill as the "latest effort to insert religious, unscientific views into science classrooms,"[9] writing elsewhere that the bill would "unleash an assault against scientific integrity, leaving students confused about science and unprepared to excel in a modern workforce."[10]

And a list of the scientific organizations rejecting pseudoscientific creationism:

http://ncse.com/media/voices/science

Every major scientific organization in the world, and nearly every proper scientist... is an idiot.

[Eliseus]

Every major scientific organization in the world, and nearly every proper scientist... is an idiot.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

since in fact, in rl this is my area of expertise, i will tell you what I think.

belief in god is wholly irrational, a total leap of faith. and when you get down to the level of well, god wants you to wear a certain kind of specialhat, or never have your women show an ankle unless if a male relative is present as chaperone -- yeah, that is crazyland.

but, strictly from a logical perspective, it is equally illogical to say that you know god does not exist.

All stupid religion aside, the bare fact of the existence of the universe is simply boggling. Believe, or don't believe; both are equally illogical. The universe is illogical. Unless you can tll me whre it came from....

[falkun]

http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

[Hasbinbad]

nearly every proper scientist... is an idiot.the likely hood is more possible then nothing existing.I've simply tried point out how people such of yourself really aren't very educatedit's just like faggots haha

[Hasbinbad]

eliseus confirmed first member of rnf from westboro baptist

[Eliseus]

eliseus confirmed first member of rnf from westboro baptist

No lol

[Hasbinbad]

shut the fuck up bigot

[Hasbinbad]

fatfuck mcdiabetes says what?
shhhh. be vewy vewy kwiet. we'we hunting noobs.

http://i.imgur.com/KRcL9eM.jpg

[Frieza_Prexus]

http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

I love that story. The Last Answer is also quite good. http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/

[JurisDictum]

Sigh....
There is a lot of confusion about the definition of atheism. An atheist is someone who does not believe in any gods...that is it.
Example:
Tom: Do you believe in god(s)?
Dick: No.
Tom: Are you saying you know there isn't a god?
Dick: Nope...
Tom: But you just said you don't believe god exists...
Dick: Yes, I didn't say I know (have absolute knowledge in the philosophical sense) that no Gods exist.
Tom: So you're agnostic?
Dick: Yes, an agnostic atheist.

A lot of blame lies on atheists for letting the term "agnostic" stand for some strange middle ground of belief between god or no god. Really all you're saying when you say you are "agnostic," is that you don't know. Well Tom didn't ask Dick if he knew whether god existed (most people don't), he asked what he believed.
It's simple logic, the one making a positive claim has the burden of prof. Its not up to me to prove there are no gods, anymore then it is up to me to prove there are no leprechauns. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Tell me...what extraordinary evidence have you seen?

[Alawen]

Life-long atheist philosopher suffers from dementia, suddenly believes in God. That's proof enough for me! Let's all go to church.

Speaking of Atheist, here is what I thought was a good read.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/atheist-believes-in-god/


Famous Atheist Now Believes in God

One of World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or
Less, Based on Scientific Evidence


Dec. 9, 2004 - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Flew said he’s best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people’s lives.

“I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,” he said. “It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.”

Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article “Theology and Falsification,” based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.

Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists’ investigation of DNA “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,” Flew says in the new video, “Has Science Discovered God?”

The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese’s Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews.

The first hint of Flew’s turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain’s Philosophy Now magazine. “It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism,” he wrote.

The letter commended arguments in Schroeder’s “The Hidden Face of God” and “The Wonder of the World” by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.

This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his “God and Philosophy,” scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press.

Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well “that’s too bad,” Flew said. “My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato’s Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a “minimal God” and believes in no afterlife.

Flew’s “name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up,” Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew’s reversal, “apart from curiosity, I don’t think it’s like a big deal.”

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American “intelligent design” theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

A Methodist minister’s son, Flew became an atheist at 15.

Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.

Another landmark was his 1984 “The Presumption of Atheism,” playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.

[Hasbinbad]

Sigh....
There is a lot of confusion about the definition of atheism. An atheist is someone who does not believe in any gods...that is it.
Example:
Tom: Do you believe in god(s)?
Dick: No.
Tom: Are you saying you know there isn't a god?
Dick: Nope...
Tom: But you just said you don't believe god exists...
Dick: Yes, I didn't say I know (have absolute knowledge in the philosophical sense) that no Gods exist.
Tom: So you're agnostic?
Dick: Yes, an agnostic atheist.

A lot of blame lies on atheists for letting the term "agnostic" stand for some strange middle ground of belief between god or no god. Really all you're saying when you say you are "agnostic," is that you don't know. Well Tom didn't ask Dick if he knew whether god existed (most people don't), he asked what he believed.
It's simple logic, the one making a positive claim has the burden of prof. Its not up to me to prove there are no gods, anymore then it is up to me to prove there are no leprechauns. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Tell me...what extraordinary evidence have you seen?
This is Dawkinsian redefining of words. You're an agnostic.

[JurisDictum]

This is Dawkinsian redefining of words. You're an agnostic.

except for it doesn't come from Dawkin's...or his 1-7 scale that doesn't make a lot sense. Atheist = no belief in god, Anti-theist = belief there is no god.

[Hasbinbad]

Dawkin's
Got a real winner here folks.

[Reapin]

except for it doesn't come from Dawkin's...or his 1-7 scale that doesn't make a lot sense. Atheist = no belief in god, Anti-theist = belief there is no god.

Anti-Theist are against organized religion. They can be believers or non-believers.

I am an Atheist Anti-Theist.

[Hasbinbad]

Anti-Theist are against organized religion. They can be believers or non-believers.

I am an Atheist Anti-Theist.
But that doesn't fit the mass movement branding scheme..

[stonez138]

I like when stupid atheists are like where's the proof for God's existence I'm like any fix your brain to recognize any of your senses because existence of anything is existence of God and is proof DUh

The funny part about this post is he actually begins by calling other people stupid.

[Hasbinbad]

Some of us have figured out how to shake our heads and let the idiot kids bicker. I just do my best to hold my hand out to any adults or kids that want a hand up to leave this oubliette of a question behind.

[JurisDictum]

But that doesn't fit the mass movement branding scheme..
The internet religious apologists are reluctant to let up their definition for atheist. How else are they going to make their straw man arguments? Personally I find the definition self identified atheists give themselves (the one much more closer the latin roots of the word), much more useful than the one posters like the above try to foist on people.
I haven't heard of any major atheist organization or popular writer that defines their believes as the above poster does, but apparently we're expected to accept the definition of those openly hostile to non-believers regardless.
I am atheist because I don't believe any God claims. There is no good reason to. And there is no good reason for anyone else to ether.

[Hasbinbad]

I also don't believe any "God claims." That is not the basis by which I claim agnosticism springs. The question of agnosticism is not "which of mankinds claims about deities" is correct: the question is that of ultimate cause, prime mover, whatever you want to call it; the question is "given what we can - ever - know, what caused that?" The idea is that this is a valid question, but we, either now or at some point in the very near future, will reach an event horizon beyond which our ability to "know" a thing no longer functions, and THEREFORE it's stupid. Shut up about it. Both of you. All of you.

In my opinion, many people who listen to modern atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens rightly are swayed against religion, but I do think that they trespass in hubris when they intimate - as they sometimes have (though they are careful about it, and Dawkins, at least, has hedged into de facto agnosticism on several occasions), that the existence of a deity is impossible or even highly improbable. The fact is that there is absolutely no data available for such a non-question, shut up. This is what scientists will actually say. Try it: go outside a lab and find a scientist (in a lab coat, stupid) on their way back from lunch, and ask them to comment on whether or not god exists: they will look at you and laugh at you and go back to work testing shit on animals and/or (increasingly) lab-grown human cells.

[Hasbinbad]

but I do think that modern atheists trespass in hubris
edited for clarity.

[Hasbinbad]

The assumption that all scientists are atheists.

lawlfrom the horses mouth, so to speak:
National Academy of Science is Godless to the Core


http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/1998/08/25/science-academy-godless

[Hasbinbad]

From the study:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#d0d0d0">Belief in personal God</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1914</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1933</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1998</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal belief</td> <td> 27.7</td> <td> 15</td> <td> 7.0</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal disbelief</td> <td> 52.7</td> <td> 68</td> <td> 72.2</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Doubt or agnosticism</td> <td> 20.9</td> <td> 17</td> <td> 20.8</td></tr> <tr><td>
</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#d0d0d0">Belief in human immortality </td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1914</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1933</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1998</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal belief</td> <td> 35.2</td> <td> 18</td> <td> 7.9</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal disbelief</td> <td> 25.4</td> <td> 53</td> <td> 76.7</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Doubt or agnosticism</td> <td> 43.7</td> <td> 29</td> <td> 23.3</td></tr></tbody></table>

[Lojik]

From the study:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#d0d0d0">Belief in personal God</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1914</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1933</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1998</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal belief</td> <td> 27.7</td> <td> 15</td> <td> 7.0</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal disbelief</td> <td> 52.7</td> <td> 68</td> <td> 72.2</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Doubt or agnosticism</td> <td> 20.9</td> <td> 17</td> <td> 20.8</td></tr> <tr><td>
</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#d0d0d0">Belief in human immortality </td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1914</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1933</td> <td align="Center" bgcolor="#F0f0f0">1998</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal belief</td> <td> 35.2</td> <td> 18</td> <td> 7.9</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Personal disbelief</td> <td> 25.4</td> <td> 53</td> <td> 76.7</td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#Fcfcfc">Doubt or agnosticism</td> <td> 43.7</td> <td> 29</td> <td> 23.3</td></tr></tbody></table>

Those scientists better check their hypotenuses.

[Daldolma]

studies show that 75% of scientists will burn in hellfire

[Alawen]

Luckily, I'm an artist, not a scientist.

God does not exist. Neither do any other gods. When you die, your life is over, and your consciousness ceases to exist. I know these things as well as I know that I will wake up tomorrow and the sun will rise.

I am an atheist.

[Alawen]

Solipsism is a philosophical dead end.

On the other hand, I hope you don't wake up tomorrow. Your bitch and your brat would be better off without a lying hypocrite with no self control as an example. Medic.

[Alawen]

Bigotry is so impressive, tough guy. Those of us with honorable discharges don't think much of fucking posers. If you tried peddling your bullshit in a room full of real vets, you'd probably get your head kicked in.

Again.

[Alawen]

In the universe of brain-damaged lying hypocrites, no one minds when you drop slurs.

I don't have the play time to be in a top guild. In contrast, you don't have the ability. That's why you're so full of jealousy and angst.

[Alawen]

I am so enraged that I think I'll go on a campaign to try to discredit someone on a video game message forum.

For years.

[Alawen]

Your megalomania makes you think you're way more important to me than you are. I literally do not care if you live or die. The only emotions you are capable of eliciting from me are things like disdain and disgust.

Which do you think is worse, someone who cheats at a video game, or someone who lies about military service? I'm visiting my mom this weekend. We decorate graves every Memorial Day, graves of actual veterans whose mortal remains lie in national cemeteries. Some day, my bones will lie beside them. Guess which one I think is worse.

[Eliseus]

Life-long atheist philosopher suffers from dementia, suddenly believes in God. That's proof enough for me! Let's all go to church.

Hello Alawen,

Meet Professor Google. Professor Google has been a long time teacher of many "famous" Atheists who have started believing in a God and show lots of evidence for their assumptions.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=famous+atheists+believe+in+god

Here is a Fact though. Science will never be able to prove God doesn't exist. There is more "proof" actually resulting in the belief of a God then there would be to one NOT existing.

[Reapin]

Who gives a shit?

If Bill Maher suddenly became a Bible Thumper it would not matter. I only care what is in my head. I have no control over other peoples delusions. No matter who they are they can never prove the existence of something that does not exist.

So what does this say about your belief when all you have is pointing out that people a hell of a lot smarter than you believe as you do? Nothing! Belief in God does not have anything to to do with intelligence most of the time. It has everything to do with fear or getting something you want, like a hot wife who is so stupid she believes so you say you do to get the nookie. I see it all the time.

[radditsu]

Bioshock explains it all ya'll:


I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful in each of us, a combination of our efforts, a great chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interests that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you differently either has his hand in your pocket or a pistol to your neck.

[Hasbinbad]

Luckily, I'm an artist, not a scientist.

God does not exist. Neither do any other gods. When you die, your life is over, and your consciousness ceases to exist. I know these things as well as I know that I will wake up tomorrow and the sun will rise.

I am an atheist.

Solipsism is a philosophical dead end.

On the other hand, I hope you don't wake up tomorrow. Your bitch and your brat would be better off without a lying hypocrite with no self control as an example. Medic.

Bigotry is so impressive, tough guy. Those of us with honorable discharges don't think much of fucking posers. If you tried peddling your bullshit in a room full of real vets, you'd probably get your head kicked in.

Again.
These three posts show up in a row to me .. deletions?

[Hasbinbad]

Created calculus on a dare in order to answer a question he was complexed by.
So very many things wrong with this sentence.

Newton was wrong.

Happy?

[Alawen]

Hello Alawen,

Meet Professor Google. Professor Google has been a long time teacher of many "famous" Atheists who have started believing in a God and show lots of evidence for their assumptions.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=famous+atheists+believe+in+god

Here is a Fact though. Science will never be able to prove God doesn't exist. There is more "proof" actually resulting in the belief of a God then there would be to one NOT existing.

Antony Flew was hospitalized with dementia less than a year after that book was published. There is a general conclusion that the book was written primarily by Varghese. He never published again before his death.

Google is a great tool, but cherry picking talking points is no replacement for actual learning.

[Alawen]

These three posts show up in a row to me .. deletions?

I was dissing Harrison the combat medic before his shitty posts all find a new home of their own.

[Hitchens]

I am glad we have RnF to solve these age old philosophical issues.

[JurisDictum]

I'm curious what you must think about Sir Isaac Newton. Arguably the greatest mind the world has ever seen. One of the most prominent and influential scientists and mathematicians the world has ever seen. Created calculus on a dare in order to answer a question he was complexed by. Let's see what one of the greatest minds, most notably scientifically and logically,(the very things you poor lowly atheists claim to adhere to), has to say about God.


Newton also wasted years on alchemy before (presumably) realizing it was all fantasy. Do you honestly think an intelligent man (1643 - 1727) beliefs in anyway proves the existence of God? Very weak stuff.

[Eliseus]

How about people in this thread start showing proof God doesn't exist? Oh wait, you can't.

[Ephirith]

How about people in this thread start showing proof God doesn't exist? Oh wait, you can't.

The integrity of science doesn't rely on the existence or non-existence of God. We can ignore the issue and teach the same old factually true biology, chemistry, astronomy and physics. Thing is, for your philosophical creationist bullshit to retain integrity you have to walk around telling people God exists and, unfortunately for you, the burden of evidence is on the person making the claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And no, your lack of understanding regarding the origins of life and the universe are not extraordinary evidence.

[Reapin]

How about people in this thread start showing proof God doesn't exist? Oh wait, you can't.

Prove to me the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist. You can't so she must exist.

Yes, you sound just as retarded.

[Reapin]

Theoretical physics can prove anything is possible. It does not make it so.

But it all comes down to one truth.

An absent God, is a worthless God.


Your God is irrelevant, just like your opinion.

[Alawen]

How about people in this thread start showing proof God doesn't exist? Oh wait, you can't.

You're not real clear on this idea of proof, are you? Try this: Russell's teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

[Alawen]

There is far more proof that God exists then he doesn't. Advanced molecular machinery existing is plenty of evidence for a supremely intelligent being existing. DNA is the most advanced thing known to exist in the entire universe. There is also zero evidence it can form naturally(see cell theory and law of biogenesis and the laws of thermodynamics). There is also zero evidence that one species can become another entirely proving that each life form was created uniquely and individually from one another.



I don't think he ever really gave up on it and it certainly wasn't a fantasy as it is verified by many ancient texts. I also never said it proves God just that if you consider how intelligent he was and the fact that he believed in God, it's kinda ridiculous to sweep his opinions under the rug so easily. The fact that he is one of the smartest men to have ever lived in the history and entirety of the human race should say something. He has done more for science and the world as a whole that you could if you lived to 1,000. Considering how intelligent he was I think it's safe to say he might have known what he was talking about in regards to God.

I tried to count the logical fallacies in this post and got exhausted. It's really quite remarkable to see a mind this dysfunctional. Isn't this the RMT guy who bragged about it and lost 400K and his high level rogue? That seems like proof of idiocy.

[Ephirith]

I tried to count the logical fallacies in this post and got exhausted. It's really quite remarkable to see a mind this dysfunctional. Isn't this the RMT guy who bragged about it and lost 400K and his high level rogue? That seems like proof of idiocy.

This

[Splorf22]

Why are you wasting your time arguing with Nocturne? He is a classic case of Schrodinger's "not even wrong", i.e. someone who simply doesn't understand the philosophy of knowledge and how to determine correct from incorrect. He believes things because he was told them by his parents; from an evolutionary perspective its not a bad strategy as tradition gets a lot of things right, but the existence of God is not one of them. In order to convince him that he is wrong, you would have to start from the beginning and explain Hume/Popper, null hypotheses, and the whole scientific method to him, and he probably wouldn't believe that either.

[Eliseus]

You're not real clear on this idea of proof, are you? Try this: Russell's teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

Actually, look what thread we are in. The burden of proof lies upon you and all other unintelligent people who deny the existence of God by simply going to Wikipedia and searching for truth.

[Hailto]

Actually, look what thread we are in. The burden of proof lies upon you and all other unintelligent people who deny the existence of God by simply going to Wikipedia and searching for truth.

Troll harder.

[Eliseus]

Troll harder.

Bro story cool.

[Alawen]

Actually, look what thread we are in. The burden of proof lies upon you and all other unintelligent people who deny the existence of God by simply going to Wikipedia and searching for truth.

Unlike you, I understand the origin of *Dyēus ph2ter, the god of the day sky, in the proto-Indo-European religions. Like many things that small minds obsess about, God is a social construct. You can continue to dream this particular delusion, or you can choose to move toward a more accurate understanding of reality. Honestly, it's all the same to me.

Your arguments all break down to this standard form:

The universe is very complicated
Science cannot explain every detail
Therefore God exists.

This thinking is so lazy as to be pathetic. Abstracting a cause outside the realm of reality is not an explanation. It's burying your head in the sand.

[Eliseus]

Unlike you, I understand the origin of *Dyēus ph2ter, the god of the day sky, in the proto-Indo-European religions. Like many things that small minds obsess about, God is a social construct. You can continue to dream this particular delusion, or you can choose to move toward a more accurate understanding of reality. Honestly, it's all the same to me.

Your arguments all break down to this standard form:

The universe is very complicated
Science cannot explain every detail
Therefore God exists.

This thinking is so lazy as to be pathetic. Abstracting a cause outside the realm of reality is not an explanation. It's burying your head in the sand.

You caught me! Credible source right here!

[Alawen]

You caught me! Credible source right here!

I'll take your vapid response as confirmation that you have no stronger argument to make.

[Hailto]

Actually, look what thread we are in. The burden of proof lies upon you and all other unintelligent people who deny the existence of God by simply going to Wikipedia and searching for truth.

http://i.imgur.com/QvANG3j.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/qgqTUfm.gif
http://i.imgur.com/1iySl6p.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/Lxa8inY.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Ukg0uHX.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/NHMfbHu.gif

[Hailto]

Goddamn, Alawen dunking all over this retard.

[Clark]

http://s7.postimg.org/fcvpbocx7/1slow_children.jpg

[Eliseus]

I'll take your vapid response as confirmation that you have no stronger argument to make.

Nah, you just aren't a credible source nor provide any.

[JurisDictum]

Actually, look what thread we are in. The burden of proof lies upon you and all other unintelligent people who deny the existence of God by simply going to Wikipedia and searching for truth.
No it doesn't. It is not up to anyone to disprove there isn't a supreme all powerful being that wants you to do various things listed in a ancient book. That is not the default position of a thinking human.
No one is born a Christian (or Muslim, Jew ect..). That shit is generally drilled in their head as a 4-6 year old kid that is still incapable of critical thought. These beliefs are then reinforced regularly by the community and become a pillar of their social life. We are social creatures prone to tribalism, of course people are reluctant to give up their customs and rituals.
If you want to admit there is no logical reason for your beliefs and they just make you happy, whatever. However, you treaded into a debate forum and attempted to argue your beliefs are justified. You can expect to be challenged.
So far all you offered was a weak ass argument from personal incredulity:
Evolution says that people just came into existence by chance.
I cannot see how this is possible.
Evolution must be false.
Why don't you just cut the crap and admit its personal experience (feeling the holy or whatever) that lead you to be a Christian. Not some analysis of the facts.

[Lron]

Vote Lron server guide 2013.

[PhuckTMO]

god is dead all hail satan and most of all fuck tmo

[Eliseus]

No it doesn't. It is not up to anyone to disprove there isn't a supreme all powerful being that wants you to do various things listed in a ancient book. That is not the default position of a thinking human.
No one is born a Christian (or Muslim, Jew ect..). That shit is generally drilled in their head as a 4-6 year old kid that is still incapable of critical thought. These beliefs are then reinforced regularly by the community and become a pillar of their social life. We are social creatures prone to tribalism, of course people are reluctant to give up their customs and rituals.
If you want to admit there is no logical reason for your beliefs and they just make you happy, whatever. However, you treaded into a debate forum and attempted to argue your beliefs are justified. You can expect to be challenged.
So far all you offered was a weak ass argument from personal incredulity:
Evolution says that people just came into existence by chance.
I cannot see how this is possible.
Evolution must be false.
Why don't you just cut the crap and admit its personal experience (feeling the holy or whatever) that lead you to be a Christian. Not some analysis of the facts.

Actually, I haven't really argued in a sense anything you are trying to put into my mouth, mostly just none of the people in this forums are Credible sources to try and judge the existence of a higher being or not and also trying to point out that theories =/ fact. I've also just given "fun" reads, yet people like asslawen apparently read right past that trying to argue for me that I'm arguing that this famous atheist now believes in God must be proof a god without even reading that I CLEARLY put in the beginning of my post that I thought that was a fun read.

I guess I shouldn't expect more though from fat potato chip gorging people trying to live in the past.

[Splorf22]

Eliseus, has it occurred to you to try judging an argument on its merits and not whether or not it comes from a "credible source" ? I suppose that would imply some sort of intellectual effort on your part.

[JurisDictum]

Eliseus, has it occurred to you to try judging an argument on its merits and not whether or not it comes from a "credible source" ? I suppose that would imply some sort of intellectual effort on your part.
Are you saying that Einstein was wrong?!! Obviously Einstein was smarter than any of us and therefore it should be good enough reason for anyone to believe in god. Who are you to question his opinion on the merits of his argument?! He was math genius after all.
(sarcasm)
Argumentum ad verecundiam or argument from authority. A logical fallacy. One does not have to be very knowledgeable at all in philosophy to understand this. What Einstein or Newton or Shakespeare believed is not at all persuasive in and of itself. If they present an argument, that argument will be judged by its own merits. As the quoted poster put succinctly.

[Kagatob]

Gilgamesh superior.

[JurisDictum]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=i-2f-15mj1w

[Daldolma]

thread was solved 2013 years ago, pls lock