"I can't trust the aguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist"

[sealybobo]

"Not believing in these things does not prove they don't exist; unicorns, the spaghetti monster, Martians, Zeus, the Kraken...

Excellent: "not believing . . . does not prove they don't exist" is exactly correct.

And believing that things don't exist is not conclusive either.

Yes, evidence is necessary, and neither the empirical data nor the faith of the atheist prove that God does not exist.

That's why being agnostic is the only logical position to have.

Are you agnostic about the belief that you have to believe in Jesus or you won't go to heaven?

 

[Thunderbird]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

This is one of the reasons atheist humanism collapses.

Alvin Plantinga developed the argument: www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/an_evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism.pdf

 

[sealybobo]

In Greece thousands of years ago on the island of Samos where people were once free from religion, Greeks figured out medicine and that the earth revolved around the sun. Religions squashed that and for hundreds of years we went with what Christians believed. In the middle East Ibn Al Hytham figures out math and science but the crusades wiped that out. They've been using religions to control people for thousands of years.

 

[Thunderbird]

In Greece thousands of years ago on the island of Samos where people were once free from religion, Greeks figured out medicine and that the earth revolved around the sun. Religions squashed that and for hundreds of years we went with what Christians believed. In the middle East Ibn Al Hytham figures out math and science but the crusades wiped that out. They've been using religions to control people for thousands of years.

You couldn't be more wrong! The Greeks were not really secular. (Aristotle thought there was a God for example.) Greek scientific achievement was limited (Consider: spontaneous generation, 4 humors, 4 elements, lack of experimentation). In Ptolemy's system the sun revolves around the earth. Ptolemy was corrected by a Church canon named Copernicus. The Scientific Revolution was made by devout Christians. Science progressed thanks to universities founded by Christians. Ibn Al Hytham was admired and studied in the Christian Middle Ages.

Check this out: https://biologos.org/uploads/projects/noll_scholarly_essay2.pdf

 

[Disir]

This is one of the dodges they have learned to use the last 15 years or so, calling the absence of religion a 'religion'. Because they can't defend their own beliefs.

You live your life according to the BELIEF that there is no one to answer to

Horty? Does "no one to answer to" bother you? If so, why?

It doesn't affect me but it does bother me, if only for your own sake

Why?

Because i care about your immortal soul

Horty, you would not give a dang if I got hit by a bus tomorrow. You don't care about me in any way, form or fashion. AND THAT'S OK. I don't expect you to. You don't know me and this is an online forum. Caring about my immortal soul appears to be a very passive, very abstract, very impersonal, noncommittal future orientated (non)action.

My interpretation of what you are saying is that you want to make sure that I have some type of punishment or to be held accountable for whatever I may have done in my past or am currently doing. As if I am one step away from a Charles Manson episode with nothing to keep me in check.

Atheists have relationships that we are responsible to and for. Just like you.

 

[BULLDOG]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

This fails as an appeal to ignorance fallacy, in addition to being a confirmation bias fallacy.

That one 'can't imagine' a world without order or purpose doesn't mean a 'god' must exist; belief in a 'god' is not 'evidence,' just as faith is not 'proof' a 'god' exists.

The OP is claiming that the very act of 'believing' shows how we are not random compositions.

Can you show otherwise?

He made a claim with nothing but his own belief to back it up. He didn't show anything.

 

[sealybobo]

In Greece thousands of years ago on the island of Samos where people were once free from religion, Greeks figured out medicine and that the earth revolved around the sun. Religions squashed that and for hundreds of years we went with what Christians believed. In the middle East Ibn Al Hytham figures out math and science but the crusades wiped that out. They've been using religions to control people for thousands of years.

You couldn't be more wrong! The Greeks were not really secular. (Aristotle thought there was a God for example.) Greek scientific achievement was limited (Consider: spontaneous generation, 4 humors, 4 elements, lack of experimentation). In Ptolemy's system the sun revolves around the earth. Ptolemy was corrected by a Church canon named Copernicus. The Scientific Revolution was made by devout Christians. Science progressed thanks to universities founded by Christians. Ibn Al Hytham was admired and studied in the Christian Middle Ages.

Check this out: https://biologos.org/uploads/projects/noll_scholarly_essay2.pdf

Point is in places like Samos, America and Europe, where religion isn't as all powerful and controlling, science thrives.

Christians only started discovering the truth when the church stopped killing them for speaking the truth. Blasphemy laws just for saying the earth is not the center of the universe.

Churches had to adjust. They haven't always been so liberal.

If it weren't for religion e equals mc2 might have been discovered thousands of years earlier.

 

[Campbell]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

In other words rather than face reality they prefer an imaginary friend in the sky. As I've grown older I'm more amazed by the day/week that people in the real 21st century world have a need to grope and tug on that load of ancient fantasy.

 

[sealybobo]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

In other words rather than face reality they prefer an imaginary friend in the sky. As I've grown older I'm more amazed by the day/week that people in the real 21st century world have a need to grope and tug on that load of ancient fantasy.

My father pretty much sums up the theist argument. How can all this be without a God? It's too perfect. The body has eyes to see, ears, a stomach... We need protean water and greens and the earth has it. The sun isn't too far or close.

He rejects all the rational scientific arguments why his arguments are wrong. I'm not even going to go into why he's wrong because they aren't listening.

The fact is they believe in a God because they can't believe any other way.

But that's a belief founded on ignorance and wishful thinking.

My dad doesn't even defend religions. He admits they are all made up. Still he can't imagine there is no God. At least he doesn't claim God talks to him or talked to his ancestors.

 

[Votto]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

Some choose government, some choose God. In the end, people are sheep, therefore, choose your shepherd carefully.

Perhaps one of his most brilliant quotes was this.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis


Now try to convince us that you need no shepherd, while remaining at US message boards arguing who we should elect as our next shepherd.

 

[sealybobo]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

Some choose government, some choose God. In the end, people are sheep, therefore, choose your shepherd carefully.

Yes I try to have faith in humanity. Maybe that's naive but not as bad as hoping a God has a heaven waiting.

Seems to me most athiests are happy and appreciate their lives. They have reason to be optimistic and hopeful. Religious people are fixated on when they die and after.

I don't see myself worshipping government. I don't run to the government 1-7 days a week to give government my money.

I heard this Chaldean Catholic said she goes to church every day. What's wrong with her she needs it like a pacifier? Muslims pray 7 times a day? I don't even pray to Obama more than 3 times a day ever.

 

[sealybobo]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

Some choose government, some choose God. In the end, people are sheep, therefore, choose your shepherd carefully.

Perhaps one of his most brilliant quotes was this.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis


Now try to convince us that you need no shepherd, while remaining at US message boards arguing who we should elect as our next shepherd.

It's true we are social pac animals. We aren't all sheep though. Some of us are wolves, dogs, pigs, snakes, hawks, jackasses, maggots and cocks.

 

[Taz]

"Not believing in these things does not prove they don't exist; unicorns, the spaghetti monster, Martians, Zeus, the Kraken...

Excellent: "not believing . . . does not prove they don't exist" is exactly correct.

And believing that things don't exist is not conclusive either.

Yes, evidence is necessary, and neither the empirical data nor the faith of the atheist prove that God does not exist.

That's why being agnostic is the only logical position to have.

Are you agnostic about the belief that you have to believe in Jesus or you won't go to heaven?

God hasn't been proving one way or another. I'm waiting for real facts either way.

 

[Taz]

"Not believing in these things does not prove they don't exist; unicorns, the spaghetti monster, Martians, Zeus, the Kraken...

Excellent: "not believing . . . does not prove they don't exist" is exactly correct.

And believing that things don't exist is not conclusive either.

Yes, evidence is necessary, and neither the empirical data nor the faith of the atheist prove that God does not exist.

That's why being agnostic is the only logical position to have.

Most people don't even know what it means. Do you?

No, please do tell.

I appreciate, and respect, your candor. Admitting ignorance is the best way to learn.

Agnosticism is a perspective on the knowability of the existence of deities. It's completely disconnected from belief. You can be an agnostic who believes in a god (theist agnostic), or a gnostic who believes in a god (theist gnostic). Or either of those who lacks such a belief (atheist agnostic or atheist gnostic). The agnostic vs gnostic distinction only distinguishes your view on whether belief in god is the same as knowledge of the existence of gods.

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: "In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, an atheist disbelieves in God".

 

[Votto]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

Some choose government, some choose God. In the end, people are sheep, therefore, choose your shepherd carefully.

Yes I try to have faith in humanity. Maybe that's naive but not as bad as hoping a God has a heaven waiting.

Seems to me most athiests are happy and appreciate their lives. They have reason to be optimistic and hopeful. Religious people are fixated on when they die and after.

I don't see myself worshipping government. I don't run to the government 1-7 days a week to give government my money.

I heard this Chaldean Catholic said she goes to church every day. What's wrong with her she needs it like a pacifier? Muslims pray 7 times a day? I don't even pray to Obama more than 3 times a day ever.

Right, so who are you going to vote for next election? LOL.

 

[Votto]

"Not believing in these things does not prove they don't exist; unicorns, the spaghetti monster, Martians, Zeus, the Kraken...

Excellent: "not believing . . . does not prove they don't exist" is exactly correct.

And believing that things don't exist is not conclusive either.

Yes, evidence is necessary, and neither the empirical data nor the faith of the atheist prove that God does not exist.

That's why being agnostic is the only logical position to have.

Most people don't even know what it means. Do you?

No, please do tell.

I appreciate, and respect, your candor. Admitting ignorance is the best way to learn.

Agnosticism is a perspective on the knowability of the existence of deities. It's completely disconnected from belief. You can be an agnostic who believes in a god (theist agnostic), or a gnostic who believes in a god (theist gnostic). Or either of those who lacks such a belief (atheist agnostic or atheist gnostic). The agnostic vs gnostic distinction only distinguishes your view on whether belief in god is the same as knowledge of the existence of gods.

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: "In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, an atheist disbelieves in God".

No, the proper definition of an agnostic is this, it's an atheist without gonads.

 

[jillian]

Sounds like C.J. really IS a thinking man.

because you like what he said. whether he was "thinking" is beside the point.

 

[Campbell]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

In other words rather than face reality they prefer an imaginary friend in the sky. As I've grown older I'm more amazed by the day/week that people in the real 21st century world have a need to grope and tug on that load of ancient fantasy.

My father pretty much sums up the theist argument. How can all this be without a God? It's too perfect. The body has eyes to see, ears, a stomach... We need protean water and greens and the earth has it. The sun isn't too far or close.

He rejects all the rational scientific arguments why his arguments are wrong. I'm not even going to go into why he's wrong because they aren't listening.

The fact is they believe in a God because they can't believe any other way.

But that's a belief founded on ignorance and wishful thinking.

My dad doesn't even defend religions. He admits they are all made up. Still he can't imagine there is no God. At least he doesn't claim God talks to him or talked to his ancestors.

It gets pretty complicated but all life originating in a single cell then evolving seems pretty logical to me. Once they conducted an experiment with fish. They placed two or three pairs in a body of fresh water deep within a cave where there was no light....zero, pitch darkness. After a few generations their eyes developed a film of tissue then gradually disappeared. No need for sight so the body was relieved of a potential vulnerability.

 

[the_human_being]

Interesting. Watch the dif between the postings of the atheists and the anti-Godists.

View attachment 52843

C.S. Lewis, like almost all people that need a 'god', thinks like a child. This is common among those who need to believe in something supernatural, they need a daddy figure that will make it all better and make them feel safe. Give them a whole picture of existence because uncertainty above all else is so terrifying. The uncertainty of death being the top of this pyramid.

In other words rather than face reality they prefer an imaginary friend in the sky. As I've grown older I'm more amazed by the day/week that people in the real 21st century world have a need to grope and tug on that load of ancient fantasy.

My father pretty much sums up the theist argument. How can all this be without a God? It's too perfect. The body has eyes to see, ears, a stomach... We need protean water and greens and the earth has it. The sun isn't too far or close.

He rejects all the rational scientific arguments why his arguments are wrong. I'm not even going to go into why he's wrong because they aren't listening.

The fact is they believe in a God because they can't believe any other way.

But that's a belief founded on ignorance and wishful thinking.

My dad doesn't even defend religions. He admits they are all made up. Still he can't imagine there is no God. At least he doesn't claim God talks to him or talked to his ancestors.

It gets pretty complicated but all life originating in a single cell then evolving seems pretty logical to me. Once they conducted an experiment with fish. They placed two or three pairs in a body of fresh water deep within a cave where there was no light....zero, pitch darkness. After a few generations their eyes developed a film of tissue then gradually disappeared. No need for sight so the body was relieved of a potential vulnerability.

Do a study on the mathematical probability of a single cell evolving into just four cells. You'll be amazed.

 

[Campbell]

That's why being agnostic is the only logical position to have.

Most people don't even know what it means. Do you?

No, please do tell.

I appreciate, and respect, your candor. Admitting ignorance is the best way to learn.

Agnosticism is a perspective on the knowability of the existence of deities. It's completely disconnected from belief. You can be an agnostic who believes in a god (theist agnostic), or a gnostic who believes in a god (theist gnostic). Or either of those who lacks such a belief (atheist agnostic or atheist gnostic). The agnostic vs gnostic distinction only distinguishes your view on whether belief in god is the same as knowledge of the existence of gods.

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: "In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, an atheist disbelieves in God".

No, the proper definition of an agnostic is this, it's an atheist without gonads.

I think I qualify as both. I don't believe there is a god but at the same time since I believe we're possibly a mite in a jungle as far as our earth as compared to the remainder of the universe how would I know if there's someone in charge of it somewhere? One thing I'll never believe is that there's some super deity who makes note of every mistake or evil deed every one of us is involved in....that foolishness and a savior who was a product of virgin birth won't get it.