Why do the God-haters persist?

[sealybobo]

Sorry, but nope... not wrong. There could be no physical object before the Big Bang created the time space for a physical object to exist. Physical is a state which requires time to exist. Without time, nothing physical can exist or be real because there is no physical reality.

Nothing had to create God. Creation is something which applies to physical things. The spiritual isn't created, it doesn't exist physically so there is no need for it to be created. You're trying to apply physical standards to something spiritual and when I correct your error, you're screaming "special dispensation!" Your brain is unable to comprehend something beyond physical nature, even though you should rationally know that something must have created physical nature and it couldn't be physical.

You're not paying attention. Obviously something existed before the Big Bang and that something was a singularity.

And as expected, you continue to require special pleadings for your gods because you feel that supernaturalism and magic are except from the standards of reason and rationality.

As usual, boss has to invoke "special dispensations" for his argument -- i.e., one must assume as true the point that boss is trying to make, which is there is a supernatural cause behind all of this, to support the assertion that there is a supernatural cause behind all of this. Once again, begging the question already destroys the argument, because one must demonstrate the existence of the supernatural before one can appeal to it to supply a rationale for something to be in effect.

But hey, boss, why let facts and evidence cloud your decision making.

Obviously something existed that wasn't physical because physical things did not have a universe in which to exist or a time space.

the existence of something that could not physically exist.

something existed before the Big Bang, and we can be certain it wasn't physical because physical did not yet exist.

Why does it have to be a god? And are you 100% sure we can be certain about that boss? Provide the scientific proof that science is in agreement that we can be certain of this.

Your argument ignores the fact that our everyday understanding of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori inductive reasoning which means it might not apply to everything. Time, for instance, appears to have begun with the Big Bang, so there might not have been any ’cause’ for the Universe to be an ‘effect’ of since there was probably no time for a ’cause’ to exist in. Applying concepts like time and causality to the Big Bang might be comparable to asking “What is north of the North Pole?

 

[sealybobo]

Atheism is correlated with better scientific literacy, lower poverty rates, higher literacy rates, higher average incomes, less violence, lower divorce rates, lower teen pregnancy rates, lower STD infection rates, lower crime rates and lower homicide rates. It correlates highly with the well-being of individuals and societies by almost every possible measure.

Studies on happiness outside of predominantly religious countries (eg. the United States) find little to no correlation between happiness and religious belief.

The only reason religious people are happier is the social bonding they get at church. That and ignorance is bliss.

I grew up Catholic, wife grew up Luthern. I did 12 years of CCD...have not stepped foot in a church for mass since our wedding.

YES!!! SATAN IS A LIAR AN THE FATHER OF LIARD! and you??

Oh if it only weren't true. Atheists are better people than you christians, in every measurement. You guys think you have a get out of hell free card just because you believe and/or have been saved/born again, whatever.

I even heard a preacher say it last night. Yes I get a kick out of watching religions on tv. Remember you said that's where I get my information? You are correct. Do you think I would step foot in each of those churches? Go seek out that crazy woman who was speaking in tongues? NO WAY. Glad they have her on tv for me to watch/study/analyze. And she's not the only one. They have lots of religious shows on 24/7. We need an atheist/science channel.

You are no different than a stupid muslim man in saudi arabia. In fact I wish you were in Saudi Arabia because god told them women are 2nd class citizens/property. Now did he really tell them that or is that just the arabic version of religion/god? Do you see how it was clearly made up by arabic men 800 years ago? Well your religion was made up by lighter arabs 2000 years ago. And your story is just as stupid as theirs. Maybe not the new testament, but the old is. And the new testament is just a new spin on religion because lots of people were not buying the old testament anymore. So 11 guys made up a new cult and it caught on. BFD.

 

[sealybobo]

But if no civilization has existed devoid of spirituality (which seems very likely to me) then how can you have any idea that a civilization without spirituality is guaranteed to collapse? You have no experience, no data, to base that claim on.

Because every civilization which has abandoned spirituality has failed in short order.

Identify those civilizations for us. And, make sure you identify a direct cause and affect relationship between abandoning "spirituality" and the failure "in short order" of that civilization.

That's too easy for them. I'll answer for them.

1Sodom & Gamora.

2. America. It's happening today they say.

It couldn't possibly be the lack of opportunity and shipping millions of good paying manufacturing jobs overseas and now our biggest employer in America is Walmart not GM. That is the reason our society if falling apart, not because people aren't religious. Or college is too expensive. So if you make college unaffordable for a young man and he has no opportunity, he's going to rob, steal and kill. Look at how crime went up after the Bush Great Recession of 2007

 

[Boss]

Dracula was an 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, based loosely on 15th-century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler. So Dracula was never based on any human spiritual connection.

Now you've presented some examples of rulers, masters or nations which sought to use religion in order to control others. However, in virtually none of those cases was the religious belief originally established for that reason. If you'd like to pretend that is the case, then you're not very smart.

You can also argue that we'd all be better off without God, but you have no basis for that belief. There is certainly no proof to support your belief. When we believe in things without proof, what is that called?

 

[Boss]

Why does it have to be a god? And are you 100% sure we can be certain about that boss? Provide the scientific proof that science is in agreement that we can be certain of this.

Your argument ignores the fact that our everyday understanding of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori inductive reasoning which means it might not apply to everything. Time, for instance, appears to have begun with the Big Bang, so there might not have been any ’cause’ for the Universe to be an ‘effect’ of since there was probably no time for a ’cause’ to exist in. Applying concepts like time and causality to the Big Bang might be comparable to asking “What is north of the North Pole?

Certainly there is no physical cause. Time doesn't "appear to have begun" with the Big Bang. Time exists as a result of an expanding universe. There is no "appear" to that, it's proven science.... see Einstein. There is no physical reality without time, so you can't examine things in a physical sense before time, they didn't exist as physical reality didn't exist.

Now I don't know about what's north of the North Pole, but there's no physical explanation for why the universe exists, yet it does exist. It did have a beginning and it will have an end. What existed before the universe and what will exist after the universe, cannot be anything physical.

 

[thebrucebeat]

Is it possible for you to post once without being an obtuse ass? No, there have never been civilizations devoid of spirituality, that's why none of you have ever named a single one. The closest thing to that has been civilizations which abandoned spirituality, and they failed in short order. Now would like some crayons or a jello cup, maybe a dose of Ritalin?

Perhaps if you made a little bit of sense, these kinds of issues wouldn't arise.

So if a society abandons spirituality, that society still has spirituality? So what, exactly, do you mean when you say societies have abandoned spirituality? They gave up spirituality, but kept spirituality? Do you mean to say they gave up outward acknowledgement of spirituality?

You said this :

Human history is that man has always been spiritual. From the very first civilization to today. No civilization has ever risen without spirituality, nor has one ever existed for very long in absence of spirituality. Nobody has claimed spirituality is a guarantee a civilization will survive. It is a guarantee they will collapse without it. This is why you can't name a civilization that has existed without spirituality, there isn't one.

Notice that you say no civilization has existed long in the absence of spirituality, which means that there have been civilizations without spirituality for at least some time.

So we have you saying civilizations have existed without spirituality, then saying no civilization has ever been devoid of spirituality, then saying civilizations have abandoned spirituality, but not been devoid of spirituality, and you think I'm the one being obtuse?

Yes, you are being obtuse. Trying to muddy the water with nonsense and pretending you don't understand what I have said. Name a civilization devoid of spirituality, or shut the fuck up. If you can't name one, we have to presume you don't have a legitimate argument.

Can humans live under water? No... but technically, you could throw a human under water and before they drowned, they would be living under water. This does not change the statement that humans cannot live under water. It's an obtuse, and franky immature way, of avoiding a fact. Grow the fuck up and debate like an adult please.

Read your post and see how adult your post sounds.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Civilizations do not completely abandon spirituality and their God. What causes the fall of empires is it's leadership. I think there are several reasons the leadership has caused the destruction of their empire and those are arrogance,departing from God,bad economics,and abandoning their ethics.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Let me be more precise about abandoning God. Abandoning the one true God, not the many false gods that have been created by civilizations. The god of this system is not the one true God but the god satan who set up and use civilizations for his own evil agenda.

 

[thebrucebeat]

Is it possible for you to post once without being an obtuse ass? No, there have never been civilizations devoid of spirituality, that's why none of you have ever named a single one. The closest thing to that has been civilizations which abandoned spirituality, and they failed in short order. Now would like some crayons or a jello cup, maybe a dose of Ritalin?

Perhaps if you made a little bit of sense, these kinds of issues wouldn't arise.

So if a society abandons spirituality, that society still has spirituality? So what, exactly, do you mean when you say societies have abandoned spirituality? They gave up spirituality, but kept spirituality? Do you mean to say they gave up outward acknowledgement of spirituality?

You said this :

Human history is that man has always been spiritual. From the very first civilization to today. No civilization has ever risen without spirituality, nor has one ever existed for very long in absence of spirituality. Nobody has claimed spirituality is a guarantee a civilization will survive. It is a guarantee they will collapse without it. This is why you can't name a civilization that has existed without spirituality, there isn't one.

Notice that you say no civilization has existed long in the absence of spirituality, which means that there have been civilizations without spirituality for at least some time.

So we have you saying civilizations have existed without spirituality, then saying no civilization has ever been devoid of spirituality, then saying civilizations have abandoned spirituality, but not been devoid of spirituality, and you think I'm the one being obtuse?

Yes, you are being obtuse. Trying to muddy the water with nonsense and pretending you don't understand what I have said. Name a civilization devoid of spirituality, or shut the fuck up. If you can't name one, we have to presume you don't have a legitimate argument.

Can humans live under water? No... but technically, you could throw a human under water and before they drowned, they would be living under water. This does not change the statement that humans cannot live under water. It's an obtuse, and franky immature way, of avoiding a fact. Grow the fuck up and debate like an adult please.

Read your post and see how adult your post sounds.

 

[Boss]

Read your post and see how adult your post sounds.

If there is something about my post you'd like to point out, then have the balls to do so and stop fawning for attention from your teammates. I know most of you must come here to get your ego stroked or to do some stroking of your own, but you could be less obvious about it.

My statement was that no civilization has existed without spirituality. I probably should have stated that no civilization has ever survived devoid of spirituality. In fact, I think I have also put it that way. I've tried as best I can to define my viewpoints so there is no misunderstanding by anyone as to what I am stating, but it seems there are people here who like to parse and pick until they find some minor detail to criticize.

Humans are spiritual. Every human civilization that has ever lasted more than 50 years or so, every society and culture as well, have included a spiritual element. If you can show me I am wrong about that, go to town! Let's see your list of examples that prove me wrong! Don't waste my time sitting here nitpicking over silly nonsense, trying to catch me in some kind of 'word faux pas.'

 

[thebrucebeat]

Read your post and see how adult your post sounds.

If there is something about my post you'd like to point out, then have the balls to do so and stop fawning for attention from your teammates. I know most of you must come here to get your ego stroked or to do some stroking of your own, but you could be less obvious about it.

My statement was that no civilization has existed without spirituality. I probably should have stated that no civilization has ever survived devoid of spirituality. In fact, I think I have also put it that way. I've tried as best I can to define my viewpoints so there is no misunderstanding by anyone as to what I am stating, but it seems there are people here who like to parse and pick until they find some minor detail to criticize.

Humans are spiritual. Every human civilization that has ever lasted more than 50 years or so, every society and culture as well, have included a spiritual element. If you can show me I am wrong about that, go to town! Let's see your list of examples that prove me wrong! Don't waste my time sitting here nitpicking over silly nonsense, trying to catch me in some kind of 'word faux pas.'

Nothing to catch.
We see a child swearing at people and losing control of himself repeatedly. It's embarrassing for you, and you just repeatedly do it.
If humans are spiritual, why are you such a rude dude?

 

[Tuatara]

We see them here everyday, interjecting their hate-filled insultuous attacks on the religious, mocking and ridiculing to a bizarre extreme, anything and everything to do with God.

Are you saying the religious have never attacked the non-believers or mocked them or ridiculed them. Do you not remember all the hateful tweets after Christopher Hitchens died? In fact in a recent survey Atheists were considered worse than rapists.

They largely profess to be "Atheists" although some, as if to denote a hint of reluctance to go quite that far, will claim agnosticism instead.

Atheist and proud of it.

Best play it safe if we're dealing with a super-force who can send you to the pits of hell for all eternity, eh?

We don't believe in that super-force so that comment is moot.

But they have a dirty little secret they don't want any of us to know. They are not, in fact, Atheists or agnostic.
True Atheists have absolutely no inclination to attack people who profess religious belief.

We attack their beliefs, not the people.

If anything, they are amused by the "believers" and find them a bit of a novelty. Much like an adult who encounters a child believing in Santa or the Easter Bunny. There is no harm to the adult in such beliefs, the adult knows these are not real entities, and it's simply an amusement to them.

There is nothing amusing about someone who takes their beliefs and tries to impose them on the entire population through political and societal customs and laws.

In fact, they may even 'play along' with the idea, just in the name of fun. What does it hurt? No, you don't see hoards of smart-assed punks at the mall where Santa visits, ridiculing and belittling the people standing in line to see him.

Again if belivers of Santa were trying to shove there beliefs down my throat or trying to change laws because of that belief then yes we would show the errors of your ridiculous belief.

Message boards aren't clogged up with degenerate misfits decrying the belief of a giant bunny who brings candy and hides eggs, because it doesn't really matter to anyone that some people entertain this notion.

See above

Oh but it's because those are just kids, Boss! Well okay, let's take the thousands of nutty conspiracy theories out there. Do you see any evidence of people devoting every waking hour to go on message boards and forums to "inform" these people how they are crazy and misinformed? Nope. It doesn't matter. As long as you know something is too far-fetched to be true, you could care less what other people think. If someone wants to think Elvis is still alive on some remote island, what difference does that make to me? I might be inclined to casually comment that I don't believe it, but I am certainly not devoting the bulk of my energy and time online to categorically try and refute any inkling of thought pertaining to such a theory. And I am certainly not going to the extreme efforts to ridicule and insult the nuts who believe such theories. It's just not that important to me, nor to anyone else for that matter.

So what you are saying here is evidence and logic mean nothing to you.

But with the God-haters and God, things are quite different.

Again, atheists are not god-haters. We do not believe in him or any other god. Do you hate Zeus or any other god you don't belive in?

Although they claim to be Atheists or agnostics, my suspicion is they are anything but. It appears they are devout believers in God, who fully understand the power of God and how much God influences others who believe in Him.

You will have to explain why.

To put it in simple terms, they fear God. They are afraid if they do not stand up and fight God with all their might, God may become a bigger influence and that wouldn't be good for them, for whatever reason.

To quote Spock, "Highly illogical"

Most of the time, these reasons center around that person's life choices.

Absoloutley not. The center around a lack of evidence.

They have totally abandoned the God they very much believe in, so they can be unaccountable for their moral behaviors.

Religious people are no more moral than non-religious people and religious people do not get their morals from the bible or their religion. Period.

As long as there is "no god" to judge them, they can do whatever they please and there are no consequences.

Yes we do as we please and we please not to hurt, kill or rape others.

It's important that we understand, any time someone is doing something immoral or wrong, they had rather have company. This provides a codependency, a way they can somehow justify their behavior to themselves.

So what you are saying is people are not going to do bad things unless they have an audience. Maybe like an invisible sky-daddy who is always watching them.

So this is why the God-haters persist on message boards and forums, to 'recruit' people over to their way of thinking. They believe they can ridicule and cajole people into being ashamed of their beliefs and those people will ultimately join their faction. If nothing else, it is 'therapeutic' for them to vent their anger and vitriol toward the God they know is real, and they are almost certain to meet up with others who are doing the same thing.

In many places around the world atheists are persecuted. Actually persecuted and not this pretend persecution that christians claim every christmas. Atheists are not here to recruit others. They are here to explain the why and what's of their non-beliefs.

 

[Montrovant]

Read your post and see how adult your post sounds.

If there is something about my post you'd like to point out, then have the balls to do so and stop fawning for attention from your teammates. I know most of you must come here to get your ego stroked or to do some stroking of your own, but you could be less obvious about it.

My statement was that no civilization has existed without spirituality. I probably should have stated that no civilization has ever survived devoid of spirituality. In fact, I think I have also put it that way. I've tried as best I can to define my viewpoints so there is no misunderstanding by anyone as to what I am stating, but it seems there are people here who like to parse and pick until they find some minor detail to criticize.

Humans are spiritual. Every human civilization that has ever lasted more than 50 years or so, every society and culture as well, have included a spiritual element. If you can show me I am wrong about that, go to town! Let's see your list of examples that prove me wrong! Don't waste my time sitting here nitpicking over silly nonsense, trying to catch me in some kind of 'word faux pas.'

I'm trying to muddy the water, yet you admit here that you made contradictory statements, which is exactly what I was pointing out to you. Was that so difficult?

So you are saying that some civilizations have existed without spirituality, but not for long. Which civilizations are those, are you talking about the beliefs of the people or the strictures of the state, and what is your evidence that they were no longer spiritual before their collapses?

 

[Boss]

Boss: Obviously something existed that wasn't physical because physical things did not have a universe in which to exist or a time space.

the existence of something that could not physically exist.

something existed before the Big Bang, and we can be certain it wasn't physical because physical did not yet exist.

Silly boob: Why does it have to be a god? And are you 100% sure we can be certain about that boss? Provide the scientific proof that science is in agreement that we can be certain of this.

I didn't say it had to be a god. I said it couldn't be physical because physical didn't exist yet. You need time and space for physical reality to exist and that wasn't here yet. We are certain that you need time and space for physical reality to exist because of e=mc2. So science is in agreement on this, we've known it for years.

So we know the universe began and will end, and we know that the universe expanding creates time or spacetime, which enables a physical reality perception to happen. Within this perception of physical reality, we have concocted "science" or the study of physical reality. Whenever we hear people demanding scientific explanations for the origin of the universe it is a bit like someone demanding their Excel document explain how their computer exists. It's beyond the capability of science, which only exists as part of a physical reality to study physical phenomenon.

Now... back to the God question... I have repeatedly stated that I am not Christian, and I don't believe God is a "deity" in accordance to any organized religious doctrine. Whenever I use the word "God", and I often do, it is referencing what I believe is Spiritual Energy or Spiritual Nature. It is NOT something humanistic with human characteristics. It is not something definable by physical parameters. Some will mistakenly refer to this as "supernatural" but I don't believe it is because it is part of nature itself, it created physical nature. Sometimes I may even call God "He" but again, I don't believe God has gender or is even an individually-definable entity. For the sake of common parlance and to have conversations with others about God, I will replace what I actually believe with these kinds of terms, including "God."

 

[daws101]

Atheism is correlated with better scientific literacy, lower poverty rates, higher literacy rates, higher average incomes, less violence, lower divorce rates, lower teen pregnancy rates, lower STD infection rates, lower crime rates and lower homicide rates. It correlates highly with the well-being of individuals and societies by almost every possible measure.

Studies on happiness outside of predominantly religious countries (eg. the United States) find little to no correlation between happiness and religious belief.

The only reason religious people are happier is the social bonding they get at church. That and ignorance is bliss.

I grew up Catholic, wife grew up Luthern. I did 12 years of CCD...have not stepped foot in a church for mass since our wedding.

YES!!! SATAN IS A LIAR AN THE FATHER OF LIARD! and you??

ah jiss...what's liard?

 

[thebrucebeat]

Boss: Obviously something existed that wasn't physical because physical things did not have a universe in which to exist or a time space.

the existence of something that could not physically exist.

something existed before the Big Bang, and we can be certain it wasn't physical because physical did not yet exist.

Silly boob: Why does it have to be a god? And are you 100% sure we can be certain about that boss? Provide the scientific proof that science is in agreement that we can be certain of this.

I didn't say it had to be a god. I said it couldn't be physical because physical didn't exist yet. You need time and space for physical reality to exist and that wasn't here yet. We are certain that you need time and space for physical reality to exist because of e=mc2. So science is in agreement on this, we've known it for years.

So we know the universe began and will end, and we know that the universe expanding creates time or spacetime, which enables a physical reality perception to happen. Within this perception of physical reality, we have concocted "science" or the study of physical reality. Whenever we hear people demanding scientific explanations for the origin of the universe it is a bit like someone demanding their Excel document explain how their computer exists. It's beyond the capability of science, which only exists as part of a physical reality to study physical phenomenon.

Now... back to the God question... I have repeatedly stated that I am not Christian, and I don't believe God is a "deity" in accordance to any organized religious doctrine. Whenever I use the word "God", and I often do, it is referencing what I believe is Spiritual Energy or Spiritual Nature. It is NOT something humanistic with human characteristics. It is not something definable by physical parameters. Some will mistakenly refer to this as "supernatural" but I don't believe it is because it is part of nature itself, it created physical nature. Sometimes I may even call God "He" but again, I don't believe God has gender or is even an individually-definable entity. For the sake of common parlance and to have conversations with others about God, I will replace what I actually believe with these kinds of terms, including "God."

You have also stated that god CAN'T be part of nature because something physical can't create something physical.
You are a total train wreck, but you are utterly dependable.

 

[daws101]

Dracula was an 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, based loosely on 15th-century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler. So Dracula was never based on any human spiritual connection.

Now you've presented some examples of rulers, masters or nations which sought to use religion in order to control others. However, in virtually none of those cases was the religious belief originally established for that reason. If you'd like to pretend that is the case, then you're not very smart.

You can also argue that we'd all be better off without God, but you have no basis for that belief. There is certainly no proof to support your belief. When we believe in things without proof, what is that called?

bullshit vlad was a Christian and by extension so was s Bram stokers Dracula.
stoker himself was a Christian the whole novel is crammed full of Christian imagery.

 

[daws101]

Let me be more precise about abandoning God. Abandoning the one true God, not the many false gods that have been created by civilizations. The god of this system is not the one true God but the god satan who set up and use civilizations for his own evil agenda.

there is no evidence for one true god or many gods. you as always are speaking from self-imposed ignorance...

 

[sealybobo]

Dracula was an 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, based loosely on 15th-century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler. So Dracula was never based on any human spiritual connection.

Now you've presented some examples of rulers, masters or nations which sought to use religion in order to control others. However, in virtually none of those cases was the religious belief originally established for that reason. If you'd like to pretend that is the case, then you're not very smart.

You can also argue that we'd all be better off without God, but you have no basis for that belief. There is certainly no proof to support your belief. When we believe in things without proof, what is that called?

I showed you evidence we'd be better off without god: Atheism is correlated with better scientific literacy, lower poverty rates, higher literacy rates, higher average incomes, less violence, lower divorce rates, lower teen pregnancy rates, lower STD infection rates, lower crime rates and lower homicide rates. It correlates highly with the well-being of individuals and societies by almost every possible measure. Why there is no god

I also showed you that through millions of years of evolution, we instinctively looked up to authority figures including one when our parents were just eaten by polar bear. That's why our ancestors came up with god. They said "son, if/when we die, you can know that we'll be looking down on you from heaven and god is watching out for you". We made it up so give it up.

 

[daws101]