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[Zai]

I've always wondered about the 'Crusades = Bad => God = Crusades = Bad => God must be evil => God can't exist => I'm right' argument.

Couldn't I do any horrendous act and blame it on someone then? Darwin told me to set off a nuke in Atlantis! He must be evil/ not real.

*Twitches.  Darwin != Atheist Jesus/God.  He was a scientist.  Just like Einstein and Newton.  Stop trying to equate scientific theories to philosophical and religious beliefs.

Not what he was saying at all. Strife just used Darwin as a random name.

However, I do not want to get involved in this discussion any further, so I'm not going to really try to explain what he was saying. >,>

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Can you think of a word that means "the science of tax evasion, scams, and the harsh silencing of critics?"

thats way to easy earthquake:  (insert political party you dislike here).

[Earthquake Damage]

thats way to easy earthquake:  (insert political party you dislike here).

*bad-dum pish*

[pokute]

No thanks. My cult is better.

My problem with that quote is primarily this...

Just look at what we do to dwarfs and other beings in our fortresses...
Is there any requirement that God is supposed to care about how moral WE think his decisions are?

[Puck]

Yup, assuming terms like "good" and "evil" mean anything to a truly enlightenend consciousness - or lets take it a step further - assuming a "higher being" has to be conscious at all, well, that is a lot of assumptions at once and pretty stupid - even for Epicurus.

(of whom I'm actually a great fan)

[Osmosis Jones]

The argument for or against the presence of some generic god is purely metaphysical, and hence can never be proved or disproved, hence it is pointless getting worked up about it. I suppose you would class me as an athiest, as Occam's Razor argues against a god,

Spoiler: (Justification) (click to show/hide)

If impersonal laws can explain everything, there is no need to invoke a conciousness behind said laws.
As a rebuttal to the most common line I hear after invoking Occam; if you say the universe appearing out of nothing is more complicated than god doing it, remember that with a deity, you still have the creation problem, you're just shifting it to the deity rather than the universe.

but it's still a pointless argument.



Arguing against the god/s of a specific religion however, is much easier. Mainly because of the presence of a) other religions, b) contradicting scientific evidence & c) (the clincher) internal descrepancies, all of which discredit the dogma.

[dei]

...not to be rude, but when it comes to religious debates, TL:DR is my second to final response.

Final response : I'm a pagan who believes in free will and the right to tailor one's god(dess) to suit their needs, as said by Chaos Magicians and Radionics Master Charles Cosimano. I believe that the only false religions are cults, not religions, and that therefore anyone who is Scientologist, Jehovah's Witness, or even Mormon and Nazarene (My mother is Nazarene, by the way), does not believe in an actual religion. Anyone who forces any religion upon anyone in anyway is encroaching upon their right to free will, and deserves theirs being stripped away from them. This includes holiday celebrations in an overtly religious tone, like Christmas (really Yule before it was stolen), and anyone who passes out pamphlets in an effort to convert has wasted more trees than they should be allowed to.

In my eyes, religion is personal, and forcing it upon another's will is not something to do, as saying such words of another one's god can be like a raping of the ears to another person who is devout to something else.

So please, enough with the religious discussion. Who ever opened this topic, I ask of thee to lock it. If it is not locked , then I hope an admin or mod does the same.

[LegoLord]

and anyone who passes out pamphlets in an effort to convert has wasted more trees than they should be allowed to.

Well, the trees are grown on farms, and they're spending money on it, so at least it's good for the paper company  .

Although this thread seems pretty good as far as religion discussions go; look at how many people have said "you can't prove either side".

[Yanlin]

and anyone who passes out pamphlets in an effort to convert has wasted more trees than they should be allowed to.

Well, the trees are grown on farms, and they're spending money on it, so at least it's good for the paper company  .

Although this thread seems pretty good as far as religion discussions go; look at how many people have said "you can't prove either side".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The scientific method is biased to Atheism.

[Puck]

"but I think I'd rather trust the dudes in labcoats who aren't demaning I get up early every Sunday to overdress and apologize for being human"

That's a very nice way to put it.

Seriously, I just haven't decided on the answer whether there is a god or not. And to be completely honest, I don't think it does make that much of a difference either anyway. Finely tuned mathematical balances coming to existence through an unbelievably long and complex chain reaction that started at the beginning of time, finally making life possible, well, that is just as beautiful/meaningful/breathtaking as a higher being planning it all out.

And I think that might be one important "mystical paradoxon" ... no god is the same thing as a god.

But seriously, what christianity has become... that stuff is just embarassing and disgusting.

[Yanlin]

Nice of you to quote mine that demotivator then throw away the rest of it.

NOBODY KNOWS! We're trying to find out! Until then, the Occam's razor states that god does not exist. But Occam's razor does not PROVE something. It just points at the right direction... Most of the time...

[Puck]

I didnt wanna jump in on the discussion about occams razor, i just thought that line was funny 

[LegoLord]

I don't get what Occam's razor is supposed to say.  I think I know what it's trying to say, but it's doing a horribly poor job of it. 

Now, one thing is, I don't get up early on Sundays to go to church.  I don't feel like I have to in order to be Christian.

I'd say 50% of all the ceremony in religion is just there to have a feeling of being organized.

[Grek]

Let's look at the butterfly in its chrysalis.  When it's ready to come out, you could carefully slice open the chrysalis, letting it out slip out and rejoin the world quickly, but then it is too weak to fly, as it did not strengthen itself by going through the trial that is the chrysalis.  This is almost identical to the way people are; if you always help a child do his school papers, will he ever learn to do them himself?  No, he will be lost in college, and will likely fail.

So, would any omnipotent being, knowing just how well this metaphor applies to people, knowingly weaken them by helping them all the time?  I doubt it.

An omnipotent creator could create perfect human beings with perfect knowledge of the universe, a perfect understanding of morality and everything they need to be a perfect success ex nihilo. That's what omnipotent means. The chrysalis metaphor you use is faulty and a poor response to the problem of evil.

[Cyx]

Plus, it's God who made the rules up. The answer I see the most to the problem of evil is that evil is useful in some way. But what kind of beneficient God would create the opposite of everything he stands for, and make it necessary on the top of it ? (be it to our moral development or because "without bad there is no good")

And of course you can't disprove the existence of God. You can't disprove anything that's supposed to exist yet be alien to our senses in every possible way. But you can disprove a religion if the claims it makes aren't logical enough to please the human reason. It might not be scientific but that's how I see it.

I like the problem of evil. Another answer is "Humans have free will, God didn't do anything bad". But humans aren't the only ones to do evil things. Animals do, too. "They don't know it, it's just to survive". But if the difference between an evil act and a natural act is the intention, the pain is not bad by itself, so there is no actual evil act. Then everything seems a little pointless. Any thoughts on that ?