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Author Topic: Atheists  (Read 392890 times)

Osmosis Jones

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3225 on: April 18, 2010, 04:08:24 am »

I would hazard a guess that it's an explanation for human suffering; we suffer so that we can also be happy. In other words, the old 'no shadow without light' argument.

Or it's a stealthy, deliciously deadpan comment on the thread length...
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Neruz

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3226 on: April 18, 2010, 04:31:34 am »

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that everyone would grow bored of happiness. In fact i would expect that somewhere there is an outlier who could quite happily live forever in a state of pure bliss.

Osmosis Jones

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3227 on: April 18, 2010, 05:11:45 am »

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that everyone would grow bored of happiness.

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that good people go to heaven when they die.

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that everyone is judged by an omniscient superbeing.

...and so on.

You're arguing in a religion debate, claims that rely on pure conjecture are par for the course :P

That being said, that whole line of argument is only really meaningful if we're assuming that the presence of evil is in someway related to the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent god, that is supposedly benevolent. That already fails Occam's Razor straight up, so why bother arguing the particulars of it?

That's why I prefer to think Grakelin is subtly implying that this thread, while originally fun, is starting to dry up after dragging on for a few hundred pages. Let's see what he says when he get's back  ;)
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RAM

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3228 on: April 18, 2010, 05:28:19 am »

I would guess one or both of two interpretations:
 Heaven is impossible.
 Happiness requires contrast.
Of course, some speculate that heaven is a joining with god, but in that scenario your current self is still dead, gone forever, so you really REALLY need to be okay with the concept of surrendering yourself to your god, because the best terms it is offering are "I will completely reformat everything you have and everything you are to suit my whims", which sound to me about as bad as they come... It is interesting to note that the idea of the world being a god's imagination is compatible with that. The world exists to entertain some extraworldly entity and it retains memories of you, but you still completely cease to exist...

If happiness really does require contrast, which is by no means certain, then it is a perfectly predictable scenario based upon the nature of humans, which is supposedly dictated by an intelligent creator, which presumably created the world, and its occupants, with the intention that they would suffer no matter what they did. No matter how ignorant it chose to be about the future, nor how much freedom it chose to give humans, such a creator specifically chose to make them suffer...

In either scenario, heaven is not much of a reward...

You've gone a long way out of your way to try to avoid the simple fact that the first assumption, "The proof is along the lines of, something happens that results in someone being less than satisfied. At that point there is a flaw in the world, if one assumes that a 'god' exists, then its existence would need to be justifiable in the presence of such a flaw," is opinion.
Everything needs to be justified with everything else, if its existence cannot be justified then it cannot exist. Pizza can be justified with crime because producing odours and going soggy are not actions that typically impede criminal activity. Police can be justified with crime because they lack the resources to completely stifle it. Christian style gods can be justified with respect to crime because... They lack the ability to stop it? They choose to allow it? They choose to let people do whatever they want, but chose to create them with criminal inclinations in a world where crime is sometimes necessary for life, morality, and the perpetuation of their religion? Or did these intelligent creators just choose to mentally cripple their children so that they couldn't understand the divine workings? If I saw a parent repeatedly dropping their child on its head so that it would be satisfied in the endlessly repetitive manual labour it would inevitably find in its only career options, then I would expect any good christians in the vicinity to seek to stop them...

Obviously, Lucifer does not consider God to be perfect, but if God is pleased with the result it hardly matters.
It matters to Lucifer, it matters to humans who are stuck in the middle of it, it matters to everyone but this god, am I supposed to respect something that chooses to be so ignorant of others? I would sooner face it in a hopeless conflict then hopelessly try to enjoy its company...

Disliking the state of the universe does not even begin to address the existence of God.
It does if the state of the world was created by a god and that god takes issue with things that people dislike. Of course, if the god wants people to endure things they dislike, for its amusement or something, then it doesn't so much address the fact of its existence but just the nature of its existence...

You say people cannot come to an agreement on terms, but again this is not true.  Rather, you and folks like you refuse to accept agreed upon terms because doing so results in settling the matter rather amicably.  Atheists are currently at great pains to come to a point where religion can be banned entirely, so assertions like this followed by a lot of noise meant to obfuscate the obvious flow like water.
I don't want it banned, in fact the thought of completely banning anything is somewhat distressing, but I am very worried about a world in which religion is valued more than personal integrity...

Facts.  Let's deal in facts.  You cannot rely on logic if what you are dealing with is personal opinion.  What is or is not "perfect" is a matter of opinion.
To me, perfection means to adhere exactly to something's nature. Perfect water would be pure water, it may not be nutritious enough to be healthy as an exclusive drinking source, but it is, in a clear sense, perfect. Of course, if you redefine water to a conductive medium, then you need to have some salt in it, if you redefine it to "the stuff that comes out of the tap" then it is perfect until you do something to it... But whatever the case, perfection is easily determined and once defined ceases to have any correlation to opinion. Dissatisfaction is a flaw in fulfilment, which is often cited as a value to religion, there is absolutely no opinion necessary to sustain that...

Logic can easily be applied to opinion, as opinions are formed by, and therefore dependant upon entities with logical natures. Not to mention the ability of logic to be used by the unscrupulous to manipulate the very much logical processes that form opinions...
It seems odd that you quoted my entire post, when you only responded to the first paragraph...
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Neruz

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3229 on: April 18, 2010, 05:45:02 am »

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that everyone would grow bored of happiness.

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that good people go to heaven when they die.

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that everyone is judged by an omniscient superbeing.

...and so on.

You're arguing in a religion debate, claims that rely on pure conjecture are par for the course :P

That being said, that whole line of argument is only really meaningful if we're assuming that the presence of evil is in someway related to the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent god, that is supposedly benevolent. That already fails Occam's Razor straight up, so why bother arguing the particulars of it?

That's why I prefer to think Grakelin is subtly implying that this thread, while originally fun, is starting to dry up after dragging on for a few hundred pages. Let's see what he says when he get's back  ;)

Um. Ok.

Andir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3230 on: April 18, 2010, 06:48:59 am »

That being said, that whole line of argument is only really meaningful if we're assuming that the presence of evil is in someway related to the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent god, that is supposedly benevolent.

Not sure why, but I thought of this when you said that:



Maybe because someone sent it to me yesterday.  :P
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"Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight."

Jackrabbit

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3231 on: April 18, 2010, 06:57:06 am »

Isn't Satan sort of relegated to the 'Punishing People After Death' task? I think killing people is sort of a once in a blue moon thing with him, he's presented as more the 'torture for eternity' type.

God though, God was just going nuts all over the place.
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Godwin

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3232 on: April 18, 2010, 07:06:46 am »

Isn't Satan sort of relegated to the 'Punishing People After Death' task? I think killing people is sort of a once in a blue moon thing with him, he's presented as more the 'torture for eternity' type.

God though, God was just going nuts all over the place.

Well you'd think that if Satan wanted to torture people he'd kill more people so he'd have more people to torture.


Or maybe the Bible is just a lie and Satan and God are actually bros and they have a scheme going on where God does the dirty work and Satan just faffs about in their crib. That would explain why it's almost impossible to not commit some deadly sin in the bible, it's a racket to make sure you always go to hell. Look at Lot, the only guy to follow all the traditions and they tormented him until he broke a rule. Instant hell pass. It's a scam I tell you.
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Jackrabbit

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3233 on: April 18, 2010, 07:13:49 am »

Did he break a rule?

Incidentally, that Bible chapter always monumentally pissed me off.
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kuro_suna

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3234 on: April 18, 2010, 12:23:47 pm »

Except it's pure conjecture; you cannot possibly know that everyone would grow bored of happiness. In fact i would expect that somewhere there is an outlier who could quite happily live forever in a state of pure bliss.

I figure its a bit like a video game, even when its frustrating to lose without a challenge winning quickly loses its meaning.
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Siquo

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3235 on: April 18, 2010, 12:42:13 pm »

Siquo, the only assumption Science makes is that our five senses give us an accurate representation of the reality we live in. And as our senses can be shown to be consistant with each other, it's a very small assumption to make.
No, no, no, and no.

And now you're just trolling again, or displaying a huge amount of disability in not being able to click links and read the contents of a page.

@Ampersand:
Allright, there's a consensus on "a" planck time. There's still nothing in that whole pdf to show that we can't ever see anything smaller than that.
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Ampersand

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3236 on: April 18, 2010, 06:06:39 pm »

Most of those assumptions are philosophical in nature, Siquo, and not what Neruz is talking about. Only the first is an assumption imposed nature, the rest are assumptions we impose upon ourselves (e.g. we can know nature.)

And no, he's not trolling, Siquo, you're the one who is being contradictory apparently for the sake of being contradictory.
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chaoticag

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3237 on: April 18, 2010, 08:50:49 pm »

Wait, did someone just show up in this thread, thinking that all atheists are out to get him and his precious beliefs? Again?

And he happens to base this assumption based on how Neruz has been treating Siquo or something? I know I'm missing something here.

Plus there was a line somewhere about man having an inherent need in faith, therefor something or other. Frankly, I'm not even sure what "inherent need in faith" means, or why it is even important at all towards advancing an arguement in anyway. (Plus, a definitive claim needs definative proof, and the logic seems a bit shakey. He might want to expand on that)

Plus, I doubt there is a large group of atheists out to get religion banned Durin. You're just being paranoid, and might want to talk to a few atheists before claiming that.
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MrWiggles

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3238 on: April 18, 2010, 09:08:53 pm »

Na, anti-theist atheist are a minority of a minority. They exist, of course but they aren't all of us. There really aren't agreed upon things between atheist. Its like herding cats. We can't even agree on a symbol or how much disbelieve ya need.

I don't care what cha believe in. I care that you examine it critical fashion and obey your intellectual honesty.
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Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3239 on: April 18, 2010, 09:10:12 pm »

Did he break a rule?

Incidentally, that Bible chapter always monumentally pissed me off.

Satan and God being bros would definitely explain Job, though.
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