Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Leafsnail]

Go find something better to do than act like a snob who assumes he's right and that his way is better for everyone than any other way is.  Religion is not an escape from reality, by the way.  I think that so far the religious people of this forum have proven they are quite grounded in reality.

Well, if a theory has no evidence for it, you have to presume falsehood.  Otherwise you'd end up believing pretty much everything.  It could be true, but it's no more likely to be true than, say, the Harry Potter franchise being a literally correct description of how the world is.  I presume falsehood on anything that has no evidence and makes no predictions.

I'm pretty sure you do the same, unless you believe that there is an equal chance of a bowl of petunias coming over the horizon tomorrow as there is of the Sun doing that.  You just want to believe that what you've been told about God is true.

Let me clarify here.  This doesn't make you a moron, or an empty head, or brainwashed, or a mindless automaton.  I'm not saying I'm any more intelligant than you are.  However, intelligence in other matters does not automatically mean that someone is correct.

[LegoLord]

The thing about that comparison to Harry Potter, or the pink dragon behind mars, or the bowl of petunias rising instead of the sun, though, is that they are all new.  We know exactly where the story came from (someone recently made it up, in these cases).  Most old religions' myths are so old that we don't know what inspired them, or how much truth might lie behind the mutilating effects of oral histories, translations, and lack of scientific knowledge to explain what might have happened to inspire such myths.  Personally, I find this to be sufficient justification for pursuing religion.  Not enough to prove it, naturally.  To claim as a fact that there is no truth behind these myths, however small, and tell everyone else to say the same or else they are unrealistic and sheltered is rather arrogant.  You don't have to believe there might be something to it, but you can't say for fact that there is nothing, because you can't prove a negative.  It is the assumption of fact that offends me.

[Areyar]

Excuse me legolord,
I was under the impression that this thread was on atheism, hence religion is fairly irrelevant.

Thus far to me the religion protagonists have only proven that they can type long posts with internal inconsistencies.

So you claim that religion is as valid as reality in a thread about atheism, how does promoting YOUR worldview not offend?
You also continue to claim lack of any evidence is proof in itself, which renders all your arguments suspect in my book.


I know enough about religion to say they cannot all be true, because none can prove or disprove anything they must therefore be equally true and thus untrue.

religion defendants always try to push atheism into a defensive corner by at first coming out with reasonable sounding statements, however in the end these always escalate into such reality bending assumptions such as religion X is a valid viewpoint as long as some of its claims cannot be proven or disproven.


I just lost my patience with the discussion going on in this thread and so I posted a tactless text. I feel violated when people discuss reality as if they are discussing law. Reality is NOT mutable! You can believe whatever, just keep it inside your own mind, leave innocent unbelievers without your mana of wisdom please, don't try to insinuate it into my mind or ass.


ps The Universe is not futile, it just is. Just get on with living and you will live. Find a loving partner and you will do so happilly and your genes will continue after you have died. (IF you sire any children)
Thinking about the reason or purpose of the Universe is pretty pointless though.


I didn't find God comforting at all, just confusing.
If god was allknowing and omnipresent, why not spare a few seconds to explain the rules to young persons? It would really impress!
I had to create all sorts of loopholes in my mind (as a preteen/toddler) in order to make the stories make sense.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 Almost as bad as asking your parent how a TV works or a steamengine etc they are likely not to know and will think up a nice story. And this is now how I feel religion got started: a few people got to thinking up stories about how the world was created, how it functions now and what happens after. And eventually people got to look at their priests as having the answers to all unknowns. 
So these priests made up all kinds of incredible(or improbable) stories of how X and Y got to be like that, without any kind of evidence. (besides shape in some cases; such as 'the sun is a dungball pushed across the sky by a celestial dugbeetle, the round shape proves it!')
Figures in authority just tend to dictate reality to their 'lessers' even if they need to throw away half the datapoints to fit them planets into a worldcentric system.
Surely a worldcentric system mght have been more practical for interplanetary missions, the made up system just does not hold up when you try to use it for real.
...though I understand the orbits were highly complex with the planets making loopings and such, so I wonder if anyone would have dared leave the Earth at all.

Religions that onl concern themselves with non-physical issues such as morals and such are excempt from my scorn. (Their misguided propagandists re not though)

Now look what you done: I wrote a rambling wall of text! (ill spoiler it)

[LegoLord]

Thus far to me the religion protagonists have only proven that they can type long posts with internal inconsistencies.

So you claim that religion is as valid as reality in a thread about atheism, how does promoting YOUR worldview not offend?
You also continue to claim lack of any evidence is proof in itself, which renders all your arguments suspect in my book.

That's not what I said at all.  And given that, rather than simply stating what you think, you claimed that it was a fact that God is fantasy (which a common defensive statement by atheists says you can't prove), it's no small wonder that you offended someone.  I specifically said that the evidence in favor of a given religion is insufficient to prove it.  Saying "I believe this" is different from saying "this is how things are."  All I've said is "I believe this," I've never said "this [my religion] is how things are."  Further, you continue to claim that religion and reality are mutually exclusive.  We do not yet know enough to say that any one religion is mutually exclusive of reality nor to say that any one religion is necessary to reality (see bold).  I have never said anything to suggest that lack of evidence is proof.  I have heard that argument before, but it was not me who said it.  Most likely, you have me confused with someone else, and so you read my post as such, rather than reading it as what it is.  That sort of thing just happens sometimes.

[Areyar]

yet you claim being unable to prove either existence or non-existence of gods as both a valid argument against atheism and pro-Gods.

An unproveble or non-disprovable claim is a sure sign of something underhand going on, just like a contracter not returmning your calls.
Inviability to the basic laws of the universe goes both ways. No laws = no power or substance. irrelevant.

[LegoLord]

yet you claim being unable to prove either existence or non-existence of gods as both a valid argument against atheism and pro-Gods.

No, I don't.  You seem to think that atheism bothers me, and that it is why I post.  But it isn't why I post.  Atheism doesn't bother me in the slightest.  I'm just as disturbed when a religious person starts acting like everyone who isn't of their religion is wrong as I am by an atheist acting like atheism is fact.

I don't try to prove God exists, nor do I argue against atheism.  I argue against intolerance of theological viewpoints (atheism included among those).

[Areyar]

So you are an agressive agnostic, who speaks against anyone who speaks either for or against the existence of dieties?

I cannot accept your basic premiss that an unmeasured (or unmeasurable)  binary value has equal possibility of either outcome.
This may be fair and desirable in court, but in the world at large, unreasonable/natural laws apply that have been proven. These laws, as well as occams razor, imply that no gods is much more likely than the existence of beings that can defy any test that can be devised by man.
Desire for gods does not make them univerasally true, nor does a desire for fairness.

[LegoLord]

No, I'm not agnostic, I'm Christian.  I don't like seeing people get in bad mood just because someone else mentioned they were Christian, or American, or come from a certain college, or belong to a certain ethnic minority.

Occams razor proves nothing, by the way.  We've been over that.  As far as simplicity goes, "God started it" is pretty simple.  Occams razor can be manipulated to whatever your view point is.  And frankly, it doesn't really apply to atomic physics.  We used to have a really simple explanation for that, but now we have quantum physics.  And really, there is no way to apply statistics to theology.  Just where do you start when trying to prove God exists?  Setting up a test of Moses' Hypothesis of Physical Alteration?  Oh wait, that doesn't exist, because Moses didn't know about the scientific method, or gravity, or atoms and molecules.  And because I was just trying to think up a name that sounded like it would belong to a scientific proposition of how god/gods work.  Where is the evidence that tells you it's unlikely?

[Sergius]

God is a fantasy, as is all religion, get over it and become atheist.
Facing reality will make the world a little better, thank you.

I hope you realize just how arrogant and offensive a statement that was.

Oh, you just played the "offensive" card... Why can't religious people realize how arrogant and offensive the concept of a Higher Being or so and so is.

[Neruz]

Or people could realise that it's not the job of everyone else in the word to avoid offending you. If somone comes to me and starts talking about magical people in the sky i will call him an idiot and his ideas stupid, especially if he tries to convince me to believe in the same people. And i would expect him to do the same were our roles reversed.

If you don't want to be offended, either go somewhere else or stop believing such rediculous fantasies.


You are not the most important person in the world. It is not our job to avoid offending you.

[RAM]

yet you claim being unable to prove either existence or non-existence of gods as both a valid argument against atheism and pro-Gods.

No, I don't.

You don't have to believe there might be something to it, but you can't say for fact that there is nothing, because you can't prove a negative.  It is the assumption of fact that offends me.

  You seem to think that atheism bothers me, and that it is why I post.  But it isn't why I post.  Atheism doesn't bother me in the slightest.  I'm just as disturbed when a religious person starts acting like everyone who isn't of their religion is wrong as I am by an atheist acting like atheism is fact.

I don't try to prove God exists, nor do I argue against atheism.  I argue against intolerance of theological viewpoints (atheism included among those).

I am not intolerant of people who choose to be religious, I am not intolerant of people who seek knowledge of religion, I am intolerant of people who propagate lies. You CAN prove a negative, I can prove there there is no opaque(or hard/soundproof if you are blind...) object between you and your display of this text because we know its properties and know that it would prevent your reception of this text.
 I know that a religion's god has a religion and therefore provides sufficient compulsion for itself to have a religion, it is therefore certain that a compulsion did exist and most probably continues to do so. If the compulsion no longer exists then there is no longer any reason to follow the religion, as its justification has ceased. If the compulsion continues to exist then it can be obeyed. The absence of an obvious choice for religious belief proves comprehensively that no extant religion is accurate.
 The large number of conflicting religions provide odds well below 1 chance in 2 that any given religion is accurate, due to this it is a simple fact that following any single religion is foolishness without further evidence. Lack of proof condemns any religion.

I don't have anything against foolish beliefs, so long as they are not taught to others or acted upon...

[Neruz]

I don't have anything against foolish beliefs, so long as they are not taught to others or acted upon...

So if your best friend held a belief that if he jumped off the top of the Eiffel tower he would float harmlessly to the ground, you wouldn't try and dissuade him of this belief?

[RAM]

If they had no will or potential to act upon it I would regard it as a bit of harmless fun...

[Neruz]

But how would you be able to tell if they had the will or potential to act on it until you see them falling through the sky? You would be amazed what people will do if they believe something strongly enough.

[Areyar]

A stupid explanation != a simple explanation.

Using the concept of magic is not simple, because it cannot be reproduced or tested.
Because it does not exist, if it did, I don't think science would have trouble quantifying and measuring magic.

@compulsion: Compulsion may be real in religious groups, it is one of the most disgusting things. It does not originate from a divine source, but from the followers themselves. Compelling/forcing others in or near the group to comform to their views.
Tolerance of others tend to be inversly proportional to the percentage of followers.