Some questions for atheists

[Cosmonautical]

Why does everyone insist I must be an atheist because I'm an agnostic? Not going out of my way to believe in anything without legitemate evidence makes me sure it's all untrue?

And if you're so sure there's not enough evidence to prove god, why so cocksure, disbelieving it? There's not enough evidence to disprove God. In fact, it's so utterly pointless to disprove it if you don't especially believe it in the first instance, why give a **** enough to want to disprove it?

[Robotazy]

To be a big, fat jerk.

[I am nobody]

Lets put it this way:

I am actually a talking fish. You have no evidence to prove me right or wrong. Of course, the idea of me being a talking fish makes very little sense. Fish can't talk. They aren't developed enough to be able to communicated with humans, let alone type. But that isn't evidence that I am not a talking fish. Maybe I'm an alien fish. Maybe my fish brain is much more powerful for some reason. Maybe I'm just insane.

Of course, if I am a talking fish, there are several bizarre problems.
-How am I getting internet underwater?
-How am I typing with fins?
-How did I learn English?
-Why does my knowledge of underwater life seem lacking?

What are you going to do? My claim is highly illogical in many places, but it isn't possible to prove I'm not a talking fish. Are you going to believe me because you can't prove me wrong? Or are you going to ask me to come up with actual evidence instead of just asking you to assume I'm right?

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The idea of a god has several bizarre problems as well.

-How could anything possibly create the billions upon billions of galaxies that exist in our universe? Not to mention the quadrillions of stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, nebulae, and life forms that can be found in said galaxies? (there are quadrillions of life forms on our planet alone; mostly insects)

-How could said god travel such immense distances? Light takes billions of to travel between some objects. Unless this being can travel exponentially faster than light, how could such great distances exist?

-If said being can indeed travel exponentially faster than light, why are there not truly drastic differences in the ages of various objects? Traveling that fast should have caused the being to warp into the future, causing gaps in ages of various stars.

-Assuming that we are wrong, and something could travel that fast without warping through time, or that the being was somehow able to create everything easily and without traveling at all, how did it get there? What could possibly create an all powerful being? Why hasn't it happened again in the billions of years since the universe began?

-Why don't we see more unexplainable events? Such a powerful being would undoubtedly be able to create random phenomena. Why would the being have suddenly stopped created galaxies and other objects? We do see the birth and death of stars occasionally, but there is no reason to believe that said deaths and births were not natural.


No one can answer those questions. No one can answer the questions about me, the talking fish. Until someone can explain those holes, I see no reason to believe either.

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As for your last question, I personally don't care about disproving it. If I'm asked, I will point out the flaws. But I'm not going to go out on the street corner or write a book telling people that I'm right, you're wrong. Unless your beliefs call for Jihad, stopping social or scientific progress, or something similar, I don't care what people believe.

[CaptHayfever]

^I'd think a fish that could develop the ability to speak English despite lacking the physiology could also develop a way to operate a computer underwater, whether by virtue of being an alien or just that freakishly evolved.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Deku Trii]

Originally Posted by I am nobody

-How could anything possibly create the billions upon billions of galaxies that exist in our universe? Not to mention the quadrillions of stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, nebulae, and life forms that can be found in said galaxies? (there are quadrillions of life forms on our planet alone; mostly insects)

-How could said god travel such immense distances? Light takes billions of to travel between some objects. Unless this being can travel exponentially faster than light, how could such great distances exist?

-If said being can indeed travel exponentially faster than light, why are there not truly drastic differences in the ages of various objects? Traveling that fast should have caused the being to warp into the future, causing gaps in ages of various stars.

-Assuming that we are wrong, and something could travel that fast without warping through time, or that the being was somehow able to create everything easily and without traveling at all, how did it get there? What could possibly create an all powerful being? Why hasn't it happened again in the billions of years since the universe began?

-Why don't we see more unexplainable events? Such a powerful being would undoubtedly be able to create random phenomena. Why would the being have suddenly stopped created galaxies and other objects? We do see the birth and death of stars occasionally, but there is no reason to believe that said deaths and births were not natural.

Most of these problems aren't problems at all. If you're creating a universe who's physical laws have little to nothing to do with those of your own, what sort of problem is the scale of the universe you've created? Omnipotence over a universe is like being the author of a book. I could write a book in which there are laws which the inhabitants of my book world must obey, while including a character for whom these laws are inconsequential. The things this character can do are not things other characters could do, yet this character does them all the same. Likewise, it is also not a problem that I have not written in more characters who can do these things other characters can do.

[I am nobody]

Originally Posted by Saul Goodman

Omnipotence over a universe is like being the author of a book.

Yes.

I could write a book in which there are laws which the inhabitants of my book world must obey, while including a character for whom these laws are inconsequential. The things this character can do are not things other characters could do, yet this character does them all the same. Likewise, it is also not a problem that I have not written in more characters who can do these things other characters can do.

No. The question for the characters in said book is not how the more powerful character got there. You made that character like you made everything else in that story. The question for them is how YOU got there.

They can't answer that question. Neither can we.

[Deku Trii]

Then your argument, first of all, isn't that the author doesn't exist. Second of all, I could absolutely write my book in such a way that the characters know they are characters in my book.

[I am nobody]

Originally Posted by Saul Goodman

Then your argument, first of all, isn't that the author doesn't exist.

Assuming that there was a character that the laws of physics did not apply to, there would have to be a higher being that created it. Thus the argument is different for that world.

Second of all, I could absolutely write my book in such a way that the characters know they are characters in my book.

And then they would know how you got there. But unless you are telling me you know we do not exist, that scenario is completely unrelated to how a god would form in this world.

[heh]

"what created the universe" and "where do we go when we die" will never ever be solved ever, but pretty much everything else eventually will. therefore, while god may exist, all existing religions are wrong

thus spoke me

[Bomby]

1. Atheists who insist that all agnostics must be atheists are ****s.

2. I believe that there is not a god simply because the whole idea just sounds like it was made up.

Somewhat unrelated, but you know what common saying pisses me off? "Absence of proof is not proof of absence." For one thing, absence of proof may not be proof of absence, but it's pretty damn good evidence. Second of all, it's a thought-terminating cliché.

[El Barto]

As Richard Dawkins wrote, "I am agnostic towards God in much the same way that I am agnostic towards fairies."

[The Spark]

Everything comes from somewhere, correct? They can't just be there. As with god, who is said to be the creator of everything. It just isn't logical. Also, why is it that each time an 'angel', 'god' or 'jesus' speaks to someone it has to be so private? And another thing- in almost every culture of all of time that we know of had a god and a virgin women that gave birth to gods son, who died a couple times, walked on water, healed, etc? Why is it that we have no true evidence of a god except people saying that he spoke to them- PRIVATLY? Lastly, the bible has been rewritten hundreds of times, so it isn't like the bible has the exact words of those whom originally wrote said bible. Lastly, why would 'god' care if we sin? I mean, it isn't good to sin, it's just that everything, every being 'sins' repeatedly throughout their lifetime, so why was it only humans that were needed to be saved for such wrong-doings? There will always be sin, it doesn't matter what happens.

oh, and you would think that if there was proof and all of this hype of a rather angry and specifically mentioned god then everyone would be in agreement about the god.

[I am nobody]

^That wasn't the question...

[Panfan]

The Spark

1. The creation of the world, be it religiously or scientifically, cannot be explained.
Religiously: God is eternal, but the earth is only so many years old, what was God doing before that?
Scientifically: If the Earth as we know it was created by the Big Bang, how did the Big Bang occur? Was that star created also by an explosion?

No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you've studied religious books or done scientific research, you can't figure this out. If you try, you'd be wasting your life.

2. God didn't always talk to people privately. He talked to entire country's populations in the Bible. And Jesus didn't talk to everybody privately. In fact, he did the EXACT OPPOSITE. He preached to crowds of THOUSANDS during his ministry. That's not private.

3. I don't know where you're going with this. The "proof" to people is The Bible, obviously we can't have those people back up their statements because they lived a couple thousand years ago. That's where faith comes in. Nobody is 100% sure what they believe is the truth. Nobody.

4. That's obvious that the words have been rewritten, because there are words in other languages that don't have equivalents in other languages. And obviously, some things will be lost in translation. But things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. that were written thousands of years ago can help us get as much out of it as we possibly can.

5. Do your parents care when you do something disobediently? I think they do. That's how God is. He wants everybody to be perfect, he created us perfectly, but the devil is tricky. We sin. That's why he sent Jesus. Yes, there will always be sin. But he forgives those sins.

6. I don't understand your last paragraph. If there was absolute proof of God then everybody would believe in God? Of course they would. There's absolute proof that 1 + 1 = 2. So if somebody says that 1 + 1 = 7. It would be stupid to think that. But there isn't anything in this life that will tell you directly which religion is right and explain everything about the universe to you. And that's never going to happen. It's all about faith.

You have a different thread all about this. Why'd you post that in here?

[Deku Trii]

Originally Posted by The Spark

Everything comes from somewhere, correct? They can't just be there. As with god, who is said to be the creator of everything. It just isn't logical.

Really? You really don't see that an atheistic world view presents no better answer to the "problem" that "Everything comes from somewhere?"

Originally Posted by The Spark

Also, why is it that each time an 'angel', 'god' or 'jesus' speaks to someone it has to be so private? Why is it that we have no true evidence of a god except people saying that he spoke to them- PRIVATLY?

The bible's full of public miracles.

Originally Posted by The Spark

And another thing- in almost every culture of all of time that we know of had a god and a virgin women that gave birth to gods son, who died a couple times, walked on water, healed, etc?

Jesus might have referenced one of these stories once, interestingly enough. While talking to the Greeks he likens himself with the Corn King when he says, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." There's a theory which I tend to like that, "We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of the great Pagan teachers and myth makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story—the theme of incarnation, death, and rebirth."

Originally Posted by The Spark

Lastly, the bible has been rewritten hundreds of times, so it isn't like the bible has the exact words of those whom originally wrote said bible. Lastly, why would 'god' care if we sin? I mean, it isn't good to sin, it's just that everything, every being 'sins' repeatedly throughout their lifetime, so why was it only humans that were needed to be saved for such wrong-doings? There will always be sin, it doesn't matter what happens.

I'm going to mostly skip your first "last" point because you don't really know what you're talking about there. I think you'd be surprised how well the things that were rewritten "hundreds" of times managed to go unchanged from the copies found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

As for your last point, I'd initially point out that humans are the only beings who have sinned, if for no other reason than because we're the only species that have been given divine commandments that we can choose to disobey. The obvious answer to why God cares if we sin is because he loves us and knows it is in our best interests not to sin.

[Dizzy]

My theory is that there is no god: An all-powerful cult probably wrote the bible just to scare everyone into shape.

And also, the mystery of where you go when you die isn't unsolved: you figure out when you die. You just can't go back and tell people what it's like.

[Cosmonautical]

Anyone's inability to understand the concept of an omnipotence is either misreading irrelevant established religious works or simply not thinking on a grand enough scope.

If existence is the only terms we have to use to describe existence, we will have no comprehension of lack of existence. We only have concepts for it. To truly understand something that does not exist, you have to consider possibility: there can be things you will never understand. There are things you do not know about. Should those things cease to exist, you will not comprehend them. You cannot identify an absence of existence without an existence to precede it. Anything that has truly never existed has no concept to identify it.

Atheism is the disbelief of theism. Not just unbelief, but active disbelief. The Christian God himself has an indirect relation to this, certainly, but it as a concept he is relatively unimportant. Christianity is a basic monotheistic belief, although it is arguable that it adapts well to Monolatry (the belief that there are many gods, but only can be worshipped) and Kathenotheism (the belief that there are many gods, but they must be worshipped seperately). I'd argue for Kathenotheism simply because the religious doctrine itself commands "You shall have no other gods before me" - that is not a statement to allude the unexistence of other gods.

Theism overall is the belief in any gods. Not just Christianity. Agnosticism means I seek the truth. Atheism would lead to my denial of the truth should it not fit into a tidy little package.


IAN: You are limiting the scope of a god. If you presume a god is confined to distance and speed, you are completely uncomprehending the point of a god. Even the Christian God exists outside of the boundaries of time. Or more specifically, exists in all times at once. You can presume, then, that the Christian God can actually exist in all locations at once, because time is something that can be mathematically measured in the exact same manner as other spacial dimensions.

As far as your fish argument is concerned, there is a flaw in your comparison: The fish is a concept we already have. Fish exist. A talking fish is unlikely simply because we know how fish are developed. A creature that was similar to a fish but could communicate with us on the internet is likely no longer a fish. If you are innaccurate in that, your word loses merit with us. If you are unable to describe in detail the functions of your body and its dimensions, and the manner in which you are able to communicate, you will be failing to provide us with details we recognize as necessary. How many of you, on the otherhand, are familiar with the unending persistence of reality, and how it is composed? Have you ever encountered and understood a being capable of sustaining existence? No? Then you have no grounds for comparison, which means it would be reasonable for it to exist beyond your perception.

Panfan: 1 + 1 is not an absolute. IE, 1 and 1 make two 1's but together they make one 2's. It depends what sort of context you have, math is an abstract practice and you're only considering the basics. I could, for example, take 1 and 1 and say that by themselves they are equal characters and placed together they are worth the value of another character. Seperately they are not worth the value of another character, so they are worth the value of 3 characters together but one each as seperate.

Originally Posted by Bomby

Somewhat unrelated, but you know what common saying pisses me off? "Absence of proof is not proof of absence." For one thing, absence of proof may not be proof of absence, but it's pretty damn good evidence. Second of all, it's a thought-terminating cliché.

I agree. The statement operates under the presumption that proof is required for disbelief. There is no direct loss in disbelief should you be wrong, save in possible opportunity.

[Deku Trii]

[Dizzy]

I sorta figured God's arch-enemy would be, well, Satan.

But that works too.

[CaptHayfever]

^You'll notice God-Man only regards this guy as a minor annoyance. Freshman-Philosophy-Major-Man is more like the Johnny Snow to Satan's Captain Hammer.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"