Donny

If so, what are your reasons for disbelief in God?

Babaganoosh

Lack of proof.

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Donny

Lack of proof of what? God? Circumstantial proof is all around you.

Babaganoosh

How is any of it proof?

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moeloubani

yeah no proof is a pretty good one lol

Mr Pheer

None of the other gods mentioned throughout history turned out to be real, so what makes the christian God any different? Because you say so? I'm sure people said the other gods were real as well. Look all around you, there is the proof, right?

Donny

Who mentioned a Christian God? I used the word God. In this case, that refers to an intelligent "First Cause".

Donny

Circumstantial evidence is enough to convict in a court of law.

jigg

if life must come from life then...?

Harmon

Babaganoosh

"Arguing with a Christian is like playing chess with a pigeon. You could be the greatest player in the world, but the pigeon will still knock over all the pieces, shit on the board and strut around triumphantly."

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jigg

Who's the Christian God?

Donny

Failed logic on every count.

You have parents, right? They loved you, I assume? Did they do everything for you, or expect you to learn for yourself along the way?

Phillipmcd1

Religion is something that fascinates me. Where would Christianity be without Constantine? The Pagans got pwned hard by Christians

jigg

most Christians do not know the bible beyond what they're being fed and told by priests and preachers

Donny

That's quite the assumption. There are many things in life that rely on circumstantial evidence. Love, for example, can't be proven... yet I'm pretty sure you believe love exists, right? Because there is plenty of circumstantial evidence for it.

Phillipmcd1

That i agree with

TisMe

Donny, don't use words you don't understand. Perhaps you should limit yourself to 4 letters or less.

From Merriam Webster: circumstantial : belonging to, consisting in, or dependent on circumstances <a circumstantial case> <circumstantial factors>

By definition, not proof.

Evidence perhaps, but not proof.

raymor

I think that Jerry Falwell is full of shit. But so do most religious and spiritual people. That's the fundamental problem with atheism. The atheist rejects some particular idea that they call God. They forget that everyone has a different conception of "God", "Buddah", "Allah", whatever. You might completely reject what you intepret Falwell as saying, but you can't logically reject my understanding of God because you don't know what it is. Logically, you can only say "God" doesn't exist by saying nothing exists.

Babaganoosh

Love is an emotion. Did one of you finally admit that god is nothing more than an emotion?

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Sly

True, humans prove time and again they are easily duped.

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AaronM

Atheist? No.

More like agnostic.

Donny

If it matters that much to you, I'll concede. Let's use the word "evidence" then.

Sly

Love is a terrible, terrible, terrible example.

How many times have you been in love? And how many times have you been wrong?

Proof cannot be wrong. It's proof. Fact. Undeniable.

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smutnut

Atheism is an extreme determination that nothing else that matters that is a higher power could possibly exist. Agnosticism is the denial of responsibility.

It basically comes down to - what the fuck does it really matter? if you think God is supreme why even bother praying. He can't answer your prayers because he has bigger plans than you.

the bible says we can't understand God's ways yet there are churches everywhere making you commit to things we can't understand.

I say it is all irrelevant. If God exists, he doesn't matter to your everyday life no more than the daily life a a single cockroach should matter to you. It can't. It's just semantics within our own logic.

It's really that simple be you left or be you right...

Phillipmcd1

Love is a label people use, like evil

TheSenator

I think you may be looking for this forum to discuss your God.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/

Nothing but Jesus fearing adult webmasters here.

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Harmon

Donny

Is this an invitation to share my thoughts on what I believe to be evidence of an intelligent First Cause (God)? If so, I'm happy to do so.

One particularly powerful bit of evidence for God from a theist?s perspective is the very fact that you and I are having this conversation to begin with. Richard Dawkins (the famous atheist evangelist) can?t explain why we are capable of rational thought, nor why our minds are capable of logic and order. I see the mind as glowing evidence of a creator. You do not. I see emotions as evidence of a creator. You do not. I see mathematical formulas as evidence of a creator. You do not. And do it goes, and so it goes.

So many atheists make the same mistake as the likes of Richard Dawkins:
You?re seemingly unaware that logical positivism was discarded in the 50s, by the very scholars who brought the concept into existence in the first place.

In case you don?t know what that term means, here is a web definition of logical positivism:
?A form of positivism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle, that considers that the only meaningful philosophical problems are those that can be solved by logical analysis.?

God is indeed a philosophical debate.

From a book by Antony Flew?s:
?[Atheist Evangelists like Dawkins] show no awareness of the fallacies and muddles that led to the rise and fall of logical positivism? It would be fair to say that the ?new atheism? is nothing less than a regression to the logical positivist philosophy that was renounced even by its most ardent proponents. In fact, the ?new atheists,? it might be said, do not even rise to logical positivism. The positivists were never so naive as to suggest God could be a scientific hypothesis-they declared the concept of God to be meaningless precisely because it was not a scientific hypothesis. Dawkins, on the other hand, holds that ?the presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question?? I seek to show that our immediate experience of rationality, life, consciousness, thought, and the self militate against every form of atheism, including the newest.?

One problem, in my opinion, is that so many of you so-called ?atheists? are so far opposite from scientific minds that you revere the word ?scientist? as if such a person holds the keys to knowledge. That?s simply not correct. God is not a scientific discussion. God is a philosophical discussion.

This next quote comes from John D Barrow, who is an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. He is currently Research Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He obtained his first degree in mathematics and physics from Van Mildert College at the University of Durham in 1974. In 1977, he completed his doctorate in astrophysics at Magdalen College in the University of Oxford. He did two postdoctoral years in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, he?s not an idiot.

Of Richard Dawkins he said:

"You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you?re not really a scientist. You?re a biologist [to Barrow, biology is little more than a branch of natural history - now let's continue the quote]. Biologists have a limited, intuitive understanding of complexity. They?re stuck with an inherited conflict from the nineteenth century, and are only interested in outcomes, in what wins out over others. But outcomes tell you almost nothing about the laws that govern the universe.?

The biggest problem for those who don't believe in an intelligent First Cause is that they cannot explain complexity.

Donny

Three dimensions of nature that point to the existence of God:

1. The fact that nature obeys laws.
2. The dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter.
3. The very existence of nature.

WHY does rational thought exist? WHY does nature obey laws? WHY do subatomic particles exist? WHY does life itself exist? Chemicals combine together, sure. But LIFE is not attained by combinations of chemicals. Self awareness is not attained by combinations of chemicals. How did LIFE come from non-life? And WHY did reproduction begin?

There is no proof for this, on either side.

Why are the laws of nature so precise, universal and tied together? Why does the universe even bother to exist? Einstein called the answer to questions like this “the mind of God”. That’s how he explained it. And before you say Einstein didn’t believe in God, here is a quote from him:

"I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of those books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.”

Einstein also said, of atheists, “What really makes me angry is that they quote me for support of their views.” He renounced atheism because he never considered his denial of a personal God as a denial of God. He very much believed in a “superior reasoning force,” a “superior mind,” an “illimitable superior spirit” and a “mysterious force that moves the constellations”, of which he was speaking about God. There are many well known scientists who believed the same way.

Even Charles Darwin was a theist. He wrote:

"[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist."

Many modern day scientists reflect this exact same belief.

Harmon

TheSenator

uggg... the good old "The First Cause Argument" that has been used for the last 2000 years....

OK...check mate....Jesus lives!

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smutnut

Again, it's all irrelevant in our personal physical existence in the present, and nothing we do now can matter to our afterlife or at least we can't possibly know what will and what won't. It's really that simple.

AaronM

I've never know rational thought to exist within any religion.

Fucken Bible thumper....

AaronM

LOL, you actually read all that?

Sucka.

Phillipmcd1

Then there's no point in arguing. If your in church and your listening to the preacher and you get that tingling feeling, to you that's God. When I'm watching a movie and get that same tingling feeling, to me that's the actor

AaronM

Donny

Why does rational thought exist? Why does the universe follow very specific laws? I have no objection to survival of the fittest, nor do I have a problem with evolution (theistic evolution contends that God created all that exists over a very long time - basically, that evolution was intelligently guided), but WHY does life fight to exist?

Donny

It probably takes about 30 seconds for anyone with a reading level > third grade to read all that I wrote up there. It's respectful to read what someone writes if you're going to engage in a discussion with them, don't you think?

smutnut

Why do you keep asking that same simple question over and over? I'm not sure rational thought does exist. Why does a rock exist? You probably think God had something to do with that too, I'm sure.

Phillipmcd1

Finally some sense in this thread

Donny

I read the first post where you asserted that, JohnnyClips.

smutnut

Rational thought explains a guy dying on a cross and rising 3 days later to liquidate all our sins? WTF?!!

Donny

That's a whole other discussion. I don't see anywhere in the thread title or original post that mentions Christianity. We're discussing the existence of God here.

smutnut

I believe there could be a higher power, but the cockroach that I had to swat last night actually mattered more to me cause he affected my life. the higher power never will until it doesn't matter any longer.

I guess we will work things out at that time

Harmon

Donny

For the sake of this discussion, God = an intelligent First Cause. For context, here's Albert Einstein's thoughts again:

"I?m not an atheist, and I don?t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of those books but doesn?t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.?

He renounced atheism because he never considered his denial of a personal God as a denial of God. He very much believed in a ?superior reasoning force,? a ?superior mind,? an ?illimitable superior spirit? and a ?mysterious force that moves the constellations.?

That's what we are referring to as "God" in this thread.

shake

Ayla_SquareTurtle

You've got to be kidding me with this shit.

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Donny

Unless you bother reading through the posts made here, and engaging in valid discussion, kindly step out.