Athiest fundamentalists

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[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]

I also think the chain rection god doesn't solve a problem, it just adds one link to the problem.
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Until you stop seeing it as a problem to be solved. Science concerns itself with HOW the Universe evolved from the very first moment on. Anything before that is outside the scope of science and, thus, "not your problem", so to speak. It is, and is likely to remain, unanswerable, but that does not mean it is useless to ask the question what came before the Universe.

Sure, I get your point. But I'm sure 99.99% of the believers don't see their god as a part of philosophy. And I really don't know why God should be taken more seriously than the Hindu's golden egg creation myth.

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[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]

I don't think the universe as a proof is a very good one. That's the same as saying Smurfs exists because we can see their houses all over the forest.

You don't have to see the things you're trying to prove to prove them. That's the whole thing in science. You can't see black holes. But still, there are thousands of things that point to the excistence of them. When it's a good hypothesis the results of a test can be predicted and will be the same as the outcome. Then the theory will be accepted by most of the scientific world.

If the god hypothesis would be a good one, you could predict the outcome of tests. For example, if you pray for the return of a severed limb, the limb would return. Unless the god you're testing happens to work in mysterious ways.
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This is kind of what I was getting at when I said that what you see as evidence or lack of evidence for the existance of God or of powerful intelligent life outside the universe depends on your starting point.  My immediate thought was that the Smurfs make no claims to have created the forest, we know for a fact that they were 'created' by humans.  So to me, this isn't a valid argument.  And with regard to the severed limb, if God (I'm only using the Christian God, as I don't know enough about other religions)  is who the Bible says he is, he is outside natural laws and the universe, is more powerful then us, and therefore not obliged to do what we want.   (I am aware of how this sounds.  "There is a God!  He healed you!"  or "There is a God!  He didn't heal you but this proves that he is powerful!"  :) )  
But although God being outside of the universe's laws makes sense to me, I don't know if its a valid argument, as its kind of circluar logic - if it's true, it makes sense, if its not true the argument falls apart.  Which is why I don't generally try to defend God with logic.  Apart from the fact that I don't think it can ever be proven beyond any doubt, I believe that God relates to people in a personal way and this is very hard to defend logically - how do you logically defend any relationship or emotion.

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[b]catqueen wrote: [/b]



how do you logically defend any relationship or emotion.

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Physical things (including a person or place) can trigger an emotional response.  There can be some form of justification in those cases, as one can explain why they feel what they feel by offering tangible proof that can be seen by anyone regardless of their beliefs.

Metaphysical things, on the other hand, are a completely different situation.  For something of no proven existence to have an emotional effect on you is a matter of choice, and can be only "understood" by those who have a similar belief system.

Emotions and relationships are nothing more than a chemical reaction in your body. You're nothing more than a big pile of chemical reactions, I'm noting more than a big pile of chemical reactions..

Isn't that wonderful? :D

My immediate thought was that the Smurfs make no claims to have created
the forest, we know for a fact that they were 'created' by humans."


Well, we also know for a fact that the trinity was created by humans. But still there are a billion people who believe thats the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help them Smurfs.

Ok, another one bites the dust.  I have all these lovely ideas that really don't hold up - this is why I don't read Dawkins.  :)  I've always heard it preached that you can't logically prove emotion, it's not tangible, you can't see it, etc, and if we acknowledge the existance of emotions, why not God.  But when I actually reread what I had written that doesn't completely stand true.  Emotion is universally acknowledged and accompanied by measurable physical changes (crying, change in pulse rate, etc).  I know people who would probably say that we know actors aren't really feeling emotion when they demonstrate or 'prove' that they are, but there again, that isn't really a strong argument.  But this could go around in circles forever!

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[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]

Well, we also know for a fact that the trinity was created by humans. But still there are a billion people who believe thats the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help them Smurfs. [/QUOTE]
No, we don't. You assume it, and Christians (excluding Unitarians) assume that it wasn't. It's a matter of faith either way.

An author called Don Miller who wrote this brilliant book Blue Like Jazz, A Non Religious Look at Christian Spirituality, once said that there is enough evidence to prove both that God exists and that he doesn't, which I think is probably true.  You can argue very well that people started out monotheistic, and you can argue equally well that people were originally polytheistic.  Many scientists feel that there is no intelligant creating force, while others have studied for years and come to the conclusion that there was intelligent design in creation, whether that be God or something else.  You can prove that the earth is old and young, depending on what dating system you use.  There's an organisation called Answers in Genesis that publish various things that give scientific credence (is that the right word? make it credible?) for creation as taught in the Bible.  (Eg, unreliability of carbon 14 dating, fossils being found perfectly preserved through numerous layers of rock which were all supposed to have been formed millions of years apart, etc.  They argue that the flood in Genesis explains why the earth looks as if it should be billions of years old, but that the pressure caused by the flood would have caused the formation of coal, rock layers, etc in a very short time.) 

With regard to having faith, I've heard various people say that athiests just don't want to have faith in something, etc, and that in reality everyone has faith in lots of things.  Such as when we sit in a chair, we have faith taht it will hold us up, we have faith that if we go out, we will return safely, we have faith that the sun will rise and atoms will keep spinning around, and that gravity will always work.  I really don't like when people use things like this to justify faith in an unseen God, as to me those things aren't faith - they are based on previous experience and on laws of nature.  We don't have faith that gravity will work because it is a natural law, it will work.  That's just the way it is, we can study it and learn why it works, scientifically prove that it will work or else just accept it based on previous experience.  But when I tried to say that to someone, they got kind of huffy with me.  What do other people think?

Sorry about the long post.

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[b]ThomasQuinn wrote: [/b]





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[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]







Well, we also know for a fact that the trinity was created by humans. But still there are a billion people who believe thats the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help them Smurfs.





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No, we don't. You assume it, and Christians (excluding Unitarians) assume that it wasn't. It's a matter of faith either way.
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Thomas, you really surprise me. So as long as it's a matter of faith nothing anthing will hold up, no matter how rediculous it is?

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[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]

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[b]ThomasQuinn wrote: [/b]













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[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]















Well, we also know for a fact that the trinity was created by humans. But still there are a billion people who believe thats the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help them Smurfs.













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No, we don't. You assume it, and Christians (excluding Unitarians) assume that it wasn't. It's a matter of faith either way.
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Thomas, you really surprise me. So as long as it's a matter of faith nothing anthing will hold up, no matter how rediculous it is?

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The problem is that you insist on taking everything about religion literally. In that sense, you're as bad as an orthodox protestant. Most religious 'dogmas' like the trinity are philosophical abstractions. The fact that popular religion abuses them is of no interest to me: I can only applaud churches emptying and growing antipathy towards priestly authority. I do not, however, appreciate reductionists who want to throw 3000 to 4000 years of serious philosophy out the window, just because the masses can't understand them and are too lazy to make an effort.

There has always been a dichotomy between the ordinary believers, towards whom religion was used as a method of maintaining the laws, and an open elite (mystics, monastics, saints and heretics) who seriously considered the underlying notions. For instance, the two creation stories offered in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 respectively make little sense when read in translation, but when one looks at the original Hebrew, the first word (bereshit; "in the beginning") alone reveals a cosmogenesis that is quite close to the Big Bang theory, namely that when the letters Beth and Shin (air [any kind of gas] and fire respectively) met, there came "a beginning" which consisted of "expansion" (the Alef and Jod of the word "Elohim", meaning god [as a function/job, not a name], which have the numerical value 11, which is the Hebrew expression for "expansion" [1 becomes 11, or two ones]). The final letter of the first word, the Tav, means ending, by which is expressed that the ending is contained within the beginning, or that everything that has a beginning will end, i.e. that the universe is not eternal.

I think it's too bad that you are too dogmatic to be willing to appreciate the value that is present in ancient texts.

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[b]ThomasQuinn wrote: [/b]



 For instance, the two creation stories offered in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 respectively make little sense when read in translation, but when one looks at the original Hebrew, the first word (bereshit; "in the beginning") alone reveals a cosmogenesis that is quite close to the Big Bang theory, namely that when the letters Beth and Shin (air [any kind of gas] and fire respectively) met, there came "a beginning" which consisted of "expansion" (the Alef and Jod of the word "Elohim", meaning god [as a function/job, not a name], which have the numerical value 11, which is the Hebrew expression for "expansion" [1 becomes 11, or two ones]). The final letter of the first word, the Tav, means ending, by which is expressed that the ending is contained within the beginning, or that everything that has a beginning will end, i.e. that the universe is not eternal.

I think it's too bad that you are too dogmatic to be willing to appreciate the value that is present in ancient texts.


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I was raised strict catholic and am now an atheist with issues who - right or wrong - finds it personally upsetting when someone talks about their religion/faith. 9/11 and all the righteous crap from 8 years of the Bush administration made it worse for me - constantly having 'god' as the cause and effect of everything just made god and its believers seem yet more ridiculous and suffocating to me. However, I've never lost the need to understand why there are believers in the first place. I find what you've said here to be fascinating. Ever think of teaching this stuff or writing a book in layman terms about the origins of religion and how it's been used/abused/force-fed over the centuries?

Thomas, I too know about the originals, and have read most parts, as well.

I don´t have a problem with old philosophy, but the way that the bronze age ideas are forced down our throates every day.

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[b]magicalfreddiemercury wrote: [/b]

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[b]ThomasQuinn wrote: [/b]



 



 For instance, the two creation stories offered in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 respectively make little sense when read in translation, but when one looks at the original Hebrew, the first word (bereshit; "in the beginning") alone reveals a cosmogenesis that is quite close to the Big Bang theory, namely that when the letters Beth and Shin (air [any kind of gas] and fire respectively) met, there came "a beginning" which consisted of "expansion" (the Alef and Jod of the word "Elohim", meaning god [as a function/job, not a name], which have the numerical value 11, which is the Hebrew expression for "expansion" [1 becomes 11, or two ones]). The final letter of the first word, the Tav, means ending, by which is expressed that the ending is contained within the beginning, or that everything that has a beginning will end, i.e. that the universe is not eternal.

I think it's too bad that you are too dogmatic to be willing to appreciate the value that is present in ancient texts.



 

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I was raised strict catholic and am now an atheist with issues who - right or wrong - finds it personally upsetting when someone talks about their religion/faith. 9/11 and all the righteous crap from 8 years of the Bush administration made it worse for me - constantly having 'god' as the cause and effect of everything just made god and its believers seem yet more ridiculous and suffocating to me. However, I've never lost the need to understand why there are believers in the first place. I find what you've said here to be fascinating. Ever think of teaching this stuff or writing a book in layman terms about the origins of religion and how it's been used/abused/force-fed over the centuries?  




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Magical Freddie Mercury, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with church/religion, etc.  Many, many Christians do not agree with the radical right, it's so sad that that whole fundamentalist, far right thing has gotton so tied up with christianity - war, exploitation and western domination of the world is not what Jesus represented.  It still amazes me that Christ, who came to bring light, love and peace is now used to support and justify such extremely harsh views towards others.  I mean, seriously, we are supposed to be bringing Christ's love to a suffering, broken world and to do this we ostracise gay people, loudly condemn people who don't happen to share our worldview, support sweat shops and start wars? [i] [/i]I am neither a Bible scholar nor a saint, but you don't have to be to see that Jesus attracted people to himself, he was a nice guy - his harsh words were mainly restricted to the extremely religious of his day, he was always nice to the normal average 'sinner' and was well liked.  It would be interesting to see where things changed and when the church started being so condemnatory and harsh to others. 

Thomas Quinn, that was really interesting.  I've never read Genesis (or anything for that matter) in Hebrew, that's fascinating.

Well, it was the same love bringing Jesus that said: “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace on earth!  No, rather a sword lf you love your father,
mother, sister, brother, more than me, you are not worthy of being mine"


But I'm sure someone will say it's all a big metaphor. :-)