The Big Question

[SaiyanHajime]

The simple fact the idea exists defeats your argument, Joey. Religion had to come from somewhere. Somehow, some person must have come up with the idea that there was something more than what was tangible. Likely, it was many people, given the variety of religions out there.

I meant in contemporary society, that it woud be ludicrous to come up with the concept of god without being introduced to it. The concept of god developed to fit holes in our knowledge, and that's still going on today.

See, in no way here have I made definitive statements.

This doesn't matter and I don't know why you keep harping on about it. You are adamant there is a higher power, that's all we're talking about.

It is very possible that there is something greater out there, that in that being's perception, we're simply cockroaches.

Lots of things are possible, but are also ludicrous based on what we know to be true... What do you make of Russell's teapot?

If I told you there was a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere between the Earth and Mars, that just happened to be invisible, it would be ludicrous for you to think that I was not being ludicrous myself. It's possible there is an invisible teapot orbiting the sun, it's invisible nature and how it got there lying outside of human knowledge and understanding, and you cannot prove me wrong.

God is a ludicrous idea because there is absolutely no reason to think it exists. The likelihood of inventing something, like an invisible orbiting teapot, turning out to be true is outrageously slim. You need some observation, some evidence, some proof, some reason to think something exists before you come up with the concept. For example, biologists predicted there would be a creature that looks halfway between a fish and an amphibian, and predicted the time and place in which it would exist from the rest of the evidence they had... They had no evidence it existed, so they went looking for it. And found it. With god, there is none of that evidence or reason for assuming it exists, so it's absurd to think it does.

Think about it, Joey - you're making definitive statements left and right, because you feel you have the answer, you know you're right, you know that your logic is the ultimate representative of how things are. Are you really so different from the person who believes in a higher power? Do you not think you look just as ridiculous to them as they do you?

If we're talking absolutes here, then I am almost certain that god doesn't exist. I cannot be 100% certain it doesn't. I cannot make absolutes. But I can guess beyond all reasonable doubt. Again, I don't know why you keep going back to this. Believing in a higher power doesn't make any sense, the idea that there is a ridiculously slim possibility it could be true doesn't aid you. There's a ridiculously slim possibility that I could in fact be a slug with human intelligence who's developed a machine to enable me to type, but it would be pretty absurd for you consider the idea.

theism might as well be a religion. Both ideologies almost require the "believer"

Except no.

You're trying to play this card of "you're being just as absurd as I am by saying it doesn't exist" which simply isn't true by any stretch of logic. You're right, in that agnosticism is the only place where one can be certain that they are right. But we're not content with "maybes". There can only be one right answer, and the chances are in favour that god doesn't exist. Maybe some day someone will prove the Earth isn't round after all, and we should all remain agnostic to that idea? Or maybe 2+2 doesn't = 4, so lets be open minded about that too. Our world, our understanding of the universe, the way we communicate and understand doesn't work in absolutes, we go by the best to what we know... And that is that god doesn't exist. If you want to hold onto that slim chance, that tiny spec of a possibility, that god might exist, then by all means... But I'd love you to tell me why you think it's logical or reasonable to go so against the grain of probability?

 

[tomahawk]

I have read this entire topic from the beginning, and I can say I have truly enjoyed seeing opinions that differ from mine. I won't say much as I am not an expert, won't pretend to be one, and will just express my beliefs and move on. I know it will lead to every word I write being torn apart and me being proven "wrong" but, such is life.

I grew up in a Christian home, went to church my entire life, left to an extent in high school, went to college, went to church when I visited, didn't practice, and then about 2 years ago I went back. I was never gone, always had my beliefs, I just didn't like some of the hypocrites that were in the church. When my girlfriend and I got serious, her being extremely catholic, and me being protestant, we had to figure out if it was able to be worked through or not. Well it did, but it made me look into my beliefs even more, especially since her family is extremely catholic, and did not originally approve of us dating, due to the differences, even though to an atheist they are seen as the same.

Joey, in a nutshell, you have said there is 0 proof so therefore you are right, and, as it has come off to me, anyone who is religious, is a complete and total idiot who doesn't deserve to have an intellectual conversation. If this isn't what you meant, and I took it the wrong way, no harm no foul, but that is the perception I have been given. Personally, being Christian, I feel that is the way to live, but I will not thump bibles and yell everyone is going to hell who isn't, that isn't my personality, or the way I see the faith work. Yet, it seems to me, and again this is just through my personal experiences, every Atheist I personally know, will verbally attack Christian's claiming they are wrong, ignorant, etc. and won't stop at all. Yes, I know there are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. that do the same, but, the atheists who say they don't need to look in the mirror.

Evolution is always thrown back at religious people saying that it proves God doesn't exist. Why? I understand theologically why some would say that, but as I believe UC said, how do you know this isn't part of God's will, instead of just the universe being the universe? You don't. Nobody knows. And that is the point. You don't know if that is the reason, but you instantly claim that it proves God doesn't exist, even though it could prove that he DOES. Everyone seems to forget that Darwin was a Christian when he died. From the religious courses I have taken, albeit a few, I have learned a lot more about other religions than I thought. The atheists in the classes constantly are trying to claim everything is wrong, despite actual historical data proving that some events happened. You, and this is a general you not just directed at Joey, should really look into the actual history of the monotheistic religions.

Just had to get that out as I have been reading for the past however long this has been going on, but finally had the time to post. I'm sure I will be back to defend myself though...

 

[SaiyanHajime]

In terms of straight probability? I'd say highly unlikely.

If you were to explain to me, however, that you truly believed it was true, that something certainly existed? I would probably prod your beliefs a bit to see if they held steadfast, but at some point, I'd walk away and leave you to it, because the bottom line is I cannot prove it one way or the other.

Do you believe in ghosts, by chance?

I don't think you're being honest here. I think realistically you'd think that person were an idiot. You're trying to defend our ludicrousness by saying you'd support others being as ludicrous. That's not an argument for god, it's just showing you're gullible. Or would be, if I believed you.

I do not believe in ghosts because I do not believe in an afterlife. I think the large proportion of ghostly phenomena is absolutely false. Usually a scam or people misinterpreting everyday occurrences as being mystical. Best example of that is shadow people, which are just forms in your peripheral vision that you interpret as people and then when you look there's nothing there. It drives me crazy when people are adamant they saw something, unable to realise that it's more than likely that their mind was playing tricks on them, since our senses are far from perfect. However, I think that it's within the realm of reasonable possibility some phenomena we call "ghosts" could be something we don't quite understand yet, but people have probably falsely applied the idea of it being a dead person without any real reason for centuries.

Tell me, did you bother to look at the link I gave you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew

It really is interesting. He was quite an educated philosopher, and was an adamant atheist, but converted to what was essentially an agnostic ideology. I think you'd find it interesting, I certainly did.

Of course, someone should have probably told him to come to CoasterForce, all of his questions could have been answered...

Your argument as based in logic and reason, is not as full proof as you think, and this is the point I've been trying to get across. As I said above, it's still debated as to whether or not humans have proper evidence of absence when it comes to the existence of a higher power.

Would you like a list of people who've concluded the oposite? I know of Antony Flew and I think it's the same problem you adress in that last little paragraph... You're argument is essentially "we don't know that we have all the answers, so god must exist". The two points have no relevance to one another. We know we don't have all the answers, but creating a mystical being that holds them until we find them is just sillyness. You cannot prove a negative. There will always be holes in which god can exist, because the invention of god includes elements which make it undetectable to us. Same with the teapot.

Ill be back later to tackle the rest.

 

[furie]

You're trying to play this card of "you're being just as absurd as I am by saying it doesn't exist" which simply isn't true by any stretch of logic. You're right, in that agnosticism is the only place where one can be certain that they are right. But we're not content with "maybes". There can only be one right answer, and the chances are in favour that god doesn't exist.

See, I think this is essentially the problem with Dawkins, which is what I try to avoid. UC is right that it comes across as arrogant and preaching - an "I'm more intelligent than you" attitude because "I don't believe".

I'm content with maybes. I don't believe there is a god, but I'm happy to accept that there is the possibility. There's just no reason for me to be worried about if one exists or not, it's completely irrelevant to my life. Sue has said she's agnostic, there's no harm in that attitude at all - just a complete bit of sitting on the fence, but Dawkins hates it and tries to force people off the fence onto his side. Which is what you're doing Joey. I agree with flaws in religion and the god of Abraham, but if people want to to believe in god and no religion then whatever, it doesn't harm anyone.

I do think though that god was created to explain things we didn't understand and religion was a refinement of those thoughts. UC says that "there must have been a reason religions started". There is and it's very simple.

If you're a cockroach and every morning at 7:30 a.m. the light comes on in the kitchen, and at 10:30 each night it goes off - to a cockroach there is something happening it doesn't understand so attributes it to the supernatural (the natural in cockroach world being the smell of food and sex). It's unaware of you getting up each morning and going to bed. It just knows that something it can't eat or shag is making it go light and dark.

Humans had exactly the same thing as we evolved. We didn't understand the reason the sun rose and fell. We could follow the patterns and predict it happening, but there was no real understanding of the physics behind it. So a convenient place holder was added - god. A god must make the sun rise and set. Another god makes the cold winter, another the warm rains that grow the crops. We laugh at the belief of the Egyptians now, how silly to believe in gods on chariots chasing their lovers in a sun spangled route over the daylight. Yet it's exactly the same thing that has caused the development of the tighter god. The one watching us. We still pray to a god and ask for help, much as the Egyptians would pray each morning for Helios to rise.

The thing is, we're still trying to fill in gaps with god. Creationists who don't understand evolution insert god and "intelligent design" to fill the gaps in their knowledge. Scientists who believe in god and also the big bang, use god as the "spark" that set the universe burning. Where there is a lack of understanding, we use god as a universal filling agent. What happens when we die? We can either stare an eternity of nothing in the eyes, or think the much nicer thought of continuing in some way. It's easier to fill our gaps with something imaginary that helps to ease our passage through life towards death. We don't have the cockroach's inability to comprehend death, so we have to invent things.

I don't think there's any doubt that we're NOT the epitome of universal evolution. There will certainly be life-forms out there that would appear to be as gods to us - but only in the same way that we would appear to be gods to humans if we brought one forwards from 6,000 years ago.

What is your "concept" of God then UC (and others)? Is it some greater being who formatted the hard drive of the universe and set it spinning, filling it with great designs and creations - then sits back and watches millennia pass in the blink of an eye, stopping every few million years to crush a sun, or send down a spark of life? Is it a God who is truly omnipotent and omnipresent? Watching everything and constantly tweaking the lives and fortunes of everything in the universe? Maybe it's a God who has set us here in a simulation, watching us prove ourselves worthy of belonging to a higher race of beings. We're sitting surrounded by insidious simulacrums, bent on making us unclean, impure and unworthy of being one of the chosen few who fit the needs of some cosmological Darwinism? I'm only arguing this because a piece of fleshy software code on the other side of an organic computer landscape is testing my powers of reasoning - there is no UC, or Joey, just the projection of the intelligence-of_furie into a great testing ground (yes, I did write a novella based on this idea ).

None of it holds true for me, hence why I'm atheist, it all just sounds like silly flights of fantasy fiction. It's all possible though, we only know what we can understand, and, like The Sims in the game, we can only know the world coded around us and the rules it follows. It doesn't make it any more real or false - it just makes it our only sphere of understanding. There's little room for a meddling deity in a universe of quarks and dark matter - but that doesn't make our existence 100% real.

Again, there's that agnosticism creeping in. Though it's not leaning towards a belief in "god", just that we really don't know what is real and what isn't and never will know - you don't need god out there, just a something which is maybe what UC is pushing towards(?) and it's a perfectly valid point.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I'm content with maybes. I don't believe there is a god, but I'm happy to accept that there is the possibility.

So am I, it's just that the possibility is clearly so slim I can't understand why anyone would sway towards belief rather than non belief.

Imagine if we went through life with this agnostic attitude towards everything. Technically, it's the only certain position you can be in with regard to anything. There is a chance, a slim chance, that anything could happen at any given moment. I could just self combust, so I guess you all better stay well away from me. But it would be stupid to over concern ourselves with maybes, and we criticise those who do in society as being abnormal and having anxiety disorders.

Maybes just aren't good enough. Technically, myself, Phil and UC are all agnostics. Technically. But for the sake of general communication, Phil and I are atheists and UC is a theist. Splitting hairs is ridiculous.

 

[Ben]

I don't believe in God because I'm not mildly retarded.

 

[Mark]

I don't believe in 'God' as religion prescribes it. I'd like to believe there is certainly something in the universe that is more powerful beyond our knowledge but also recognise it is only a possibility.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Joey, in a nutshell, you have said there is 0 proof so therefore you are right, and, as it has come off to me, anyone who is religious, is a complete and total idiot who doesn't deserve to have an intellectual conversation. If this isn't what you meant, and I took it the wrong way, no harm no foul, but that is the perception I have been given. Personally, being Christian, I feel that is the way to live, but I will not thump bibles and yell everyone is going to hell who isn't, that isn't my personality, or the way I see the faith work. Yet, it seems to me, and again this is just through my personal experiences, every Atheist I personally know, will verbally attack Christian's claiming they are wrong, ignorant, etc. and won't stop at all. Yes, I know there are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. that do the same, but, the atheists who say they don't need to look in the mirror.

You know plenty of atheists who don't aggressively verbally attack Christians, you just don't notice them because they aren't loud.

Some things wind some people up to no end for some reason. Religion winds me up. I find it both interesting and excruciatingly frustrating that people believe what is, in my opinion, such obviously a load of absolute bollocks. I don't know why, but it does. It just frustrates me.

As a person, I have nothing against you or any other believer. It's not theists that annoy me, it's theism. Vegetarians don't annoy me, but vegetarianism does. It's only because you believe in theism that it's of any concern to you that it frustrates me. Ya know what I mean? I don't think all religious people are stupid, but I do think belief in religious concepts is stupid. Smart, kind, awesome people can have stupid, nasty, insane beliefs.

Evolution is always thrown back at religious people saying that it proves God doesn't exist. Why? I understand theologically why some would say that, but as I believe UC said, how do you know this isn't part of God's will, instead of just the universe being the universe? You don't. Nobody knows. And that is the point. You don't know if that is the reason, but you instantly claim that it proves God doesn't exist, even though it could prove that he DOES. Everyone seems to forget that Darwin was a Christian when he died. From the religious courses I have taken, albeit a few, I have learned a lot more about other religions than I thought. The atheists in the classes constantly are trying to claim everything is wrong, despite actual historical data proving that some events happened. You, and this is a general you not just directed at Joey, should really look into the actual history of the monotheistic religions.

I'm not big on human history, but I'm well aware many biblical events happened. But we know they happened not because they are written in the Bible, but because they are documented in multiple places by multiple peoples. There's a LOT of stuff in the Bible not documented elsewhere, and there's a load of stuff in the Bible we KNOW didn't happen...

Like the creation story found in Genesis. That did not happen. We know it didn't, because it doesn't match up with what we know from various kinds of geological evidence. It is false. And since the Bible is the only evidence we have of the Christian god, and the starting page amongst many more is a load of bollocks, it's pretty safe to say it's not a credible source of information. Not to mention how much it's been edited.

I don't think evolution disproves the general idea of a higher power, but it makes it problematic, particularly the concept of god we recognise from Christianity.

It's hard to explain why without knowing your stance. So I'll start by asking a couple of questions. Are humans the only creatures to have been made in the Christian god's image? Do other species have an afterlife? Why would god write a programe to create flawed life instead of just creating perfectly designed individual beings off the bat? What does/did god actually do?

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Asking questions centered around, say, a Christian basis (like you have) automatically loads the question. You're pointing to a specific religion, not a belief in a higher power.

I understand what you mean, and yeah it is loaded. But the issue is that "higher power" doesn't mean anything. There's no definition. Without a definition, you can't have a discussion about the existence of something.

Most people who believe in a god, certainly in the UK anyway, don't believe in the Christian/Jewish/Islamic god. They believe in a "higher power" which they loosely attribute to being the force that governs all other forces. I realise this, and it's all well and good, but I can't help feel it's a belief for the sake of belief, avoiding criticism by being so damn inoffensive and not really meaning anything, doing anything, or having a point. A lot of people think this kind of "god" is a logical god. That it's far less silly than a sentient, decision making being, but it's really not. It's just a remnant of god, struggling to exist in the modern world, filling the remaining gaps by being definitionless and escaping criticism.

Religion is the root of god, because it's what gives the concept definition. People picking and choosing bits and pieces of religion is one thing. But completely making up your own idea of what god is, that's another. What is the chance that anyone's pulled out of thin air concept is even vaguely true? And what is uniting those concepts anyway under the same title of "god"? Absolutely nothing. "Higher power" doesn't mean anything. It suggests something beyond our understanding, so all we've done is create an idea that is impossible to prove, disprove or understand. And you don't see the huge flaw with this?

I also wish you'd stop pretending you don't believe in the Christian god and that you're just taking the stance of belief in a god for this discussion, because we know you're Christian from previous discussions. I'd also like it if you stopped telling me that I "made my mind up" before I got here, as if you did not and as if I wouldn't change my mind if you presented some ounce of a convincing argument for god. And I'd love it if you stopped derailing everything into obscurity in hope of confusing everyone into agreeing with you.

You've said a couple of times that you think religion is irrelevant to belief in god, and several times others have said "no, it's not" and presented reasons as to why. If you don't wanna talk about religion then thats great but since it goes hand in hand with a lot of people's belief in God (as you'll see from the topic), good luck trying to keep it out of the discussion. And more importantly, you're going to have to define god as a concept every believer on the planet, regardless of religion or lack there of, agrees with to have a sound argument for its existence or even expect to talk about it when we have no idea what it even is.

Define god. What is it? What does it do? Where did it come from?

But you can't, because you know any definition would make a point of attack. And you think that aids the argument for it's existence, that being definitions makes it unprovable.

 

[Pokemaniac]

This is quite interesting, indeed, and UC brings up many good points here. However, I think that while his arguments are excellent against cancelling out the possibility of a higher being, they don't give any reason to believe there is a deity. After reading, I feel that I can't argument for the definite non-existence of a deity, but I still don't feel any reason to say there is one. Yes, it's possible, just like the possibility of life, the universe and everything being one giant game of The Sims,or Russel's teapot. But does possibility equal likeliness?

All in all, it might just depend on the point of view. Perhaps the truth about deities is so many-layered and many-faceted that we can't draw any conclusion at all, even if we one day find all the facts and analyze them in all possible ways. Until then, I'm staying on the "possible, but unlikely" side of things.