There Is No God
Quote: FrGambledenegrate to such a degree a belief that Dr. King held not only in his huge heart but his brillant mind as well.
I have zero respect for serial wife cheaters like
King and Kennedy. How can they be taken
seriously when they made a vow to their wives
to be faithful to them. They laughed at that vow,
mocked it, pissed on it. I could care less what
platitudes they spewed in public to make up for
their lack of character in private.
If I pointed out that Adolph Elizabeth Hitler was a christian on April 20, would that be as offensive?Quote: FrGambleI don't know if I should point out how ridiculous your false caricatures of Christianity are or in the same vein demonstrate how silly it is to believe there is no God. Instead on this great day of celebration for Martin Luther King, Jr. I'll post this clip from his last prophetic speech and ask you to truly consider how sad it sounds for you all to denegrate to such a degree a belief that Dr. King held not only in his huge heart but his brillant mind as well.
I've been to the mountain top!
Quote: FrGambleI don't know if I should point out how ridiculous your false caricatures of Christianity are or in the same vein demonstrate how silly it is to believe there is no God. Instead on this great day of celebration for Martin Luther King, Jr. I'll post this clip from his last prophetic speech and ask you to truly consider how sad it sounds for you all to denegrate to such a degree a belief that Dr. King held not only in his huge heart but his brillant mind as well.
I've been to the mountain top!
I like everything about Christianity but the Christ part. Take out the supernatural and you have a blueprint for life.
Quote: MoscaI like everything about Christianity but the Christ part. Take out the supernatural and you have a blueprint for life.
Much of the NT is a supernaturalized, mythicized veil around what is really rational morality if we could understand the magical power of human "mind over matter" as "supernatural" enough. This is why so many overachievers quote the Bible (and are thus assumed to be Christians) in the winners circle. The spirit world of the NT is a personification of the transcendent, mysterious world of human will and mind. That's all.
Quote: NowTheSerpentMuch of the NT is a supernaturalized, mythicized veil around what is really rational morality if we could understand the magical power of human "mind over matter"
Thank the gods, we take a turn into the 21st
century. Get rid of all the caa-caa and doo-doo
in the NT, and we have the modern mind starting
to emerge. It had to be cloaked in hoodoo and
the supernatural 2000 years ago, there was no
scientific way of thinking.
Thomas Jefferson did that. His version of the bible can be bought on Amazon.Quote: EvenBobQuote: NowTheSerpentMuch of the NT is a supernaturalized, mythicized veil around what is really rational morality if we could understand the magical power of human "mind over matter"
Thank the gods, we take a turn into the 21st
century. Get rid of all the caa-caa and doo-doo
in the NT, and we have the modern mind starting
to emerge. It had to be cloaked in hoodoo and
the supernatural 2000 years ago, there was no
scientific way of thinking.
Quote: FrGambleThe Bible is not a scientific textbook, it is a book of faith.
C'mon, the Bible is a history of the Jewish people,
first and foremost. Everything else in it is just a
part of that history.
Quote: EvenBobC'mon, the Bible is a history of the Jewish people,
first and foremost. Everything else in it is just a
part of that history.
I'll also add that the Hebrew Bible, what we call the "Old" Testament is a book over the deepest meanings of which the Jews, through the Talmud and their rough experience, have a true monopoly. They practically own it. And the Christian theological Logos Doctrine seems to be a strategy to co-opt the proprietary religious culture and rituals of the Jews and contemporary pagans, such as Voudouns, by absorbing it all into Neo-Platonic speculation and claiming as if it were profound the tautology that "all truth is God's truth" and that "because pagans know God, they also know Christ" (Kreeft and Tacelli, 1994). It seems that the Church needs to appear to be the unique gatekeeper of spiritual truth in order to justify the "White-Man's Burden" of proselytizing the world.
a good argument for not believing Christianity
is nothing more than a convoluted urban legend.
No god would say 'believe this or else', when what
he wants you to believe is so wild and bizarre that
it flies in the face of reason.
If we live to a ripe old age, which version of us gets to enjoy eternity?
The 20 year old, the 50 year old, the 80 year old?
What about someone who dies in infancy?
Or someone born mentally impaired or who becomes mentally disabled because of injury, disease etc?
You could be forgiven for thinking that the whole immortality thing is an elaborate hoax.
Quote: MrVMore than a hoax: a deliberate, elaborate construct designed to control people by manipulating their deepest fear: the fear of death.
Modern people don't realize how much we were
surrounded by death just a hundred years ago,
let alone 2000 years ago. In Christ's time, life
expectancy was around 40 years old. Half your
children died before they were 5. You had to
deal with death on a daily basis, it was right there
in your face. So here comes a religion promising
relief from the one thing people feared most. It
promised eternal life! And all you had to do was
believe. How hard a sale was this to make. Its
almost too good to be true.
Quote: EvenBob... So here comes a religion promising
relief from the one thing people feared most. It
promised eternal life! And all you had to do was
believe....
Believe, and give 10% of your income to the church, and recruit all your friends to also give their cash to the church, then we promise you this superfine thing (or your money back). You want proof? Trust us! We're the Church. Would we lie to you?
Quote: zippyboyBelieve, and give 10% of your income to the church, and recruit all your friends to also give their cash
Its the original multi level marketing scheme,
it was 2000 years before Amway.
Quote: EvenBobHow hard a sale was this to make. Its
almost too good to be true.
Quote: zippyboyBelieve, and give 10% of your income to the church, and recruit all your friends to also give their cash to the church, then we promise you this superfine thing (or your money back). You want proof? Trust us! We're the Church. Would we lie to you?
When the product you are selling is a cure for mortality (the ultimate bait), is it any wonder they have been so successful?
Quote: EvenBob
No god would say 'believe this or else', when what
he wants you to believe is so wild and bizarre that
it flies in the face of reason.
What it boils down to is God wanting you to believe that the awesome creator of the universe loves you, that you are worth loving, that you should love others, and that because of this amazing undeserved love God has for you eternal life in peace and ultimate happiness is yours as a gift. I guess that is kind of wild and bizarre but love makes you do that kind of crazy stuff.
I wonder if it strikes anyone as more wild and bizarre that there is no God and that somehow we and all around us come to exist without an intellegent cause and with no purpose or reason. If we want to get really wild here we could say that we and all around us have always exisited and there are wormholes and parallel universes that can explain it all once we discover them or prove they exist. Actually that sounds not so much wild and bizzare but rather boring, illogical, and crazy.
Quote: FrGamblewild and bizarre that there is no God and that somehow we and all around us come to exist without an intellegent cause
Not wild and bizarre at all. Just not understood. Christians,
because they're selling something, always take the stance
that its their way or no way. Atheists aren't selling anything,
so we can say 'give us more information, our minds are open'.
Quote: FrGambleI wonder if it strikes anyone as more wild and bizarre that there is no God and that somehow we and all around us come to exist without an intellegent cause and with no purpose or reason. If we want to get really wild here we could say that we and all around us have always exisited and there are wormholes and parallel universes that can explain it all once we discover them or prove they exist. Actually that sounds not so much wild and bizzare but rather boring, illogical, and crazy.
No more bizarre or illogical than to assume there is a god who came to exist without purpose or reason, or maybe that has always existed and we'll find the wormholes to explain him someday.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Now you know why.
Quote: MrVMore than a hoax: a deliberate, elaborate construct designed to control people by manipulating their deepest fear: the fear of death.
You are giving these fishermen too much credit and you wrongly see their and our greatest fear as death. The fear of death we can overcome; witness the solider who rushes to the front line to defend his home, the woman who gives her life so her child may live, the police officer who puts himself in harmsway for the common good, etc. Our true fear is that our life has no meaning and that death equates to nothingness. Or to put it more positively we can use the quote Nelson Mandela used,
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God."
I take this poem to be saying what a tradegy it would be if we did not see that there is something divine in us that transcends our nature, 'powerful beyond measure'. I know it is a little scary to admit this, but don't you feel deep down that there is something more to you than flesh and bone? Death is not the problem, the problem is believing that this power, this light, this brillance in you that makes you and all of us children of God can be permentantly extingushed and made into nothing. No matter what modern constructed atheisitic philosophy may try to do to control you and try to manipulate you into thinking you are not that special and that you are not a unique free creation of a loving God do not listen to them - God truly frees you to be who you know you are called to be now in this life and in the life to come!
Quote: NareedNo more bizarre or illogical than to assume there is a god who came to exist without purpose or reason, or maybe that has always existed and we'll find the wormholes to explain him someday.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Now you know why.
I think we have gone over this many times already. It is logical and obvious to know that for things to exist they must have a cause and to avoid an infinite regress it is reasonable that a first cause or unmoved mover or God or whatever caused all things to exist. The universe by its definition needs to have a beginning unless you are going to make the illogical claim that it has always existed. God by definition is that first cause that has indeed always existed. Your argument is full of wormholes.
Quote: FrGambleYou are giving these fishermen too much credit and you wrongly see their and our greatest fear as death.
I don't give the fishermen credit for anything. Its what
the future hucksters did with their words that gets the
credit.
Quote: FrGambleIt is logical and obvious to know that for things to exist they must have a cause
For the 100th time, you would flunk a college logics
class. You THINK you see a creation, so you logically
INVENT a creator. This is faulty logic. You have no
proof that anything was created, therefore your logical
conclusion is meaningless.
Quote: FrGambleThe universe by its definition needs to have a beginning unless you are going to make the illogical claim that it has always existed. God by definition is that first cause that has indeed always existed.
How do you know god is the first cause? Maybe he's a spoiled kid in another universe created by the real first cause (judging from his capricious behavior and all). An assertion isn't true just because you make it.
Quote:Your argument is full of wormholes.
Hm. Hoisted by your own petard :P
Quote: EvenBobFor the 100th time, you would flunk a college logics
class. You THINK you see a creation, so you logically
INVENT a creator. This is faulty logic. You have no
proof that anything was created, therefore your logical
conclusion is meaningless.
I don't THINK I see creation I do see creation, as do you. Its the stuff all around us when we open our eyes, and it is our eyes themselves. So given the fact of creation around you pick something and ask yourself where it came from and then keep doing that until you come to the conclusion that something must have made this out of nothing at the very beginning. You don't have to INVENT a creator, the fact is you need a creator for all this around you to make logical sense.
Quote: FrGamble...and there are wormholes and parallel universes that can explain it all once we discover them or prove they exist. Actually that sounds not so much wild and bizzare but rather boring, illogical, and crazy.
It's common knowledge now that there are other galaxies in this massive universe with billions of stars in each, with millions of planets, 100,000's of which are life-sustaining. If God is all-knowing, why were these not mentioned in the Bible? Did he create the creatures on those planets in His likeness as well? Do those creatures also believe they're alone in the universe and that their god is the only god allowed?
Do chimps on Earth have a god? Can they be saved? Can dolphins? What about all the people who walked across the Bering Strait 50,000 years ago to populate North America? They never heard of Jesus since he hadn't been invented yet...were they doomed to hell? Those natives here were spiritual though; they believed every animal, every tree had a soul and everyone lives together, giving and taking equally. They believed land, air, sunshine couldn't be owned be a simple person and they shared everything with each other. They honored their dead and considered burial lands sacred, not a plot to be abandoned as they saw when white man came here. The Christian Spanish conquistidores, I mean. The Christians who came here demanding they convert to Christianity or be killed immediately, then those Spanish captured, raped and killed them all, and shipped them all back to Spain as slaves in the name of God.
More blood has been spilled throughout history in the name of God (or Allah or whatever the flavor of the century is) than for any other reason. Why would a rational person follow a god whose followers practice such horrible acts?
Quote: FrGambleI don't THINK I see creation I do see creation
You have no proof its a creation, other than somebody
in the Bible thought he saw one and you agreed with
him. This is not evidence or proof that would hold up
anywhere, yet a whole religion is built on it. Scary, huh.
Quote: zippyboyIt's common knowledge now that there are other galaxies in this massive universe with billions of stars in each, with millions of planets, 100,000's of which are life-sustaining. If God is all-knowing, why were these not mentioned in the Bible? Did he create the creatures on those planets in His likeness as well? Do those creatures also believe they're alone in the universe and that their god is the only god allowed?
I don't know, God seems pretty focused on our planet and on us, I can't speak for other creatures if they exist. I also don't know if God's love for us is dependent on mentioning all these other life-sustaining planents - it could be an interesting discussion on a new thread.
Quote: zippyboyWhat about all the people who walked across the Bering Strait 50,000 years ago to populate North America? They never heard of Jesus since he hadn't been invented yet...were they doomed to hell? Those natives here were spiritual though; they believed every animal, every tree had a soul and everyone lives together, giving and taking equally. They believed land, air, sunshine couldn't be owned be a simple person and they shared everything with each other. They honored their dead and considered burial lands sacred,...
It would be hard to hold these good people or anyone else for that matter accountable for what they would have no way of knowing about, such as those who lived thousands of years before Jesus. However as you correctly point out many people lived according to their own innate and natural desire for goodness, harmony, and to live spiritual lives. This leads people to salvation and is guided by God even if through no fault of their own they never heard about Jesus or could not believe in Him.
Quote: zippyboyMore blood has been spilled throughout history in the name of God (or Allah or whatever the flavor of the century is) than for any other reason. Why would a rational person follow a god whose followers practice such horrible acts?
This is absolutely not true, it took only one century of radically secular governments who denided the existence of the Judeo-Christian God to cause more horrific death and violence than all of the religious wars throughout history combinied.
Quote: EvenBobYou have no proof its a creation, other than somebody
in the Bible thought he saw one and you agreed with
him. This is not evidence or proof that would hold up
anywhere, yet a whole religion is built on it. Scary, huh.
I am a little scared about what you are saying. I don't understand. If you don't think the componets that make up the computer you are typing on or better yet you yourself is an example of creation what is it or what are you? You exist, right?!? I better not be talking to one of those spambots.
If you do exist where did you come from? Eventually I think we have to come to the point where this question leads us to admit that there needs to be a creation from something or someone who uniquely did not need to be created. You and everything that exists turns out to be evidence or proof of creation.
Quote: FrGambleI don't know, God seems pretty focused on our planet and on us
I'm sorry, padre, I laughed out loud when I read
that, but not in a mean way. You just expressed
how my dog feels when I pick up one of the cats.
He's appalled, in his opinion I barely have time to
pay attention to him, how can I possibly spread
it around..
Quote: FrGambleYou and everything that exists turns out to be evidence or proof of creation.
You really can't see your faulty logic, can you. You set
up straw men and knock them over, and think its
proof. Just because you exist doesn't mean you
'came' from somewhere. You can't tell me where
anything came from, let alone where you came
from.
Quote: EvenBobYou really can't see your faulty logic, can you. You set
up straw men and knock them over, and think its
proof. Just because you exist doesn't mean you
'came' from somewhere. You can't tell me where
anything came from, let alone where you came
from.
Why or How do you or I exist if we didn't 'come' from somewhere or someone? You really are a spambot aren't you?
I can tell you that I came from my parents and they came from their parents, and so on and so forth. I won't do it for you but if you keep going back eventually you have to ask yourself some very important logical questions that lead one to believe in a creator or an infinite regress (which is an impossibility).
Quote: FrGambleWhy or How do you or I exist if we didn't 'come' from somewhere or someone?
Thats the mystery, dude, thats the $64,000 question.
You needed an answer so you found one, or settled
for one. The rest of us are still asking, because 'faith'
isn't proof of anything..
Quote: FrGambleI don't know, God seems pretty focused on our planet and on us, I can't speak for other creatures if they exist. I also don't know if God's love for us is dependent on mentioning all these other life-sustaining planents - it could be an interesting discussion on a new thread.
Did you ever hear about Occam's razor? Stick to simple explanations. The people who wrote your holy books didn't take galaxies, stars and extrasolar planets into account in god's "plan" because they didn't know about them. Not only didn't they know stars are suns, they didn't even know the Moon is a world.
That's all there is to it.
Of course, if such elementary knowledge is lacking in the Bible, well, it doesn't look good for an omnipotent, omniscient deity, does it? So you can't accept the simple, logical explanation.
Quote: FrGambleWhat it boils down to is God wanting you to believe that the awesome creator of the universe loves you, that you are worth loving, that you should love others, and that because of this amazing undeserved love God has for you eternal life in peace and ultimate happiness is yours as a gift. I guess that is kind of wild and bizarre but love makes you do that kind of crazy stuff.
If we want to get really wild here we could say that we and all around us have always exisited and there are wormholes and parallel universes that can explain it all once we discover them or prove they exist. Actually that sounds not so much wild and bizzare but rather boring, illogical, and crazy.
Illogical is boring. Crazy never is.
Quote: FrGambleWhy or How do you or I exist if we didn't 'come' from somewhere or someone? You really are a spambot aren't you?
I can tell you that I came from my parents and they came from their parents, and so on and so forth. I won't do it for you but if you keep going back eventually you have to ask yourself some very important logical questions that lead one to believe in a creator or an infinite regress (which is an impossibility).
You have to ask those very important questions even when the entity of interest is God himself. If I have to ask where the universe came from, I must also be prepared to ask where God came from. To say that he "always was", in order to spackle your theology, is to give the atheist permission to say that the universe always was (or came from nothing), which, incidentally is precisely what the latest astrophysics findings reveal. I'll credit you for having the willingness to accept the existence of an "uncaused cause", but I'll ask: Why can't that cause be this universe, instead of some other one? I suspect that the impulse to find a zeroth cause outside the universe stems from the subconscious desire of religionists to deny the absoluteness of Reality - to create and sustain a secret world into which to retreat as convenient.
Quote: FrGambleThe universe by its definition needs to have a beginning.....
Why?
Quote: FrGambleGod by definition is that first cause that has indeed always existed.
Why?
Quote: FrGambleI wonder if it strikes anyone as more wild and bizarre that there is no God and that somehow we and all around us come to exist without an intelligent cause and with no purpose or reason. If we want to get really wild here we could say that we and all around us have always existed and there are wormholes and parallel universes that can explain it all once we discover them or prove they exist. Actually that sounds not so much wild and bizarre but rather boring, illogical, and crazy.
Well, it certainly strikes you that way!
I don't find it boring at all. I think it is endlessly fascinating, that every time a question gets answered it raises myriads more questions.
I DO find it boring to postulate an answer and then stop asking questions.
I won't get into the specifics of choosing one 2000 year old book of questionable provenance over the sum of all the rest of all human learning.
Quote: thecesspitI think this discussion is proof of a cyclical universe.
I diagree. These discussions merely prove there's a cyclical tendency in the Universe, not that the entirety of existence itself is cyclical ;)
Quote: SOOPOOHaving read all 60 pages... here's the summary....
Having read your post.. ;)
Quote:Those that do not cannot prove it....
Those of us who do not, also do not need to prove it. For one thing, it's hard to prove a negative. For another, the basis for disbelief is lack of evidence for the claim of a deity. We can prove such a lack readily enough.
Quote:Those that do not believe in God and try and convince those that do that there is no God will fail in the attempt.
Hell no :) I've won a few "converts" over the years. That I know about, at elast. who knows if I've reached any lurkers and delivered them from the yoke of religion? No way to know.
Quote:Those that do believe in God and try and convince those that do not that there is a God will fail in the attempt.
Again, and sadly, not always. We've lost some good people to the opiate of the masses <sigh>. It happens from time to time.
Quote: SOOPOOHaving read all 60 pages... here's the summary.... Those that believe in God cannot prove it.... Those that do not cannot prove it.... Those that do not believe in God and try and convince those that do that there is no God will fail in the attempt. Those that do believe in God and try and convince those that do not that there is a God will fail in the attempt. This is true no matter how many times FrGamble and EvenBob basically say the same thing over and over, repetitively, reiteratively, again and again, ad infinitum, mucho mas veces, etc.....
It happens.
As for proving that there is no god... do I have to prove that there are no fairies, no elves, no dragons? I think it is on the believers to provide evidence.
Quote: MoscaIt happens.
As for proving that there is no god... do I have to prove that there are no fairies, no elves, no dragons? I think it is on the believers to provide evidence.
You do not have to do anything. My point stands on its own. You will not be able to convince any of the God believers on this forum that there is no God. The God believers on this forum will not be able to convince you there is a God. Do you doubt this, having read the posts here?
So.... you all have to decide if it worth your internet energy to continue to try.... or focus on something important like the HotBlonde weight loss challenge....
Quote: SOOPOOMy point stands on its own. You will not be able to convince any of the God believers on this forum that there is no God.
You don't know that. I admit it's not likely, but it isn't impossible, either.
Quote:The God believers on this forum will not be able to convince you there is a God.
There's always a remote chance of that. In any case the religious have to try.
Quote:So.... you all have to decide if it worth your internet energy to continue to try....
Lurkers. You never know who's reading what. And to show opposition, too.
Quote:or focus on something important like the HotBlonde weight loss challenge....
Why bet against a sure thing?
Quote: SOOPOOYou will not be able to convince any of the God believers on this forum that there is no God. The God believers on this forum will not be able to convince you there is a God. .
Nobody is trying to convince anybody of anything.
We post for ourselves only, for whatever reason.
We voice our opinions. I would be shocked to my
socks if anybody changed their core beliefs from
reading posts on a forum. How wishy-washy are
they...
I agree with Mosca. I remember watching a television program once and it featured atheists and they said exactly this. It is on the person wanting to prove that there is a god to provide the evidence. The thing is god believers can never do this but crazily enough continue to believe anyway.Quote: MoscaAs for proving that there is no god... do I have to prove that there are no fairies, no elves, no dragons? I think it is on the believers to provide evidence.
I don't think anyone on here will change their religious stance due to the back and forth in this thread, which is why I stepped out a while ago before today. The religious hold on to their beliefs tighter than their n*ts. And I appreciate your comment, SOOPOO, on my weight loss challege, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that my challenge is something important that people should focus on. It's going to be a 40-week long process and there's not much for others to do but sit and wait. (Of course they can keep up with my weekly blogs too, but you get what I'm saying.)Quote: SOOPOOYou will not be able to convince any of the God believers on this forum that there is no God. The God believers on this forum will not be able to convince you there is a God. Do you doubt this, having read the posts here?
So.... you all have to decide if it worth your internet energy to continue to try.... or focus on something important like the HotBlonde weight loss challenge....
I don't think I'll change anyone's belief.
