Noticed what? Something that has literally never happened even once?
Are you confusing me with someone else?
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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Noticed what? Something that has literally never happened even once?
Are you confusing me with someone else?
Maybe, I don't think so though. Whenever I've seen you argue pete you just post load of vague diesty stuff that doesn't really have to much to do with his whole god doesn't exist because anthropology proved it shtick.
Jesus & Muhammad were both squabbling over who got to be besties with the Jewish God. If we're getting finickity, it's really Yahweh you need to discredit to sack of Abrahamism.
Thankfully that isn't hard.
Thankfully that isn't hard.
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Rejection is a kind of affirmation, an affirmative state of mind (aka belief) regarding a proposition.
Person X affirmatively rejects the proposition that God X exist. He is not in doubt about that proposition, except to the extent that he cannot prove the negative any more than I cannot prove the negative of any proposition. I cannot prove, for example, that Hitler was possessed by Lucifer himself to establish his domain on Earth. All of us here affirmatively reject (I hope!) such a ridiculous proposition, but none us can "prove" that Hitler was not in fact Lucifer who took Hitler's body and hung out at Wolf's Lair.
Theism seems to be well understood here, so that box has been checked.
But atheism and agnosticism, which are two different beliefs, appears to be difficult concepts to some. Atheism and agnosticism are not synonymous terms. The former knows -- as much as we can know anything -- that God does not exist; whereas the latter is open to either God's existence or nonexistence and welcomes evidence that would enable him to believe in God's existence..
The atheist doesn't just reject particular God-fables; he rejects the foundation of all God-fables, the existence of a "God", which he knows to be a human construct.
Perhaps you need to have a look at these to understand why we think you're wrong on this subject.
In other words, an atheist CAN say that he or she knows that there's no God, but that not what all atheists believe.
Trouble with these arguments is that there's no backstop, because there's no definitive authority that says yay or nay to the definitions. I mean there's the OED, but they only really reflect common usage. I guess at some point we have to accept that all that really matters is that two people are able to convery the meaning of what they are saying in a given conversation, even if the meanings don't tally with one another.
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Well since Im not a deist, have never spoken once about deism, since the only conversation of note Ive had with pete was about the logical problem of evil which doesnt even work with deism, and since I've pointed out numerous times I dont believe in god(s), il have to assume you're mistaken.
Perfect. Then I'm happily atheist. I know, as much as we can know anything, that god does not exist. If anyone produces any evidence to the contrary I will review my position.
An atheist doesn't believe in any god(s). All the other stuff there is superfluous. Fairly simple state of mind that doesn't need excessive over-analysing.
I think you missed some of the discussion in the last couple pages.
The agnostic also doesn't believe in any god(s). The difference is that the atheist is convinced there are no god(s), while the agnostic doesn't have a conviction either for the existence or nonexistence of any god(s) - he/she is happy to be sitting on the fence and waiting for proof before making their mind up.
Another way to look at it is what @Winrar posted (instead of Atheists and Agnostics it speaks about "agnostic Atheists" and "gnostic Atheists")- I haven't seen this classification before, but it's just as valid as the traditional one.
Ubik is right though. There have been two pages of discussion on the definition of atheism. It's tiresome. You make an argument against religion and you're met with "well your belief that there is no god is the same as mine that there is a god because they're both beliefs" and that's nonsense. It's theists arguing over semantics because they generally can't answer appropriately, any argument put to them.
Yeah this just isn't correct at all, and it's that kind of assertion that prompted my initial post because this crap gets said about atheism all the time to make it look like another dogmatic belief system. It's very simple, atheism is a lack of belief. Agnosticism may want to carve out its own niche more firmly on the fence, some atheists may want to take a leap and say there are definitely no gods. But the crux of atheism is merely the lack of belief.
Exactly. I don't believe that there is no Easter Bunny. I understand that there is no Easter Bunny based on the evidence that it was a man made concept and the lack of evidence for his existence. If that changes my understanding will change.
On a personal basis I can suspect that this is never going to happen but again this is based on the weight of evidence and not a belief. I do not believe anything at all ever. The only valid use of the word believe is when you decided (or not) to believe your kid when they say they haven't eaten the chocolate from the fridge despite the evidence on their face.
Agnosticism is just a lazy minded cop out in the vast majority of instances. Aethiests who think hedging their bets will cut it if with a god come judgement day if they are wrong.
On a personal basis I can suspect that this is never going to happen but again this is based on the weight of evidence and not a belief. I do not believe anything at all ever. The only valid use of the word believe is when you decided (or not) to believe your kid when they say they haven't eaten the chocolate from the fridge despite the evidence on their face.
Agnosticism is just a lazy minded cop out in the vast majority of instances. Aethiests who think hedging their bets will cut it if with a god come judgement day if they are wrong.
Your definition is the so called "implicit atheism", my definition is "explicit atheism"; you can't say one is correct and the other is not - both are valid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism
Let's lighten up the mood here a bit, it's getting a bit boring.
Under the wisdom of the Bible, I've finally figured out how to defeat God once and for all!
The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron. (Judges 1:19 NIV)
Under the wisdom of the Bible, I've finally figured out how to defeat God once and for all!
The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron. (Judges 1:19 NIV)
No, they're both atheism, one's just a stronger position to take than the other.
What a load of cobblers. You accept or reject a (preferably null) hypothesis in all cases no matter what. In this case the hypothesis is that there is no God which you accept unless there is evidence sufficient to make you reject it. Just because some aethiests aren't able to articulate chapter and verse why they are aethiests doesn't mean anything. The whole concept of rejecting religion starts from a premise of people being religious.
This is the wrong way to look at things. We always start from needing to prove something exists (not the reverse) mainly because proving non-existence is a logical impossibility. We don't think that elephants are real because we can't disprove that they do, we think they are real because the evidence suggest they are. With the exception of god this is how we consider everything. I can't think of any possible reason we should do this. It makes no logical sense.
Anyhow...
Has the historicity of Jesus been brought up in this thread? Curious to know which persons believe a man named Jesus Christ (as depicted in the Bible*) actually roamed Earth and which persons believe Jesus Christ (as depicted in the Bible) is a collaboration of myths/made-up.
*Not the son of god but as in a man that truly felt he was a son of god, and his story was later used in the Bible or whatnot.
What are the prevailing thoughts on Constantine/Rome's involvement in the Bible and Christianity as we know it? I personally believe the Bible as we know it owes much of its writings to Rome. It was created to unify Rome under one religion, in a time when man didn't know much except what the clergy and ruling class told them. There's too much coincidence with Pagan rituals and writings to not have been borrowed/stolen, and Paganism was a dominant religion in early CE Rome.
Has the historicity of Jesus been brought up in this thread? Curious to know which persons believe a man named Jesus Christ (as depicted in the Bible*) actually roamed Earth and which persons believe Jesus Christ (as depicted in the Bible) is a collaboration of myths/made-up.
*Not the son of god but as in a man that truly felt he was a son of god, and his story was later used in the Bible or whatnot.
What are the prevailing thoughts on Constantine/Rome's involvement in the Bible and Christianity as we know it? I personally believe the Bible as we know it owes much of its writings to Rome. It was created to unify Rome under one religion, in a time when man didn't know much except what the clergy and ruling class told them. There's too much coincidence with Pagan rituals and writings to not have been borrowed/stolen, and Paganism was a dominant religion in early CE Rome.
Not to mention nothing was written until at least 40 years (and probably much longer) after his alleged death and then certainly not by anyone who knew him (if someone the myth was based on even existed).
Religion is created to fill the void that man can't fathom, and as such it'll always be "mythical" and aren't made (if you believe they're made up) to be able to be proven, hence the man with the beard, the miracles, and anything but science.
Religious person can never prove Religion exist, they're not made to be proven. So it's a cop out if you're asking "Where's the prove that god exist", he may or may not exists, but if he exists he is not meant to be proven (at least scientifically)
Religious person can never prove Religion exist, they're not made to be proven. So it's a cop out if you're asking "Where's the prove that god exist", he may or may not exists, but if he exists he is not meant to be proven (at least scientifically)
Then it seems we're on the same page, which was always pretty clear to me in the first place. This was never a complicated question to work through. The atheist knows what he knows, fully acknowledging the limits of human knowledge.
That's handy. I think you'll find the cop out is answers like that to the question "Where's the proof?". Between 2,000 and 6,000 years ago god had no problem revealing himself. IHe did it regularly to tell a few random desert people what to do. Now we have tv and the internet, it would just take one last appearance to make sure the whole world knew he existed. He really missed a trick by not making use of this technology, if you ask me.
I believe there was probably a man named Jesus (or at least a man who later became known as Jesus). I believe he was probably a decent chap trying to spread a decent message. I'm not sure as to whether he'd have claimed to be the son of god or if that was added to the myth over the years.
I also believe Rome built the religion to what it is today. I mean, the home of the Catholic church, the original line of Christianity is still there. They would have translated the gospels to suit themselves so it's hard to know how much was changed and how much was the original writings of the gospel writers.
Glad we got there in the end. To be fair you were implying that there was an element of faith originally in that atheists had to believe there was no god. Whereas, where we are now, we're both agreeing that it's simple science. There is no evidence for god, therefore I don't believe one exists. If evidence to the contrary was produced I'd be more than happy to study it. It's not really a belief or a faith in that case. But anyway.... we've spent enough time arguing over semantics. We'll leave it there.No idea, but many things that's dumped under "religion and spritiualism" are now classified as "scientific" once they have been proven by science (e.g. witch burning, Solar eclipse, Natural disaster). Religious people aren't always a boneheaded fanatics, most of the religious crowds aren't exactly blind to science.
However, we're dealing with the premises that can't never be proven (about God being almighty, and up there) and as such our debate will still fall on deadlock "you can't prove it" vs. "but I can feel it".
Regarding the Bible, I'm not sure if you actually read one, but if there's a man or institution that can write a single book that is still being relevant in 2000 years, i'd probably held him as God, even if he turns out to be just a poet with a genius brain. The amount written there is no work of man.
I ended up reading a few books on the subject after a few comments earlier in the thread. It's basically a unanimous academic opinion that Jesus was a real person.
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A couple of points. Religion has constantly got in the way of science. Throughout it's entire existence. Even today, it is many church groups who are opposing stem cell research. They jailed Galileo and many more like him whose findings contradicted the religion of the time. They banned books which could have educated people on the cosmos because it didn't fit with their "earth centric" views. Yes, may ideas that were once thought to be acts of god are now explainable by science and even the clergy themselves don't deny them. But they did, for a long, long time.
Why can't it be proven? If god was able to communicate with individuals thousands of years ago, he/she/it should be able to to do so again today. Or don't you believe the old testament.
Yes, I have read the bible and it is still relevant today because there are plenty of good messages in there, but also because an empire that spanned most of europe adopted it nearly 2000 years ago. A dogma spread pretty quickly in those circumstances. Then, it was people from those same areas who later began to explore every corner of the world and bring this message with them. What really helps the bibles popularity is how the church and the people can cherry pick the important parts. "Be nice to each other" - good. "Keep Slaves" - oh they didn't really mean that. That was a different time.
I don't know if you've ever read a bible, but maybe you can explain why some rules are meant to be followed to the letter of the law, but others are "from a different time" and can be ignored. For instance are you married? Do you adhere to Timothy 2:12?
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.". - A poet with a genius brain, AD 40
I can't, and I don't have to, I just belief. Hence it's called faith.
Like I said, if you keep on insisting religious people to explain to the very details those heavenly thing, you'll gonna win all your debate or you'll probably have to debate with a god incarnated, because religion can never be explained to the fullest, it's not designed that way.
It's like picking on a superhero movies for going against the law of physics, they never claimed to be a movie about physics in the first place.
God of the gaps is an idiotic concept. Doubly so as the gaps are reducing year by year, decade by decade, century by century.
Why? Other than you were indoctrinated as a child?
By biblical scholars. As a scientist I find their standards of proof/evidence dodgy to say the least.
In my previous very shallow looking into this, there's basically agreement that there was a guy called Yeshu/Yeshua that existed around that time and was baptised by John the Baptist and was probably crucified on the orders of Pilate. Which isn't much to go on.
Nice of you to address all the questions I put to you.
You can't or don't have to explain why you nitpick the nice parts of the bible to follow but ignore the racist and sexist parts? Either it's the word of god or not? Who are you to decide which parts of The Almighty's laws to follow. It seems to be you'll have a debate with a god incarnated yourself while he's wondering why you allow your wife to speak and why you don't keep slaves. (Well, obviously you won't, because the idea of doing anything after you die is ludicrous.)
+1
Surely you understand where that differs though. A super-hero movie is complete fantasy and does not live by the real world. Religion is supposed to be about real life, but it can be almost as fantasy as a film!.
Many people cannot explain these things, but choose to believe in it anyway because that's what they've been taught. It's the same thing as still believing in the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas in my eyes.
Why is it that you have a notion people who holds a religion is indoctrinated? I was indoctrinated as a Budhist, yet I converted to Christianity. It's not always the case of not knowing what I choose and simply being assigned a religion by birth.
Two points to make there. Firstly the arguments against Jesus existing are subject to the same low burden of proof, yet fail to meet it.
Secondly its certainly true that history isnt the same as science & can't be proven in the same way. But that applies to most of our history beyond, say, the last few hunded years. In the end the burden of proof in history is akin to the civil courts - 'on the balance of probabilities'. i.e. all things considered this is our best guess.
The key question is, are we interested at getting as close to the truth as possible or not? If we are, then the only thing to do is look at the available evidence and make an informed judgement based on what we see.
That's your assumption, there are many religious people that started as atheist or skeptics, even a fanatics believer of a different religion. Sure there are people who says they hold a certain religion without even understanding much about it, but to let's not generalised every religious people are doing what they're doing simply "because that's what they're taught to"
People who are religious have a certain spritiual experience with their god, it's more than simply because they have been taught to do so.
I suspect one day the god of gaps will transform into the god beyond. We'll create a final Unified Theory of Everthing and show god isn't in this universe - and suddenly people will decide that god was really outside the universe all along.
That'll be hard my friend, nobody ever seen the Big Bang, nor live long enough to witness monkey turned into man, if Darwin is right, it takes hundreds of years, even thousand for a single evolution, we will never see one, not in the span of our 2000 years existence.
Just to clarify, by 'see' I mean see the evidence, rather than the event. No-one will see the big bang again (probably).
That said evolution can be observed using species such as fruit flies.
The question isn't if we can prove he didn't exist. The null hypothesis is that he didn't exist. We therefore need proof that he did exist to reject this null hypothesis. And to me the evidence available is far from convincing.