Thanks mang

god can't be disproven nor proven... agnostic, here.... actually sort of an absurdist, but that's beside the point.

What i don't understand is why atheists and theists alike spend so much time trying to debunk each others beliefs. Who the **** cares what anyone else thinks unless you're genuinely interesting in learning about it. Atheists can go on their "take the word GOD out of the english language" protests a million and one times and theists will still not believe their views, and theists can preach door to door a million and one times and atheists will not believe their views.

And as an absurdist, I sort of believe that if someone wants god to exist, then he does exist. It's all just a dream anyway, isn't it? What the **** is REALITY? Empirically observable, agreed upon, independent and unchangeable... every single thing is only a perception of the mind. The computer is not in front of me right now without all the senses detecting it, a belief that it's there, an understanding by others that it's there, and some sort of independent existence to it... but every single criteria i just described for it being real is just a figment of the mind and NOTHING more. We could all just be brains floating in jars. Thus, if someone wants to believe in god, then got is real and so be it. the only thing that ACTUALLY exists in 'reality' what ever the **** that is, is YOU and only because you contemplate your own existence thus there must be an existence to contemplate!

**** ive done far too much acid in my lifetime.

Because the theists are the ones blowing up my trade centers.

I hate people who act like "you believe what you believe, I'll believe what I'll believe, and everyone is happy". No, sorry, you Christians are the ones telling me I'm going to burn eternally in Hell for what I believe. Seems silly of me to just accept that.

Maybe I'm just being a confrontational youth, maybe I'll grow out of this. meh

:rofl:
Yes, people who blew up the trade centre happened to believe in God. So what? That obviously means all theists are hideous, horrible people. Do you hate Muslims, as well, specifically, because of that fact? I'm sure you could find plenty of atheists who've done awful things as well.

One, it's silly to refer to me as 'you christians' when i clearly just explained that I'm agnostic/absurdist. Honestly all you just did is make you, the atheist, seem like the intolerant one, which it's obvious you are being. I don't understand what's so wrong about telling everyone to mind their own ****ing business. Why is it such a matter to you if an old man wants God to believe in so that he can be at peace on his deathbed and hope that there's something waiting for him? Why's it such a matter to you that someone can use 'God' as hope for a better life?

Humans are creatures of rhyme and reason. We crave purpose. That's why religion and wot was likely formed in the first place. Just as if you may use 'music' to help you cope, who the **** cares if someone uses God.

Islam is not a race. I do not hate Muslims because they believe in a hideous, disgusting religion. I hate Islam.

I read your post, I said "you christians" in reference to ALL christians.

Why should I tolerate intolerance?

You'd think so. But have you ever actually read these holy texts?

There are a lot of things in this world that deserve our hate. I hate Islam because its holy book says that I deserve to be killed, for instance. I hate fascism because it's a deranged ideology based upon control and power. I hate socialism for the same reason. I hate Christianity for many of the same reasons I hate Islam.

The point is not that HATE is bad or that ACCEPTANCE is good, but whether we're doing so based upon RATIONAL REASONS.

OPEN-MINDEDNESS is only a virtue if it's tempered with wisdom. Otherwise you'll fall for anything. Ask yourself: why aren't you "open-minded" about Nazism? Or Scientology? Because it's bull****, just like Islam is bull****.

Islam is not a friend of most people. (Neither is any other religion.)

Then you should hate extremist values, not all values. You can't shove everything into one category.

What are "extremist values"? That's an incredibly loose term. The Bible says LOTS of things that you would consider "extremist".

I have to laugh at people who choose to follow a faith, but also disregard the parts of that faith that they don't agree with. What, does your word have more authority than the ultimate creator?

The paradox is that to hate is to confess one's fear and lack of understanding, which is a call to suspend judgment, not to boldly assert it.
The problem with fundamentalism in any faith, including atheism, is that it only accepts an evenly distributed, literal interpretation of a scripture which must be, in most circumstances, understood figuratively in order to internalize the inherent wisdom that lies within it. To not see this truth, is ignorance, and to react and live one's life on the basis of this falsely knowledge and acquired wisdom is dangerous.

Atheism is not a faith, but the lack of misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, and sadomasochistic worldviews and philosophies found in religious faiths that are forced upon us at birth.

I agree.

Atheism is most certainly a faith. It is a placement of one's belief in the unlimited and inerrant capacity and accuracy of human understanding regarding the nature of absolute reality, and subsequently in the notion that the divine does not exist.

Does not believing in god immunize one from any of the ego's many perversions and their respective worldviews, such as the ones you listed, or is our natural proclivity toward such aberrance? Can religion itself always be used as a scapegoat for the presence of any of these limiting and dangerous world views, or is it our limited understanding of religion and our subsequent corresponding actions and worldviews which produce them? Can faith and reason coexist in an individual, in a community, in a global society, to move beyond such limiting worldviews to expand and evolve consciousness beyond such worldviews?

There are an infinite number of things that could exist, but which I choose not to recognize or believe in. (ie, teapot orbiting Earth) Atheism is the "default faith" so to speak, as we are all atheists at birth, but I do not think that makes it a faith in the conventional sense that Harry and I were discussing. Satchmo, you're clearly an extremely smart dude (or you're just copy/pasting from a philosophical forum :p:), and I think you're trying to argue a point that is simply too deep for the purposes of this thread. I'm not the right person to provide a relevant and detailed counter-argument.

No, it doesn't immunize us, and Yes, it certainly seems a catalyst.

I'm sure it does for intellectuals like yourself, but for a lot of people with a lot of power (ie George W Bush) and for everyday people such as most reading this forum right now, faith is a vehicle for so much bigotry, prejudice, and harm that, in my opinion, it deserves my hate.

@Bold: You are misinterpreting what I am saying. I am not at all saying that one should not use reason and that we can't know everything. I believe that we can know the reality as it is.

What I was saying is that the question "What is the cause of cause?" cannot be answered because of what you are asking. Forget about what the answer is. Answering the question with any answer at all produces a circular argument. In answering the question you are assuming that there is a cause to causation.

I see this problem as the same problem that lies with proving that A=A. You can't prove it, but it is impossible to disprove it because in order to disprove it, you must accept it. In order to disprove anything there must be a reason why; in this case one would have to point out a logical flaw. By acknowledging that causal law does not exist because of a logical flaw, one acknowledges causal law.

"Why?" isn't a question in itself. "Why?" can be reworded as "What is the cause of?" There needs to be something that is caused for it to be a question.

To be honest, I really don't understand why this was included in your post.

There is no faith involved in accepting the validity of one's mind. There is belief put in one's mind, but it is justified in that logical belief has integrity. Outside of logic, there is no integrity, and there are contradictions. With contradictions comes the indefinite. Can you really believe in something that is undefined? What is undefined is not even a something. Ultimately, contradiction leaves to non-belief in the truest sense.

Unless you are crazy, you hold logic to have some value at some level. It might even only be on the most basic level, but it is enough for there to be some kind of belief.

Atheism in itself is pretty foolish. I don't think atheism can even be considered a respectful title, for there are a myriad of positions among atheists that conflict. The popular ones of today don't know what they are talking about.

Faith is the cause of all irrational actions. I don't think one can blame theism on for religion's blunders. I care less about religion and more about accepting what exists as a primary. Unfortunately, this is not true for the majority of atheists and it is especially detrimental since many of them believe that they are protecting thought.

On some level and in certain circumstances there is a resignation to accept and trust that which lies beyond our own current understanding. You can use the mundane analogy of stepping on an aircraft to take a flight. None of us would consider it justified to inspect the entire aircraft ourselves to see that it is structurally and mechanically sound before agreeing to take the flight. In this we are engaging in an act of passive or, in the case of some individuals, active faith. It need not be believing in things which do not apparently exist in time and space, but rather, if you have adopted any view of reality that is beyond 100% certainty, and you utilize that view of reality in some way to navigate through life, you are exercising faith.

I am not acting as a proponent or opponent of atheism or humanism. I think people should adopt whatever worldview that allows them to navigate reality with the highest degree of happiness for themselves, while causing the least amount of harm to others. For some that is Christianity; for others it is not (including many self-professed Christians). For some that is Islam; for others it is not (including many self-professed muslims). For some that is atheism; for others it is not (including many self-professed atheists), etc. etc. ad nausea.

how is that possible? are you somehow infallible? maybe a little on the omnipotent side instead?

Best post on the thread so far. Kudos Satch! :yeah:

What I'd like to know is whether someone who has lived all his life without anyone ever mentioning the concept of god or a higher power feel the need for something like that from within.

Apparently it has happened otherwise the concept of religion as it originated with our ancestors would not be.

This reminds me a lot Viktor Frankl

put the god delusion down. it is poison to your intellect and your spirit.

There is a pretty big difference between the idea of trusting the aircraft and acknowledging the existence of a god. There is evidence pointing towards the idea that the aircraft is safe. There is no evidence of god.

Why would religion make people happy? What does a religion have that understanding does not which enables one to be happier?

If I am wrong, that has little to do with the potential of the human mind to be right. I affirm the potential for it to be right, not the fact that it will always be right.

The mind validates itself. You cannot know whether something is or isn't without knowing itself. You mind has to have the capacity to know in order to know whether you do know or you don't know. By saying that you don't know something, you still affirm the validity of the human mind's potential to know.

The airplane analogy was not given for the purpose of showing that there is a god, but to demonstrate that humans engage in acts of faith on a fairly regular basis, whether or not we are consciously aware of it. There is a tendency to believe that faith is an act that is engaged in only when there is no empirical evidence to support what we believe. That is simply not true, which is why atheism requires every bit as much faith as theism does.

This presents a point of contention that I have with both sides of the theism issue, so in answering it I can only give you my own particular views, although I'm sure that they do represent the views of many others.

First, the term religion is a bit of a slippery one to work with. For one it represents a socio-political organization that is structured around a particular spiritual belief structure. There are people who have absolutely no affiliation with a particular religion and it's corresponding believe structure that receive a great deal of happiness through their own spiritual practices. Conversely, there are those that are actively involved in a particular religion that are miserable and simply use their religion for the actuation of their own misery. If being involved in a religion does not elevate one's consciousness then all one has done in becoming involved in one is joined a club, literally. Spirituality is, and religion should be, for the purpose of transcending the ego, and elevating one's level of consciousness.

There are many trappings that go along with our reliance on the ego, and while our ego does play a very important and practical part in navigating our reality, it is a very deceptive component of our psyche, as it forces us to be completely reliant on our sensory perceptions and the subjective way in which we analyze the respective data it provides us to formulate an assessment regarding the condition of our life, i.e. If something that we perceive as being "good" happens, we are happy. If something that we perceive as being "bad" happens, we are unhappy. Essentially we put ourselves in the situation where we are not just simply at the mercy of our external circumstances to dictate the quality of our life, we are at the mercy of our judgment regarding our perception of these circumstances to dictate the quality of our life.

Now what happens when we acknowledge the fact that these judgments that we make too many times a day to even mention, both consciously and unconsciously, are at best subjective, and at worst unreliable and even erroneous? I mean it is true, as much as you would like to be a proponent of the rational mind and its capacity for reasoning, the human mind's ability to comprehend the true nature of causality is extremely limited and the ego-driven mind is very much challenged to see anything circumstantial in anything but a non-linear way. What happens when we come to the understanding that the judgments that we make regarding the circumstances of our reality are anything but objective and rational, and have just as much impact on what we perceive as being our reality as the circumstances themselves? What happens when we rely instead on that which cannot be seen, but transcends the ego? The answer is that "happiness" becomes much less contingent upon, if not independent of, the external circumstances which we perceive as being reality, commensurately with the level at which our consciousness has been elevated through whatever spiritual practices we may happen to engage in, be they effective, or effectively practiced, at least.

If one chooses to "place their faith" in the minds ability to objectively apprehend and understand that which the senses provide it, over that which cannot be understood or apprehended through empirical means, then the purpose that human beings have for attempting to commune with the divine cannot be understood. In effect, the use of spiritual practice to transcend the trappings of the ego is the only way to bring about unconditional, true happiness, joy, which is not contingent upon external circumstances. And as anyone who has had an experience of this nature, be it momentary or long-term, it is well above and beyond any experience of happiness that can be provided through our own perception of what we would deem to be a positive circumstance.

The most convincing argument for religion I've read was made by Osho;

^^^^^ That's very profound. I know that I've read something by or about him before.

Without the the trap of definition, this is a nice best effort

no.9? do more people believe in god than do not? How many of these people are christains etc. just because theyre parents call them so and they dont care enough to say otherwise.
From my experience the majority dont believe in god, without actually saying he doesnt exist.

I would say no. If you were raised by wolves on a desert island, you should encounter the real things in the world that exist. You would actually be free to name them as you saw fit. Allah, Eloh, Dios, Wakantankeh, watever you call it, God- if God is real you should encounter it, just like dirt, bananas, wind, loneliness, etc

great point satch

Does God exist is an odd question.

Usually you have to define terms before you can discuss them. What does "God" mean?

I think people tend to gravitate to cosmologies that allow them to express their core parts with the least repercussions. That given, God has been defined many ways.

If you don't like restriction on your activities, you may tend to characterize God as a psychological production, born of primal need to explain things. That way any rules God might entail can't stop you.

If you need support, you might create God for yourself as some all-powerful, all knowing, all loving being.

If you can't accept "I don't know" as an explanation, you might fabricate God(s) to explain a few things.

Humans are just creepy monkeys. We are capable of all manner of mental fabrication, and may even believe what we have fabricated.

All these descriptions (and many more) are just expressions of the mind of the creepy monkey.

However, to try to ascertain truth in the atmosphere around us, in order to move forward authenticly, we should recognize these tendencies toward favorable hypothesies. If we really seek truth, and not a good story to get us through the night, we should choose explanations that occur repeatedly, that hold up under scrutiny, and that survive the natural naming of the world around us by humans (since we are human).

For me personally, there is no doubt a force that is bigger than me, that is independent, and that has some designs on me. I have run into it. It has made itself undeniably clear. I could do my best to describe it, but really my main wish is to know more about it. I feel inadequate to name it or define it well.

As far as a set of rules, guidelines, and behavioral funnels, I'm not sure. I tend to look at people like plants. What kind of fool are you? What do you need? We need to have our seeds for whatever make us up watered, and we need to be trimmed or edited a bit, to be our most fulfilled. It seems the big force wants us to be fulfilled, but its hard to posit specific powers and wants for God.

I just pray I can learn more about God, without being side-tracked and distracted by creepy monkey gibberish.

I define God as the variable credited for setting everything we know in motion. I find the idea of a personal God (as put forth by Islam, Christianity, etc) ridiculous.

Wow! I just read that whole thing and that was very interesting.
Now it gives me more reason to not believe in God, I already didn't, but now I can actually argue as to why I don't believe.

Since all actions proceed in the exact same manner whether or not one has god(s)/devil(s) thingys, then god/devil is irrelevant and an irrelevant god/devil is the same as no god/devil.

Where it came from is meaningless to we, as is where it's goin'.

0=T=0 :band:
T=Totality :drummer:

The awful facts really stink, for the most part.

In logic, this is expressed as an "If, Then" statement

"If all actions proceed in the exact same manner whether or not one has god(s)/devils(s) thingy's, Then <whether they exist is irrrelevant)"

It is a completely valid deductive statement if the If component is true. However, this has not been my expereince, so in my experience this If, Then statement is invalid