GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE

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GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE

Nobody has ever been able to show that it is possible for God to exist, so the only rational thing to do is to presume that he cannot possibly exist.

For example, it is not considered possible for an ordinary ceramic coffee cup to become conscious and start talking to me. If I want to argue that my coffee cup could become conscious and start talking, then I would have to explain how that could be possible. How could my coffee cup remember things, how could it think, how could it be aware of its surroundings, how could ceramic move to speak, how could the sound of speech be produced by a ceramic coffee cup?

In exactly the same way, it is impossible for God to exist or to be conscious or to interact with the universe. If you want to rationally argue that it is possible for God to exist or be conscious or interact with the universe, then you need to explain how it could be possible. Why don't you start by explaining how God's mind operates - how can he think without a brain, or remember anything without a memory, or know anything without senses?

I do not need to know how an IC (internal combustion) engine operates to know that it’s possible for one to operate a car because you can show me one that is operating a car. However, if you claim that it is possible to produce a fusion power electrical generator from fruit salad to operate a car, then I am not going to believe that such a thing is possible, unless you either show it to me or you explain how it is possible.

If I see someone get in a car with a fruit salad and drive away, then I am not going to think that maybe he produced a fusion power generator from the fruit salad and that is how he is powering the car.

I am not even asking you for evidence that God exists - just show me evidence that God is even possible, and then we can discuss whether there is evidence of his existence.

Otherwise, we are going to have to presume that God is impossible just like my ceramic coffee cup becoming conscious and talking or a fusion generator made of fruit salad operating a car.

God is impossible and it is ludicrous to think that God could exist.
 


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Yeah, "God [of theology] is

Yeah, "God [of theology] is impossible and it is ludicrous to think that God could exist."

That's why I say "I am god as you", as to destroy the silly old lame god definitions. The awe we all share isn't going away, and there is so much we humans will never know, and so the g-o-d word isn't going away, but we can and must continue to redefine g-o-d, as our science knowledge is doing. From Zeus, to god of abraham, to now the best definition yet, the good saving gospel of gawedly "thermodynamics".

  I guess my religion is science and to do good ....


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God is impossible

Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!


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I think every new Christian

I think every new Christian user should undergo a CARM test.

 

 


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cams card shark wrote:Man is

cams card shark wrote:

Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

  G-O-D is all things possible, but NOT all things are possible.


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cams card shark wrote:Man is

cams card shark wrote:

Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

Which God would that be? Yahweh, the Canaanite deity you folk like to lie about worshipping?

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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cams card shark wrote:Man is

cams card shark wrote:

Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

Well Man is obviously possible, since man exists.

But since we also know from logic and science, NOT all things we can imagine are possible, any concept of a God who can literally do anything is obviously not possible....

Nothing in science makes the emergence of life and consciousness impossible, the worst we can say is that a their emergence on any given planet is highly improbable, but when you take into account the vast number of planets we now know to almost certainly exist, and the billions of years of time available, it would be very presumptious indeed to say very unlikely, let alone 'impossible.'

 

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cams card shark wrote:Man is

cams card shark wrote:
Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!


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cams card shark wrote:Man is

cams card shark wrote:

Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

Someone didn't read the OP. Man is obviously possible we can see him. You can look in a mirror and confirm this for yourself. As to God being able to do all things first you must address the point of his even existing before leaping to conclusions he could do all things. Where exactly can I see this God you claim can do all? Read the OP again and think about what you wrote.

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cams card shark wrote: Man

cams card shark wrote:
Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

Hi, and thank you for sharing your knowledge.

You have ignored the OP and just stated some meaningless irrational slogan.

Please read the OP, and if your capable, please try your best to respond to the OP, like you were a rational human being.

when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"


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patcleaver wrote:Nobody has

patcleaver wrote:

Nobody has ever been able to show that it is possible for God to exist, so the only rational thing to do is to presume that he cannot possibly exist.

For example, it is not considered possible for an ordinary ceramic coffee cup to become conscious and start talking to me. If I want to argue that my coffee cup could become conscious and start talking, then I would have to explain how that could be possible. How could my coffee cup remember things, how could it think, how could it be aware of its surroundings, how could ceramic move to speak, how could the sound of speech be produced by a ceramic coffee cup?

In exactly the same way, it is impossible for God to exist or to be conscious or to interact with the universe. If you want to rationally argue that it is possible for God to exist or be conscious or interact with the universe, then you need to explain how it could be possible. Why don't you start by explaining how God's mind operates - how can he think without a brain, or remember anything without a memory, or know anything without senses?

I do not need to know how an IC (internal combustion) engine operates to know that it’s possible for one to operate a car because you can show me one that is operating a car. However, if you claim that it is possible to produce a fusion power electrical generator from fruit salad to operate a car, then I am not going to believe that such a thing is possible, unless you either show it to me or you explain how it is possible.

If I see someone get in a car with a fruit salad and drive away, then I am not going to think that maybe he produced a fusion power generator from the fruit salad and that is how he is powering the car.

I am not even asking you for evidence that God exists - just show me evidence that God is even possible, and then we can discuss whether there is evidence of his existence.

Otherwise, we are going to have to presume that God is impossible just like my ceramic coffee cup becoming conscious and talking or a fusion generator made of fruit salad operating a car.

God is impossible and it is ludicrous to think that God could exist.
 

 

Your whole spiel is bound up with the false premise that anything which cannot be explained or understood is not possible.  And the onus is then on you to reconcile that premise with other ideas such as an infinite universe or a big explosion happening out of nothing. 

 

 


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 Not only is God possible,

 

Not only is God possible, He is NECESSARY. Read a Systematic Theology volume under "God." something necessary cannot not be. It is impossible to prove no God.

 

To me, the strongest proof is shown in the lives of the saints (thousandsO over 2,000 years. Fulfilled prophecy, the anthropic principle (fine tuning) of the universe, and the life of Christ.

 

With that said, what the hell happened to Kelly's blogs? Where are they?


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Incognito wrote: Not only

Incognito wrote:

 

Not only is God possible, He is NECESSARY. Read a Systematic Theology volume under "God." something necessary cannot not be. It is impossible to prove no God.

 

To me, the strongest proof is shown in the lives of the saints (thousandsO over 2,000 years. Fulfilled prophecy, the anthropic principle (fine tuning) of the universe, and the life of Christ.

 

With that said, what the hell happened to Kelly's blogs? Where are they?

Failed prophecies, the intellectually bankrupt and dishonest nonsense that is Theology...

Anthropic principle is wildly over-stated and misunderstood, even at face value cannot prove an intrinsically nonsensical notion like God.

God cannot be the ultimate explanation for anything since he in turn would logically require a mightier being to explain him, and all the tortuous chop-logic of all the Theologians in the world can get away from that fact, much as they would like to.

Whereas we KNOW that complexity and consciousness can grow from lesser complexity and consciousness, so the idea of the ultimate cause being something equivalent to a Planck-scale quantum twitch, requiring only the existence of some background jittering energy field, is all we require. Whatever the problems with how such a thing may have come to exist, it is infinitely simpler and more plausible than a virtually infinite intelligence.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

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Incognito wrote: Not only

Incognito wrote:

 

Not only is God possible, He is NECESSARY. Read a Systematic Theology volume under "God." something necessary cannot not be. It is impossible to prove no God.

 

To me, the strongest proof is shown in the lives of the saints (thousandsO over 2,000 years. Fulfilled prophecy, the anthropic principle (fine tuning) of the universe, and the life of Christ.

 

With that said, what the hell happened to Kelly's blogs? Where are they?

Glee! I've been waiting to use this for months now.

1. The probability of any entity's existence can be calculated.

2. The probability of any entity's existence is inversely related to its complexity.  I.E., the more complicated something it, the less likely it is to be.

3. God is commonly defined as a being possessing infinite power, knowledge, and/or love.

4. Any entity possessing an infinite attribute is necessarily infinitely complex.  For example, if one tried to count the number of tasks an infinitely powerful God could accomplish, there would always be at least one more task to be ennumerated.

5. Therefore, any entity possessing an infinite attribute is infinitely improbable.

6. Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent God is infinitely improbable.

7. Therefore, God's existence is infinitely less probable than God's nonexistence.

This works even if God is not possessed of infinite attributes, but merely very great ones.  If God had the power to create the universe, but not an infinite degree of power, God's existence would still be less likely than that of a Godless universe.

Alternatively, you could argue that humans aren't equipped to calculate the probability of God.  To that, I would say that, being unequipped to calculate the probability of God, you should not critique such a calculation.

 

The anthropic principle and the apparent design of the universe also speak against an all-powerful God.  Design is the process by which a limited being overcomes obstacles to achieve an end.  There could be no obstacles to the power of an omnipotent God (not even himself? I wonder if an all-knowing God is wise enough to stay His all-powerful hand).  The universe would simply work, Goldilocks values for the forces of physics be damned.  We could not reasonably expect to live on a world hospitable to us, as God's will that we should live there would override any consideration of whether there is, say, air. Of course, God could simply will any planet to be habitable for us, but it is not rational to use the habitability of our planet as proof of God's existence. 

Being living things with a number of physical requirements, we should not be suprised to find ourselves living in a universe, in a star system, on a planet, and in a biosphere that satisfies those requirements.  We would not exist if it were otherwise.

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Fight the infection.


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I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:Yeah,

I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:

Yeah, "God [of theology] is impossible and it is ludicrous to think that God could exist."

That's why I say "I am god as you", as to destroy the silly old lame god definitions. The awe we all share isn't going away, and there is so much we humans will never know, and so the g-o-d word isn't going away, but we can and must continue to redefine g-o-d, as our science knowledge is doing. From Zeus, to god of abraham, to now the best definition yet, the good saving gospel of gawedly "thermodynamics".

  I guess my religion is science and to do good ....

Quote:
The awe we all share isn't going away, and there is so much we humans will never know, and so the g-o-d word isn't going away, but we can and must continue to redefine g-o-d,

Why do we need to repackage a debunked word? You already said something both the theist and atheist have in common that is much more accurate that does not require gap arguments "sense of awe".

The word god can die through use of reason and logic(MIND THE THEISTS READING THIS, I AM NOT SUGGESTING GOVERNMENT OPRESSION, JUST THINK ABOUT WHAT ONE CLAIMS)

Athropromorphic gods died in human history and gave way to polytheistic gods, which have now given way to monotheism, but recient cracks in that are starting to give way to personal gods and new ageism.

My point is that trying to get along should not involve sugar coating the reality that clinging to old debunked ideas will not help humanity in the future.

That sense of AWE also goes with the natural horror of the other power of destruction on the planet and in the universe. I warn against any gap answer.

 

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Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


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Ghost wrote: Your whole

Ghost wrote:
 

Your whole spiel is bound up with the false premise that anything which cannot be explained or understood is not possible.  And the onus is then on you to reconcile that premise with other ideas such as an infinite universe or a big explosion happening out of nothing. 

Wrong.

Your god is both unexplained and absolutely unexplainable and therefore he is impossible.

Anything that is impossible is absolutely unexplainable and anything that is absolutely unexplainable is impossible. Absolutely unexplainable simply means impossible. Married bachelors are absolutely unexplainable. Regardless of how much research we do, and how much time we spend trying to understand, we are never going to understand married bachelors or square circles or your God. They are simply impossible and we can be absolutely certain that they can not exist.

The reason that it is impossible that my ceramic coffee cup could start thinking and talking to me today is that it is absolutely unexplainable. I am reasonably certain that people will never be able to explain how my ceramic coffee cup could start thinking and talking to me today. If I thought that there reasonably might be an explanation someday, for how such a thing could happen on my desk today, then it would not be impossible.

There are lots of things that we can not yet explain that we will have explanations for someday, and they are not absolutely unexplainable.

Mathematicians know enough about infinity to know that an infinite universe is not mathematically impossible. I do not know if the universe is infinite or not or what that has to do with this thread.

If nothingness is unstable, then it could form something as long as it was balanced. A zero can yeaild a positive one and a negitive one. A gravity well acts as a form of negative energy, and in our Universe the amount of mass and positive energy is about equal to this negative energy, so formation of our Universe out of nothing may be possible. Just because we have never seen something happen does not make it impossible.

We know that quantum energy fluctuations happen all the time, for no reason at all, and sometimes they form pairs of particles. We know that things happen all the time without any cause at all such as the decay of a radioactive particle, and the direction of the resulting radiation, and the emission of a photon from an excited atom and the direction of that photon. The cosmic rays that cause a lot of mutations of sperm and egg cells result from such uncaused events. Not only are uncaused events possible, they are commonplace.

I do not know how the big bang occurred, but I have no reason to think that it is absolutely unexplainable. Your God is absolutely unexplainable, so he can not have caused the big bang, anymore than my plain ceramic coffee cup could have traveled into the past and started the big bang, because that is impossible.

when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"


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Incognito wrote:Not only is

Incognito wrote:

Not only is God possible, He is NECESSARY. Read a Systematic Theology volume under "God." something necessary cannot not be. It is impossible to prove no God.

What a silly joke of an argument.

You are claiming that God is NECESSARY just because you say so, or some apologetic trash document says so. You've got to be kidding. First you have to prove that he is possible.

Incognito wrote:
 To me, The strongest proof is shown in the lives of the saints (thousandsO over 2,000 years. Fulfilled prophecy, the anthropic principle (fine tuning) of the universe, and the life of Christ.

Most Christians do not even believe in the Catholic romance novel called "The Lives of the Saints". In fact, many Catholics including priests do not believe it. I read it when I was a child - it is just pure trash. Saints flying around, communion hosts appearing, saints beating themselves with whips, statues and pictures bleeding and crying, visitations by Christ or Mary or Joseph, ritualistic magic, and mummified bodies being miracles because they are mummified bodies. It is folk tails and fairy stories and all the miracles are simply impossible 100% pure pious frauds.

There has never been any real fulfilled prophesy - nobody has ever magically seen the future because that is impossible. It is not real fulfilled prophesy when someone makes a lucky guess about something in the future that turns out true. It is not real fulfilled prophesy when someone writes a book of fictional stories like the bible, and includes fictional prophesies and fictional events (or even real events) fulfilling the fictional prophesies. The fact that Harry Potter fulfilled the prophesy about defeating Voldamort does not prove that Harry Potter is real. The fact that Darth Vader fulfilled the prophesy about bringing balance to the force does not prove that star wars is real.

Wake up from your delusions!

There is no evidence at all that the Universe is fine tuned by god. god of the gaps fails because a gap is not evidence of a god. The fact that we do not know why the constants of the Universe have the values that they do, is not any indication at all that your impossible magical fairy being is flying though space with his magic wand poofing things into existence. God does not throw the lightening bolts or conger rainbows or tune universes because he is just fiction.

Christ is a fictional Character in a fictional book and is no more likely to have ever existed as Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Harry Potter, or Huckleberry Finn. Why do you think the Superman comics is not proof that there is a planet krypton, but the fictional life of fictional Christ doing impossible deeds is proof of an impossible fictional God.  Are you kidding? Are you a Po?

 

when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"


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Brian37, I agree, but there

Brian37, I agree, but there is more than one method to eliminating what g-o-d generally means this day. This is a hard task and needs both a scientific logic approach and an emotional one. Using humor and satire are also necessary this sad ignorant embarrassing earth day.  Unfortunately we lack the tools to the immediate destruction of hocus pocus, by any name, such as g-o-d. I see redefining g-o-d as an important useful method of making the god(s) of theology absurd.

As I've said many times, the methods of atheist Alan Watts and many pantheists, and even some new-agers are helpful baby steps to slaying the huge monster dragon of theology religion of a master creator.

Your criticism and advise is always appreciated. I am passionate to our shared goal.

For me to say , "we are god experiencing itself",  is an ancient non superstitious wise intuition of a few, still smothered by innate mass ignorance, control, fear etc.

"I am god as you" is a mockery of the separatist theology master god, and speaks of a humbling reality of equality and connectedness of all non created deterministic existence.  


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Comparing the idea of God

Comparing the idea of God with the idea of an unmarried bachelor is a false analogy.  "Married bachelor" isn't even a thing, it's simply you lumping two words together that have opposite meanings and it is wholly based on the way we arbitrarily construct language. 

To say "A bachelor is married" is FALSE by the principle of contradiction.  We ARE certain that married bachelors do not exist for that reason.  God is NOT false by the principle of contradiction.  The idea of God is that of an infinite being.  There is nothing in the definition of "being" that precludes infinitude.  If you were to say "All beings are finite", you would be making a universal claim based on what you empirically observe to be the case.  And you cannot extrapolate universals from particulars.

As far as your ceramic cup goes,  your theory trades on a philosophy of conceivability-possibility.  You believe that if you can't conceive of possible worlds where the ceramic cup could start talking to you, then it is impossible.  In fact, I do believe that a great scientist could tell you what would have to be true in order for that to happen and prove that it is merely a scientific impossibility rather than a metaphysical impossibility.  He could say that if the ceramic cup had a brain and lungs and vocal cords and other external factors were coming into play, then it could start talking to you.  Be that as it may, the fact that it is impossible for this to happen is not BECAUSE you can't explain it, it's BECAUSE of the various scientific factors that come into play.   You can't justify something on the arbitrary basis that you can't explain it.

On what parameters are you judging the potentiality for something to be explained? What exactly is the criteria?  How can you tell that something you can't explain is potentially explainable?  What studies have mathematicians done to show that an infinite universe is possible?  In fact, why in the hell would that be in the scope of mathematics anyway???  Wouldn't that be within the scope of natural science? 

The truth is, our ability to explain things is arbitrary.  If I am a little kid, then I can't explain why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west (and for the sake of argument, let's pretend that the little kid has never actually witnessed this happening) and I would never be able to judge whether or not such a factor is potentially explainable.  Imagine if our minds never progressed beyond that age, using your logic, it is impossible for the sun to rise in the east and set in the west. 

None of the events you've described are uncaused and your theory of something coming out of nothingness is speculative rubbish.

 


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patcleaver wrote:If

patcleaver wrote:

If nothingness is unstable, then it could form something as long as it was balanced. A zero can yeaild a positive one and a negitive one. A gravity well acts as a form of negative energy, and in our Universe the amount of mass and positive energy is about equal to this negative energy, so formation of our Universe out of nothing may be possible. Just because we have never seen something happen does not make it impossible.

I should expound upon some things.

You are attributing a quality to NOTHINGNESS?  NOTHINGNESS is NOT a thing.  It's NOTHING.  You can't say use nothing as a subject with predicates.  Maybe you are redefining "nothing", but it, well, has NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about.

So if you are trying to tell me that something can come out of nothing, then your claim is absurd and unexplainable.

Quote:
We know that quantum energy fluctuations happen all the time, for no reason at all, and sometimes they form pairs of particles. We know that things happen all the time without any cause at all such as the decay of a radioactive particle, and the direction of the resulting radiation, and the emission of a photon from an excited atom and the direction of that photon. The cosmic rays that cause a lot of mutations of sperm and egg cells result from such uncaused events. Not only are uncaused events possible, they are commonplace.


I'm not much of an expert in quantum mechanics and maybe there is a lot of randomness of events, meaning that the events which occur are often preceded by different events and therefore we cannot attribute any sort of cause because we have not witnessed some sort of consistency.  But the idea that there is no cause is merely speculation.  And at the quantum level, I don't see that it makes much of a difference in terms of our experiences at the macro level.

I think if you want to make a more compelling argument, can you give an example of that sort of randomness at the macro level? And I think what we have to look at is not so much events without causes, since humans could easily do something and say they had no reason for what they did and maybe even make a good case for that.  But let's talk about it in terms of the COMING TO BE of an entity.  Can something which didn't exist prior just come to be?  Can something just appear out of thin air?  Have you ever experienced something that just brought itself into existence?  That's something that is not explainable or intelligible.  I don't even see it as a natural scientific impossibility, like your ceramic cup speaking to you.  It comes across to me as a logical impossibility.  To bring yourself into existence, you would have to exist prior in some form.   And no, this does not apply to God because theoretically, God is infinite and never BEGAN to exist.

 


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Ghost wrote:patcleaver

Ghost wrote:

patcleaver wrote:

If nothingness is unstable, then it could form something as long as it was balanced. A zero can yeaild a positive one and a negitive one. A gravity well acts as a form of negative energy, and in our Universe the amount of mass and positive energy is about equal to this negative energy, so formation of our Universe out of nothing may be possible. Just because we have never seen something happen does not make it impossible.

I should expound upon some things.

You are attributing a quality to NOTHINGNESS?  NOTHINGNESS is NOT a thing.  It's NOTHING.  You can't say use nothing as a subject with predicates.  Maybe you are redefining "nothing", but it, well, has NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about.

So if you are trying to tell me that something can come out of nothing, then your claim is absurd and unexplainable.

Quote:
We know that quantum energy fluctuations happen all the time, for no reason at all, and sometimes they form pairs of particles. We know that things happen all the time without any cause at all such as the decay of a radioactive particle, and the direction of the resulting radiation, and the emission of a photon from an excited atom and the direction of that photon. The cosmic rays that cause a lot of mutations of sperm and egg cells result from such uncaused events. Not only are uncaused events possible, they are commonplace.


I'm not much of an expert in quantum mechanics and maybe there is a lot of randomness of events, meaning that the events which occur are often preceded by different events and therefore we cannot attribute any sort of cause because we have not witnessed some sort of consistency.  But the idea that there is no cause is merely speculation.  And at the quantum level, I don't see that it makes much of a difference in terms of our experiences at the macro level.

I think if you want to make a more compelling argument, can you give an example of that sort of randomness at the macro level? And I think what we have to look at is not so much events without causes, since humans could easily do something and say they had no reason for what they did and maybe even make a good case for that.  But let's talk about it in terms of the COMING TO BE of an entity.  Can something which didn't exist prior just come to be?  Can something just appear out of thin air?  Have you ever experienced something that just brought itself into existence?  That's something that is not explainable or intelligible.  I don't even see it as a natural scientific impossibility, like your ceramic cup speaking to you.  It comes across to me as a logical impossibility.  To bring yourself into existence, you would have to exist prior in some form.   And no, this does not apply to God because theoretically, God is infinite and never BEGAN to exist.

Radioactive decay of radium, uraniom, etc, is the original manifestation of random events which can be detected at the macro level. The decay events of individual atoms occur with a precisely defined probability, so that the collective rate of decay of millions of identical atoms can be precisely measured and used for accurate radiometric dating. This actually relies on the observation that the probability of decay does not appear to be affected by anything about the environment, although there is some hint that it may be affected by the strength of some fields, possibly intense electric fields.

Such events don't normally produce observable macro events, apart from the clicks in a geiger counter, but they can be made to. Devices incorporating small quantities of mildly radio-active naterial have been used when it is desired that some event be triggerred randomly, such as determining which of a group of telephone circuits is used to carry a new connection, to ensure there is an even distribution of the load.

The idea of virtual particles appearing and re-combining spontaneously is well-supported in physics, and doesn't violate anything, since the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Theory means that we cannot assign a precise value to the total energy in a region of space at any instant, only to the average over some minimum (very small) time interval, so avoiding a strict violation of the Law of Conservation of Matter/Energy.

This actually may logically allow a macro object to appear 'out of thin air', but it would have to disappear again in an extremely short time...

The randomness of radioactive decay is now supported by an immense amount of observation, so if there is a cause for an atom to emit a gamma ray or alpha or beta particle at a particular time, it has remained stubbornly undetectable in itself. If it exists, it is also purely random, which still leaves you with a problem of conventional causality.

The Big Bang could have been a special example of this type of event, with a very low but non-aero probability, which happened to have sufficient magnitude to pass some critical threshhold allowing it to continue to expand which allowed two complementary forms of energy field, one positive energy, the other negative which would correspond to expansion against gravity.

We don't know any of the details with any certainty, of course, but there is no explicit violation of known laws of physics, and obviously no violation of logic on which all laws and math is based.

The only thing that seeems to be needed is the pre-existence of the Uncertainty Principle which implies that pure 'nothingness' cannot exist, in the sense of a region containing absolutely no mass or energy of any kind, or at least could never be observed, since we cannot, even in principle, measure energy with absolute precision.

Whereas God is a macro entity of way more than Planck level size and energy, so is vastlty more improbable, even if you can come up with a definition which even makes logical sense. An eternal sea of miniscule random energy fluctuations seems much easier to imagine as plausible tahn any God I have ever heard of.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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BobSpence1 wrote:Radioactive

BobSpence1 wrote:
Radioactive decay of radium, uraniom, etc, is the original manifestation of random events which can be detected at the macro level. The decay events of individual atoms occur with a precisely defined probability, so that the collective rate of decay of millions of identical atoms can be precisely measured and used for accurate radiometric dating. This actually relies on the observation that the probability of decay does not appear to be affected by anything about the environment, although there is some hint that it may be affected by the strength of some fields, possibly intense electric fields.

We are talking about events that are uncaused.  In other words, we are talking about events which are not necessitated by any prior event in time, independent of our ability to predict it.  I don't know much about physics and really have no idea what you are talking about.  Are you saying that physicists have determined that the events you described have no cause and substantiated that in some sort of law or doctrine?

I'm not trying to be a jerk.  Maybe if you can educate me in physics a little more, I may change my mind.

How can an object which is not pre-existing bring itself into existence?  Give me an example of that happening and speak it in a way that you would speak it to someone who only has a cursory knowledge of physics, such as me.  Just take this little test and maybe you can convert me:

(1) Give an example of ONE kind of entity which does not pre-exist and then brings itself into existence.  The example has to consist of something which relies on no external factors at all, otherwise it hasn't really brought itself into existence.

(2) What is the nature of this entity?  Can you describe it?  What is its purpose in the order?  What does it do?

Quote:
Whereas God is a macro entity of way more than Planck level size and energy, so is vastlty more improbable, even if you can come up with a definition which even makes logical sense.

Not true.

You cannot attribute any physical qualities to God, whether it's size, extension, or energy of any kind.


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BobSpence1 wrote:cams card

BobSpence1 wrote:

cams card shark wrote:

Man is impossible: But with God all things are possible!

Well Man is obviously possible, since man exists.

But since we also know from logic and science, NOT all things we can imagine are possible, any concept of a God who can literally do anything is obviously not possible....

Nothing in science makes the emergence of life and consciousness impossible, the worst we can say is that a their emergence on any given planet is highly improbable, but when you take into account the vast number of planets we now know to almost certainly exist, and the billions of years of time available, it would be very presumptious indeed to say very unlikely, let alone 'impossible.'

 

I can imagine Angelina Jolie giving me a blow job. But but the probibility of that in reality is infinatly aproaching ZIP ZILCH ZERO. So if she wants to convince me that there is a god, she knows what she has to do.

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Ghost wrote:You cannot

Ghost wrote:
You cannot attribute any physical qualities to God, whether it's size, extension, or energy of any kind.

Ok. Then how can you possibly know anything about this "God" of which you speak? If it lacks any conceivable attributes that we usually use to describe things that exist in reality, then what is it? I am interested in the answer to these questions, especially since you wrote this in an earlier post:

Ghost wrote:
The idea of God is that of an infinite being.

The idea of it, or the supposed real thing the idea corresponds to? Infinite in what sense? Being in what sense? Unless you can describe it, how is that utterly vague statement any better than "The abstraction of Flabrgl is that of a humbly implicit infinite vagueness."?


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KSMB wrote:Ok. Then how can

KSMB wrote:

Ok. Then how can you possibly know anything about this "God" of which you speak? If it lacks any conceivable attributes that we usually use to describe things that exist in reality, then what is it?

That's a fair question. 

The idea of God really comes from deduction.  We live in a world full of imperfect finite entities.  We know both logically and empirically that these entities cannot bring themselves into existence.  To assume that would be a non-sequitur since in order for something to give existence to itself, it would have to pre-exist in some form.  In simple terms, nothing can give to itself what it doesn't have.  Now we can either assume that there is an infinite regress of this chain, or it stops somewhere.  The idea of an infinite regress really has no happy ending.  It is just unintelligible, though if you really want to believe in an infinite regress, I can't prove you wrong other than saying that it is contradictory.  So as the chain gets longer, we move up to beings that are more perfect than the next because nothing can give to itself what it doesn't have.  So if you are going to keep going back, you have to end at a being which has everything you could possibly attribute to it.  This necessarily leads us to a perfect infinite being and that is what we refer to as "God". 

So to answer your question, we can know certain things about God through use of our reason.  And I didn't say that it lacks any conceivable attributes that we usually use to describe things.  We can reasonably say things like God has intellect, will, power, etc. 

Quote:
The idea of it, or the supposed real thing the idea corresponds to? Infinite in what sense? Being in what sense? Unless you can describe it, how is that utterly vague statement any better than "The abstraction of Flabrgl is that of a humbly implicit infinite vagueness."?

Infinite in the sense that it was never began nor will it ever end.  We can describe God, we just can't describe it in terms of natural science because God is not a physical entity.

Think about this.  Do you believe that you have a mind?  Does your mind physical attributes?  How much does your mind weigh?  Could I take my finger and touch your mind?  How about your thoughts?  How much do your thoughts way?  If you are imagining a vacation in the Bahamas, could I see that thought with my eyes?  Could I hear it? 


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Ghost wrote:BobSpence1

Ghost wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:
Radioactive decay of radium, uraniom, etc, is the original manifestation of random events which can be detected at the macro level. The decay events of individual atoms occur with a precisely defined probability, so that the collective rate of decay of millions of identical atoms can be precisely measured and used for accurate radiometric dating. This actually relies on the observation that the probability of decay does not appear to be affected by anything about the environment, although there is some hint that it may be affected by the strength of some fields, possibly intense electric fields.

We are talking about events that are uncaused.  In other words, we are talking about events which are not necessitated by any prior event in time, independent of our ability to predict it.  I don't know much about physics and really have no idea what you are talking about.  Are you saying that physicists have determined that the events you described have no cause and substantiated that in some sort of law or doctrine?

Radioactive decay happens because the combination of particles making up certain atomic nucleii makes them only marginally stable. They only persist at all because it requires a small but finite additional nudge of energy to initiate the decay process. There appears to be no actual separate entitity supplying this nudge. What we observe actually seems to best fit the idea of Quantum Uncertainty, where such barriers do not absolutely block the event from happening, they just define the probability that it could actually overcome that barrier within any given time interval. So the higher the amount of extra energy required, the longer we will have to wait, on average, for a particular atom to decay.

Any event is going to have this element of fuzziness, imprecision, uncertainty about its exact timing, depending how sensitive it is to slight variations in magnitude of the conditions which trigger it. In the vast majority of macro events, at least one of the input variables is changing at a rate that means that it passes thru the uncertainty range in an extremely short time, so this fuzziness is undetectable.

In the case of 'empty' space, even the value of zero energy has a level of uncertainty, of probability about it, so there is a finite probabilty of the occurrence of an event such as the appearance of a pair of virtual particles.

So yes, Quantum Theory does seem to imply uncaused events, at least in terms of the exact timing. It really is an additional factor which needs to be taken into account by anyone arguing about 'cause' and 'effect'.

Quote:

I'm not trying to be a jerk.  Maybe if you can educate me in physics a little more, I may change my mind.

How can an object which is not pre-existing bring itself into existence?  Give me an example of that happening and speak it in a way that you would speak it to someone who only has a cursory knowledge of physics, such as me.  Just take this little test and maybe you can convert me:

(1) Give an example of ONE kind of entity which does not pre-exist and then brings itself into existence.  The example has to consist of something which relies on no external factors at all, otherwise it hasn't really brought itself into existence.

(2) What is the nature of this entity?  Can you describe it?  What is its purpose in the order?  What does it do?

Of course the idea an object 'bringing itself into existence' is utter nonsense in every way.

This ground level of randomness/uncertainty is the additional reality which QM seems to point to. It explains how an event can be initiated at random/arbitrary time, within an indefintely long period, without requiring the intervention of the will of a conscious being, which is an argument I have seen for the necessity of a God.

Quote:

Quote:
Whereas God is a macro entity of way more than Planck level size and energy, so is vastlty more improbable, even if you can come up with a definition which even makes logical sense.

Not true.

You cannot attribute any physical qualities to God, whether it's size, extension, or energy of any kind.

And non-physical properties are, of necessity, purely speculative, ie made up, so we can know NOTHING about such PURELY hypothetical entities.

And as you see, such entities are not necessary in any way to provide a framework for investigating and understanding our perceived environment, rather they just add another intrinsically inexplicable confusing factor into the picture.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Quote:Think about this.  Do

Quote:

Think about this.  Do you believe that you have a mind?  Does your mind physical attributes?  How much does your mind weigh?  Could I take my finger and touch your mind?  How about your thoughts?  How much do your thoughts way?  If you are imagining a vacation in the Bahamas, could I see that thought with my eyes?  Could I hear it?

Of course, that is because all of those are abstractions describing processes, or sequences of events, which either describe relationships between, and properties of, physical objects, or are manifestations of physical interactions between physical objects (eg neurones) in complex patterns.

Just as God is also just a thought, an abstract idea generated by minds running on a physical substrate.

Think about that.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

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The ghost god of theology is

The ghost god of theology is obviously, sadly understandable, emotional fantasy bull shit about "NOTHING". Religious people break my heart ....

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820

  Notice how the word "atheist" was used differently by Jefferson. Here's another,

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshiped a false god, he did. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

  That is why I prefer to simply say, I AM GOD, just as you of course. Ignorant blind fools look for god over yonder of their imagination of separatism, needing an idol due to awe, fear, and sheep mentality of surrender.

Sheezzz you religious folks are hypnotized fans of make believe. I wish entertaining such fantasy religious ideas wasn't hurtful and dangerous, but it is indeed poison, mind terrorism, and reality pollution. 

 


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BobSpence1 wrote:Radioactive

BobSpence1 wrote:

Radioactive decay happens because the combination of particles making up certain atomic nucleii makes them only marginally stable. They only persist at all because it requires a small but finite additional nudge of energy to initiate the decay process.

Okay, so it has a cause.  Thank you.

Quote:
So yes, Quantum Theory does seem to imply uncaused events, at least in terms of the exact timing. It really is an additional factor which needs to be taken into account by anyone arguing about 'cause' and 'effect'.

Only if you use the notion of "cause and effect" in a way that's foreign to everyone else, which seems to be what you are doing.

Quote:
Of course the idea an object 'bringing itself into existence' is utter nonsense in every way.

So we're in agreement.

Quote:
This ground level of randomness/uncertainty is the additional reality which QM seems to point to. It explains how an event can be initiated at random/arbitrary time, within an indefintely long period, without requiring the intervention of the will of a conscious being, which is an argument I have seen for the necessity of a God.

I've never disputed the fact that physicists have an explanation for the evolution of the universe.  I'm just saying that it's not a particularly good one and requires a bigger leap of faith than believing in an intelligent designer.

Quote:
And non-physical properties are, of necessity, purely speculative, ie made up, so we can know NOTHING about such PURELY hypothetical entities.

Of course, that is because all of those are abstractions describing processes, or sequences of events, which either describe relationships between, and properties of, physical objects, or are manifestations of physical interactions between physical objects (eg neurones) in complex patterns.

How do you know that?  How do you know that these processes are not the effect rather than the cause?  You are just speculating.

 


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Ghost wrote:BobSpence1

Ghost wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

So yes, Quantum Theory does seem to imply uncaused events, at least in terms of the exact timing. It really is an additional factor which needs to be taken into account by anyone arguing about 'cause' and 'effect'.

Only if you use the notion of "cause and effect" in a way that's foreign to everyone else, which seems to be what you are doing.

Not sure it you got what I was trying to say - there appears to be no 'ultimate cause' determining that the radioactive decay event occur at that particular time.

Ghost wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

This ground level of randomness/uncertainty is the additional reality which QM seems to point to. It explains how an event can be initiated at random/arbitrary time, within an indefintely long period, without requiring the intervention of the will of a conscious being, which is an argument I have seen for the necessity of a God.

I've never disputed the fact that physicists have an explanation for the evolution of the universe.  I'm just saying that it's not a particularly good one and requires a bigger leap of faith than believing in an intelligent designer.

That is very much a personal reaction. It may just reflect the fact that I have been involved in understanding and designing complex physical and electronic mechanisms, so I have gained a 'feel' for how relatively simple physical entities can give rise to unexpected behaviour, even surprising the designer.

Apart from the FACT that a conscious designer cannot be the ultimate explanation for things like our own consciousness, since  that idea would require a higher level designer to design the first designer, etc.

We KNOW that complexity can arise from simpler elements, and that the Darwinian algorithm DOES provide a more than plausible way for life to evolve - we have both computer simulations and actual experiments which show how the emergence of new characteristics can happen - it does not require 'faith' to accept this as a reasonable explanation.

So the idea that higher level organization and behaviour can emerge from simpler entities interacting in complex ways, so that the 'ultimate cause' need be no more than a Planck-scale twitch, does NOT violate any established physical principles, and so completely avoids the diverging infinite regress problem inherent in any 'designer' hypothesis. That many people find it counter-intuitive is not a real argument - quantum theory and relativity are highly counter-intuitive but very well supported by the evidence - they WORK.

There is arguably still an infinite regress in my explanation, but as long as each step back along the sequence takes us, on average, to a lesser cause, ie it is convergent, the ultimate chain does not lead to anything infinite, and does not even have to be infinite in time or space.

The sum of an infinte series, where each term is smaller than the one before by a constant factor, is finite.

Ghost wrote:

Think about this.  Do you believe that you have a mind?  Does your mind physical attributes?  How much does your mind weigh?  Could I take my finger and touch your mind?  How about your thoughts?  How much do your thoughts way?  If you are imagining a vacation in the Bahamas, could I see that thought with my eyes?  Could I hear it?

BobSpence1 wrote:

Of course, that is because all of those are abstractions describing processes, or sequences of events, which either describe relationships between, and properties of, physical objects, or are manifestations of physical interactions between physical objects (eg neurones) in complex patterns.

How do you know that?  How do you know that these processes are not the effect rather than the cause?  You are just speculating.

That respond only makes sense in reference to thought processes, but even there we actually have a lot of evidence as to what is the 'effect', so it is absolutely not 'just speculation'.

{BTW, note I took the 'liberty' of quoting the statement of yours that I was responding to, unlike the way you included a bit of mine from a previous post which was not directly relevant to my response. }

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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The yet unexplainable

The yet unexplainable randomness observed in QM is just more unanswered questions of the deterministic reality of all existence. As always, the more we know makes us wiser to what we don't know !!!

Scientists study and embrace the next unknown, philosophy puts into linguistics, theists make emotional shit up.

As wise Bob wrote, "From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology."   Yeah

 


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Ok, you win the debate. 

Ok, you win the debate.

 


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JillSwift wrote:  THAT'S

JillSwift wrote:

 

THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

I always yell that out like that! HA!


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 You atheists are living a


 You atheists are living a total lie. You are fighting against something you KNOW is true. People don't create websites, forums and dedicate their whole lives to an agenda attacking something they know is not true. How many websites and forums are there attacking the existence of the tooth fairy? The fact is that you are fighting against something you know is real --hence your anger. The anger is against a real thing -- a person (God) according to Fr. Seraphim Rose. He used to be an atheist, and tested with a genius level IQ while still in High School. He later joined the beatnick generation, got into Buddhism, Taoism (got his M.A. in Chinese under America's tops scholar) and later an Orthodox Christian, priest and monk  -- died in 1982.

If I said I believed in the tooth fairy, you would just laugh at me and move on. You wouldn't devote so much time and energy in websites, videos, books, blogs. forums, etc trying to disprove to me the tooth fairy doesn't exist. There's no reason to. Because we all know it's silly. But because you know God exists, (every man knows this: see Rom.1, Rom. 2; John 1:3) and that there are very powerful arguments in favor of His existence, you are commited to your agenda. Atheists know what God expects of them -- a moral life. That's why they're so pissed. And they don't like the idea that there is something or someone more powerful and wiseer then they.

I belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, also known as Eastern Orthodoxy. We have 2,000 years of vindication. The lives of our many thousands of saints (which you know nothing of) vindicate the truths of Christianity and prove to the world that Christianity WORKS. History proves it. We have 2,000 years of vindication.

The skeptic might have had a case against us had Christianity been created a decade ago. But unfortunately for them, we have 2,000 years of vindication.

The lives of our many thousands of saints from the middle east, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Georgia, etc, proves that Christ sent the Holy Spirit into His Church for the sanctification of souls. The holiness of our saints proves it. Christianity turns sinners into saints. The message works! History proves it. But the Devil makes people only see and focus on the negatives (child abuses in the Catholic Church, Inquisition).

Here is a video of some icons of our saints

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8D2KEY0okY

WHY WON'T GOD HEAL AMPUTEES?

The question as to why God won't heal amputess, is silly.

First, how do you know He hasn't? Have you interviewed everysingle person who ever lived?

Second, it's a straw man argument (fallacy). God never said He would heal amputees.

Third, one Orthodox bishop once told me that the world does not have the same level of spiritual energy that it had at the time of Christ and the first few centuries. The world and the Church itself is too sinful for this kind of grace (miracle). We are approaching the great apostasy (loss of faith) that was prophesied to come. Mankind is just too sinful. The time of the great saints is over. Those were the kind of people who performed great miracles. However, there are still many miracles in the world. God has not left His Church.

Fourth, SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS (8th century) had his hand amputated by heretics, and he was healed by the Holy Virgin Mary over night.  Saint John was a defender of the faith (worthy of such a miracle) and a saint. He prayed before an icon of Mary in the night. When he awoke his hand was restored.

I heard one atheist say Christianity poisons everything.

This is a ludicrous statement.

First, again, we have 2,000 years of vindication in the lives of our many thousands of saints and millions of martyrs. History proves the Christian program works -- the saints prove it.

The critics spend their whole lives attacking the Bible. But in the mean time the Orthodox Church has produced thousands of saints. The critic needs to get off his ivory tower and come back down to earth to see what's happening.

Second, over 80% of all American hospitals, orphanges, universities, and all charity organizations, were founded by Christians. Tell them Christianity poisons everything when your lying helpless in one of their hospital beds.


BACKSLIDING CHRISTIANS

Lastly, those Evangelical or Protestant "Christians" who leave their faith (I don't know of any Orthodox Christian who ever has left the faith), and become atheists, pagans or witches, usually become very bitter and angry people.

The apostasy (loff of faith) is predicted to occur just before the coming of the Antichrist. Saint Paul talks about this.

Christ said that those who fall away so easily because they can't deal with tests and trials, are like bad ground where seeds fall but cannot grow. -Luke 8

In speaking about backslider and apostates, the Bible says "THE DOG HAS TURNED TO ITS OWN VOMIT AGAIN."

LASTLY

God allows death and children to die first of all because since He gives life, He has every right to take it. Life is a prividelge, not a right. He never had to give anyone life in the first place. How do you know He's not taking them to a better place?

Second, you are opperating from the position of insufficient knowledge. You just don't have enough information. A brain that is still evolving (according to evolution), cannot claim absolute and objective knowledge about anything. These are properties of a perfect brain only. Perhaps God takes some children early in their lives because He is protecting them from sins He foresaw they would commit in adulthood. He's actually protecting them by taking them early. Humans just don't have enough information. God has ALL wisdom. He does everything perfectly.

 

The whole history of divine revelation as seen with the Hebrew people, the prophets, the Christian saints, etc is strong evidence. God doesn't give 100% proof because then there would be no need for faith. Scripture says without faith it is impossible to please Him. The evidence in history, nature, the life of Christ, and what we know in the inner recesses of our hearts, is good enough. All the excuses that there wasn't enough evidence, will not hold-up on judgement day. God can see through all the crap, lies and excuses.

 

When you die and descend into Hell, you will change your tune real fast. I gurantee it.


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Me G-o-d "can see through

Me G-o-d "can see through all the crap, lies and excuses" of that absurd God of Abraham idiocy of you kind of thinkers. Idol worship is indeed poison, truth pollution.

You really should read for a long while here at the "saving" RRS. To be an atheist is a personal victory of overcoming blinding superstition. Click on my name etc and "track" our many posts to the religious as yourself. It's all been addressed here.

Good luck to better understanding what humanity and all existence is. You have my deepest sympathies, and that is why I post here, me g-o-d, me christ, as the atheist gnosis story buddha jesus tried to convey.

Yeah, way over most peoples heads, that intuitive message of Oneness, as today is the law of scientific thermodynamics, which will never change as a few wise ancients also said.   

  See this new thread, especially the RRS natural post #4 ... dirt simple. If you are willing, RRS can save you. Read read read openly, all arguments against your indoctrinated god ideas.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/15954#comment-207435

 


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Hi Greek Orthodoxy. Welcome

Hi Greek Orthodoxy. Welcome to RRS!

GreekOrthodoxy wrote:
You atheists are living a total lie. You are fighting against something you KNOW is true.

I hope you can support this claim with logic and evidence.

Quote:
People don't create websites, forums and dedicate their whole lives to an agenda attacking something they know is not true. How many websites and forums are there attacking the existence of the tooth fairy?

Yes, but attacking the existence of the tooth fairy is ludicrous because there is no valid reason to. No sane adult believes in the tooth fairy to begin with. Atheists obviously frequently protest against religion because people do believe in such things; not only that, but most religions endlessly proselytize non-theist. As for the claim itself, Creationists attack evolution all the time, and they believe evolution is false so clearly you are mistaken. 

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The fact is that you are fighting against something you know is real --hence your anger.

You have no evidence for this assertion. You are simply repeating yourself, and stating something repeatedly does not make it true. 

I could (hypothetically) argue that you know God doesn't exist -- hence your anger. But, this a completely unsubstantiated claim.  

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The anger is against a real thing -- a person (God) according to Fr. Seraphim Rose. He used to be an atheist, and tested with a genius level IQ while still in High School. He later joined the beatnick generation, got into Buddhism, Taoism (got his M.A. in Chinese under America's tops scholar) and later an Orthodox Christian, priest and monk  -- died in 1982.

You are appealing to authority. The fact that Seraphim Rose was intelligent doesn't objectively add anything to the argument. For all I care, he could possess the highest IQ in the world, but he would still need to prove to me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there is a God. By the way, I also have an extremely high IQ, so I'm not impressed at all.

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If I said I believed in the tooth fairy, you would just laugh at me and move on.

Of course. So why should I behave any differently when you say you believe in talking donkeys?

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You wouldn't devote so much time and energy in websites, videos, books, blogs. forums, etc trying to disprove to me the tooth fairy doesn't exist. There's no reason to. Because we all know it's silly.

This is just wrong. I know Islam is silly, but I still try to disprove it when it's convenient. Although it's level of absurdity is certainly a factor, what really matters is whether people follow the beliefs in question and how literally they follow it.

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But because you know God exists, (every man knows this: see Rom.1, Rom. 2; John 1:3) and that there are very powerful arguments in favor of His existence, you are commited to your agenda.

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:18-20

"We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." 1 John 1:3

But, you haven't shown any powerful arguments in favor of the existence of Jehovah.

Furthermore, these chapters and verses you've cited are simply extensions of the assertion that you're making, not proof of their validity. The fact that you and the Bible agree does not make either source more reliable unless you have proven that the Bible is true.  

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Atheists know what God expects of them -- a moral life. That's why they're so pissed. And they don't like the idea that there is something or someone more powerful and wiseer then they.

But, this is another fallacy. You claim that atheists are angry because God wants them to be moral. However, then, one of your unstated assumptions is that atheists are immoral. You haven't proven this either. 

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I belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, also known as Eastern Orthodoxy. We have 2,000 years of vindication. The lives of our many thousands of saints (which you know nothing of) vindicate the truths of Christianity and prove to the world that Christianity WORKS. History proves it. We have 2,000 years of vindication.

- But, you haven't shown how history proves your religion in any way. You've merely stated it. What makes Christianity any more valid than Islam?

- Stating that we know nothing about your saints is a huge assumption since we have ex-Christians on this site.

- Also, the age of your church isn't evidence for the veracity of its beliefs.  

Quote:
The skeptic might have had a case against us had Christianity been created a decade ago. But unfortunately for them, we have 2,000 years of vindication.

Are you serious? Science is has progressed so fast and far in the 20th century that nearly all religions are in danger of being wiped out. The theory of evolution, the unifying theory of biology, absolutely disproves every literal interpretation of every creation myth in the history of humanity. And again, humans believed that the universe revolved around the Earth for thousands of years, so the longevity of a belief is simply irrelevant. You need to show how your church is "vindicated" instead of just stating it.

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The lives of our many thousands of saints from the middle east, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Georgia, etc, proves that Christ sent the Holy Spirit into His Church for the sanctification of souls. The holiness of our saints proves it. Christianity turns sinners into saints. The message works! History proves it. But the Devil makes people only see and focus on the negatives (child abuses in the Catholic Church, Inquisition).

Huh? How do you know that the saints proved Christianity? How do you know the saints are holy? How do you know Christianity turns sinners into saints? How do you know it works? How do you know history proves it? How do you know the involved? How do you know the Devil exists?

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Here is a video of some icons of our saints

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8D2KEY0okY

It's just a bunch of drawings. Also, that hymn is not beautiful; this is purely subjective, but I think that hymn is annoying as hell.

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The question as to why God won't heal amputess, is silly.

First, how do you know He hasn't? Have you interviewed everysingle person who ever lived?

Huh? Haven't you ever seen an amputee before? Why won't God heal them. edit: Why do I need to interview every person that ever lived to know that amputees exist?

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Second, it's a straw man argument (fallacy). God never said He would heal amputees.

Of course he didn't, but I know the video you're referring to, and you're missing the point. God is omnibenevolent, which means that he is infinitely good. Furthermore, amputees are suffering due to the lack of a limb(s). If God is ominibenevolent, why won't he relieve amputees of their suffering?

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Third, one Orthodox bishop once told me that the world does not have the same level of spiritual energy that it had at the time of Christ and the first few centuries. The world and the Church itself is too sinful for this kind of grace (miracle). We are approaching the great apostasy (loss of faith) that was prophesied to come. Mankind is just too sinful. The time of the great saints is over. Those were the kind of people who performed great miracles. However, there are still many miracles in the world. God has not left His Church.

But, how do you know these things? You're just making more assertions. 

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Fourth, SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS (8th century) had his hand amputated by heretics, and he was healed by the Holy Virgin Mary over night.  Saint John was a defender of the faith (worthy of such a miracle) and a saint. He prayed before an icon of Mary in the night. When he awoke his hand was restored.

What? How do you know that this happened?

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I heard one atheist say Christianity poisons everything.

This is a ludicrous statement.

I would disagree with the statement that Christianity poisons everything. Of course, it's a hopelessly vague statement anyways.

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First, again, we have 2,000 years of vindication in the lives of our many thousands of saints and millions of martyrs. History proves the Christian program works -- the saints prove it.

You already stated this earlier. How does Christianity vindicated? How does history prove it works? How do the saints prove it?

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The critics spend their whole lives attacking the Bible. But in the mean time the Orthodox Church has produced thousands of saints. The critic needs to get off his ivory tower and come back down to earth to see what's happening.

How do you know this? 

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Second, over 80% of all American hospitals, orphanges, universities, and all charity organizations, were founded by Christians. Tell them Christianity poisons everything when your lying helpless in one of their hospital beds.

I could cite the Crusades, scams, delusion, etc. but, eh, I don't really want to debate about whether Christianity is good, but whether it is true. These are two different arenas. 

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Lastly, those Evangelical or Protestant "Christians" who leave their faith (I don't know of any Orthodox Christian who ever has left the faith), and become atheists, pagans or witches, usually become very bitter and angry people.

Okay, just keep hurling more insults.

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The apostasy (loff of faith) is predicted to occur just before the coming of the Antichrist. Saint Paul talks about this.

Christ said that those who fall away so easily because they can't deal with tests and trials, are like bad ground where seeds fall but cannot grow. -Luke 8

In speaking about backslider and apostates, the Bible says "THE DOG HAS TURNED TO ITS OWN VOMIT AGAIN."

LASTLY

But, you're making the assumption that the premises of your argument are correct again. 

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God allows death and children to die first of all because since He gives life, He has every right to take it. Life is a prividelge, not a right. He never had to give anyone life in the first place. How do you know He's not taking them to a better place?

Aside from the fact that you're committing several more logical fallacies, you sure have a nice rationalization for the omnibenevolent dictator of the universe repeatedly committing genocide and infanticide.  

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Second, you are opperating from the position of insufficient knowledge. You just don't have enough information. A brain that is still evolving (according to evolution), cannot claim absolute and objective knowledge about anything. These are properties of a perfect brain only. 

And I don't, which is why I maintain a weak agnosticism on pretty much everything. But, yet, you are claiming that you have knowledge of veracity of your faith. How does this work?

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Perhaps God takes some children early in their lives because He is protecting them from sins He foresaw they would commit in adulthood.

What the fuck?! I can't even imagine the level of fundie think that you must have utilized to pull this one out of your ass. Well then, why doesn't God just kill everyone before the age of three so that they all go to heaven? Wouldn't that be swell? 

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He's actually protecting them by taking them early. Humans just don't have enough information. God has ALL wisdom. He does everything perfectly.

*sigh*

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The whole history of divine revelation as seen with the Hebrew people, the prophets, the Christian saints, etc is strong evidence.

What history?

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God doesn't give 100% proof because then there would be no need for faith.

Well, that's convenient. Why should I have faith in him instead of Allah?

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Scripture says without faith it is impossible to please Him. The evidence in history, nature, the life of Christ, and what we know in the inner recesses of our hearts, is good enough.

What evidence in history and nature? The birth, life, death, and resurrection Jesus is based on older pagan religions, and theists have failed to even prove that a person named Jesus existed at the time. 

http://www.rationalresponders.com/silence_screams_no_contemporary_historical_accounts_quotjesus

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All the excuses that there wasn't enough evidence, will not hold-up on judgement day. God can see through all the crap, lies and excuses.

There's virtually zero evidence. I could form a better argument for FSM. Hell, the increase in global temperature has been shown to be related to the decrease in the number of pirates.

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When you die and descend into Hell, you will change your tune real fast. I gurantee it.

Oooooohhh, scare tactics. How frightening! (shiver) (shudder)

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Desdenova
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GreekOrthodoxy wrote: You

GreekOrthodoxy wrote:


 You atheists are living a total lie. You are fighting against something you KNOW is true. People don't create websites, forums and dedicate their whole lives to an agenda attacking something they know is not true. How many websites and forums are there attacking the existence of the tooth fairy? The fact is that you are fighting against something you know is real --hence your anger. The anger is against a real thing -- a person (God) according to Fr. Seraphim Rose. He used to be an atheist, and tested with a genius level IQ while still in High School. He later joined the beatnick generation, got into Buddhism, Taoism (got his M.A. in Chinese under America's tops scholar) and later an Orthodox Christian, priest and monk  -- died in 1982.

So, all those sites debunking UFO's. Bigfoot, and the Lovh Ness monster prove that UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster exist? Do you really think that skeptics really believe in the stuff they debunk? Are you really that incredibly, delusionally stupid?

If I said I believed in the tooth fairy, you would just laugh at me and move on. You wouldn't devote so much time and energy in websites, videos, books, blogs. forums, etc trying to disprove to me the tooth fairy doesn't exist. There's no reason to. Because we all know it's silly. But because you know God exists, (every man knows this: see Rom.1, Rom. 2; John 1:3) and that there are very powerful arguments in favor of His existence, you are commited to your agenda. Atheists know what God expects of them -- a moral life. That's why they're so pissed. And they don't like the idea that there is something or someone more powerful and wiseer then they.

Since you can't even demonstrate reasonably that a god exists, how can you even pretend to think that your invisible sky fairy is wiser and more powerful than us?

I belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, also known as Eastern Orthodoxy. We have 2,000 years of vindication. The lives of our many thousands of saints (which you know nothing of) vindicate the truths of Christianity and prove to the world that Christianity WORKS. History proves it. We have 2,000 years of vindication.

Gee, if longevity equals truth, then the Shinto religion must be the true one. Unfortunately for you, longevity proves nothing.

The skeptic might have had a case against us had Christianity been created a decade ago. But unfortunately for them, we have 2,000 years of vindication.

Using your very own convoluted logic, Christianity must be wrong since it has not been around as long as several other religions.

The lives of our many thousands of saints from the middle east, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Georgia, etc, proves that Christ sent the Holy Spirit into His Church for the sanctification of souls. The holiness of our saints proves it. Christianity turns sinners into saints. The message works! History proves it. But the Devil makes people only see and focus on the negatives (child abuses in the Catholic Church, Inquisition).

If the alleged saints prove Christianity, then all the Nazi soldiers that died for Hitler proves that Hitler was right. Those guys at the Nuremberg trials were martyred Nazi saints, again, using your own convoluted logic here.  Logic can be fatal when used improperly. Smiling

Here is a video of some icons of our saints

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8D2KEY0okY

And here is a link to a video of the Four True Gods. Bonham died for your sins!

http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?artist=993&vid=85109

 

WHY WON'T GOD HEAL AMPUTEES?

The question as to why God won't heal amputess, is silly.

First, how do you know He hasn't? Have you interviewed everysingle person who ever lived?

Second, it's a straw man argument (fallacy). God never said He would heal amputees.

Gotcha, you can't explain why your fictional sky daddy can't regrow limbs, so you call it a straw man. Please show me where in the Bible it says he WON'T regrow limbs. Please provide evidence of one person that HAS regrown a limb.

Third, one Orthodox bishop once told me that the world does not have the same level of spiritual energy that it had at the time of Christ and the first few centuries. The world and the Church itself is too sinful for this kind of grace (miracle). We are approaching the great apostasy (loss of faith) that was prophesied to come. Mankind is just too sinful. The time of the great saints is over. Those were the kind of people who performed great miracles. However, there are still many miracles in the world. God has not left His Church.

So there is spiritual energy? What do you measure it with? Energy is demonstratible, you know. Therefore ther must be some device for measuring the ambient background spiritual energy and comparing it to the background spiritual energy of the church. Otherwise you are just pulling lies out of your ass.

Fourth, SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS (8th century) had his hand amputated by heretics, and he was healed by the Holy Virgin Mary over night.  Saint John was a defender of the faith (worthy of such a miracle) and a saint. He prayed before an icon of Mary in the night. When he awoke his hand was restored.

Gosh, didn't you just say that god never said he would heal amputees? Furthermore, the only account of his regrowing a limb comes two hundred and fifty years after his death. There was absolutely no mention of this alleged event before then.

I heard one atheist say Christianity poisons everything.

This is a ludicrous statement.

Only ludicrous if you prove it wrong. Not saying that I agree with it, but why do you disagree with it?

First, again, we have 2,000 years of vindication in the lives of our many thousands of saints and millions of martyrs. History proves the Christian program works -- the saints prove it.

Hitler was right. Dead Nazi's prove it.

The critics spend their whole lives attacking the Bible. But in the mean time the Orthodox Church has produced thousands of saints. The critic needs to get off his ivory tower and come back down to earth to see what's happening.

Anyone can proclaim anyone a saint. So what? According to the Church of the Subgenius, one of my best friends is a saint.

Second, over 80% of all American hospitals, orphanges, universities, and all charity organizations, were founded by Christians. Tell them Christianity poisons everything when your lying helpless in one of their hospital beds.

Got the documentation to back those percentages? Again, not denying them, but want to know if you have researched your bullshit of if you are just cut & pasting some other ignorant fundies bullshit.


BACKSLIDING CHRISTIANS

Lastly, those Evangelical or Protestant "Christians" who leave their faith (I don't know of any Orthodox Christian who ever has left the faith), and become atheists, pagans or witches, usually become very bitter and angry people.

Really now, have you met and talked to all of them? Am I bitter and angry?

The apostasy (loff of faith) is predicted to occur just before the coming of the Antichrist. Saint Paul talks about this.

Before Nero? Seriously dude, Nero was the antichrist.

Christ said that those who fall away so easily because they can't deal with tests and trials, are like bad ground where seeds fall but cannot grow. -Luke 8

I handle tests and trials quite well. I guess this means that Jesus was a damned dirty liar.

In speaking about backslider and apostates, the Bible says "THE DOG HAS TURNED TO ITS OWN VOMIT AGAIN."

Nice! Always wrap things up with a random insult from the Bible. No better way to win an argument.

LASTLY

God allows death and children to die first of all because since He gives life, He has every right to take it. Life is a prividelge, not a right. He never had to give anyone life in the first place. How do you know He's not taking them to a better place?

So he lets child molesters do their thing because it is his right. What a swell guy that god fella is! Able to stop it, but why should he? After all, that buggered little boy should look up to heaven and thank god that he is alive to be ravaged. Ummm hmmmmm!

Second, you are opperating from the position of insufficient knowledge. You just don't have enough information. A brain that is still evolving (according to evolution), cannot claim absolute and objective knowledge about anything. These are properties of a perfect brain only. Perhaps God takes some children early in their lives because He is protecting them from sins He foresaw they would commit in adulthood. He's actually protecting them by taking them early. Humans just don't have enough information. God has ALL wisdom. He does everything perfectly.

I've never claimed all information. I do however claim enough information to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that YOUR god is a piece of composite fiction.

 

The whole history of divine revelation as seen with the Hebrew people, the prophets, the Christian saints, etc is strong evidence. God doesn't give 100% proof because then there would be no need for faith. Scripture says without faith it is impossiible to please Him. The evidence in history, nature, the life of Christ, and what we know in the inner recesses of our hearts, is good enough. All the excuses that there wasn't enough evidence, will not hold-up on judgement day. God can see through all the crap, lies and excuses.

 

Enough divine revelation to tease them, but not enough to actually help them. Yep, great guy. Might white of him to prepare them for that whole holocaust thing, don't ya think?

When you die and descend into Hell, you will change your tune real fast. I gurantee it.

I'll hold the door open for ya, buddy. Have a great day, and try not to hurt yourself coming down from that ivory tower of yours. Smiling


 

It takes a village to raise an idiot.

Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.

Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.


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butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:
GreekOrthodoxy wrote:
You atheists are living a total lie. You are fighting against something you KNOW is true.
I hope you can support this claim with logic and evidence.
I hope you're not holding your breath for that.


 

GreekOrthodoxy wrote:
When you die and descend into Hell, you will change your tune real fast. I gurantee it.
Yet again the argument from fear. I do wish they'd read the forums for a while before spouting off - this shit gets so repetitive.

"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray


BobSpence
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GreekOrthodoxy wrote: You

GreekOrthodoxy wrote:


 You atheists are living a total lie. You are fighting against something you KNOW is true. People don't create websites, forums and dedicate their whole lives to an agenda attacking something they know is not true. How many websites and forums are there attacking the existence of the tooth fairy?

No one is attacking the tooth-fairy, just as this site doesn't attack God. We are fighting against the belief in God. 

The belief in God obviously exists, whereas wide-spread belief in the tooth-fairy does not.

It is because we think it is not good to believe strongly in something for which there is little or no evidence, and which involves other beliefs which can motivate people to do things harmful to themselves and society at large.

Now you obviously don't agree that there is no good evidence for God, but this opening statement is demonstrably based on a total misconception. Your assertion that we KNOW God is true is both arrogant and ignorant. If you just accused us of being seriously in error and deluded, etc, that would be a legitimate position for you to take.

However, to assert that we are lying when we say in all honesty that we have no such knowledge is both insulting and very foolish on your part. It tells us that you believe at least one thing ('Atheists know God is true') which we are in a position to know is totally mistaken. So we are fully justified in not taking the rest of your claims seriously.

Quite apart from the gross error in logic displayed by your conflation of "attacking belief in X" with "attacking X".

So in that one statement, you reveal in an absolutely undeniable manner that you don't understand logic and have a totally mistaken idea about people who don't share your beliefs. Two absolute errors, whatever the truth about the existence of God or the truth of scripture.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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I can't remember ever seeing

I can't remember ever seeing tooth-fairy belief leading to anyone trying to restrict other peoples' rights through the law (see prop 18, the fucktard pro-life movement, censorship, etc. ), discrimination (against women, non-believers and gays), trying to introduce bullshit into science classes (creationism) but religion certainly does this all the time.

Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team


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BobSpence1 wrote:No one is

BobSpence1 wrote:

No one is attacking the tooth-fairy, just as this site doesn't attack God. We are fighting against the belief in God.

But BELIEF is an emotion and according to you, emotions are reducible to physical activity.  And in fact physical activity is dictated by the laws of nature which would mean that people who believe in God have no choice but to believe in God, so you can't hold the responsible. 

But in accordance with your worldview, why don't you simply invent a pill that cures theism? 

Quote:
The belief in God obviously exists, whereas wide-spread belief in the tooth-fairy does not.

Actually, many kids believe in the tooth fairy, perhaps enough to consider it a "wide-spread belief."

Quote:
It is because we think it is not good to believe strongly in something for which there is little or no evidence, and which involves other beliefs which can motivate people to do things harmful to themselves and society at large.

Oh yes, I can totally see the destruction inherent in phrases like "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others". 


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GreekOrthodoxy wrote:

GreekOrthodoxy wrote:
You atheists are living a total lie. You are fighting against something you KNOW is true. People don't create websites, forums and dedicate their whole lives to an agenda attacking something they know is not true. How many websites and forums are there attacking the existence of the tooth fairy? The fact is that you are fighting against something you know is real --hence your anger. The anger is against a real thing -- a person (God) according to Fr. Seraphim Rose. He used to be an atheist, and tested with a genius level IQ while still in High School. He later joined the beatnick generation, got into Buddhism, Taoism (got his M.A. in Chinese under America's tops scholar) and later an Orthodox Christian, priest and monk -- died in 1982.

Fr. Seraphim Rose was an ignorant superstitious crackpot who just made up bullshit and lied that it was true - even though he had no evidence that it was true. He was not an intellectual – he was just a prejudiced bigot. Fr. Rose demonstrated an arrogance that exceeded megalomania because he believed that he could know that something was true, when there was no reasonable evidence that it was true. There are lots of very intelligent people that live in insane asylums and others who are just as insane, like Fr. Rose, who spread their evil delusions amongst the gullible.

We secularists are here supporting the struggle against evil. Lies are evil because life depends on truth so lies are anti-life. Claiming that something is true without reasonable evidence that its true, is lying. It is the evil lies that make us angry and we should be justifiably angry about your evil lies. Religion is evil because it is lies, and religious people who are arguing for religion are just spreading evil lies.

Irrational lies such as communism, totalitarianism and religion are especially evil because history has shown that these lies have caused otherwise good people to torture and murder tens of millions of people, and religious people who are arguing for religion are just spreading these kinds of evil irrational lies.

GreekOrthodoxy wrote:
If I said I believed in the tooth fairy, you would just laugh at me and move on. You wouldn't devote so much time and energy in websites, videos, books, blogs. forums, etc trying to disprove to me the tooth fairy doesn't exist. There's no reason to. Because we all know it's silly. But because you know God exists, (every man knows this: see Rom.1, Rom. 2; John 1:3) and that there are very powerful arguments in favor of His existence, you are commited to your agenda. Atheists know what God expects of them -- a moral life. That's why they're so pissed. And they don't like the idea that there is something or someone more powerful and wiseer then they.

Your belief in the tooth fairy is different than your belief in God, because belief in the tooth fairy is not responsible for otherwise good people torturing and murdering tens of millions of people. Your belief in the tooth fairy is not responsible for your support for making the world an authoritarian concentration camp – hell on earth.

Your bible is a book of Christian fiction and fantasy. The bible is not a source of knowledge – it’s just trashy pulp fiction. Jesus never existed, Paul never existed, the apostles never existed – they are all just fictional characters in fictional stories.

There is no reasonable evidence that Christianity even existed before the fourth century. The early history of your Greek Orthodox church is a fraud.

We all know that we do not believe that god exists, so all us atheists are absolutely sure that Paul and Fr. Rose and you are all demented liars. You have no evidence at all for your claim that we believe in God and therefore it is objectively demonstrated that you’re a liar, and everyone can know that Paul and Fr. Rose and you are all demented liars. Paul says that everyone believes in God because Paul is a demented liar. His epistles are full of claims without evidence – he constantly lies. Paul probably had some kind of brain disease that caused him to have delusional visions. His revelation is not knowledge, but just the delusions of a diseased mind.

There are no arguments at all that God exists except those based on logical fallacies, such as, equivocation, circular reasoning, special pleading, argument from ignorance or appeal to consequences. All the effort expended inventing and supporting arguments for God based on logical fallacies are good evidence that there is no god. Your so called “powerful arguments” are just delusions like your delusional belief in the Greek Orthodox religion and your delusional belief in non-existent entities such as Jesus, the apostles, Yahweh, Satan, early Christens.

God is impossible. Why don't you prove that your god is at least possible. Instead of giving us hokey flawed arguments of his existance, why don't you show us the evidence that it is at least possible for God to exist, or that there is a god, or that early Greek orthodox history is real, or that Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Paul or the apostles ever existed, or that the gospels are not fiction, or that the Christianity of your creed existed before the fourth century?

After all, only an insane crackpot would believe fantastic stories without reasonable evidence, right?

when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"


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"There is no reasonable

"There is no reasonable evidence that Christianity even existed before the fourth century."

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

 

Soooooo um.. we have Celsus a 2nd century philosopher and opponent of a non-existent 4th century lately developed Christianity ....

 

yeah... uh huh

 

 


jcgadfly
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WillieBop wrote:"There is no

WillieBop wrote:

"There is no reasonable evidence that Christianity even existed before the fourth century."

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

 

Soooooo um.. we have Celsus a 2nd century philosopher and opponent of a non-existent 4th century lately developed Christianity ....

 

yeah... uh huh

 

 

I believe he was trying to say that the Greek Orthodox church (the only one GreekOrthodoxy acknowledges as Christianity) didn't exist until the 4th century.

As for the religion that was built around the cobbling together of Canaanite mythology, Gnostic thought and hero myths of various civilizations, yeah, that was around earlier.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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WillieBop wrote:"There is no

WillieBop wrote:

"There is no reasonable evidence that Christianity even existed before the fourth century."

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

Soooooo um.. we have Celsus a 2nd century philosopher and opponent of a non-existent 4th century lately developed Christianity ....

yeah... uh huh

Wow you read my entire response and the only thing you have to pick on is my claim that there is no reasonable evidence for Christianity before the 4th century - and all you can cite is Celsus.

Celsus has no evidential value.

Supposedly someone named Origen wrote a book called "Contra Celsum" supposedly around 250 CE, that might be fiction or might be a later forgery. "Contra Celsum" is a polemic supposedly against another book called "The True Word" that was supposedly written by Celsus supposedly around 178 CE. If he existed, then Origen could simply be wrong about when "The True Word" was written or who wrote it. We do not have any extent works of Celsus. We do not have any contemporaneous authors who mention Celsus or "The True Word". In 178 CE, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth would have been, at most, a tiny cult, and there is no reason that Celsus or anyone else would write a polemic against them. There is no reason that Origin would write a polemic against a book that was supposedly written 70 years previous to Origen’s polemic.

I am not sure exactly what would be required to show that "Contra Celsum" is reliable, but here is my proposal.

1) Please provide evidence that Origin wrote "Contra Celsum", and that it is not a later forgery and it has not been tampered with.

2) Please provide evidence that "Contra Celsum" is reliable including that it is not fiction.

3) Please provide reliable evidence that Celsus wrote "The True Word" and that he wrote it around 178 CE.

To satisfy 1) You should at least provide the original copy of "Contra Celsum" in Origin’s hand and an original of another work of Origin so we can compare handwriting, and also provide carbon dating of both documents to the time of Origen so we know that the documents are not just from the same copyists.

To satisfy 2), please provide a copy of "The True Word" carbon dated before 250 with text that matches the quoted text in "Contra Celsum".

To satisfy 3), please provide an original copy of "The True Word" and an original of another work by Celsus so we could compare handwriting, and also provide carbon dating of both documents to the time of Celsus so we know that the documents are not just from the same copyists. Also, please prove that neither of the original of "Contra Celsum" and the original of "The True Word" have been tampered with e.g. show that they were never ever in the possession of anyone (such as Christians) who might want to alter them.

Alternatively, you could provide any writing that:

1) unambiguously indicates that a substantial group of people believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a deity,

2) that could not have been tampered with, and

3) that has been carbon dated to whatever date you claim Christianity was founded.

One of the many problems (such as the possibility of forgery) with citing Paul or Justin Martyr or Irenaeus or Origin as examples, to show that Christianity existed, is that they could have just been isolated cranks without any following at all. If some isolated crank comes up with their own belief system that just happens to match Christianity and writes about it, then that does not indicate that Christianity existed at all. Christianity is supposed to be a religion with churches and congregations. You need evidence of a substantial numbers of followers of Jesus of Nazareth to show that Christianity existed. How many? at least a few hundred.

when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"


I AM GOD AS YOU
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Religion (B.S.) and Gawed

Religion (B.S.) and Gawed (reality),  is an oxymoron, an obvious contradictory paradox. Reading the ancient words of the god of abe creators is like listening to a 5 yr old muse on QM, to then be retold by the other kids.   

The bibles offer some information bits of their ancient civilization, and some insight as to ancient intuitive "gnosis" wisdom of oneness (thermodynamics) , and lots of lessons of our human ancestors and present ignorance.  

... blah, blah ... hey, let's party ... enough of that old shit .... yeah, fantasy religion just doesn't much want to go away ... okay, back to the battle of healing the sick ... but let's flaunt the party of we the free,  as everyone is invited out of their idol worship darkness  ....  

... and now a tedious sermon alerting to the danger of schizoidism (confusion) ... OUCH.

KING CRIMSON - 21st CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN  - 5 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMjniYd4E8&feature=related

   ... and now one from my late freedom teacher mom ... such a cool little song.

Andy Williams - Born Free  - 2 min  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZHaQ3C3xQo
 

 

     


WillieBop
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Just to clarify, you are

Just to clarify, you are claiming that Christianity, not a specific sect or perhaps theological belief, but the religion in any form did not exist until the 4th century, ie 301 AD?


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WillieBop wrote: Just to

WillieBop wrote:

Just to clarify, you are claiming that Christianity, not a specific sect or perhaps theological belief, but the religion in any form did not exist until the 4th century, ie 301 AD?

No, I am saying that there is not reasonable evidence that Christianity existed as a religion before around 325 CE, and we should presume that it did not exist before 325 CE until there is good evidence to believe that it did exist before 325 CE.

Of course, Christianity might have started anywhere from 200 BC to 325 CE, and I really do not care when it started because I think Mark was most likely written as Jewish fiction, so Christianity is based on fiction whether Mark was originally written in 200 BC, 30 CE, or 300 CE or whenever the religion started.

However, all the evidence that Christianity existed as a religion before 325 CE is just so flimsy that it is not sufficient to convince a reasonable person, who is not biased about the question, that it is an established fact, that Christianity existed before 325 CE.

The art and scrap of text from Dura-Europos dated 257 are useless to prove that Christianity existed because the art could be pagan and the fragment might not refer to Jesus of Nazareth. We have no idea whther it was a house church or a magic shop. There is a pool which is common in pagan cortyards. There is a depiction of three women and a box, a depiction of the good shepard, which was a well known pagan motief, and a depiction of someone wading in water near a boat. The wading in water might be a depiction of the walking-on-water magic trick, but it may not be Jesus of Nazareth, because walking on water was probably a common magic trick of gods and famous gurus at that time. The text of the fragment of paper is not from any known Christian or Jewish writing, and it does not mention Jesus, but metntions someone getting cruxified, and it mentions Joseph of Arimathea, and it has not been carbon dated.

The gospel of Judas is carbon dated to 290, but there is no evidence that anyone believed the gospel of Judas was true except documents that could have been written in the 4th century.

The existence of the text of a story and art relating to that story is not evidence that anyone believed the story. I have lots of texts and art in my house related to stories that I believe are fictional. For example,  I may have several books and a poster of Ariel The Little Mermaid. We require evidence that someone actually worshiped Jesus of Nazareth before the 4th century to believe Christianity existed before the 4th century e.g. where are the Churces supposedly founded by paul?

The graffiti from Rome of someone with a jackal or donkey head with a Tee across it and a caption saying "Alexamenos worships his god" may be 4th century, and we can not tell if its Anubis, or Jesus, or the donkey headed statue that Jews supposedly worshiped in their temple, or whatever. The Tee may just be a tee and not a cross, because the person is not a stick figure, but the tee is just a stick figure.

All the other documents, that are supposedly from before the 4th century, could easily have been created in the 4th century because they have not been carbon dated to before the 4th century. The fact that handwriting stryle of some document, that could be a forgery, is similar to the handwriting style of another document that may or may not be from 150 CE is just not good evidence of anything. We know that religions write fictional documents and forge documents at prodigious rates. All religious scripture is fiction or forgery or propaganda and it can not be relied upon as a source of any information.

Also, many of these supposedly pre-forth-century documents seem to be by individual cranks that do not indicate that Christianity was a viable religion. The existence of a lone crank or even a group of cranks worshiping Mithra or Serapes and calling him Jesus Christ is not evidence of a continuing religion of worshipers of the Jesus of Nazareth of the gospels.

Dozens of times in my adult life, Bible archaeologists (fraudulent quacks and insane crackpots) have announced proof of Noah's Ark or the Exodus or Solomon’s mines or Solomon’s temple or a first century church and every time it was bullshit.

 

 

 

when you say "faith" I think "evil lies"
when you say "god" I think "santa clause"


pauljohntheskeptic
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Very well presented

Very well presented Patcleaver. When those making claims for Christianity as a religion can actually present something that is not a multiple over the years copy dating to the beginning they claim maybe there may be something to even consider. Nice post.

____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me

"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.


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This is one of the most

This is one of the most colossally absurd things I've ever heard.  You are either severely lacking in thought power or a lunatic.  Either way I have no intention of wasting my time with the massive crushing weight of evidence that makes your view idiotic.  Five to ten minutes of research on the web should have long ago disabused you of such nonsense. What you've said is the equivalent of  http://www.timecube.com/ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBsxqQIu_5s

I don't attempt rational discussion with the crazy homeless guy on the corner and I won't with someone as clearly out of touch with simple fact as you. Or put more bluntly, back away from the crazy person and don't make eye contact.


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Nothing is certain.

You cannot prove something does not exist, however you can logically determine probability of something existing. I agree with you, Patcleaver, that since there is no evidence of his existance that one should assume God does not exist. However, I want it to be noted the certainty is improbable, and thus saying that "God is impossible" isn't a completely rational statement.

I do agree with your argument, and if you're unclear about mine then I would welcome you to look at a post I made about the subject of certainty and probability. I do very much hope you have time to read this comment even though you already have so many. I think you'd be pleased with my conclusions.

Ultimately I'm glad you are convicted enough to make yourself heard, but I hope you're open minded enough to accept the various possibilities.

Ignore conventional morality. Think for yourself. Live well.