GOD: How much do you believe in him?

[Triggaaar]

The scientific community just hates one of their own ever coming out with stuff like this.

Just like the religious albion fans hate DerbyGull posting here.

Come on, do you really walk around on this wonderful planet and witness the billions of miracles going on around you and not question that can't all be by accident.

I question it, and come to the conclusion that there's never been a miracle.

I went to Herstmonceux this year and the guy there was talking about eclipses. He said to me "Do you know, the moon is exactly the right distance between us and the sun and exactly the right size to produce a perfect eclipse". I looked at him and thought and I bet you just take that little miracle as yet another coincidence.

I went there too. Do you realise that the moon was once a similar size to us, until it collided with us, end ever since then it's been getting further away? So yes, right now it's the right distance for a full eclipse, but it used to be too close to produce a perfect eclispe, and in the future it will be much further away and not produce a full eclipse - whoopy do.

There are an estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants currently alive today, and you could have been one of them, but you're lucky enough to be a human instead. Wow, another miracle - or not.

 

[DIRK STEELE]

The same way we can watch 'Most Haunted Live' and still not believe in ghosts, the same way we can watch Derren Brown and not believe in magic or psychic powers. The same way religious people can watch documentaries on evolution and still believe creation theory



The Thinking Atheist - View Blogpost
Why Can't You Leave Religion Alone?
The Thinking Atheist 2011-01-28 14:00:54 | Date Modified: 2011-05-31 12:04:54

The protests come every day from the religious, and they go something like this:

* "Why spend your time disproving God?"

* "Why not just let people believe what they want to believe?"

* "Why can't you leave religion alone?"

As one YouTube commenter said recently, "No one can explain to me why it is so important to convince theists to abandon their beliefs."

The answer is simple. Pages like this one exist because religion exists.

Religion permeates our culture, shows up on our doorsteps with literature, scriptures and threats of eternal damnation, influences our science books, contaminates our political systems, indoctrinates our children and postulates that its doctrine must be followed, lest we be destroyed in body, in soul, or both.

Non-believers are simply responding to the avalanche of religious messages that bears down upon us daily.

Religion gets carte blanche to be as vocal as it wants, to knock on our doors and accost us in our homes, in our places of work, in our personal and professional lives. Believers are charged with a life mission to preach, teach, disciple, shout it from the mountaintops and to "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Religion...is everywhere.

Ask yourself. When's the last time an atheist rang your doorbell with the Good News of Humanism? How often do you find Richard Dawkins books in the dresser drawers of your hotel rooms? When was the last atheist temple erected in your neighborhood? Have you ever attended an atheist revival? Has atheism demanded 10% of your household income? How many dedicated atheist television channels come through your satellite dish? How many atheist verses were you instructed to memorize as a child? When's the last time someone thanked a FARMER (or even the cook) at the dinner table instead of God?

On a more radical front, what's the name of the last atheist who sawed the head off of an "infidel?" Or sentenced a shrouded woman to death for displeasing an oppressive husband? Or strapped explosives to his belt in order to kill hundreds in a public square? Or publicly hung a gay person for his lifestyle?

It's everywhere. Religion is a pounding drum that has gone mostly unanswered for a long, long time. And religion is not satisfied with merely existing quietly in the homes and hearts of the faithful. Its very nature compels the believer to proselytize, preach, promote, convince, convert and prevail. If you play on the team of the religious, your game plan is to stay, always, on offense.

Throughout our history, those who raise a simple hand of protest against these advances have been portrayed as the real problem. Religion has attempted to marginalize and defeat legitimate questions and concerns by indignantly portraying any resistors as misguided, immoral, rudderless, angry, miserable, lost and alone.

And when skepticism challenges wildly improbable (or impossible) stories found in the bible, the Qur'an and other holy books, the religious wail, "Why can't you just leave us alone?"

The irony is thick.

And religion impedes curiosity and inhibits learning, as the much-maligned Creation Museum proves. It stymies critical thinking. It stretches us to believe the unbelievable. And it poisons the foundational teachings we are using to train up the generations of tomorrow.

Pages like mine exist as a response... a counter-argument to ensure that the cacophony of superstition does not go unchallenged. And if your belief system is so undeniable, so factual, so provable, so real and so true, certainly it can withstand the opposing viewpoints presented here and elsewhere. Certainly, it can survive the acid tests.

Just remember. Religion began the argument. It amplifies itself before the world. And it threatens all mankind with punishment upon its rejection.

We are atheists. We are moral. We are reasonable. We are thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, happy, fulfilled and well-informed.

And as long as religion insists on fixing human beings who are not broken, we will respond with the evidence that we are not the problem.

-end

Deserves to be read again and again...

 

[Triggaaar]

Deserves to be read again and again...

Indeed, top post

 

[One Love]

Indeed, top post

Agreed

 

[One Love]

No.. this thread will probably exist for longer than the word association thread... personally I am happy that people have their faith or whatever it takes to allow them to live their lives in joy. As long as they do not impose... or preach... or scare little children into obedience.. or deny science for their own ends etc etc... the truth will emerge eventually... Nighty night.... (las vegan time.... I gotta be up at 6 a.m to listen to the game!! Any live streams? )

Agreed

How long have you lived in Vegas? Serious question, I might know you

 

[El Presidente]

Agreed

We really need a nail on head smiley.

 

[Triggaaar]

We really need a nail on head smiley.

Agreed

 

[beorhthelm]

OK, the short reply.

We created evil deeds, thoughts etc. There is no such thing as evil per se. It's all another part of the experience called life.

We've touched on this before, you can't have light without dark. Bit like looking at a lit candle in the sun.

an interesting defense, denying the terms of the arguement. if there is no evil, then how is God and Jesus "good" in contrast? anyway, i can accept the "experience of life", after all evil is rather a construction of abrahamic religions (and do you see the irony and contradiction of your statement manifesting itself there...). that is why i qualified evil, as including but not limited to war, famine, disease, suffering, abuse.

we do not create famine, disease, illness. only the leaders of our peoples create war and the suffering is often on innocent bystanders. we do not condone or accept abuse, but it happens sadly to the most innocent.

so all you've done is duck the question. God allows all this, why?

I went to Herstmonceux this year and the guy there was talking about eclipses. He said to me "Do you know, the moon is exactly the right distance between us and the sun and exactly the right size to produce a perfect eclipse". I looked at him and thought and I bet you just take that little miracle as yet another coincidence.

i not aware that there is any practical significance to eclipses. just what is the miracle, its only of asthetic meaning, with a nice effect of allowing early astromoners to see the corona (edge of) the Sun. the moon is in fact moving away from us, so at some point in the past the perfect eclipse did not occur and it will not occur in the future.

on miracles in general, why is it only the good things that are classifed as such. what about all the negative things (see above with suffering etc). why is it a miracle when someone comes out of a severe car crash with only a broken leg, when not having the lorry crash in to the family car in the first place, saving the other 3 who died would have been more miraclous? why did God intervene earlier?

 

[One Love]

an interesting defense, denying the terms of the arguement. if there is no evil, then how is God and Jesus "good" in contrast? anyway, i can accept the "experience of life", after all evil is rather a construction of abrahamic religions (and do you see the irony and contradiction of your statement manifesting itself there...). that is why i qualified evil, as including but not limited to war, famine, disease, suffering, abuse.

we do not create famine, disease, illness. only the leaders of our peoples create war and the suffering is often on innocent bystanders. we do not condone or accept abuse, but it happens sadly to the most innocent.

so all you've done is duck the question. God allows all this, why?



i not aware that there is any practical significance to eclipses. just what is the miracle, its only of asthetic meaning, with a nice effect of allowing early astromoners to see the corona (edge of) the Sun. the moon is in fact moving away from us, so at some point in the past the perfect eclipse did not occur and it will not occur in the future.

on miracles in general, why is it only the good things that are classifed as such. what about all the negative things (see above with suffering etc). why is it a miracle when someone comes out of a severe car crash with only a broken leg, when not having the lorry crash in to the family car in the first place, saving the other 3 who died would have been more miraclous? why did God intervene earlier?

A pretty long post and to be honest I'm pretty fed up with the whole thread anyhow.

We wanted free will, we didn't want a god looking over our shoulder cos that that would have lessened the true purpose. We can change it, if the human race develops in consciousness then there will be an end to all wars and suffering. I pray we do learn the lessons of the past so that we all start acting for the benefit of the whole and not for individuals.

When I was talking about miracles I wasn't talking about coming out of a car crash with only a broken leg I was talking about the miracle of human life, consciousness itself etc etc etc

 

[beorhthelm]

We wanted free will, we didn't want a god looking over our shoulder cos that that would have lessened the true purpose. We can change it, if the human race develops in consciousness then there will be an end to all wars and suffering. I pray we do learn the lessons of the past so that we all start acting for the benefit of the whole and not for individuals.

We wanted free will? when? was there a vote? did we have an option? invoking free will is a cope out, we often have no control over events around us (see road accidents) and we are not born with it. a child has no free will, it can not have any effect on its surroundings, yet it may suffer through others or illness. we might develop consciousness to end wars, it wouldn't prevent famine or disease.

what about the world beyond man? it was a parasitic wasp thats immobilises a caterpillar then lays its eggs, with the larvae eating the creature from the inside, that convinced Dawrin there could be no God.

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intentionof their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars. - Darwin

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

Stay strong-in love

For a thread on God there seems to be such an interest from NON believers,try to prove there is a god? well i cannot,nor can science tell me,who or what i am,at a base level,science is a wonderful subject matter,but until science proves that the BIG BANG came from more than just no-thing,or nothing then i will continue to believe.,however when it does the game will be up.

God is not responsible for anything,yet the paradox is,God created ALL.
God is not judgemental.

Replace the word GOD for LIFE is what i say.

Man and that includes me is so hung up on excuses,looking for a God to put all right,yet there is no right or wrong really,200 years ago what was right/wrong is not now,it's a time thing to some degree.

The big Bang? millions of years ago-1 of many,the heart beat of God.

God will send messages throughout the ages,in songs,words,deeds,actions,pict ures,scriptures,movies.

No religion(some are absolute crackpots) is required,yet that is what some folk choose.

See or try to see the beauty in everything,even the so called bad.

I look for no God to take responsibility for my actions and look to him to make good.

we reside in the relative
God resides in the realm of the absolute.


Like you all i have good/bad days....some days i really wonder WTF it's all about.

Why me,why now,why you,why now? remember who we are and remember cause and effect...KARMA works both ways...however some cannot be changed easy for the better of the collective....

Believe whatever you want to believe & always remember that in any given situation in life there is always a way out,no matter what.

The best version

 

[One Love]

We wanted free will? when? was there a vote? did we have an option? invoking free will is a cope out, we often have no control over events around us (see road accidents) and we are not born with it. a child has no free will, it can not have any effect on its surroundings, yet it may suffer through others or illness. we might develop consciousness to end wars, it wouldn't prevent famine or disease.

what about the world beyond man? it was a parasitic wasp thats immobilises a caterpillar then lays its eggs, with the larvae eating the creature from the inside, that convinced Dawrin there could be no God.

If you are saying you don't want your free will, that if there is a god you want him to control you, then ok, I can understand that, it's not like we've made much of a success out of all this is it?

And you don't think that if we all worked together for the good of everyone we could eradicate famine and disease. Really?

There are plenty of what we would call horrible things occurring in the animal kingdom all the time, I believe all of which is there to develop consciousness.

 

[OzMike]

This thread will prove nothing, what will happen will happen regardless of anything.
You can all argue till you are blue in the face, but life goes on, regardless.
Let's just enjoy the sunny days and good results whilst they happen.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

If you are saying you don't want your free will, that if there is a god you want him to control you, then ok, I can understand that, it's not like we've made much of a success out of all this is it?

And you don't think that if we all worked together for the good of everyone we could eradicate famine and disease. Really?

There are plenty of what we would call horrible things occurring in the animal kingdom all the time, I believe all of which is there to develop consciousness.

Hmm,funny i have often thought along the same lines...if you look and study animals you will see,well you will already,maybe others,will see they are not too unalike in certain aspects to humans.

 

[perseus]

God is having an OFF day

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

God is having an OFF day

Actually, his comments about managing at the highest level,maybe eventually for his country,caused a ripple of discontent among his followers,a disturbance in the force,thus producing a narrow first defeat,good in the longer term,however disappointing now,yet soothed somewhat by the home defeat of our rivals,means we should have a peaceful night,free from south London followers.

 

[beorhthelm]

And you don't think that if we all worked together for the good of everyone we could eradicate famine and disease. Really?

yes, we might, but apparently without the help of some invisible deity who hasnt seen fit to eradicate famine and disease (indeed, biblical even used them as weapons and punishment). you evade the problem of these factors being present in the first place. thats ok, because i know there has never been a explaination offered that doesn't devalue or deny the power of God.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

yes, we might, but apparently without the help of some invisible deity who hasnt seen fit to eradicate famine and disease (indeed, biblical even used them as weapons and punishment). you evade the problem of these factors being present in the first place. thats ok, because i know there has never been a explaination offered that doesn't devalue or deny the power of God.

still looking for God to come to the rescue? i could take some degree of responsibility for famine and give up my standard of living,relinquish my cosy UK ivory tower lifestyle and help others in war torn Africa.natural events are just that,disease a by product of perhaps both.

 

[One Love]

Beorhthelm

You misunderstand. We are the creators with our free will.

That's why we are the only ones who can fix it.

How am I evading the problem? WE DID IT

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

You misunderstand. We are the creators with our free will.

That's why we are the only ones who can fix it.

How am I evading the problem? WE DID IT

All of us could take some degree of responsibility,however that would be too much effort and sacrifice-pub,club,holiday,car,bookies,no work...that will do...