Atheism to defeat religion by 2038?

123 LC

Pushtrak wrote: »

Sources outside the bible for claims of the time don't stand up to what is claimed in the bible. In the bible, there are all manner of miracle claims. Hasn't exactly been doing any such thing lately, even using lately very loosely. People claim a sole survivor in an accident as proof of god, or answers to prayers. God could easily prove itself if it wished.

tbh i'm not really a bible type of person. i believe in god, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything in the bible?

shizz

smash wrote: »

I'm guessing I'm the 3rd person on philologos' ignore list considering he's continuously talking about genesis but not replying to this post http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=79192480&postcount=366

Because God. Don't be silly smash.

philologos

shizz wrote: »

OK so you disagree with god creating the world being incompatible with modern science. Do you believe that, putting it simply, God *poofed* the earth into existence? Or rather that the earth was created from the gas and rock that clumped together after the birth of our sun?

I think God created all things, and that science describes that process. I don't believe anything would exist without God, or anything even could exist.

I believe that the earth was created from gas and rock that clumped together after the birth of our sun only because God caused these things to actually happen.

It's not either / or in the slightest. It seems we've been talking past each other the last few posts because of that distinction.

123 LC

shizz wrote: »

Opinion does need evidence if you want it to be worth anything. I'll put it another way. Why should anyone listen to your opinion if you don't base your opinion off some sort of evidence?

What you are talking about is faith. Faith doesn't need evidence. To use faith as your evidence is to say that "your belief is that there is a god". If you were to say "my opinion is there is a god" I would require you to provide evidence for your opinion to be worth anything.

you could probably tell me that, since you have been listening to my opinion for the last hour or so, albeit the absence of 'evidence'.

fine i will call my opinion my faith, they are 2 different words for the same thing for me, so it doesn't change what i believe in

smash

123 LC wrote: »

this is an argument for someone who has run low on arguments :P there is evidence god exists, whether you are able to visualise or believe this evidence is up to the person

There is NO evidence.

liveya wrote: »

Genesis is a religious text for religious purposes, so your argument is void. There is such thing as progress, as in learning more truths as we move along in time.

Ah here we go again, cherry pick at the bible and interpret it differently time and time again to find what suits your argument. How very christian of you.

liveya wrote: »

But what's the point. You atheists babble on with the same old rubbish, ignoring replies, so you won't have to challenge your position. This is why I just cannot respect most atheists here, with their bad theology and strawman Christianity.

I don't think any atheists ignore replies or babble on. The bible pushers are the ones who do that. You just did it above.

shizz

philologos wrote: »

I think God created all things, and that science describes that process. I don't believe anything would exist without God, or anything even could exist.

I believe that the earth was created from gas and rock that clumped together after the birth of our sun only because God caused these things to actually happen.

It's not either / or in the slightest. It seems we've been talking past each other the last few posts because of that distinction.

So would you say God, in a sense, moulded the earth into what it is by physically creating the forces involved to do so, or is it simply that god created the universe and because of that all processes there after are by default due to him?

philologos

shizz wrote: »

So would you say God, in a sense, moulded the earth into what it is by physically creating the forces involved to do so, or is it simply that god created the universe and because of that all processes there after are by default due to him?

God created everything, and was actively involved in that process. It's why people like Isaac Newton for example could be Christian and be a scientist. He believed that he was looking into the very hand of God in Creation when he was doing science.

shizz

123 LC wrote: »

you could probably tell me that, since you have been listening to my opinion for the last hour or so, albeit the absence of 'evidence'.

fine i will call my opinion my faith, they are 2 different words for the same thing for me, so it doesn't change what i believe in

Perhaps I phrased that wrong. What I should of said is why should anyone respect your opinion if it isn't based off of evidence.

Just wondering but is there any reason why you feel you don't need evidence? Why is faith enough? I mean, due to the nature of faith you will never get confirmation if what you believe in is true?

Ghost Buster

An observation:
All of Philologos' examples of 'evidence' for things simply link to previous posts by Philologos.
Does anyone care to follow the infinite links back to see if they actually lead to anything of substance?

Opticom

shizz wrote: »

Got any evidence for the non physical there?

Consciousness for a start.

How exactly could a physical cause have created all physical matter ?

shizz

philologos wrote: »

God created everything, and was actively involved in that process. It's why people like Isaac Newton for example could be Christian and be a scientist. He believed that he was looking into the very hand of God in Creation when he was doing science.

Fair enough. Just trying to gauge exactly where you were coming from. Admittedly you have put a lot more time into reading and trying to understand the bible than I have so I could never give a good discussion with you there. I just thought I saw a contradiction in your belief from what you said. I fundamentally am not able to take the bible serious considering, as smash put it to you, it isn't a credible source as you don't know the author(s).

Pushtrak

liveya wrote: »

You can't say anything is an illusion, until you absolutely know the truth yourself, which as a subjectivist, would never happen because there is not truth? Maybe you're not a subjectivist, but even if you weren't you need to prove God does not exist, until then it's a matter of faith.

No one can prove a god doesn't exist. We can assess the claims made by religion though. And if you do this critically, you'll see religion coming up wanting.

Secondly, it's funny you bring up illusions, because that can work against you. I'm sure you find it comforting that in your faith, there is no judgement? Indeed..

What is my faith precisely? And I'd like you to elaborate on that judgement bit.

The only reason why atheism is suitable for some is because the subjective value that is a necessary requirement for faith is absent, so the idea of somebody having faith in God, seems absurd.

Translation: I'm not going to believe it without evidence. Yes, indeed.

What actually serves to increase my faith is atheism itself, which carries its own terrible, bad theology and a strawman version of Christianity.

Try and lay out the case better than this. Present your position rather than doing so in such an abstract fashion.

(Btw, figured out why atheists don't attack buddhism yet?

I can't speak for anyone else, but my priority is relating to Catholicism/Christianity because I know more on this than any other. And I don't feel the need to read up on other religions and try to debunk them. They don't have influence here. If that were to change, I'd adapt and change my strategy to include them in my scorn more.

98% of the human race that ever lived were wrong, we are the intellectual few! The chosen ones!

Make that 100%. People are wrong about all manner of things. The pertinent point is what are we wrong about, how we establish in what things we are right, et cetera.

Hurrah for snobbism.

*Removes monocle*

In all seriousness, though, I'm not a snob. And this last snide isn't really adding anything to the discussion except to give me a bit of a laugh. I guess that is enough, though. Keep it up. In all fairness, though. You presented a better post than most in the thread on the opposite side. Stick around.

Opticom wrote: »

If religion or evidence never existed, that would still be no argument that a God cannot exist.

Ah, you want us to try and defeat the deistic god. Unnecessary, as the deistic god would have completely different attributes than one found in any of the holy texts. One no more needs to debunk the deistic god to challenge Yahweh than they need to challenge Vishnu.

liveya wrote: »

Genesis is a religious text for religious purposes, so your argument is void. There is such thing as progress, as in learning more truths as we move along in time.

Religious purpose? I'd like to hear what that means to you. And why allegory is effective when a simplistic literal writing at the beginning might have had a more timeless quality.

Yes, we do learn more as we move along. But this is presupposing we aren't clutching a two thousand year old document. I don't mean this in the sense a religious person can't find new stuff about the world/be a scientist, but they put it aside in the name of finding more out about the world. As an example, Georges Lemaître.

philologos

shizz wrote: »

Fair enough. Just trying to gauge exactly where you were coming from. Admittedly you have put a lot more time into reading and trying to understand the bible than I have so I could never give a good discussion with you there. I just thought I saw a contradiction in your belief from what you said. I fundamentally am not able to take the bible serious considering, as smash put it to you, it isn't a credible source as you don't know the author(s).

I disagree with smash and with you. The Bible isn't a single text, it is a compendium of texts. We know the author in the vast majority of cases. In a few cases we don't, but they certainly aren't a majority.

We need to distinguish what people claim about the Bible from what is actually true about the Bible.

You claim that you are not able to take the Bible serious, but have you done any research into it, or do you just blindly assume that it is false? If it is mere assumption, it couldn't be that you know all that much about it?

Have you really given the Bible a genuine chance, or do you just not want to consider it? If the latter one can't call this an intellectual inquiry.

Sarky

Opticom wrote: »

Consciousness for a start.

So you hold no stock in consciousness being an emergent property of a complex system? Science is making some really good inroads into that, but here, have a simpler example: Hydrogen isn't wet. Oxygen isn't wet. Neither contain a trace of "wetness", but Combine them and they create something that does. Where did the wetness come from? If we follow your logic, water is a crazy mysterious substance that has magical properties.

Find a better "for a start" example, please.

shizz

Opticom wrote: »

Consciousness for a start.

How exactly could a physical cause have created all physical matter ?

Mmmmmm sorry that's not evidence, considering it can only exist through physical matter. It's not something that is understood fully and frankly it is another example of labelling something which is not understood as having a separate "magical" explanation all together.

123 LC

shizz wrote: »

Perhaps I phrased that wrong. What I should of said is why should anyone respect your opinion if it isn't based off of evidence.

Just wondering but is there any reason why you feel you don't need evidence? Why is faith enough? I mean, due to the nature of faith you will never get confirmation if what you believe in is true?

when i die i will, that's what i believe though and i understand you don't, so i really think this argument is going nowhere (as i now realise that arguments with atheists seems to lead to them always vehemently stating their right, without any attempt at understanding the fact that faith is something you can't explain, you have it or you don't, you can lose it, you can gain it later in life, but its a wonderful place to be in life when you have it, when you know you will live after dying etc)

philologos

123 LC wrote: »

tbh i'm not really a bible type of person. i believe in god, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything in the bible?

How then, can I ask, do you know anything about God in the absence of any form of clear revelation about Him?

Would you call yourself a Christian, or just a generic god-believer? If you're the latter, you might find this interesting reading.

smash

philologos wrote: »

I disagree with smash and with you. The Bible isn't a single text, it is a compendium of texts. We know the author in the vast majority of cases. In a few cases we don't, but they certainly aren't a majority.

We need to distinguish what people claim about the Bible from what is actually true about the Bible.

You claim that you are not able to take the Bible serious, but have you done any research into it, or do you just blindly assume that it is false? If it is mere assumption, it couldn't be that you know all that much about it?

Have you really given the Bible a genuine chance, or do you just not want to consider it? If the latter one can't call this an intellectual inquiry.

How can you believe anything which starts off by preaching about a god and creation from passages which have no credible source? This alone makes all further authors lack credibility.

I really fail to see why anyone at all should just decide to give the bible a chance and believe what it says just because it's written there without solid backup or foundations.

shizz

philologos wrote: »

I disagree with smash and with you. The Bible isn't a single text, it is a compendium of texts. We know the author in the vast majority of cases. In a few cases we don't, but they certainly aren't a majority.

We need to distinguish what people claim about the Bible from what is actually true about the Bible.

You claim that you are not able to take the Bible serious, but have you done any research into it, or do you just blindly assume that it is false? If it is mere assumption, it couldn't be that you know all that much about it?

Have you really given the Bible a genuine chance, or do you just not want to consider it? If the latter one can't call this an intellectual inquiry.

I have always intended on eventually reading the bible, and I will. I have seen snippets presented to me by both sides. I just can't take accept its premise.

I have always had trouble with the notion that the only evidence to accept the bible as true is the bible itself. Its a wonderful spiralling situation.

Pushtrak

123 LC wrote: »

tbh i'm not really a bible type of person. i believe in god, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything in the bible?

Aren't you afraid that you will be judged for this, as you believe there is judgement in the afterlife? Oh, sorry. Forgot that one is judged on belief, not good deeds.

philologos wrote: »

God created everything, and was actively involved in that process. It's why people like Isaac Newton for example could be Christian and be a scientist. He believed that he was looking into the very hand of God in Creation when he was doing science.

He was brilliant, but should we also discuss alchemy?

Sarky wrote: »

SHydrogen isn't wet. Oxygen isn't wet. Neither contain a trace of "wetness", but Combine them and they create something that does. Where did the wetness come from? If we follow your logic, water is a crazy mysterious substance that has magical properties.

Its waiting to be turned in to wine, obviously :pac:

123 LC wrote: »

when i die i will, that's what i believe though and i understand you don't, so i really think this argument is going nowhere (as i now realise that arguments with atheists seems to lead to them always vehemently stating their right, without any attempt at understanding the fact that faith is something you can't explain, you have it or you don't, you can lose it, you can gain it later in life, but its a wonderful place to be in life when you have it, when you know you will live after dying etc)

While you consider all that, and how so many can't believe in what you believe, or believe in other things than you do... Consider part of the religion you worship and how one must follow that religion or go to everlasting damnation. That is a sizeable chunk of the population. 2/3 of the planet. Just something to consider. No, not proof it doesn't exist, just something to show that religion makes people believe some vile stuff.

Opticom

Sarky wrote: »

So you hold no store in consciousness being an emergent property of a complex system? Science is making some really good inroads into that, but here, have a simpler example: Hydrogen isn't wet. Oxygen isn't wet. Neither contain a trace of "wetness", but Combine them and they create something that does. Where did the wetness come from? If we follow your logic, water is a crazy mysterious substance that has magical properties.

Find a better "for a start" example, please.

We're discussing the non physical and you go off on a straw man about a discipline that can, by its very definition and remit, only deal with the physical. Hmmmm

Pedant

philologos wrote: »

God created everything, and was actively involved in that process. It's why people like Isaac Newton for example could be Christian and be a scientist. He believed that he was looking into the very hand of God in Creation when he was doing science.

Philologos' daily routine:

• Wake up.
• Log into computer.
• Open web-browser.
• Go onto boards.ie.
• Cross-reference "atheism" and "god" in boards.ie search.
• See there's any new thread that one hasn't contributed to yet.
• Find one, continue to relentlessly posts the same old material and disregard the fact that it's been nullified several hundred times by other posters.

????????

• "EGO TRIP, MAN!" - *snorts in deeply*

In other news, I found a funny parody on the Catholic Church:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs6qZd_xP1w

Corkfeen

123 LC wrote: »

this is the point i'm trying to make! i'm trying to show that atheists have no proof as to how the world began ie before the big bang, while religous people have no proof as to how god was formed(but for me i don't need it)..so really i don't think that people who don't believe in god can completely proove he can't exist

But science is in pursuit of the answers of these questions instead of using a deity of which there is no evidence for, to explain what they view to be inexplicable. There may not an answer as of yet but that's merely due to the fact that the pursuit of knowledge is a process that is not immediate (It requires innumerable hours of research and experimentation) while religions provide immediate 'answers' that are baseless.

philologos

shizz wrote: »

I have always intended on eventually reading the bible, and I will. I have seen snippets presented to me by both sides. I just can't take accept its premise.

Do you not agree that making such a judgement on the Bible without giving it a fair consideration is much like writing a book review without having read the book you're talking about?

shizz wrote: »

I have always had trouble with the notion that the only evidence to accept the bible as true is the bible itself. Its a wonderful spiralling situation.

I have as well, particularly because I don't believe it to be the only evidence. I believe there are good reasons why one can be a Christian. Many of which I've discussed on different threads on boards.ie, from why I can trust the Bible as being a reliable text, to why I can believe in the specific claims of Jesus Christ, and why I can believe in the specific claims that the Bible makes about humanity.

I'd like to walk through a few of them again before long. I've went through why I can trust the Bible as a historically authentic text in the last week or so, and I hope to go through more reasons as to why I can believe and trust in Jesus wholeheartedly.

shizz

123 LC wrote: »

when i die i will, that's what i believe though and i understand you don't, so i really think this argument is going nowhere (as i now realise that arguments with atheists seems to lead to them always vehemently stating their right, without any attempt at understanding the fact that faith is something you can't explain, you have it or you don't, you can lose it, you can gain it later in life, but its a wonderful place to be in life when you have it, when you know you will live after dying etc)

I haven't been stating I'm right? I've been stating the public consensus of what makes an opinion a credible source.

Isn't it convenient that faith is something you can't explain? All it requires is to believe in something without question for no reason.

I mean the very notion of faith is ludicrous to me. There's all this talk of atheists thinking they are above everyone else but in reality it's the religious who do. Claiming that faith is something wonderful which sets them above the rest of us and warrants them access to some paradise afterlife. When all faith is, is ignorance. Plain and simple.

Opticom

shizz wrote: »

Mmmmmm sorry that's not evidence, considering it can only exist through physical matter. It's not something that is understood fully and frankly it is another example of labelling something which is not understood as having a separate "magical" explanation all together.

That’s more agnosticism, still waiting on any good argument for atheism.

Sarky

Opticom wrote: »

We're discussing the non physical and you go off on a straw man about a discipline that can, by its very definition and remit, only deal with the physical. Hmmmm

Oh dear. Complete misunderstanding of chemistry, emergent properties/processes and complexity. You only said you loved science to get the ride, didn't you?

philologos

Pedant wrote: »

Philologos' daily routine:

• Wake up.
• Log into computer.
• Open web-browser.
• Go onto boards.ie.
• Cross-reference "atheism" and "god" in boards.ie search.
• See there's any new thread that one hasn't contributed to yet.
• Find one, continue to relentlessly posts the same old material and disregard the fact that it's been nullified several hundred times by other posters.

????????

• "EGO TRIP, MAN!" - *snorts in deeply*

So, am I not permitted to post on this thread as much as any atheist or agnostic is?

Oh, and also, if you think I am doing this for an ego-trip you'd be mad. I don't see how it boosts anyone's ego to post about someone else. Simply put, I post about Jesus and about God's word because I think they are abundantly important and indeed necessary for man to be saved from eternal condemnation. That's it.

What gain do I get from posting the Gospel here? The reality is not much apart from being able to brush up for when I speak to other non-Christians around me about Jesus.

Despite how many atheists have claimed to have disproven the Gospel on boards.ie, not one has provided a good reason as to why I should be an atheist rather than a Christian.

Pushtrak

Opticom wrote: »

That’s more agnosticism, still waiting on any good argument for atheism.

Atheism is not there there is no god, it is merely not believing in one. You don't have to like it, but that is what it is. You may find atheists who'll say they believe there isn't a god. I'll say I don't believe there is an interventionist god, as there is a lack of evidence for it. The religion makes the claim, and I find it wanting for evidence.

smash

philologos wrote: »

I post about Jesus and about God's word because I think they are abundantly important and indeed necessary for man to be saved from eternal condemnation. That's it.

That is, in a word, disgusting.

Also very condescending.

liveya wrote: »

You atheists babble on with the same old rubbish, ignoring replies, so you won't have to challenge your position.

Read the rest of the post I just replied to there...