Why Are You an Atheist or a Believer?

[Redux]

I get the whole "He who has faith need not question his existence" thing. It's comforting sure, but we are talking about proof of his existence based off ancient texts written by man as a supposed word of god.

Man wrote the bible as a history lesson and we are to accept that as fact yet ignore the time frame it was written. A time when races of people were trying desperately to persuade masses into believing what they "believed". Persuasion during a time of darkness and uncertainty is a powerful motivator.

Serious question Redux.
You obviously believe in spirits and something within us that lives after our physical death since you believe in paranormal activity.

However, you absolutely believe there is no way there is a higher power that this spirit is tied to in some way that lives within us.

How do you reconcile those two things?

I'm not an atheist. I believe that a lot of Christianity is based off of literature written for the purpose of control and stability, not necessarily historical fact.

MY beliefs in the afterlife are that Heaven/Hell are as likely as Reincarnation or Nothing.

We use what, like 11% of our brains? Isn't it possible that the parts of our brain we do not yet understand hold the key to our "souls"? If in death, would it not be possible that a part of our brain is opened that releases our "soul" or our memories/mind, could that not be how people envision past lives? Could that not be what "haunts" people, places or things?

God could just as easily be the answer to how and not just the answer to why. God could be many things, not just one single manifestation of power.

 

[sd'sker]

People hate Jesus, people hate Christianity and for what? Not because of suicide extremists like Islam has...but because Christianity teaches that people will have to have accountability toward God, and that scares the crap out of some of you. Thats why walls have been built up in your minds to reject any potential proof of faith. I can't change your minds, but I suggest reading about biblical prophecy. If you truly want evidence just look at prophecy in the Bible. I hope that you do research biblical prophecy, because if you don't...you have become very closed off to the idea of God.

For the record, the ending of the Bible in revelation perfectly correlates with the Islamic end of times but only as polar opposites. Christianity's Anti-Christ is the exact same person as the Islamic Imam (Sp?)

people hated jesus because he was a political dissident. just like socrates, gandhi, mlk.

and i am accountable to myself, family, and friends. which is more than enough to keep me on the "narrow path."

 

[NUance]

Flew's reasoning is incredibly suspect, unfortunately. He looks at something as complicated as DNA and says, "Welp, I can't figure that out. There must be a god."

Flew stated in a letter to Richard Carrier:

My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [in fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.

So, it's highly challenging for Christians to use Flew as legitimizing their god. Flew did no such thing. Flew specifically said, if there is a god, it is most likely the god described by Aristotle, perhaps not even a conscious god, more a "force of nature."

I dunno. I think that's a pretty good reason. I mean, DNA, reproduction, the human brain, atomic interactions[SIZE=11pt]—[/SIZE]all these things are incredibly complicated. We (humans) consider ourselves pretty smart and yet all of humanity's resources in the world could not create one butterfly. But some would have us believe that all the lifeforms and complex systems that we don't even understand formed over eons by happenstance.

But let's say the earth and all living creatures did form by happenstance. The conditions were just right on our little planet—not too hot, not too cold—and all the right chemicals came together to form life from the primordial ooze. Then our lucky streak continued, as we somehow became able to reproduce and formed into increasingly complex animal and plant lifeforms until, PRESTO, we have modern day earth! Woo hoo, we got lucky! The odds of this happening are a millionty-billionty-trillionty taken to the googleplex power. But earth was really, really lucky and everything fell into place for us. So given that, why doesn't the system break down? I mean, if all this happened due to dumb luck, there's a LOT more that can go wrong going forward than can go right.

Here's a hypothetical for what I'm talking about. Imagine that a group of students at a trade school in San Diego create a self driving car. But this trade school isn't Cal Tech, and their self driving car isn't like the sophisticated Google car. Instead, it has a random number generator controlling its speed, and an automatic coin-flipper that controls its direction. Flip-generate_num: go left at 15 mph. Flip-generate_num: turn right and go 23 mph. You get the picture. Let's call this "Lucky Car". Well it's possible that they could point Lucky Car in the right direction and it would make it all the way from San Diego to downtown Manhattan. Lucky Car made all the correct turns and driving maneuvers to traverse 3,000 of American highways and streets using its automatic coin-flipper and random number generator. It turns out that the odds of Lucky Car making it from San Diego to downtown Manhattan are one in a millionty-billionty-trillionty taken to the googleplex power. Coincidentally, these are the same as the odds of earth being created through happenstance. But like all truly random things, Lucky Car is a stochastic vehicle. Past results do not dictate future results. Just like happenstance earth. If Lucky Car really is driven on random operating instructions—like happenstance earth—then in the next few seconds Lucky Car will accelerate to 80 mph and run into a crowd of people waiting to cross the street at 34th and Broadway, crushing several of them against Macy's flagship department store.


So the question I have for you folks who believe in happenstance earth is, why don't you rush out to 7-11 and buy a PowerBall ticket? Because on happenstance earth the odds of the world NOT spinning apart and ending by tomorrow are about the same as the odds of you winning the PowerBall. And while you're at 7-11 will you please get me a kiwi-orange Slurpee? I love those things!

 

[Scratchtown]

Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. - Mark 13:13

and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. - Matthew 10:22

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. - Matthew 24:9

"But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated because of my name. - Luke 21:16-17They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. - John 15:21

People hate Jesus, people hate Christianity and for what? Not because of suicide extremists like Islam has...but because Christianity teaches that people will have to have accountability toward God, and that scares the crap out of some of you. Thats why walls have been built up in your minds to reject any potential proof of faith. I can't change your minds, but I suggest reading about biblical prophecy. If you truly want evidence just look at prophecy in the Bible. I hope that you do research biblical prophecy, because if you don't...you have become very closed off to the idea of God.

For the record, the ending of the Bible in revelation perfectly correlates with the Islamic end of times but only as polar opposites. Christianity's Anti-Christ is the exact same person as the Islamic Imam (Sp?)

Go ask a Jew what they think about the so-called prophecies concerning Jesus. And I'll point it out too: quoting the Bible to make your case about the Bible is sort of begging the question.

Not talking about Biblical Prophecy that has already been fulfilled. I'm talking about the ones to come.

http://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/seven-prophecies-that-must-be-fulfilled-before-jesus-christs-return

 

[sd'sker]

"Although it's fascinating scientifically to have a front-row seat to watch the ice shelf becoming unstable and breaking up, it's bad news for our planet," says Khazendar in a press release. "This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, and soon it will be gone."

link

just read this story and cannot help but marvel at how terrifying this world is and how apparently indifferent god is towards us.

 

[NUance]

"Although it's fascinating scientifically to have a front-row seat to watch the ice shelf becoming unstable and breaking up, it's bad news for our planet," says Khazendar in a press release. "This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, and soon it will be gone."

link

just read this story and cannot help but marvel at how terrifying this world is and how apparently indifferent god is towards us.

Ha ha! 10,000 years? I wish!! It's about a thousand times more likely that there will be a nuclear holocaust before then. Or zombies. lol

 

[knapplc]

Flew's reasoning is incredibly suspect, unfortunately. He looks at something as complicated as DNA and says, "Welp, I can't figure that out. There must be a god."

Flew stated in a letter to Richard Carrier:

My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [in fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.

So, it's highly challenging for Christians to use Flew as legitimizing their god. Flew did no such thing. Flew specifically said, if there is a god, it is most likely the god described by Aristotle, perhaps not even a conscious god, more a "force of nature."

I dunno. I think that's a pretty good reason. I mean, DNA, reproduction, the human brain, atomic interactions[SIZE=11pt]—[/SIZE]all these things are incredibly complicated. We (humans) consider ourselves pretty smart and yet all of humanity's resources in the world could not create one butterfly. But some would have us believe that all the lifeforms and complex systems that we don't even understand formed over eons by happenstance.

But let's say the earth and all living creatures did form by happenstance. The conditions were just right on our little planet—not too hot, not too cold—and all the right chemicals came together to form life from the primordial ooze. Then our lucky streak continued, as we somehow became able to reproduce and formed into increasingly complex animal and plant lifeforms until, PRESTO, we have modern day earth! Woo hoo, we got lucky! The odds of this happening are a millionty-billionty-trillionty taken to the googleplex power. But earth was really, really lucky and everything fell into place for us. So given that, why doesn't the system break down? I mean, if all this happened due to dumb luck, there's a LOT more that can go wrong going forward than can go right.

Here's a hypothetical for what I'm talking about. Imagine that a group of students at a trade school in San Diego create a self driving car. But this trade school isn't Cal Tech, and their self driving car isn't like the sophisticated Google car. Instead, it has a random number generator controlling its speed, and an automatic coin-flipper that controls its direction. Flip-generate_num: go left at 15 mph. Flip-generate_num: turn right and go 23 mph. You get the picture. Let's call this "Lucky Car". Well it's possible that they could point Lucky Car in the right direction and it would make it all the way from San Diego to downtown Manhattan. Lucky Car made all the correct turns and driving maneuvers to traverse 3,000 of American highways and streets using its automatic coin-flipper and random number generator. It turns out that the odds of Lucky Car making it from San Diego to downtown Manhattan are a millionty-billionty-trillionty taken to the googleplex power. Coincidentally, these are the same as the odds of earth being created through happenstance. But like all truly random things, Lucky Car is a stochastic vehicle. Past results do not dictate future results. Just like happenstance earth. If Lucky Car really is driven on random operating instructions—like happenstance earth—then in the next few seconds Lucky Car will accelerate to 80 mph and run into a crowd of people waiting to cross the street at 34th and Broadway, crushing several of them against Macy's flagship store.


So the question I have for you folks who believe in happenstance earth is, why don't you rush out to 7-11 and buy a PowerBall ticket? Because on happenstance earth the odds are greater that the world will spin apart and end by tomorrow than the odds of you winning the PowerBall. And while you're at 7-11 will you please get me a kiwi-orange Slurpee? I love those things!

I completely agree with you. It baffles me that something so complicated as life could form from disparate parts of matter in some primordial goo. The ability to ingest sustenance and turn that into appropriate energy to live, to defend itself from the climate, to reproduce itself, to heal itself, eventually to defend itself from competitors/predators... That is a massive leap forward from "organic material" that we hear about all the time.

The origin of life is a HUGE stumbling block for me. But because I don't understand it doesn't mean that there's a god. I can't fathom why - aside from the fact that it would sell more books - that guy Flew that TGHusker brought up would look at DNA and say, "There has to be Intelligent Design" (paraphrasing).

 

[Redux]

Verbatim, if there is a set path for all of us and our destiny is predetermined, then we are all following it as we should.

Those who have faith were meant to, and those who question that faith were meant to as well. Does that mean that before birth non believers were born simply to fill space only to be cast into hell upon death.

That alone is reason enough to question religion.

 

[StPaulHusker]

Serious question:

Do you folks that have been debating this topic and the changing religion topic and the Stephen Fry meets God topic have these intense conversations with other people in your daily lives or do you just save it for message boards?

I ask because I wonder if I am in the minority when it comes to conversations like this. When someone asks me a personal religious question, I answer it the best I can. If they try to counter point me, I just shrug my shoulders and say good for them. I never argue or debate. It just seems counterproductive to either side's message.

 

[Husker_x]

Flew's reasoning is incredibly suspect, unfortunately. He looks at something as complicated as DNA and says, "Welp, I can't figure that out. There must be a god."

Flew stated in a letter to Richard Carrier:

My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [in fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.

So, it's highly challenging for Christians to use Flew as legitimizing their god. Flew did no such thing. Flew specifically said, if there is a god, it is most likely the god described by Aristotle, perhaps not even a conscious god, more a "force of nature."

I dunno. I think that's a pretty good reason. I mean, DNA, reproduction, the human brain, atomic interactions—[/size]all these things are incredibly complicated. We (humans) consider ourselves pretty smart and yet all of humanity's resources in the world could not create one butterfly. But some would have us believe that all the lifeforms and complex systems that we don't even understand formed over eons by happenstance.

But let's say the earth and all living creatures did form by happenstance. The conditions were just right on our little planet—not too hot, not too cold—and all the right chemicals came together to form life from the primordial ooze. Then our lucky streak continued, as we somehow became able to reproduce and formed into increasingly complex animal and plant lifeforms until, PRESTO, we have modern day earth! Woo hoo, we got lucky! The odds of this happening are a millionty-billionty-trillionty taken to the googleplex power. But earth was really, really lucky and everything fell into place for us. So given that, why doesn't the system break down? I mean, if all this happened due to dumb luck, there's a LOT more that can go wrong going forward than can go right.

Here's a hypothetical for what I'm talking about. Imagine that a group of students at a trade school in San Diego create a self driving car. But this trade school isn't Cal Tech, and their self driving car isn't like the sophisticated Google car. Instead, it has a random number generator controlling its speed, and an automatic coin-flipper that controls its direction. Flip-generate_num: go left at 15 mph. Flip-generate_num: turn right and go 23 mph. You get the picture. Let's call this "Lucky Car". Well it's possible that they could point Lucky Car in the right direction and it would make it all the way from San Diego to downtown Manhattan. Lucky Car made all the correct turns and driving maneuvers to traverse 3,000 of American highways and streets using its automatic coin-flipper and random number generator. It turns out that the odds of Lucky Car making it from San Diego to downtown Manhattan are a millionty-billionty-trillionty taken to the googleplex power. Coincidentally, these are the same as the odds of earth being created through happenstance. But like all truly random things, Lucky Car is a stochastic vehicle. Past results do not dictate future results. Just like happenstance earth. If Lucky Car really is driven on random operating instructions—like happenstance earth—then in the next few seconds Lucky Car will accelerate to 80 mph and run into a crowd of people waiting to cross the street at 34th and Broadway, crushing several of them against Macy's flagship store.

So the question I have for you folks who believe in happenstance earth is, why don't you rush out to 7-11 and buy a PowerBall ticket? Because on happenstance earth the odds are greater that the world will spin apart and end by tomorrow than the odds of you winning the PowerBall. And while you're at 7-11 will you please get me a kiwi-orange Slurpee? I love those things!

I completely agree with you. It baffles me that something so complicated as life could form from disparate parts of matter in some primordial goo. The ability to ingest sustenance and turn that into appropriate energy to live, to defend itself from the climate, to reproduce itself, to heal itself, eventually to defend itself from competitors/predators... That is a massive leap forward from "organic material" that we hear about all the time.

The origin of life is a HUGE stumbling block for me. But because I don't understand it doesn't mean that there's a god. I can't fathom why - aside from the fact that it would sell more books - that guy Flew that TGHusker brought up would look at DNA and say, "There has to be Intelligent Design" (paraphrasing).

One thing I learned from watching a few Great Courses videos on abiogenesis is that defining "life" is nowhere near as cut and dried as our intuition would have us believe. There are many links in the chain that have already been identified. Knowing exactly where to draw the line between alive and not alive is difficult, if not arbitrary.

But yeah. A real head scratcher.

What I can't see is how adding the assumption of an all powerful being no one can detect or communicate with makes this puzzle any simpler. We're just adding an even more complex mystery to the one we already have, and this one comes with the baggage of being both unprovable and unfalsifiable.

 

[Husker_x]

Serious question:

Do you folks that have been debating this topic and the changing religion topic and the Stephen Fry meets God topic have these intense conversations with other people in your daily lives or do you just save it for message boards?

I ask because I wonder if I am in the minority when it comes to conversations like this. When someone asks me a personal religious question, I answer it the best I can. If they try to counter point me, I just shrug my shoulders and say good for them. I never argue or debate. It just seems counterproductive to either side's message.

I've had plenty of friends email me, and in college we'd hash and rehash this stuff all the time.

When I was a believer debate was not as common (except for theological questions). Not much to debate if everyone agrees!

 

[Hammerhead]

We use what, like 11% of our brains? Isn't it possible that the parts of our brain we do not yet understand hold the key to our "souls"? If in death, would it not be possible that a part of our brain is opened that releases our "soul" or our memories/mind, could that not be how people envision past lives? Could that not be what "haunts" people, places or things?

That's actually not true. We use pretty much all of our brains.

Back on the main topic, though (and to be clear, only the first part was directed specifically at 1995's post). Why is it so easy to believe that there's a mystical being in a dimension other than our own who created an entire universe, including a race of beings in his image, and loves all these beings, but will punish them eternally if they don't worship him, yet it's so hard to believe that in an infinite expanse of time, the right conditions to create self-sustaining, gradually-evolving life systems could form?

 

[NUance]

Verbatim, if there is a set path for all of us and our destiny is predetermined, then we are all following it as we should.

Those who have faith were meant to, and those who question that faith were meant to as well. Does that mean that before birth non believers were born simply to fill space only to be cast into hell upon death.

That alone is reason enough to question religion.

This thing about predestination comes from places in the bible that say your name is written in the book of life (or not) before you were born. How can that not be predestination? I've grappled with this question. But it’s really not a question of predestination. I’d say it’s more of a question about what omniscience means. Forget about the book of life for a moment. What if we actually DO have freedom of choice—that is, we can decide our own fate? I think that’s the way it is. I can choose to goof around on Huskerboard all afternoon. Or I can choose to take my deer rifle and climb up a clock tower. The choice is mine. The book of life merely records, ahead of time, what fate we choose for ourselves. It’s like when you were a kid and you held your hand behind your back and asked some person to guess how many fingers you were holding up. If you did this twenty times, and the person guessed correctly twenty times, it wouldn’t mean that you lacked the choice of which fingers to hold up. It would simply mean that somehow the person knew ahead of time what fingers you were going to hold up, regardless of what you chose. Maybe that person could tell the future. Or maybe the person just knew a lot about you and your propensity to select a certain number of fingers to hold up next. So if God has your name written in his book of life, it’s because he’s omniscient and knows what you are going to choose. Or perhaps he lives in a realm outside of our linear time, and he can see in our future, present and past. In any case, I don't think his book of life means that he controls what you do. I think we have freedom of choice inasmuch as we can control our own actions and beliefs. /JMHO

Does that mean that before birth non believers were born simply to fill space only to be cast into hell upon death.

Would you prefer that he only created an earth and filled it with people who did exactly as he wanted?

 

[NUance]

But yeah. A real head scratcher.

What I can't see is how adding the assumption of an all powerful being no one can detect or communicate with makes this puzzle any simpler. We're just adding an even more complex mystery to the one we already have, and this one comes with the baggage of being both unprovable and unfalsifiable.

I'm taking the development of earth up to this point in time as a given. Regardless of whether God created it, or earth's creation resulted from random happenstance. It happened. And that's not what I'm concerned with. What I'm talking about is the odds of the earth maintaining stability from this point forward. It it was random happenstance that resulted in everything up to this point, then it seems overwhelmingly likely that the complex systems of the earth will fail and life on earth will end. For every earth that continues merrily humming along, there must be a million other earths that flame out in a series of explosive, disease ridden disasters every day. For every earth where the outbreak of AIDs is contained, there must be thousands of earths where AIDs goes airborne and snuffs out all human life in a few short months. Think of the consequence for mankind if the earth somehow heated up by 10 degrees Celsius over the next decade, and stayed that way for a few hundred years. Or got colder by 10 degrees. How is it that every day, we are one of the lucky ones? Why is it that the design of all the incredibly complex systems on earth are so robust that we don't simply break down some day and fall by the wayside?

Going forward, when you consider all of the possible things that could go wrong with the complexity of earth's many systems, I don't see how you could avoid thinking that a higher power may have somehow been involved in creation.

 

[knapplc]

Does that mean that before birth non believers were born simply to fill space only to be cast into hell upon death.

Would you prefer that he only created an earth and filled it with people who did exactly as he wanted?

That would be preferable to the vast majority spending eternity being punished for failing to live up to rules that never needed to exist, considering that we should all be in Heaven from the get-go as beloved children.