Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining

[pacelli]

Did that make any sense?

It sure did.

 

[pacelli]

This kind of logic make me want to drive a power drill through my head. How the hell are you a "devout agnostic"?

LOL. Saying you are a "devout agnostic" is kind of like saying you are a "sovereign citizen" or "virgin whore". It is a figure of speech but is actually an oxymoron.

 

[constituent]

reason=think logically; "The children must learn to reason"

"logic" is the method by which one discovers "proof." (the part of your post I initially responded to.)

"proof (s)" is the foundation of reason.

this entry from wiki adequately sums up the difference

Reason compared to logic, cause and effect thinking, and symbolic thinking

Main articles: Logic, Cause and effect, and Symbols
In modern times, there is an increasing tendency to use the terms "logic" and "reason" interchangeably in philosophical discussion, or to see logic as the most pure or the defining form of reason.
Reason and logic can be thought of as distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. Reason is a type of thought. The word Logic involves the attempt to describe rules by which reason operates, so that orderly reasoning can be taught.

...

Another way to consider the confusion between logic and reason is that computers and animals sometimes perform actions which are apparently logical: from a complex set of data, conclusions are achieved which are "logical". Being a cause of something which humans find logical does not necessarily mean that computers or animals have reason, or even logic in the strict sense.

Recommended Reading:

http://www.librarything.com/work/8223109



....



Anyway, just some food for thought. Have a good weekend!

 

[TortoiseDream]

Nope. I can't reason with someone who doesn't use reason. I'm done.

I, as a human being, am limited to reason, it's all I have and all I've been using to respond to you. If you think my points have flaws, then point them out. Why are you certain that the sky is blue and not green? If you have nothing to say, then are we finished?

I actually like debating people who know how do it. So no, I don't mind reading your posts. I was pissed off last night. Anyway, you can't have the same premises and reach two different conclusions - the whole point of them being mutually exclusive.

I didn't say the pure reason camp and the religious camp had the same premises, I said they had some in common. I agree with your point - different premises reach different conclusions - and in my case, the axioms for pure reason taken as a whole are different than the axioms of religion.

And the dictionary, just like the Bible/Torah/Quran are man made things.

Yes I understand that, and I make that point when criticizing holy scripture myself. But the point is that other people may not agree with us (naively in our opinion) and hold the "word of God" to be correct, regardless of what human reason might say.

First of all, a very civilised debate, and secondly TD thank you for writing in such a way that even a layperson such as myself is able to grasp your points.

Since I start from a traditional faith position i'm already part of the choir, nonetheless you make some very convincing points that in effect we all start from a faith position.

At least that seems to be my understanding.

Mine too.

 

[TheEvilDetector]

If you don't like people who choose not to have imaginary friends floating in the sky, that's your business.

 

[TortoiseDream]

If you don't like people who choose not to have imaginary friends floating in the sky, that's your business.

Perhaps the imagination is real?

 

[TGGRV]

Perhaps the imagination is real?

I imagined I could fly out of my window... What if... Nevermind, I won't try that one.

 

[Dr.3D]

What is considered "strong faith"?

I imagined I could fly out of my window... What if... Nevermind, I won't try that one.

Yeah, I'm with you on that one.

I've often thought about faith and perhaps how the lack of it might keep something from happening that I supposedly had faith would happen.

In my mind, I thought about it being pitch dark in the middle of the night and I'm walking across my yard while having faith there is going to be solid ground under my feet. Now while I'm walking, if I happen to step into the in-ground swimming pool, will my faith that there is going be solid ground under my feet keep me from sinking in the pool?

 

[TheEvilDetector]

Yeah, I'm with you on that one.

I've often thought about faith and perhaps how the lack of it might keep something from happening that I supposedly had faith would happen.

In my mind, I thought about it being pitch dark in the middle of the night and I'm walking across my yard while having faith there is going to be solid ground under my feet. Now while I'm walking, if I happen to step into the in-ground swimming pool, will my faith that there is going be solid ground under my feet keep me from sinking in the pool?

If you really really believe it.

I don't mean just believe it.

I mean really really really really really really really believe it, with a cherry on top and angels and fairies.

 

[TortoiseDream]

I imagined I could fly out of my window... What if... Nevermind, I won't try that one.

I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying, what's really different about a dream and "real" life?

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying, what's really different about a dream and "real" life?

Chatter is initially bright and light-hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis-à-vis,
Some un-hippily
Empirical comment by me

“Not a good start” I think
We’re only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.

 

[Original_Intent]

Here are my questions for religious people.
1. Would you be able to enjoy Heaven knowing that people you love are tormented in Hell?

2. . How come so many times the all-knowing God doesn't seem to have a clue whats gonna happen and has to double check things?

3. How do you justify God punishing Adam and Eve for something the did before having any knowledge about good and evil?

4. What will happen in the Afterlife to the people who never heard about your religion?

5. How do you justify an infinite punishment for a finite crime? Especially from a loving God.

6. How can you have free will if God is omniscient? This means that he knows the decisions you will make, hence you don't really have free will.

7. How come you consider people to have free will considering some decisions lead to eternal torture? It's like saying you have the right to free speech, but if you say X, you will get your hand cut off. Sure, you have the right to free speech, right?

1. I don't believe in the type of Hell you are referring to. C.S. Lewsis said that ultimately there are two types of people; Those who say to God "Thy will be done" and those to whom God says "Thy will be done." People who are in hell are there because they set the wisdom of God at naught and followed thir own counsel. My religion believes that people go to one of three kingdoms after judgement - even the lowest of which is vastly superior to the earth that we live on (which is actually subject to Satan in other words yes we are currently in Hell.)

There are actually a very few that will go to a place worse than here - those with a full knowledge that Jesus is Christ and deny it. In other words, very few people are ever even capable of committing this sin.

Anyway the short answer is there will be no reason to mourn those not where I am because they will be living in exactly the place and condition that they are happiest in. They will not be with God because they don't WANT to be with God they want...well obviously it varies from person to person.

2. I'd need an example, I would likely say I do not believe the scripture you quote to be the infallible word of God.

3. Although Adam and Eve did not know good from evil, they did understand obedience/disobedience and consequences. Also, punish may not really be the right word as again I think that consequence is more accurate. If you tell a child not to cross the road, are you then punishing the child when they are hit by a car?

4. My religion believes in baptism in behalf of the dead. We believe that those who had no opportunity to hear the gospel in this life will have that opportunity presented to them in the afterlife. If they accept the gospel, then the proxy baptism done in their behalf is in effect. After Jesus' resurrection, He said that He had been preaching to the spirits in prison.

5. We believe that the words Infinite and Eternal are names of God. Thus infinite and eternal punishment means, in this case, God's punishment, not unending punishment. Likewise we believe the gift of eternallife means the gift of living the same type of life that God lives (which in this case IS also unending as God's life is unending.)

6. God's omniscience and free will are not mutually exclusive. yes God knows in advance every choice that we will make. But that does not mean that God imposes His will upon us to make those decisions, only that He knows us so intimately that He knows the choice in advance. C.S. Lewsi was once asked that if that were the case, what is the point of life, why did God not just sort us out according to all of the choices that we WOULD make and punish/reward us accordingly? C.S. Lewis responded that knowing that putting dough in an oven at such and such a temperature would make bread did not remove the necessity of putting the dough in the oven if you wanted bread made. In other words, something is done in the process of making these choices, something that God would not do just by "waving His magic wand". So yes He knows already where we will all end up, but we still have to walk the path to get there. And I am sure that I didn;t word it as well as C.S. Lewis, I will try to find the book and anecdote and include it later.

7. I think your analogy is off. I think the truth is saying you have the freedom to say whatever you want, but if you exercise your freedom of speech by walking up to a 250 lb. drunk bodybuilder and telling him he is ugly and his mom is good in bed you will be punished with a bloody nose or worse.

A quote that comes to mind is that we are not so much punished for our sins as we are by our sins. For instance take a child molester...imagine what it would be like to live for eternity knowing what you had done? That is hell. It is not the devil sticking at you with a pitchfork it is an awareness of the consequences of your actions with a fully awakened sense of conscience.

I also believe that people are only punished (or suffer guilt for) things that they were aware were wrong. I believe that an atheist who honestly has sought to find out if there is a God and for whatever reason has not been given a witness - well I would say in his case that if he was trying to dissuade a believer from believing because he thought they had been deceived - and thus was doing him a favor - I cannot imagine that he would be punished for that. However, i don't think that is true for someone who refuses to believe because he knows the changes that would require him or her to make in their own lives. I think many of these people either know better or at one point did know better and talked themselves out of believing. I do believe that these people will be held responsible for any that they lead away from belief. That's one of those situations that "only they and god know what is in ther heart", and I am sure there are as many shades of grey as their are people.

Sorry this is kind of laymanish. It's what I believe, and I jsut felt like answering because as I read your questions I felt like I could answer them. I am sure many of them fall short of satisfying you, but as I said they are sufficient for myself.

 

[thevinci]

TD - I'm not a pure mathematician or an expert logician and this seems to be an area you are particularly adept at..I, perhaps erroneously (due to my lack of complete understanding) suggested in a debate your postulation that both religious and mathematical standpoints are faith-based and received the following response...and require your help....sorry for hijacking this thread :o


Of course there are absolutes in mathematics. Would you for a moment doubt that 2+2=4? OK, let's assume you say even that is not certain. So you say:
"No statement can be absolute."

Now, is the above statement absolute? If yes, then there is something absolute; if not, then you cannot be sure if there are absolute statements...

I would like to point out that in mathematics the word 'theory' has a very different meaning from that which is associated with it when speaking, for example, of the theory of evolution. In mathematics a (formal) theory is a system of axioms from which you derive theorems by means of logical rules. The axioms are not something you assume to be "true"; it's more like the theory is an imaginary world that you examine (or at least that's one way to look at it; I personally think that some things are absolute, like 2+2=4, and that mathematics consists of finding out those absolute truths).

 

[pacelli]

Here are my questions for religious people.

I don't consider myself to be religious, but I'll bite anyways.

1. Would you be able to enjoy Heaven knowing that people you love are tormented in Hell?

I can enjoy my life now knowing that some people I love are in hell at the moment, rotting away in their graves. As for those people that are cast into the lake of fire, it was their choice in life.

2. . How come so many times the all-knowing God doesn't seem to have a clue whats gonna happen and has to double check things?

Has God spoken to you and told you that he doesn't know what in the hell is going on?

3. How do you justify God punishing Adam and Eve for something the did before having any knowledge about good and evil?

Basically God gave them a single law to follow. They broke the law. Punishment followed.

4. What will happen in the Afterlife to the people who never heard about your religion?

I don't have a religion. If someone lived their life following or violating God's legal statutes without ever hearing about them or reading them, the end result will be the same.

5. How do you justify an infinite punishment for a finite crime? Especially from a loving God.

I didn't realize God prescribed infinite punishments. Even the death penalty is a finite punishment.

6. How can you have free will if God is omniscient? This means that he knows the decisions you will make, hence you don't really have free will.

God doesn't control my behavior, and God doesn't tell me what I can and cannot do. God did hire some secretaries to write all of his legal statutes in a number of books over the years, and I have the free will to ignore those books. God has never talked to me or interfered with my decisions. Free will means that I play my game, God plays his.

7. How come you consider people to have free will considering some decisions lead to eternal torture? It's like saying you have the right to free speech, but if you say X, you will get your hand cut off. Sure, you have the right to free speech, right?

Having free will doesn't mean that consequences don't happen. Good and bad consequences happen all of the time. Personal responsibility is a part of freedom. If I make a decision to engage in a behavior that violates a legal statute, then I am going to experience the penalty whether I believe in it or not.

 

[Theocrat]

If There's No God, There's No Reason to Believe There's No God

If "atheism" is true, then there is no reason why we should believe "atheism" is true. In their worldview, we just live in a corrupt and suffering world for a few years, and then we die into nonexistence.

 

[Natalie]

I don't have a problem with atheism. I could not care less if someone is an atheist. Or any religion for that matter. The only thing that bothers me is when atheists preach atheism and bash all religions. They take on that holier-than-thou-I'm right-you're wrong attitude. It happens on RPF all the time. And they ruin perfectly good threads that have nothing to do with religion at all. I'm not talking about all atheists, so don't get offended if you don't do this.

Everyone should just keep their religious (or lack of) beliefs to themselves, IMO.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

The only thing that bothers me is when atheists preach atheism and bash all religions. They take on that holier-than-thou-I'm right-you're wrong attitude.

I would have to agree that I do this. I do this whenever I encounter someone who believes something I think is a fantasy. I take the same stance against 911 truthers, and chemtrailers.

 

[Feenix566]

There's at least one thing more annoying than atheists complaining about religion, and that's religious people complaining about atheists complaining about religion.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

There's at least one thing more annoying than atheists complaining about religion, and that's religious people complaining about atheists complaining about religion.

I still dont understand whats so annoying about the idea of atheists complaining about religion. I can understand when people get upset when atheist call theists names, or are offensive in general. But it seems that the very idea that there are people who dont believe them, is something they find offensive. I guess its because when I say "I dont believe you", I am inherently saying "thats a bunch of shit".

 

[JeNNiF00F00]

I still dont understand whats so annoying about the idea of atheists complaining about religion.

Because Athiests in themselves are religious without even realizing it. Almost more so than the christians that I live around here in the gd bible belt.