I believe in God.

[DangerAardvark]

Originally posted by: Caveman

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Caveman
So, you believe God wants us to suffer?

Why?

You believe that things like birth defects, miscarriages and childhood diseases come from God?

What evidence is there of this? Doesn't logic force us to believe the very definition of "God" would make it impossible for him to hurt us?

Free moral agency is a much more plausible/logical explanation for the ills of the world. There is mountains of irrefutable empiricle evidence generated for us all on a daily basis as we react with other humans.

God is all-knowing. From the moment of Creation, he would have known how everything would transpire, right down to every last birth defect, and stillborn child. Thus you must conclude:
- that this horrible suffering was all part of his grand, mysterious "plan," in which case it's actually a good thing
- he didn't care enough to try again and fix the bugs in his little concoction
- he is amused by suffering

Take your pick.

What about free moral agency? Doesn't everybody want that? Everyone complains when they don't feel "free" to decide for themselves.

Right?

How come one of your choices isn't:
- he lets us do exactly what we want to do because we refuse to learn any other way

Because his very existence is antithetical to free agency. Arguing that he can't by definition harm us, again brings into question his omnipotence. True free agency brings into question his omniscience.

You seem to want your cake and eat it too. You want a benevolent God who allows suffering yet is defined as benevolent and therefor IS benevolent. This a is a direct, unavoidable contradiction.

You say free will also leads to suffering. Yet free will is benevolent. In other words, to give us free will, which is a greater good, he allows us to cause each other and ourselves suffering. This is not a contradiction when it comes to your parents, your government or any manner of earthly power. It only becomes a problem when an all-powerful creator of the universe is thrown in.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark

Originally posted by: Caveman

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Caveman
So, you believe God wants us to suffer?

Why?

You believe that things like birth defects, miscarriages and childhood diseases come from God?

What evidence is there of this? Doesn't logic force us to believe the very definition of "God" would make it impossible for him to hurt us?

Free moral agency is a much more plausible/logical explanation for the ills of the world. There is mountains of irrefutable empiricle evidence generated for us all on a daily basis as we react with other humans.

God is all-knowing. From the moment of Creation, he would have known how everything would transpire, right down to every last birth defect, and stillborn child. Thus you must conclude:
- that this horrible suffering was all part of his grand, mysterious "plan," in which case it's actually a good thing
- he didn't care enough to try again and fix the bugs in his little concoction
- he is amused by suffering

Take your pick.

What about free moral agency? Doesn't everybody want that? Everyone complains when they don't feel "free" to decide for themselves.

Right?

How come one of your choices isn't:
- he lets us do exactly what we want to do because we refuse to learn any other way

Because his very existence is antithetical to free agency. Arguing that he can't by definition harm us, again brings into question his omnipotence. True free agency brings into question his omniscience.

You seem to want your cake and eat it too. You want a benevolent God who allows suffering yet is defined as benevolent and therefor IS benevolent. This a is a direct, unavoidable contradiction.

You say free will also leads to suffering. Yet free will is benevolent. In other words, to give us free will, which is a greater good, he allows us to cause each other and ourselves suffering. This is not a contradiction when it comes to your parents, your government or any manner of earthly power. It only becomes a problem when an all-powerful creator of the universe is thrown in.

Anyone who has read the Bible cannot say that God does not harm, although He may not desire to do so. Ezekiel 18:23 states that He does not desire the death of the wicked. However, in many other verses God states that he cannot abide with sin. And in many other verses it states taht God loves human kind and the creation in general. These ideas do not contradict each other. Much in the same way we can love someone and hate things that they do. Consider a king ruling over his kingdom. If his loved one breaks a law that normally calls for the death of the individual breaking the law, is it unjust for him to have that loved one put to death? Is it unloving to put the individual to death? No, b/c His love for the individual has nothing to do with the need for justice to be done according to the actions of the lawbreaker. Also, Not having the desire to harm someone and actually harming them are 2 different things.

God's omniscience does not bind him from creating free agents. His foreknowledge of the choices and lives of created beings does not prevent or effect the choices of the free agents. Knowledge is not action, knowledge does not influence otehr beings. Knowledge is purely internal until acted upon by the one holding the knowledge. Knowledge is separate from the action of knowledge acted upon.

God's omnipotence does not bind him from creating free agents. Omnipotence does not mean He will automatically destroy or freeze or (insert action word here) anyone who goes against His will. He has control over his own power and can choose how he uses His power. God is also a free agent.

Have you ever played a video game thqat you have beaten already? Have you ever read a book twice even though you know exactly how the book ends and all the details in between? Have you ever built a lego or plastic model according to the instructions? This omniscience in relation to those experiences does not prevent you from engaging in those experiences, does it? Why should God be different, especially when it comes to an experience that is a million times more complex and extraordinary? Why should His foreknowledge prevent him from wanting to build an extraordinary universe inhabited by extraordinary creatures and things? Just b/c He knows the ending and all the details etc? We engage in very similar practice all the time.

Granting beings free will in a world where exercising free will can lead to suffering is not a malevolent thing. The problem with your reasoning is that you assume the granting of free will is done out of benevolence. It is not a thing granted out of benevolence, it is merely a factor in the created world. It is just a matter of fact and is not a moral thing unto itself.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: nkgreen
But I have no physical evidence of love either, and I believe in it.

I do. Norepinephrine, dopamine, pheromones, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus and clinical observation of related neurochemical proportions to human attachment. Science bitch.

Those aren't love. Reality, bitch.

Unless you have a better explanation, they are... bitch.

I don't need to know the right answer to know you have the wrong one, bitch.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: nkgreen
But I have no physical evidence of love either, and I believe in it.

I do. Norepinephrine, dopamine, pheromones, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus and clinical observation of related neurochemical proportions to human attachment. Science bitch.

Those aren't love. Reality, bitch.

What is love? Its a feeling right?

Maybe. Maybe it's more than that. Your problem is that your explanations are circular, in that you arbitrarily define love as tantamount to whatever you can find evidence for and then declare the problem solved. It's really no different than arbitrarily defining the universe as a creation and concluding that it couldn't be a creation without a creator.

The feelings and emotions you feel are chemical reactions occuring in your brain. I dare you to take ecstasy once and tell me you don't love everyone in the room with your state of mind.

I've taken more ecstasy than probably everyone in this thread. I still know the difference between chemical reactions and feelings. I suggest both you and Nanostuff read up on some philosophy of mind and the consequent limitations of reductionism.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: nkgreen
But I have no physical evidence of love either, and I believe in it.

I do. Norepinephrine, dopamine, pheromones, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus and clinical observation of related neurochemical proportions to human attachment. Science bitch.

Those aren't love. Reality, bitch.

What is love? Its a feeling right? The feelings and emotions you feel are chemical reactions occuring in your brain. I dare you to take ecstasy once and tell me you don't love everyone in the room with your state of mind.

Actually the feelings and emotions are electrical impulses. Actually, they're not limited to electricity, more specifically what they are is binary information patterns, electricity just happens to be the way they are propagated. Neurochemicals are just agonists and antagonists, or shortcuts to information transmission.

No, electrical impulses are electrical impulses. Feelings don't exist.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: Caveman

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark

Originally posted by: Caveman

Originally posted by: Vageetasjn

Originally posted by: nkgreen

You should be ashamed of your sin, which God is not responsible for.

Responsibility is a slippery topic to argue, but surely a god would know what would transpire within his diorama project?

?Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God??
-Epicurus

This is one of the oldest arguments...

Epicurus forgot something...

We all want to do it "our way". Why blame God for evil we invent?

We invented birth defects, miscarriages and childhood diseases?

But birth defects aren't evil, you say. And no, from a materialist point of view they're not. They're just natural.

But it turns out when you put someone in charge of the Universe, especially someone you claim to be a moral authority, he turns out to not even be up to the ethical standards of the worst human being.

So, you believe God wants us to suffer?

Why?

You believe that things like birth defects, miscarriages and childhood diseases come from God?

What evidence is there of this? Doesn't logic force us to believe the very definition of "God" would make it impossible for him to hurt us?

Free moral agency is a much more plausible/logical explanation for the ills of the world. There is mountains of irrefutable empiricle evidence generated for us all on a daily basis as we react with other humans.

Only two options if God exists. Either he wants us to suffer, or he is unable or unwilling to stop it. Some have their pet theory that God stays out of everything because of some code that he himself set up. Either way, as the creator of the code, it's still his choice to let suffering exist.

One other problem. If you believe in the Christian God as defined by the bible, he has interfered before many times. There were some people that he was willing to save and some people that he was willing to destroy. So all of the other people that he didn't save, it's because he didn't feel like it.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: JohnCU
OMG I HAVE FINALLY FOUND A TERM FOR WHAT I BELIEVE.

i absolutely hate god if he exists. what a fucking piece of shit.

It was actually this line of reasoning that caused me to cease believing in a God when I was in high school. Following a path of logic, I concluded that if God existed, I considered him to be immoral and absolutely not deserving of worship.

Later on, I realized the simplest explation was the best one. It made much more sense for God to not exist and simply be a human creation, than for him to exist and be such a scumbag.

One of my biggest problems was the passage.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

First it demonstrates that God has an ego. Why would an omnipotent supreme being have an ego? Then he says something about punishing your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren if you do decide to go with another God, which seems to point out that there are actually other ones out there.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
Feelings don't exist.

We both now that's not true... you can't be that thick. It's interesting to wonder what's going on in that little head of yours when you're so sure everyone else is wrong all the while not knowing what right is.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: yowolabi
It was actually this line of reasoning that caused me to cease believing in a God when I was in high school. Following a path of logic, I concluded that if God existed, I considered him to be immoral and absolutely not deserving of worship.

Later on, I realized the simplest explation was the best one. It made much more sense for God to not exist and simply be a human creation, than for him to exist and be such a scumbag.

One of my biggest problems was the passage.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

First it demonstrates that God has an ego. Why would an omnipotent supreme being have an ego? Then he says something about punishing your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren if you do decide to go with another God, which seems to point out that there are actually other ones out there.

It also shows that he's willing to visit punishment upon the innocent.

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark

Originally posted by: Caveman
What about free moral agency? Doesn't everybody want that? Everyone complains when they don't feel "free" to decide for themselves.

Right?

How come one of your choices isn't:
- he lets us do exactly what we want to do because we refuse to learn any other way

Because his very existence is antithetical to free agency. Arguing that he can't by definition harm us, again brings into question his omnipotence. True free agency brings into question his omniscience.

You seem to want your cake and eat it too. You want a benevolent God who allows suffering yet is defined as benevolent and therefor IS benevolent. This a is a direct, unavoidable contradiction.

You say free will also leads to suffering. Yet free will is benevolent. In other words, to give us free will, which is a greater good, he allows us to cause each other and ourselves suffering. This is not a contradiction when it comes to your parents, your government or any manner of earthly power. It only becomes a problem when an all-powerful creator of the universe is thrown in.

The good Aardvark addressed most of the points I was going to make.
To augment/rephrase though, God knows everything. So for us, within our limited scope, we do have free will. But God knew from the moment of Creation, exactly what "free" choices you were going to make, as he knows everything. It's like writing a software program, but you can see in the code that it's going to cause severe data corruption. Then you compile the code anyway, and blame the software for its own mistakes. Problem is, you created it, you saw the problem in advance, and yet you still let it go. That makes you responsible for the error. Same as an all-knowing deity creating a species which is, by his own definition, flawed - flawed to the point where his very first little human creations disobeyed him, flawed to the point where he had to kill everyone but a single family, flawed to the point where it all got so screwed up again that he had to create a son, and have this son brutally murdered.
He knew this would all happen right from the start, so rather than correcting the problems from the start, he allowed them to occur anyway, and then proceeds to punish us for making the mistakes he knew we would make. That strikes me as sadistic.

 

[datalink7]

Originally posted by: Noobtastic

i dont i could ever be an atheist.

theyre way too bitter for my tastes...and very self-righteous.

i mean to come to such a steep conclusion would be hard for me. i dont have the bawls or the soul to do that.

hell isnt for me.

I'm hardly bitter. And I don't think I'm any more self righteous than your average person. What makes you think that I'm bitter?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
Feelings don't exist.

We both now that's not true...

No, we don't. You only assume.

you can't be that thick.

Physician, heal thyself!

It's interesting to wonder what's going on in that little head of yours when you're so sure everyone else is wrong all the while not knowing what right is.

That doesn't refute me.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
That doesn't refute me.

No more than a rock would be aware that it has been refuted.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: JohnCU
OMG I HAVE FINALLY FOUND A TERM FOR WHAT I BELIEVE.

i absolutely hate god if he exists. what a fucking piece of shit.

It was actually this line of reasoning that caused me to cease believing in a God when I was in high school. Following a path of logic, I concluded that if God existed, I considered him to be immoral and absolutely not deserving of worship.

Later on, I realized the simplest explation was the best one. It made much more sense for God to not exist and simply be a human creation, than for him to exist and be such a scumbag.

One of my biggest problems was the passage.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

First it demonstrates that God has an ego. Why would an omnipotent supreme being have an ego? Then he says something about punishing your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren if you do decide to go with another God, which seems to point out that there are actually other ones out there.

yea it started first with me not wanting to believe in a deity, and then as I aged and expanded my knowledge by reading various things and simply pondering my own beliefs... and slowly grew to include the human mind into my non-belief of god to get an understanding of why we even think god exists.

I think it comes down to simply: nobody wants to live in chaos. A world where nothing matters in the end, there is nothing to live for other than happiness and comfort in the present and future, and where all events are simply the effects of natural and universal laws that dictate many things as complete chance. Someones mom actually pulling through cancer? Not an act of god and your praying to it, but rather pure chance. You got lucky and get to live with your mom. Someone elses mom dying? Well, they got screwed by chance.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
That doesn't refute me.

No more than a rock would be aware that it has been refuted.

That doesn't refute me, either. It is amusing to watch you declare victory before mounting an argument, however. You debate like a creationist.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
That doesn't refute me.

No more than a rock would be aware that it has been refuted.

That doesn't refute me, either. It is amusing to watch you declare victory before mounting an argument, however. You debate like a creationist.

My argument has been mounted long ago. In fact earlier you responded to it suggesting it's wrong for no other reason than because you're so darn sure of it. The victory here is obvious to all but the defeated.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
That doesn't refute me.

No more than a rock would be aware that it has been refuted.

That doesn't refute me, either. It is amusing to watch you declare victory before mounting an argument, however. You debate like a creationist.

My argument has been mounted long ago.

Where? In invisible type? You made a series of unsubstantiated assertions, not an argument. If your intention was to mount an argument in support of the empirical reality of feelings, and love in particular, you are invited first to supply a demonstration of the same. Nowhere in this thread was one provided by you. It was simply assumed, as I've already indicated. Don't get all indignant when someone actually points out that the emperor you're fellating isn't wearing any clothes.

In fact earlier you responded to it suggesting it's wrong for no other reason than because you're so darn sure of it.

I am, and absent support for your claims I remain so. Perhaps you should actually follow through on my earlier suggestion to educate yourself before spouting off.

The victory here is obvious to all but the defeated.

That much we can agree on.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
I am, and absent support for your claims I remain so. Perhaps you should actually follow through on my earlier suggestion to educate yourself before spouting off.

See, now you're getting all emotional. Electrons are whizzing around in your brain in all the wrong places. However you are no more to blame than a computer is when unwanted software is ran. Perhaps then all undesired human actions are ultimately excusable?

The virus maker is at fault rather than the virus, but who made the virus, surely the precedence to their actions is to blame, not the maker, ad infinitum.

The universe then is ultimately faultless is it not?

 

[eflat]

Originally posted by: Noobtastic
Can anyone relate?

I believe a supreme being exists, it's just that I do not recognize his/her/its authority.

I don't like him.



Anyone else feel the same way?

That's really funny.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Noobtastic
Can anyone relate?

I believe a supreme being exists, it's just that I do not recognize his/her/its authority.

I don't like him.



Anyone else feel the same way?

i tell my wife i'm agnostic, she says i know he exists, i'm just mad at him. so i guess in her eyes i feel the same way.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
I am, and absent support for your claims I remain so. Perhaps you should actually follow through on my earlier suggestion to educate yourself before spouting off.

See, now you're getting all emotional. Electrons are whizzing around in your brain in all the wrong places. However you are no more to blame than a computer is when unwanted software is ran. Perhaps then all undesired human actions are ultimately excusable?

The virus maker is at fault rather than the virus, but who made the virus, surely the precedence to their actions is to blame, not the maker, ad infinitum.

The universe then is ultimately faultless is it not?

Neo - Why am I here?

The Architect - Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

:laugh:

Well the thing here is, both god and love are creations of our mind, but when I am in love I actually feel something, and I sure as hell dont feel a god anywhere, or any nonexistent being for that matter

 

[meltdown75]

thanks for sharing

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Text

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: destrekor
yea it started first with me not wanting to believe in a deity, and then as I aged and expanded my knowledge by reading various things and simply pondering my own beliefs... and slowly grew to include the human mind into my non-belief of god to get an understanding of why we even think god exists.

I think it comes down to simply: nobody wants to live in chaos. A world where nothing matters in the end, there is nothing to live for other than happiness and comfort in the present and future, and where all events are simply the effects of natural and universal laws that dictate many things as complete chance. Someones mom actually pulling through cancer? Not an act of god and your praying to it, but rather pure chance. You got lucky and get to live with your mom. Someone elses mom dying? Well, they got screwed by chance.

I think it's also partly from a desire to have a parent figure present all the time. When you were little, your parents were the masters of everything. They also brought security - when they were around, you were safe from anything. They could even make monsters under the bed go away. After awhile though, you realize that they're not really all-powerful, but you still want something strong out there, watching over you, because your eyes are also being opened at the same time to the fact that the world can be dangerous and cruel.
What to do? Create a perfectly loving and infinitely powerful "parent" to watch over you all the time, to mete out rewards and punishment, and to help share some accountability in life.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
I am, and absent support for your claims I remain so. Perhaps you should actually follow through on my earlier suggestion to educate yourself before spouting off.

See, now you're getting all emotional.

It would be interesting to see you defend a claim that there might be a true state of non-emotion.

Electrons are whizzing around in your brain in all the wrong places. However you are no more to blame than a computer is when unwanted software is ran. Perhaps then all undesired human actions are ultimately excusable?

This is not in support of your earlier claims.

The virus maker is at fault rather than the virus, but who made the virus, surely the precedence to their actions is to blame, not the maker, ad infinitum.

Neither is this in support of your earlier claims.

The universe then is ultimately faultless is it not?

Apparently no argument will ever be forthcoming from you. I think it is reasonably evident that your claims are without basis in reality -- if they weren't you'd have substantiated them already.

Ironic that you believe something so evidence-less and yet condescend to the religious individuals as though you were not as guilty as they for believing blindly. I pity you.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Cerpin Taxt
I pity you.

No you don't, but I understand why you feel the need to say this. It's much like a homeless man pities the heretic life of a businessman, whatever helps him get through the day.