Are you an atheist? (9 Viewers)

[Mike375]

so they're using the love thine neighbour as thine own proclamation then, are they?

Well if they are only using religion as a front they won't be worried about neighbour/eye etc

 

[Rich]

Well if they are only using religion as a front they won't be worried about neighbour/eye etc

So then by your definition none of them are Christians, have you told Bliar and Bush this stark news?

 

[Mike375]

So then by your definition none of them are Christians, have you told Bliar and Bush this stark news?

If the situation is as you describe then they are not fundamentalist Christians.

 

[Rich]

If the situation is as you describe then they are not fundamentalist Christians.

Which situation?

 

[Mike375]

Which situation?

Sadaam, 9/11, the degree of response etc

 

[JaredNJames]

if man has free will to choose whether or not he believes in god or not, then that is a free choice each person makes.

however, it isnt a free choice is it? you are told you either believe and submit to god and go to heaven where you live happily, or you dont believe and end up in hell.

in terms of choice then yes, nobody forces you to make either answer (unless you are a small child and your parents force the religion on you like you see in documentaries on american religious groups), however, if you are faced with a decision like above, and have someone continuously telling you about the significantly different outcomes where it is either really really nice or horribly bad, then you're more inclined to choose the first. which is how early religion during the past few centuries managed to keep people attending and paying money to them (from secondary school history).

i myself am atheist and would require a serious miracle power to make me think otherwise.
i personnally cant understand how religous people can dismiss all the years of scientific research that have been conducted and studied and updated continuously by multiple people and then choose to believe in one and one book only, which to me is just an equivelant of a harry potter book. over the years, people have had good ideas for stories which have been compiled into a set and used by the various religions for their own means.
the things i see in science and have seen prove to me that there is a basis for them as fact, you cant see radio waves, but the fact you can pick them up on a radio proves they are there. it isnt some miracle or someone willing them to you that allows this to happen. science proved they existed which is why we were able to harness them, create them and use them for radio transmissions.

supernatural occurences are simply things that happen we, as humans cannot quantify, qualitively or subjectively. (god is given simply to bridge the gap and give people something to blame/thank). (please note i have not distinguished between god and God).
remember, all facts and figures are human inventions designed to help us understand and progress. i am complete believer that there are other lifeforms 'out there' and also believe they could be far more technologically advanced ('god like' in other words). things we find true, such as all life needs water may not apply. things like on earth gravity = 1g, however their way to quantify this item may be different (e.g. 1g on earth may be 2g to them). so just because we assign a value to something, doesnt mean it is correct, it is just something we have created.

i read somewhere once about the universe being on a constant cycle, sort of big bang - expansion - contraction - big bang - exp...
has anyone else seen this? if so could you let me know where.
that would clear the issue of before the big bang, but obviously its still infinity. but to be honest i cant see why that is such a problem, science can evolve to accept this. religion just stops.

 

[Mike375]

i read somewhere once about the universe being on a constant cycle, sort of big bang - expansion - contraction - big bang - exp...
has anyone else seen this? if so could you let me know where.
that would clear the issue of before the big bang, but obviously its still infinity. but to be honest i cant see why that is such a problem, science can evolve to accept this. religion just stops.

Search on Hawking God Hawking Beginning and similar and same for Paul Davies. You will get heaps of stuff.

if so could you let me know where.
that would clear the issue of before the big bang

They bail out on pre Big Bang because all physics and time breaks down.

 

[JaredNJames]

i remember reading it somewhere, and there was a lot of detail about (this was a few years ago though so not exactly up to scratch). i will have a look through those searches, however i do know they give up pre-big bang.

for the record im an aerospace engineer and like i said above, an atheist who would require a major miracle to convince me otherwise.

 

[ShaneMan]

Yes I understand. This is what I was trying to say: If we all stopped committing murder, murder would end. I agree with this statement. On the other hand, if god is all powerful, surely human nature is within his control, surely he could make us all stop committing murder if he wanted to, especially murder committed in his name. Yet everyone agrees that "human nature just doesn't work like that". So obviously god has not and will not intervene. So, since god doesn't intervene, then why bother believing in him?

Sorry for the long delay in answering, Alisa. My job is not sitting in front of a computer so I had to leave this morning. I believe God does intervene and has intervened but I believe the type of intervention that you would like to see Him do in order for you to believe in Him will happen, someday. Now I really don't want to get jumped all over for saying that nor do I want to dive into the theology behind it. I have respected how and what everyone else has been saying so I'm asking for the same respect in return. I am not asking anyone to join me in believing that, but hoping that maybe the differences can be enjoyed and not made fun of or implying that someone is stupid or naive for what they believe. My personal experiences have gotten me to the point of what I believe and for my family and I, it works real well. We are not bothering anyone with what we believe and if we are wrong, then the life we live now is comfortable, peaceable, and we enjoy it and afterwards if what I have read from so many here is true, then we'll still be OK. If what I believe is true, then when I leave this earth, it will be even better. My Dad has told me for years that "you will find what your looking for", it appears to me that for you and I, this statement is holding out to be true.

 

[ShaneMan]

apocryphal at best

If that's true then you would need to take it up with Dallimore, he's the one that did the research. He has written a number of biography's and has a reputation as a good biographer. I choose to believe his research is accurate. You can choose otherwise.

 

[Friday]

Just a thought, Friday, but maybe the kind of "god" that would allow these things to happen would/could be the same one that has listened to everyone say they don't want to believe in him, don't want their children to pray to him, don't want to have anything to do with him, do not want to obey his laws, so he has said fine, then do it without my interference and now these folks get to live with the consequences of what they said they wanted. Just a thought (and of course this is based on "if" there is/was a god)

Pretty petty thinking for an all-loving god.

 

[dan-cat]

God's teachings.

There is no contradiction if neighbour loves neighbour....then eye for eye does not arise.

An 'eye for an eye' is dismissed in the New Covenant.

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Pretty petty thinking for an all-loving god.

Seems folks in this discussion want it both ways. Some don't want God interfering in their lives, others think he should control our every movement.

But if we think of God (notice I'm purposefully capitalizing), as a father and draw analogies in our own lives, we might get a better idea of what his motives might be (if that is possible). I purposefully allow my children to do things that I know will hurt them (we're talking minor hurt here, not bad) so they'll learn not to do those things (I do monitor to make sure it won't hurt them too much). And if my children chose to leave me and do the same stupid things, there is no way for me to monitor to make sure they don't get hurt. In that case, they're turning their backs on me, not the other way around...at any rate, I'm definitely not being petty since I love my children whether they decide to stay with me or not.

I realize that this is an over simplistic view of an all powerful God, but it's all my tiny brain can come up with as an analogy, following the leading of the scriptures.

BTW, in my theology classes I always heard of God as all knowing, all powerful, and all present. Never heard all-loving in theology class, though it does say in my Bible (note caps) that God is love and is the source of love (I don't remember right now which Greek word for "love" that verse references).

 

[Darth Vodka]

An 'eye for an eye' is dismissed in the New Covenant.

tit for tat is a highly effective strategy in interated Prisoners' Dilemma though

as discussed in The Selfish Gene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

 

[Alisa]

My personal experiences have gotten me to the point of what I believe and for my family and I, it works real well.

What experiences? What is it about your belief in god that "works real well" for you?

You seem to be implying your post that you didn't want your beliefs questioned, just live and let live, but I think if that were really the case you wouldn't be participating in this discussion, since the whole point of this discussion is to question people's beliefs. As far as the respect thing, I think this has been a very civil discussion for the most part, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.

 

[dan-cat]

My favourite theory for the creation is the Kabalah theory where it, existed, it was not and has not been given a name because to name it would be to limit it and as it was and is everything it cannot be limited to love, hate, good, evil etc. So, it seems that "it" wanted to experience, and this led it to create all of the worlds as a way to experience everything. For this reason every thing and every one has it's own unique experience. If I stand next to you and look at a tree can we both be seeing the same thing? Our eyes must be at the very least 12 inches apart, so is it possible we see the tree exactly the same? When we die, all that we have experienced, and labelled (good, bad etc) is taken back to it so that it knows exactly what that experience was.

How can what is everything create more things?

 

[Alisa]

Now, if some of us are born good and some are born bad, what do you think makes that happen? Could it be that we have struck on the essence of the soul? And if we have a soul, what does it look like? How is it driven? What makes it tick? Could it be the "supernatural" inside us?

I think it is a poorly understood combination of genetics, temperment, and environment, not the "essence of the soul" or the "supernatural inside us" that makes some people "good" and some people "bad".

Not that I believe anything is "super" natural. Just because we don't understand something doesn't make it "supernatural". If you'd shown a torch to a cave man he'd have thought you had supernatural powers, yet, here we are, a few years later in the grand scheme of things, taking things like that for granted.

I completely agree.

 

[KenHigg]

... I think this has been a very civil discussion for the most part, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Amazingly civil

 

[Alisa]

Amazingly civil

Maybe it's because god is interfering

 

[Alc]

I find it very interesting that there has been so much talk of "God" in this thread and not a mention of his counterpart!

Am I to believe that we are all adults here and that, while there are many who are willing to believe in a being that is all loving and all experiencing, nobody believes that you can't have a God without a Devil?

Assuming, just for argument's sake, that God exists, why must there be a counterpart? If God does what he does for reasons that no-one can ever understand, then notions like good and evil are irrelevant, as they might both be the same, taken in some frame of reference we couldn't possibly fathom. Humans may call one thing good and another evil, but - to use an analogy made elsewhere - that's just based on some criteria we've arbitrarily assigned.