One final reply to this and them I'm back to more important matters. I believe in God...big deal...sue me.
You attacked when I provided my belief and felt it your duty to line by line tell me why I'm wrong. You already stated your point of view... many, many times before. And you are correct, we shouldn't be having this discussion. As I stated earlier, this is a no-win discussion and pointless for us to be "battling" when in the end it is both our "opinions" as neither hypothesis can be proven.
How did I attack and belittle you? I was merely stating MY point of view. If you see that as an attack, maybe we shouldn't be having this discussion.
Have you devised the God test? I'd like to see it. How WOULD you be able to scientifically prove His existence? We still don't know so many things about our world. It is quite arrogant to think that we can "test" for God like we can for the presence of a chemical. Where did aids come from. What causes Autism? How do we cure cancer? We don't have those answers yet or a million others. Do you really think that we can solve the existence of God and not these others? If you go back to phylosophical reasoning, how do we even prove our own existance? Because we perceive it to be so. What if our perception is all wrong? Think Matrix. You can't prove that our reality exists. However, we go off what we know and make the general assumption that our reality is real.
And my point is that if he actually existed, you WOULD be able to scientifically prove his existence. The reason noone can devise an experiment to test for the existence of god is because there is not one shred of evidence on which to base a hypothesis that could be tested.
I believe because I can. I believe because I choose to. I believe because it gives me hope. I believe because the world makes more sense to me in my belief. There is nothing wrong with that. Why would you believe something that has not been proven and is not likely to ever be proven? The non-existance of God is the same as His existance. However, the absence of God in your life does not prove He does not exist. On the contrary, there are those that believe they have felt the presence of God in their lives and that is all the proof they need. I'm not one of those people, but sincerely wish that one day I will be. That is why I believe.
I agree completely, so why would you believe something that has not been proven and is not likely to ever be proven?
What led people to believe the Earth wasn't flat was new evidence. Just like all discoveries, they take time and opportunity. Perhaps we have had neither the time nor the opportunity to discover God. As for physical evidence, some would say that we are the evidence or that this world is. However, I do not think there will ever be physical evidence as God is not physical.
Yes, but what led people to think that the earth wasn't flat? It was because there was physical evidence (such as being able to sail around the world, the fact that a ship's mast dissappears from view as it sails away, etc, etc,) that was inconsistent with a flat earth.
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. We have NO physical evidence that is inconsistent with a world with God either. I had physical evidence of God's existence but got drunk and lost it.
I've heard your broken record about physical evidence. I hope you've heard mine. Hopefully we can agree that there is no physical evidence that can either prove or disprove His existance.
In the case of god, we have NO physical evidence that is inconsistent with a godless world.
In a court of law that would have been considered a loaded statement. You painted your idea with bright colors and flung dung on mine. Put yours out with all the plausibility in the world and framed mine in childish fantasy. As far as I'm concerned, they both seem about as farfectched as can be. It's just a matter of whether you want to believe your greatest grandpa was a spec of slime with no real purpose or something that was created with a divine purpose. If I had my choice...
How did I smear your idea? All I did was contrast the two world views, if I misrepresented yours, feel free to clarify.
Suicide bombers exist with the belief that 70 virgins await them after they complete their divine quest. In addition, they gain the ultimate power in their minds as they will be set among the highest in the afterlife. I'm not sure how much more powerful you can be. It's funny how those in charge never seek that reward.
Then how do explain the prevalence of suicide bombers today? The ones who freely admit their absolute belief that their terrible acts committed in the name of their god will gain them admission to heaven? Do they gain power through those acts?
This is true. They did what they did. In the United States our soldiers do what they do in the service of a belief as well. In fact, any war, battle, conflict, or whatever is best served by people with beliefs. Otherwise, they would look for the first opportunity to escape. Beliefs are what drives all conflicts as those that lack conviction would seek to leave at the onset of any obstacle (especially the likeyhood of death). Do I think that all wars were just? No! Do I believe in the religious wars? No! In fact, my people were often on the "wrong side" in that regard. So, I'm the one that should be pissed. However, religion is what held my people together during those times as well. There were times that their belief in God was the only thing they had left in the world. There were times when they died holding onto that belief. And no...God didn't save them. However, that does not prove the non-existence.
You are correct that the leaders of horrific events are often motivated by power, and simply used religion to coax people along with them. But that doesn't change the fact that the actual foot soldiers in history have often justified their crimes useing their belief in god, and their belief that they are doing what god wants them to do.
Not at all. I implied that she would not have had the great impact on the world that she had. Without religion, I'm sure she would have been one heck of a person. However, it is unlikely that she would have reached the leve that she did without her belief driving her forward. Just like I stated above related to conflict, without motivation, people would give up at the first sign of difficulty. Religion was here motivation.
Yes, there ae plenty of huanitaria efforts that are NOT religious-based. You are correct that you don't need religion or belief in God to be a good person or to do good in the world. Plenty of people are out saving the world who do not fully embrace God. However, because of the belief in God, there are more.
You are implying that Mother Theresa would have done horrible things instead of good things with her life had she not believed in god. Is that truely what you believe? There are also many humanitarian efforts that are NOT driven by religion or belief in god. My point is that you don't need religion or belief in god to be a good person or to do good acts, and that the people who are out there saving the world would be doing that whether or not they believed in god.
Another topic we can agree on. Neither state can be proven or disproven!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, I don't care if you change your mind. I'm not selling my beliefs to you or anybody. I was sharing my view and then defended myself. Your belief is your belief. Go for it. Just stop thinking that the world needs to agree with you.
Again, you can't prove that something doesn't exist. There will never be scientific proof that god doesn't exist. Currently, there is no evidence that he does exist either. If and when that changes, I will happily change my mind. Until then, I see no purpose in believing something that is incredibly unlikely to be true.
I don't really think you got the point. I didn't say not to point out the logical flaw in my argument. You went outside the rules of logic and I merely stated that. The two mathematical error types speak for themselves. I didn't write them.
What you did was to say that under Type 2 that if God exists that he still doesn't exist. That is a logical error.
Let's say you die and face God because He does exist. Let's also say you are a good person and lived a life God would be proud of. Then He looks at his checklist and says "Don't believe in me huh?" Will he send you to hell? Not in my belief. In others', you would. However, I think that being a good person counts the most.
That is a problem with the world. People are always looking at the consequences and thinking that if there are no consequences to their actions, then everything is okay. If you commit murder and get away with it, does that mean there was nothing wrong with the act? I wonder if beating up a homeless person is okay too since nobody will ever do anything about it. Not everything in the world results in consequences, that doesn't dismiss the logic behind the argument.
Big deal if God doesn't smite you for disbelief. Personally, I think that if you meet God when you die there will be a little "oops" pop in your head.
That's cute, you are telling me not to point out the logical flaw in your argument, thereby admitting that you see the flaw yourself. So say I die and I come to face god because it turns out he does exist. Then what? Do you think he will send me to hell to punish me for not believing, despite the fact that I was a good person and lived a good life? What is the "consequence" of my choice? Don't you think that if it really was important to god that we believed in him, that he would show up every now and then?
So, in the cultures where "honor killings" are not just accepted but encouraged, there is morality in that culture? Cultures that tell men to have sex with young virgin girls in order to relieve themselves of a disease by passing it on to the girsl is moral? The idea that one of the first things people did historically after conquering a village was to ra** the woman is moral? It is far from empirical evidence that all cultures are by nature moral. It is more realistic to say that they all have their own sense of morality. In addition, that morality is derived often by those in power.
Murder is more of an instinct when you look back. Before our moral codes, if you wanted something and you were strong enough, you took it. If someone bothered you it was okay to beat or kill them. Sometimes these were viewed publically.
The only evidence that I need to know about believing in God tends to make an impact on the goodness of people is that absent my belief in God I would do things that I would not with the belief. There are desires that I do not act upon because I believe in God. However, there are desires that I act upon despite my belief. When it comes down to it though, I know I would do more things deemed to be immoral by our society if I did not believe in God. My belief in God always drives me to be a better man than I am. That and my love for my family.
People are moral by nature. This is not the same as saying that all people are good, or that people always behave morally. The empirical evidence of this is that accross all cultures, all continents, and all religions, there is something of a moral consensus that it is wrong to kill and to steal, and that it is right to be kind and generous. These morals appear in every culture and every religion because they are HUMAN morals, not RELIGIOUS morals. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that humans would evolve to have morals because they increase our chance of survival.
I could say that you provided not one study to support anything you said. So why is it that you are demanding this of me? As I stated above, I know personally that I behave better because of my belief. In addition, I have friends who I talk to about things we'd love to do but don't because of a desire to be good. Thus, I have primary research to support my theory. I did not say that the lack of belief tends to make people act worse, so please don't read that in.
That is an outright lie. Show me one study that proves it.
I may check back in on the topic later, but I doubt I'll post on it again. I believe what I believe and everyone else does the same.
Take care all.
). And to be fair, I went to a mega-church in Florida for a while... some time after I left, the pastor was arrested for pistol whipping a fellow parishoner at a topless bar! Two bad apples.... A minor part of why I became an athiest, but it didn't change my opinion of church-goers overall.
