The Anti-theist Thread

[Starr Polish]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Can anyone answer me as to why there has to be a god?

This is a pretty easily answered if you believe.

Without God, we wouldn't be here.

[jerseydevil]

Yes I do believe in Pangea - but that was millions of years ago before "The Flood" was supposed to have taken place. Science supports Pangea and Plate Tectonics - whereas the bible DOESN'T mention any of that. If god is all knowing - then why isn't any of this stuff in there? And why was Jesus only relegated to Jerusalem (Israel)? Religions come and go - and some day Christianity and Judaism and all the other religions will go the way of the Greek and Roman gods, mythology and religion.

[FrodoFriend]

Ah, back to our lovely debate . . .

1) We atheists have given a lot more facts than you theists.

2) Hmmm, you know what? I also believe in something "self-existent" - matter and energy, that is. Something that everyone, everywhere, knows and agrees exists, even if they express it differently. Something that we touch and see all around us. Makes a lot more sense than an invisible, consistently unrevealed and unproven being that appeared only 2000-3000 years ago in the form of a religion.

3) Wayfarer - your random keyboarding example. The letters are merely a representation of the English language. The same letters could mean something in another language, or one I made up (i.e., order). Just because it doesn't make sense in our language doesn't make it invalid. As long as order exists, it can not be invalid.

4) Just a minor point for Khadrane - I lived in Oregon for 6 years, have been to Mt. St. Helens many times. No canyons, sorry.

Finally, I have one more thing to say to Wayfarer. Basically, your order/chaos arguments boil down to this: "The world exists, therefore God must have created it." Is that what you're saying?

[jerseydevil]

That's not a argument - "Without God, we wouldn't be here."

Do you believe that since I don't believe in a god - that I'd be going to "hell"? And why is your god right and others are wrong?

[Wayfarer]

I'm going to be really breif and pray that you won't hate me for saying so:

"I have chosen to take this fact, and apply the theory of evolution to it."
Some of us apply a creationist viewpoint to the same facts, and get different answers. It's inconclusive. Can't we agree on that?

Ok... Radiocarbon dating.

Hasn't the estimated age of the earth fluctuated between 4 and 6 billion years old? That's a fairly substantial difference.

Now, I could go on like a pedantic git, but I'm sure you are waiting anxiously for this, so you can lampoon it.

I spent way more time than I wanted to on that last message, and I was honestly hoping you would take a while to reply. Carpal tunnel syndrome and all that.

I think Rogue Elf has the right idea... Anyone else wanna take a break?

[FrodoFriend]

Hasn't the estimated age of the earth fluctuated between 4 and 6 billion years old? That's a fairly substantial difference.

It's also much more substantially different from 60, 000 years - and the 4-6 billion has been tested repeatedly, with different methods and by different sources, while the 60,000 years come from one antiquated book.

[Starr Polish]

Note I said it's fairly easily answered IF YOU BELIEVE, jd.

I was never saying you had to accept that answer as a reason for you to believe in God, that is just my 'reason' for God. It is also not my only reason, so don't get started there. The other reasons are fairly personal and I don't feel comfortable sharing them over the internet.

[jerseydevil]

I agree FF - and science is working at searching and finding the truth about the earth's age. The bible and religion just ask you to believe at face value and not to question. To me that makes no sense. I want to know what's true and what's not.

If I said the sky was green - would you just believe me and tell everyone else that the sky was green - or would you go out and look for yourself? Or would you out right refuse to believe my statement without even looking?

[mirrille]

See, here's my problem.

If God exists, he's going to exist whether I believe in him or not. Good for him! If he doesn't, then whether I believe in him or not, he still doesn't exist. (unless inside my mind).

I can read the bible (all the major bits). And I've already decided that, whether real or imagined, I don't like this God. If he were my co-worker, I would have switched jobs. If he were my relative, I would never speak to him. If he were my father, I would run away from home. Seriously, this guy is depraved, I thought. I don't want anything to do with him. When I read some of this stuff (innocent people getting smote b/c they were not sons of Abraham, his favourite family, the entire book of Job, huge parts of Exodus...just open a page to anywhere. there's something fishy going on. It's almost in some places like he is playing a game with these people.) I actually felt sick. I got tricked into this religion?! (accident of being born into semi-Catholic family. )

Maybe God is cruel and unjust and that's why the world is cruel and unjust. But I still want to be a better person. Personally, I can't do that if I'm dragging this unjust religion behind me. In all matters, I will strive for good. But not on God's terms, because there are instances where his idea of good is my idea of wrong. If he doesn't exist, I'm fine off. If he does, I'm going to Hell for it. But if I do, then that just proves I was right about him all along. In that case, maybe Hell is not as bad as God would have us believe.

Any fervent Christians can now start getting upset at me, but bear in mind that this is MY story and MY experience, complete with MY emotions. I'm just sharing, and this is an antitheist thread. Strive for good and I won't bother you. I hope that you can do the same for me.

[Rána Eressëa]

Thank you, mirrille That's exactly how I feel.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Khadrane


The flood. This won't really explain anything to you, because you don't believe in the flood, but wouldn't hundreds of millions of tons of water carve a canyon quicker than normal? When Mt. Saint Helen's blew, a canyon one tenth or one hundredth the size of the Grand Canyon was carved in a day.

I do believe in the flood. A geologic event caused a river flowing from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean Sea to reverse it's flow. The salt water flowed into the fresh water lake causeing it's level to rise rapidly over a periods of months. This had a disaterous effest on the peoples living along the shore. Many were forced to migrate, some ended up in the Sumerian culture, brining the story of the great flood with them. The story became part of local folklore. The Babylonians adopted the story (it's a good yarn!). When Babylon fell to invaders many refugees fled including Abraham and his family fled to the Mediterrean east coast, taking the story with them. Like all sagas it was embelished through the years. There is absolutely no evidence for a global flood, so the story has nothing to do with the Grand Canyon.

[Wayfarer]

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
1) We atheists have given a lot more facts than you theists.

That was intentional, at least on my part. I have agreed repeatedly with your facts, but disagreed with the conclusions you draw from them.

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
2) Hmmm, you know what? I also believe in something "self-existent" - matter and energy, that is. Something that everyone, everywhere, knows and agrees exists, even if they express it differently. Something that we touch and see all around us.

I said that earlier and you disagreed with me. There are two options: God, or The Universe. (The universe being composed of matter and energy)

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
Wayfarer - your random keyboarding example. The letters are merely a representation of the English language. The same letters could mean something in another language, or one I made up (i.e., order). Just because it doesn't make sense in our language doesn't make it invalid. As long as order exists, it can not be invalid.

It may have been a bad example. And Invalid was certainly an awkward word choice. I cannot fathom an example of order from chaos. A-Elf had the right idea when he said something to the effect of 'you can't get somethign from nothing'.

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
4) Just a minor point for Khadrane - I lived in Oregon for 6 years, have been to Mt. St. Helens many times. No canyons, sorry.

Khadrane has been wrong before, but he's on the right track with this one. the mt. saint helens explosion did create a canyon or two. this is the first thing that came up on a google search on the subject. It's a PDF... but you may find it interesting.

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
Finally, I have one more thing to say to Wayfarer. Basically, your order/chaos arguments boil down to this: "The world exists, therefore God must have created it." Is that what you're saying?

No, that's not. My original arguement was something to the effect of 'if humans are a product of the total system, then we have no choice but to believe what we do, and thus we have no reason to believe that we're producta of a total system'.

basically, that naturalism renders human thought acoherent.

[FrodoFriend]

Very good post, mirrille.

I feel much the same way about religion - partly because it takes responsibility from people. If men are naturally sinners, then we're bound to sin. As long as we repent, though, everything will be okay. So we don't have to try and make the world better - according to the Bible, it'll always be bad no matter what we do. See, I sort of have a problem with this. I think people should try.

Furthermore, I simply refuse to hide my head in the sand of religion. Maybe there's nothing after death - maybe we just cease to exist. Maybe no one punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. But I'm not going to blindly believe in some completely ridiculous idea when facts right and left provide a plausible explanation. If we just cease to exist when we die, believing in God isn't going to change that. Meanwhile, I'm going to live my life as best I can, and try to bring joy and knowledge to my life and to the lives of those around me. At least when I die I'll know that I spent my life doing something helpful, not worshiping a phantom.

Besides, I don't like living at the beck and call of some "superior being" who does whatever he likes with me and calls me a sinner even though I never committed any of the sins humanity was supposedly condemned for. I prefer freedom, even at the cost of some pain and fear.

[afro-elf]

first of all what you seem to miss that this is thread is a non-god thread

nothing here is against the force so to speak but against an anthropomorphic or anthropopathic creator

on this thread you have the burden of proof so show us your CHRISTAIN god

So you would have me believe that the bible claims women can have young deer for breasts, the jews were actually snakes, and the romans actually appointed a tomb as the jewish religious leader? That there were men with the faces of lions in israel?

This is the problem when is it literal and when is it poetic. this is were anyone can twist it to their taste

why wouldn't god create a better book




some of my other points were just answered by others

[olsonm]

Quote: jerseydevil
"Religions come and go - and some day Christianity and Judaism and all the other religions will go the way of the Greek and Roman gods, mythology and religion."

Mythological religions may fade, but philosophical religions tend to stick around better (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc.) The mythological aspects of modern religions will probably fall away but the philosophical consideration of "God" will continue unless science disproves its existence.

[olsonm]

accidental double post.

[Wayfarer]

innocent people getting smote b/c they were not sons of Abraham, his favourite family, the entire book of Job, huge parts of Exodus...just open a page to anywhere. there's something fishy going on. It's almost in some places like he is playing a game with these people

I'm not in the least upset with you. Really.

But you don't seem to be looking at the whole picture.

I said before, God let all kinds of nasty stuff happen to the Israelites when they decided they could do better on thier own.

The parts of Exodus you speak of... I can only assume you mean where god kills off a whole bunch of people? Honestly. He's done numerous miracles, saved these people from slavery, and they still have the termenity to tell him he doesn't know what he's doing. Wouldn't you be a bit mad in that situation?

I can't recall any example of god killing people for being non-jews. I do specefically recall he told the jews 'it's not because you're good people, but because the people of canaan have repeatedly and habitually done horrible things, that I'm goign to give you their land'.

job.. well. job is one of my favorite books. You have to realize that it (and ecclesiates) don't make sense unless taken as a whole. Most of the arguments that take place in that book are dumb.

Would I be out of line to suggest that you have problems because you didn't start with a real idea of what the bible says/

[afro-elf]

part I

quote:
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For thousands of years, man thought the earth was flat. And up until about fifty years ago man was certain that the atom was the smallest building- block in the universe. Man was wrong about those things, so couldn't there be a slight possibility that man is wrong about evolution as well?
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quote:
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I don't see how this is at all unreasonable. Do You? Yet the author claims that the evolutionist, in admitting that it is reasonable, is 'betraying science'.
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I would just sub reasonale with POSSIBLE. Its possible that britttany spears is satan incarnate, its possibe that i'll be able to take some genetic material from tolkien's grave and resurect him, it's possible that william shanter will win an academy award.


well maybe not the last one




quote:
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In actuality, the roman catholic church accepted and sponsored astronomers until it was urged to decry them by the scientific aristolian league. They did so not because of what thier religion taught, but because the intellectuals of hte day (who were usually priests or otherwise privilidged) didn't want to accept that the classical greek and roman philosophies (i.e. heliocentricism) were wrong.
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that’s just plain wrong

a handful of greeks postulated a helio-centric view however

European learning was based on the Greek sources that had been passed down, and cosmological and astronomical thought were based on Aristotle and Ptolemy. Aristotle's cosmology of a central Earth surrounded by concentric spherical shells carrying the planets and fixed stars was the basis of European thought from the 12th century CE onward. Technical astronomy, also geocentric, was based on the constructions of excentric circles and epicycles codified in Ptolemy's Almagest (2d. century CE).


The Catholic Church supported a
largely Aristotelian physical world view, skilfully woven into Christian
theology by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

[jerseydevil]

I've read the entire bible - it has a lot of nice stories. But that is all I feel they are. I used to especially read it during Easter, Passover and Christmas. I just don't find it believable. On Sunday - I will watch The Ten Commandments for the 50,000th time probably - just because it's a tradition - not because I believe it happened as it's stated or portrayed. There may have been a Moses - but there may not have been. Or it may have been many people that have since become the "Moses" figure.

[Nibs]

Hey, Wayfarer... did I dictate that you could quote me on that line in your signature, Wayfarer? I'd much rather have "Dibs on his property" in its place .

Well, I agree with Wayfarer, but he is rather blunt, isn't he? Depending upon how you view it, God's actions in the Bible could be considered as either harsh or merciful. Everyone who followed the prophet without doubt or reluctance prospered in the end. Job included. He was being tested, to say the least, and for his short-lived earthly torment he is blessed for eternity in the life after.