Strong Atheism, or Weak Atheism?

[Mechagodzilla]

Money is never a god, unless the person in question believes money is intelligent and has magical powers.

So, if you think god lacks motivations, you would agree that life is not
relevant to this universe and is compromisable.

NO, NO-ONE AGREES WITH THIS; IF YOUR GOD LACKS REASONABLE MOTIVATION, THEN THE REASONABLE CONCLUSION IS THAT YOUR GOD. DOES NOT EXIST.

I put that in capitals because you do not seem to understand basic points.

Why are you thankful to your parents? Is it because a book told you told you to be? Your analogy is obviously false.

Motivation is not a given at all. You're just making that up based on the baseless assumption that god is a given.

We have disproven every claim you have made, on multiple levels.
Stop making lies up. Science doesn't appreciate it and neither would a hypothetical god.

 

[PvtRyan]

And like I already said before: no, I'm not thankful to my parents for creating me, but I am thankful for them taking care of me. Because if they hadn't created me, I would not be here to care about it, now would I? If God did create me, I owe him nothing.

 

[W4d5Y]

Gawd.

Once again, to explain my absolute senselessness of devotion,
as you already pointed out, I can't abandon my faith because of fear.
It is the god of revenge that would punish me if I believed him not to be existent.

Because: -If god exists, I am spared spending my time in hell
-if he doesn't, I don't lose anything.
Therefore an uneasy feeling stalks me, everytime I doubt the reason of god's existance, and therefore doubt his existence as well.

And again, I really didn't get why you think of a lack of motivation.
The sense of humankind's creation is a different topic, which would be "is the history of mankind logical?"

Another point why I don't doubt the existence of higher forces:
Religion DOES make sense, as long as you keep logic within religion itself and don't bring in contradictionary elements from
outside,
SECONDLY: Does the nonexistence of god actually imply nonexistence of supernatural powers?
I believe in ghosts as well, you know, and I've seen some document0ries, and I was just like "POW that is so astonishing, if that was caught on tape, it really couldn't have been a trick on someone's mind!"
Therefore, I conclude that I believe in supernatural powers, and from that point on a receptive towards religious elements as well.

The only thing that bothers me now is seeking for proper motivations.

But in some way, I already find a reason because of myself, because I'm so selfish and are thankful for the existence of me, myself and I.

Also, what's wrong about being happy for things as they are?
If god would be able to proove himself, would there be a reason why we shouldn't be thankful for him?

if they hadn't created me, I would not be here to care about it

But we are here to care about it, right?
The point is not being thankful for not having been not created.
In that instance, your argumentation would fit.
But still, since we ARE here, and have a very existence, we can be thankful for existing. Do you get that?

 

[Absinthe]

First of all, I think you're still not understanding Pascal's Wager. And, unfortunately for you, believing in a vague "vengeful god" doesn't cut it. The gods of all three major Abrahamic religions are vengeful, and believing one over the others still still puts you at risk of being condemned to hellfire if one of the other two exist. You think that by watering down your concept of god, you're safer. But by doing so you deny true faith in any one god. That actually puts you at a greater disadvantage, because at least by professing true faith in one specific god, your chances of reaching paradise in the afterlife were slightly larger.

Secondly, you still have not explained how any religion makes sense. I am not aware of any faith that doesn't have severely fractured internal logic. But that's besides the point. Why wouldn't you take into account external refutations and contradictions? Why would you enclose yourself into a fantasy bubble where the real world doesn't apply? You certainly don't do so with anything else (hopefully). That's like saying it makes sense to think a square is the same as a circle, so long as you ignore their geometric differences.
No, that doesn't make any sense.

Lastly, that you also believe in ghosts and other sorts of unsubstantiated paranormal activity is indicative of a far larger problem than just religious faith itself. We're talking extreme gullibility here.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

No Absinthe, don't you see? The reason there are no ghosts is that all of Earth's ghosts were abducted by aliens. The aliens, in turn, were abducted by a cabal of international bankers*, who were then abducted by gremlins.

If we could only rescue the gremlins from the ghosts who abducted them, we would have all the evidence in the world that ghosts exist.
And if ghosts exist, that proves that you don't go to heaven or hell when you die, which disproves Wadsy's concept of god.

Wait... what?


*By international bankers I of course mean the J-E-W-S

 

[Absinthe]

*By international bankers I of course mean the J-E-W-S

I was reading through your post and was getting worried that you were skirting around the true identity of our enemies. That is until I reached this part.

 

[Jintor]

The point is not being thankful for not having been not created.
In that instance, your argumentation would fit.
But still, since we ARE here, and have a very existence, we can be thankful for existing. Do you get that?

This is like a puddle, being thankful for existing. It's a wonderful hole in the ground, it's been built especially for it, it thinks. Why, it's as if the hole in the ground was made for it! And it is thankful for its existance, and it clings desperately to that belief as it dries up and withers away.

The paranormal stuff is absolute bullshit, ok? And if it's bullshit... well, that's why it leads onto the religious stuff.

And God's a cock. If he was proved to be existant, and to have engineered EVERY SINGLE POINT OF OUR EXISTANCE, then HE'S A TOTAL COCK, and I wouldn't really worship him anyway.

 

[W4d5Y]

ACtually, you're right about the punishment of anybody standing between two opposing sides. It says 'you can be hot or cold, but if you're neither I will spit you out'
But that doesn't really add to your argumentation, because this only would affect me, if god existed. But you pursue the thought that god doesn't exist. Might be I get you wrong, Maybe you do think he exists but still reject the teachings. Means, burn in hell after all.

Well, I said myself there's finally three gods, and we might not find out which 'ideal' to follow. Should we be christians, jews (>equals bankers!) or wrathful muslims? I am afraid that those religions contradict each other, but I believe as long as you try keeping "it real", in my case: study the bible and don't care about what the church says, because the church isn't the word of god, only the bible.

Paranormal bullshit? You can't say that, as long you haven't studied it yourself. I've just recently watched a documentary about reports from pilots...Black box recordings...aaaand Nasa involvement about UFOs. Yeah, you don't believe in "paranormal crap", but you will say "oh, it's the jews. They abducted the elves! :O" so I don't really gaf argueing with you about that. Another time maybe...

Hey, here goes a thought...maybe he isn't in fact a transcendal force in a sense of power, only from exitence and presence itself. Figure, jesus healed the people. Yeah, why wouldn't god himself distribute all these blessings? Maybe he doesn't have the power, maybe due to human ignorance, but still, he sent his son anyway.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

My one argument against God:

Why?? Why would an omnipotent being devote so much energy to create a universe? What is God's motivation to create this cage for us? Especially since he knows everything that will happen before it happens.

He just seems a bit psychotic to me. But then again, any omniscient creature would probably go mad over time...

He can't go mad he's perfect. But then again, he is jealous, says so in the bible, which is a sin, which means he's not perfect, which means he's lying, but he can't lie, because he's perfect. *head explodes*

 

[99.vikram]

Should we be christians, jews (>equals bankers!) or wrathful muslims?

Or zany zionists, or badass buddhists, or hilarious hindus, or...

You generalize too much for my taste. Hundreds of religions exist, and you haven't even considered theologies restricted to small areas. Some of these religions are in direct contradiction with one another. Also, assuming Jesus did all those miracles and the Bible is exactly what he dictated, we have similar anecdotal evidence for miracles by the prophet Mohammed and most of these other Gods/God's messengers (read: godmen). Therefore by your beliefs, all of these divine preachings are true.

So, we have Gods competing for Godly power now? It's a great premise for a RTS game...

 

[CptStern]

my money's on Shiva as he has multiple arms for bitchslapping goodness ..although jesus does have Ninja-Messiah throwing nails

tough call


although Allah is all about stealth ..so you wont even see him coming

 

[Absinthe]

Might be I get you wrong, Maybe you do think he exists but still reject the teachings. Means, burn in hell after all.

I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD

START TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT'S BEING POSTED

Oh, and you watched a documentary. Obviously ghosts exist. My mistake.

 

[MJ12]

Well, I believe the two technical terms you were looking for is "Traditional Athiest" and "Rational Athiest"

 

[W4d5Y]

Well, it's basically which trend we give a thought to. If religions contradict with each other, maybe again they in fact don't. Maybe there is some sort of logic behind all this, that we humans aren't gonna get a grip on that soon...>.>
Again, the bible is defined as the word of god, but who defined it that way? The bible itself. Therefore we cannot automatically assume that every religious writing is some sort of blessing, raining down from the sky.
It's manmade, in the effort of maintaining important stories of those times...

yeah, Absinthe, I get it. You don't believe in god/you ain't thankful/you don't appreciate his existence/ what else I can think of what in at least one way opposes to the idea of a transcendal being.

I just can't figure why we should abandon the confessions of the world.
Finally, religion has given us some point from where to start from concerning human rights.
Weren't the christians under the roman suppression not much more modern in terms of thinking?
Did those christians, living in the catacombs, ever conquer a country?

Of course, today religion tends to be misunderstood. People keep kicking everybody else's ass, only because some written or spoken stuff.
But this is not the point why I think of myself as a believer (although I might or might not be).

All this stuff is just something affecting myself. I mean, you can't stand the presence of stupidity? I even can't really recognize myself anymore, but finally this is my decision.
You made the decision that god was something who has in every imaginable aspect not yet been deemed worthy of being thanked for (what I absolutely can't understand!)

Oh, yeah, I've watched a documentary. What automatically prooves there aren't any ghosts, no matter what the essence of the film is.

 

[Jintor]

Well, it's basically which trend we give a thought to. If religions contradict with each other, maybe again they in fact don't. Maybe there is some sort of logic behind all this, that we humans aren't gonna get a grip on that soon...>.>
Again, the bible is defined as the word of god, but who defined it that way? The bible itself. Therefore we cannot automatically assume that every religious writing is some sort of blessing, raining down from the sky.
It's manmade, in the effort of maintaining important stories of those times...

...

...

I don't even understand what you're arguing for anymore...

yeah, Absinthe, I get it. You don't believe in god/you ain't thankful/you don't appreciate his existence/ what else I can think of what in at least one way opposes to the idea of a transcendal being.

I just can't figure why we should abandon the confessions of the world. Finally, religion has given us some point from where to start from concerning human rights. Weren't the christians under the roman suppression not much more modern in terms of thinking?
Did those christians, living in the catacombs, ever conquer a country?

Would you believe that Rome under the Christians killed more Christians than Rome under the Romans? Most Religion started off as a code of moral values, anyway. They're pretty cool when it's less about 'do this' and more about 'you probably shouldn't do this, people will think you're a dick'.

Of course, today religion tends to be misunderstood. People keep kicking everybody else's ass, only because some written or spoken stuff.
But this is not the point why I think of myself as a believer (although I might or might not be).

???

All this stuff is just something affecting myself. I mean, you can't stand the presence of stupidity? I even can't really recognize myself anymore, but finally this is my decision.
You made the decision that god was something who has in every imaginable aspect not yet been deemed worthy of being thanked for (what I absolutely can't understand!)

Oh, yeah, I've watched a documentary. What automatically prooves there aren't any ghosts, no matter what the essence of the film is.

Film can be fooled. The eyes can be fooled. Senses can be fooled.

Film is not automatic proof. Go to the cinama - do you believe every single thing that is shown there?

 

[Absinthe]

Transcendal beings are not falsifiable. You cannot disprove them, but then you also cannot offer a single shred of human reason for their existence or actions.

They are, in all practical effect and meaning, utterly useless on every conceivable level. They are hollow, easy to invoke, and can be used to explain anything and everything without one ounce of real-world substantiation or explanation.

Even on the remote chance that such a god does exist, you still have no reason to believe it because you have no evidence for it. Although you've admitted this, so I guess you revel in your handicap. And if you can't figure out why faith should be abandoned, then you suffer from reading comprehension too, because reasons have been supplied in at least half the ****ing topics in this forum as of late. That you even entertain the notion that faith has been a boon for human rights shows just how disconnected you are from reality and history.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Lol ghosts.

 

[W4d5Y]

Mhm...I wouldn't say I was disconnected from science...
But the point is, I simply feel comfy, concidering real faith is based on trust; means even if I could proove god's existence, I wouldn't really bother, because this is not what I am looking for.

I also think, if god existed, I'd believe I owed him something. I dunno how you guys think, concidering you brought "I think therefore I am" into the thankfullness, which was in fact quite interesting. You know, I love it when people who more clever than a 15-year old german kid bring in philosophy, no matter what the topic is. I think it's quite cool, when people can explain their view of the world to others by posing an...uh..*checks leo* er, parable.

 

[Adabiviak]

holy smackers - fifteen pages into a heated topic and it's still on topic. Stern, that web page with the religious action figures is awesome.

 

[Jintor]

Mhm...I wouldn't say I was disconnected from science...
But the point is, I simply feel comfy, concidering real faith is based on trust; means even if I could proove god's existence, I wouldn't really bother, because this is not what I am looking for.

I also think, if god existed, I'd believe I owed him something. I dunno how you guys think, concidering you brought "I think therefore I am" into the thankfullness, which was in fact quite interesting. You know, I love it when people who more clever than a 15-year old german kid bring in philosophy, no matter what the topic is. I think it's quite cool, when people can explain their view of the world to others by posing an...uh..*checks leo* er, parable.

Hello, meet an 15-year old Malaysian kid: ME. Don't bring your age into this.

You're arguing quite well for a 15 year old, though, but still... You're an agnostic, correct?

 

[Absinthe]

Mhm...I wouldn't say I was disconnected from science...

You are. You believe in things that have no evidence or rationale to support them.

But the point is, I simply feel comfy, concidering real faith is based on trust; means even if I could proove god's existence, I wouldn't really bother, because this is not what I am looking for.

Comfort does not make something valid. In fact, comfort in spite of reality is warped and even dangerous.
Why don't you trust in the invisible pink unicorn? Why not in the teapot orbiting in space?

Oh wait, I know why. Because you selectively apply a double standard of the burden of proof to your vague conceptualization of god so you can shoehorn reason into your ****ed up distorted worldview.

 

[W4d5Y]

Well, yeah, it's some sort of agnosticism...Actually, I was quite shocked when I was called a agnostic...I always thought I was more tending to simply appreciating the idea of god...
But appearently, I've trapped myself in so much watering that I finally represent a phylosipher's way of thinking (may or may not be)
Also, Agnostics aren't better believers. Allegendly, they are punished just less than those who make a pact with the devil and such stuff- Therefore, eralier points concerning my non-christianity by diminishing faith to a general platform, combining it with probability and thereby nonobedience towards the bible seem in fact to prooven true.
BUT I was only forced to systematically cut my devotion to the only real god because of problem of logical fallacies throughout other religions....

I conclude, please, that I not be called an agnostic.

You are. You believe in things that have no evidence or rationale to support them.

Yeah, concerning god is true, but I am not divided from science in terms of representing the Darwin's evolutiontheory, life-development scenarios, prae-cosmic physical phenomena and such.

Double-burden of proof? Interesting, but apart from phylosophical aspects of the sense of the existence of god, we cannot thereby proove the nonexistence of something that might exist senselessly, or rather something, who's purpose we haven't yet understood?

ABSINTHE: DEFEATER OF THE FAITH

 

[Absinthe]

Yeah, concerning god is true, but I am not divided from science in terms of representing the Darwin's evolutiontheory, life-development scenarios, prae-cosmic physical phenomena and such.

And why? Why do you apply science and rational thinking to evolution, but not god?

Let's break it down. You believe in god because:

1) "You can't disprove him."
2) "He may be a trascendant being that's undetectable to us." This relates to point one.
3) "I don't see what's wrong with it."
4) "Christ is good for human rights."
5) "It's safer than not believing in a god."

Points one and two are pretty much inseparable, and they can apply to millions of other hypothetical creatures and beings. You do not believe in every conceivable entity that may be beyond our human understanding, yet you think belief in god is okay. You are a hypocrite that applies a double standard to his criteria for legitimate belief.

Points three and four are related in that history has pretty much shown that faith is a bad thing. We don't even need to go into extreme examples such as persecution of homosexuals, religious wars, the Inquisition, or abortion clinic bombings. We can settle with the fact that it is encouraging people to be dumb. Intelligent Design is actively trying to push out legitimate science. People are being left to die or suffer because of faith-based reasons against stem cell research. Those without faith are publicly seen as untrustworthy, unpatriotic, and unfit for government office. You are teaching children to believe in fantasy beings as if they were actually real without any evidence.

And point five? Pascal's wager has already been addressed.

Double-burden of proof? Interesting, but apart from phylosophical aspects of the sense of the existence of god, we cannot thereby proove the nonexistence of something that might exist senselessly, or rather something, who's purpose we haven't yet understood?

I ALREADY SAID THIS

An entity that exists does so independently of any evidence or lack thereof.

The question is not necessarily whether something exists, but if it warrants human belief. I've given numerous examples to demonstrate my point and have reiterated this countless times. So if you don't understand it at this point, then I give up.

 

[tehsolace]

Whats interesting to me is the wide-spread belief that thousands of years ago, this omnipotent being chose to "speak" to many individuals and announce his will, and yet for some reason this omnipotent being decides not to do anything of such obvious significance in the present day. These people simply use the excuse "well duh... because if he did, then it would be obvious to everyone that he was real and thats not what he wants". Well what about thousands of years ago??

Why would he not care about revealing his existence thousands of years ago, but suddenly cares in the present day?

 

[delusional]

Whats interesting to me is the wide-spread belief that thousands of years ago, this omnipotent being chose to "speak" to many individuals and announce his will, and yet for some reason this omnipotent being decides not to do anything of such obvious significance in the present day. These people simply use the excuse "well duh... because if he did, then it would be obvious to everyone that he was real and thats not what he wants". Well what about thousands of years ago??

Why would he not care about revealing his existence thousands of years ago, but suddenly cares in the present day?

I had that same question when i was a believer

 

[Jintor]

Obviously because people will try and nuke him. -_-

How can you spot logical fallacies in other religions without running straight into the ones that exist in Christianity? They're everywhere!

 

[W4d5Y]

I said there's fallacy throughout although I cannot verify this. Maybe there's some passage in the bible stating "do not regret the heathens."
Although the only passage I know concerning this is a quote by Jesus and it says "Greet the pagans as well. Do not the pagans also greet their friends and brothers? [so what is wrong about that action]"
But I think this is more in terms of "love thy enemy", "greet thy enemy, as if you were his brothrer"

It's quite a problem, but how many religions are there actually? We can't take the houndreds of nature-religions into account as well.
There's just the jews, christians (*sigh* it sounds so glorifying)
and the Islam. Now, we might have certain contradictions between them all, but we might cut that down to Islam and The bible, because Jesus himself kinda abandoned his original Religion, what rendered the whole bickering with the pharisaers, and turned over to breaking the old rules and setting new dimensions. Now, those borders he explored are concidered Christianity. Now, Mohammed came 400 years later.
As both the Koran and the bible say do this and do that, one point would be

there both wrong (or faulty)
one is right, the other is wrong (either Christianity fails, or Islam)
They're both right and even combinable

I tend to think Islamists today are taking the kill-all-infidels agenda a bit too serious.

Although, Jesus once stated "I didn't come hear to bring peace. I came do bring the sword between mother and doughter, father and son, wife and husband." and the rest could be unterstood as "Because none of you will return to heaven if you will not learn love god more than anything or one you have." Like, you love having a willy more than anything else, you abandon god XD

So we can see, that definately there's a visible attempt at bringing more harmony, peace and order to man, but still, eventually, that won't count anymore.
So we can see, it has tendencies towards brutal judgement.
In turn, the Koran says, if one of your enemies surrenders to Islam, and is batized and thereby recognized and confirmed as a Muslim himself, one shall not seek anger but joy and embrace him and such.
(little note by me: I believe the kill-all-infidels agenda is very complicated, because every aggresive action against someone requires, or unleashes anger and bad emotions, it's just like in star-wars, it automatically renders you a bad person, if god descended and said to his folks "go out and kill, so Islam = win, would a mentally instable person be a better servant to god, only because he goes out and enjoys killing? Or would it make sense if all his 'good servants' would be doomed in hell because they killed somebody? Basically, I think violence should be used as a threat. Think of the attacks today- Did they ever ask us "You can and join us tho", no, they just said "We infinately wish you die."
So today the use violence at once, while they could also think from this point "We try to reduce the number of infidels, usually by simply killing them, but we can also try reduce the number, add them to our own, and thereby let Islam spread even more." By simply demanding the 'infidels' be baptized as Muslims.)

 

[Jintor]

So... disregard Buddhism (Ok, so it's more a philosophy), Hinduism, Taoism, Confuscism, and the other bilion or so religions in the world.

In any case, you're supposed to kill pretty much everyone if you're christian. I looked.

Links in a second. I gotta eat.

 

[Solaris]

Am I the only one who doesn't have a clue what W415E76S is on about?

 

[Llama]

No, I get the same sort of drivel as well :|

 

[Cole]

I tend to think Islamists today are taking the kill-all-infidels agenda a bit too serious.

There are many stories in the Koran. One of these stories is about them being stripped from there holy land and infidels would walk upon it. They kill the infidels and take back there holy land.
It's something like that anyway. I just know this for sure:
Infidels walk on holy land/take it away - KILL THEM.

You see, many islams want to go to there "heaven", so they actually follow there religions rules. Even if you are christian, unless you follow the bible to every detail you are going to hell. So yeah your probably going to hell if you believe in god or if you don't.

 

[Jintor]

Like I've said before, you're going to hell in someone's religion.

 

[W4d5Y]

I'd have to kill everybody, if we were in the 15th century and there still was the catholic church all over the place and we would actually believe what the church says -.-# Stupid catholics...Oops, it's not nice, I know, but it's just an asociation.

 

[Jintor]

It's more... you know... the old testement, not just the church...

Unless you can't trust the Old Testement, of course. -_-

 

[99.vikram]

Darned Catholics. Protestant is where it's at

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Darned Catholics. Protestant is where it's at

Protestant universelists. They at least have some morals and arne't twisted freaks believing in eternal torment and undying retribution. It's a silly idea still.

 

[99.vikram]

What I hate about religious people the most is that they base their morality on their God - "If we hurt another person God will punish us!"

What this does is leave a loophole that they can use later - "God hates gay people, so it's okay for me to hurt them!!"

Why can't people just let common sense be their guide? Don't hurt others because we are the same species. If we don't look out for each other, who will?

 

[W4d5Y]

That's what muslims do imo

But honestly, what do you think? Who owns more, catholics or protestants
(although the theory of church is righout crap anyway)

 

[tehsolace]

So is W4d5Y atheist yet? I lost track of this thread about 8 pages ago.

 

[Absinthe]

He's gone from being a polytheist, to a monotheist, to an agnostic, then back to a monotheist... I don't know any more.