Atheists Corner – A place to post your opinion

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
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People like to go around saying that you cannot prove that a god does not exist, but this is just silly. Sure you cannot prove that no god exists, but that is just moving the goal posts. For the purpose of atheism, I find it sufficient to prove that the gods presented to me don't exist.

First the easy ones. There isn't a god throwing lightning bolts down at the earth or making women fertile. There isn't a god making flowers bloom and spring come. There isn't a god controlling the tides or earthquakes. All of those things happen because of the machinations of the world.

There isn't a god that has written the bible as his literal word. Somewhere in one of the gospels, and I don't really care to look up where, Jesus states that he will provide anything to anyone who asks for it in his name. Well, that is quite clearly literally false. So the god of the literal bible doesn't exist.

It goes on and on like that, until I arrive at a god without definition. A god which makes no sense. A god like that cannot be believed in. That is like believing that honor is purple.
That's not proof, Nflmir, that's presenting probabilities. It's my stance that gods probably don't exist based upon the grounds you just stated.
 

Dexter Sinister

Unspecified Specialist
Oct 1, 2004
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If natural selection is not helter-skelter, give us the reason and the explanation why not. If there is anyone who doesn't know what they are talking about is you.

The much ballyhooed digital camera eye was designed by someone with a human brain. But we all know, of course, that that brain was designed and developed by some force known as natural selection, which - if it was so great - would not have required millions of years to manifest itself.So, there is your perfectly satisfactory explanation.

We all know that in your world, anything and everything you disagree with is "utterly irrelevant".
And you think THAT constitutes a reasoned response? To even say such things would require you to have a complete and total misapprehension of what it means for something to be true, and what natural selection is. Natural selection is the very opposite of a helter-skelter process, it's a ruthlessly effective pruner of inadequacy and it requires millions of years because the only way it can work is by operating on very small differences in reproductive success over long periods of time.
 

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
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Don't make me come down there...

--GOD
Down there? So you know this god is somewhere "up there"? Do you have GPS coordinates? I'd like to have a word or a couple hundred with these critters we call gods.

When over 85% of the population believes that there is a GOD, the deniers, such as yourself, are the REAL trolls.
Argumentum ad populum. IOW, that's a fallacious argument in logic. People used to believe the world was flat once upon a time, too. Did that make them right?
 

L Gilbert

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Nov 30, 2006
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No it doesn't, it supports the contention that God gave man the right to choose. It is mankind that chooses to allow these children to suffer and die. It is mankind that chooses to go to war with one another over trivial inconsequential things. None of what is happening on earth to and by mankind is God's "fault". It is all our own.
Seeing as this critter is supposed to be all-knowing, it should have seen the mess it caused by allowing humans the right to choose beforehand. Logically ridiculous.
 

eh1eh

Blah Blah Blah
Aug 31, 2006
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Under a Lone Palm
There is a god and i am on a first name basis with him. I and i are one. We create our reality and ourselves in the Holographic Universe:

Holographic Universe (Part 1 of 5 ) its all illusion. - YouTube

So they're saying the external world doesn't exist and it's all just in our heads? Everything we see is only electrical signals in our brains?

Well I think they got it half right. When we see hear or touch something it is represented with electrical signals in our brain and that is how we perceive the external world. If the nerve going to your eye is severed you will not perceive the external world through the light sensors that are our eyes but it will still be light in the external world.
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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of course, that way mankind has a way out for their own "mistakes". Blame God. Can't be taking responsibility for our own actions now, can we.
Or blame satan. Either way, people will do anything to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.

So they're saying the external world doesn't exist and it's all just in our heads? Everything we see is only electrical signals in our brains?

Well I think they got it half right. When we see hear or touch something it is represented with electrical signals in our brain and that is how we perceive the external world. If the nerve going to your eye is severed you will not perceive the external world through the light sensors that are our eyes but it will still be light in the external world.
Can you be sure of that? It the old "if a tree falls in the forest...." question, isn't it? How do you know that other brains are perceiving reality the same way you do? You can't.
 

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
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If natural selection is not helter-skelter, give us the reason and the explanation why not. If there is anyone who doesn't know what they are talking about is you.
Try this:

http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/thenewgenetics/chapter1.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/darwin-never-knew.html

Oh, and BTW, some evolution only take months. It depends upon the lifeform as to how long things take to evolve.

Good Grief:roll:
lol You brought it up. I just thought you were joking, so I was playing with it. :D

of course, that way mankind has a way out for their own "mistakes". Blame God. Can't be taking responsibility for our own actions now, can we.
It wasn't humans that designed and created everything (according to the Bible and other books anyway).
If you have a kid, who is responsible for it? Itself?

Or blame satan. Either way, people will do anything to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.
Most people don't. I'd suggest that those who do not believe in gods, demons, luck, etc. prefer to be self-actualized.


Can you be sure of that? It the old "if a tree falls in the forest...." question, isn't it? How do you know that other brains are perceiving reality the same way you do? You can't.
Sure you can. You can ask them.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
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If you have a kid, who is responsible for it? Itself?


It? Unbelievable..... actually, no it isn't as I remember the start of this conversation with your wife in regard to yours and her children and the derogatory way you both refer to them in. "It" indeed.
 

eh1eh

Blah Blah Blah
Aug 31, 2006
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Under a Lone Palm
Can you be sure of that? It the old "if a tree falls in the forest...." question, isn't it? How do you know that other brains are perceiving reality the same way you do? You can't.

No it isn't. it's more a 'If I think therefore I am' reality. Or if you want to get really freaky about existentialism then lets take Nietzsche and Schrodinger literally. God is both dead and alive as god is something we cannot test or perceive.
 

Niflmir

A modern nomad
Dec 18, 2006
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That's not proof, Nflmir, that's presenting probabilities. It's my stance that gods probably don't exist based upon the grounds you just stated.

That is exactly proof. The nature of lightning is so well understood that we can create strikes of lightning on cloudless days. Rocket Triggered Lightning Research - YouTube The tides come like clockwork because of the interactions between the moon and the sun and the earth, there is no god controlling it. Nor controlling the rising of the sun or the paths of the planets. These are not probabilities, these are purely deterministic phenomena that are well understood. Every person who has ever looked into these things knows with 100% certainty that they are not caused by the decisions of a god. The sun will not fail to rise one day because Apollo lost his chariot.

If a person gives a concrete definition of a god, then it may or may not have empirical and or logical consequences that completely rule it out. This is precisely the case with a literal interpretation of the bible, for instance. If the god doesn't interact in the world in any way, then in what way is it a god? If the god has some non-sensical characteristic, like so infinitely good that we cannot understand the goodnesss, that is when non-cognitivism enters, and it no longer makes sense to talk about it, like the integer between 2 and 3.
 

TenPenny

Hall of Fame Member
Jun 9, 2004
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Location, Location
of course, that way mankind has a way out for their own "mistakes". Blame God. Can't be taking responsibility for our own actions now, can we.


Indeed, that's the whole point of religion.

Whether you sacrifice a goat to insure good weather, or pray to Ernest Angely to cure cancer, it's the same concept.

If you need a crutch in life, might as well make it an organized religion.
 

Goober

Hall of Fame Member
Jan 23, 2009
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Indeed, that's the whole point of religion.
Whether you sacrifice a goat to insure good weather, or pray to Ernest Angely to cure cancer, it's the same concept.
If you need a crutch in life, might as well make it an organized religion.
Do you think everyone uses religion as a crutch?