The Atheist Thread

inpraiseoffolly wrote: If you really look at it, almost everyone is agnostic.  Unless you are 100% sure there is a God (or 100% sure there isn't), you are agnostic. It's really a meaningless term that says nothing about your beliefs.

    I wouldn't say almost everyone is agnostic. According to the pie chart above, it's only 16%. If you're thinking in terms of people claiming to belong to a religion who in raelity are more traditionalists rather than deeply religious, add another 30-35%. Yet it hardly constitutes “almost everyone.”

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: IVNORD wrote: I wouldn't say almost everyone is agnostic. According to the pie chart above, it's only 16%. If you're thinking in terms of people claiming to belong to a religion who in raelity are more traditionalists rather than deeply religious, add another 30-35%. Yet it hardly constitutes “almost everyone.”   Even less IVNORD, that 16% includes ATHEISTS + AGNOSTICS + THEISTIC NON RELIGIOUS WHO DON'T DENY THE EXISTENCE OF GOD ONLY DON'T FOLLOW A DETERMINED RELIGION.   Iván

    I know, I've read your pie chart, Ivan. I just throw in a number. I don't think those figures are correct anyway. As Disraeli once said, "There are three sorts of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics." I believe the actual numbers of atheists and agnostics are much higher. Between the former USSR and communist China, they would fetch probably 1B atheists.

Freak wrote: This is a fascinating thread. I've been brought up in the Church, and I am a believer in God. I also maintain that it's possible to be intelligent, have faith in the power of humanity itself, and not be a sheep, while still believing in God.

Ivàn and IVNORD

I don't know that there needs to be a debate, but a discussion would be welcome. Maybe an exchange of thoughts and ideas? Lot of good I can do though, I've barely got 100 posts! I just don't understand the hostility that's harbored between atheists and believers.

Edited by Freak - January 20 2007 at 15:56

Freak wrote: I don't know that there needs to be a debate, but a discussion would be welcome. Maybe an exchange of thoughts and ideas? Lot of good I can do though, I've barely got 100 posts! I just don't understand the hostility that's harbored between atheists and believers.

There shouldn't be, but both sides tend to construct arguments out of logical fallacies which inevitably lead to offensive comments and obtuse generalizations.

IVNORD wrote: SolariS wrote: IVNORD wrote: omnipotent doesnt entail knowledge of all time. i can agree that an ageless God would know all past; however, i dont believe that time exists. That’s heavy. What’s the reasoning behind it? The fact that we can’t touch or feel time doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We can’t explain what thought is either, or how the brain produces it for that matter. Does it exist? by saying that God can see the future you have already assumed that the future is a structured set of events. thus human beings in your view of time have no free will which violates your second premise. time is not an entity. nothing exists except right now.    How would you like a world structure like this one: Throngs of parallel history time-lines exist in time, each of them repeating the world history from the beginning of time into the immeasurable, unknown to us future exactly, second by second, differing only by one second (or a most miniscule time period possible) where you and I are arguing as we are in one of those time layers, and in the next two adjacent time layers you and I are still doing something we did a second ago, and something we will be doing in the next second respectively??? Ever thought of something like that? God cannot know the future because the future does not exist. it would be a logical impossibility to have knowledge of something that "is not". Is it a logical possibility that we’re just guessing? I've shown that God is not limited by your claim of time if indeed time is natured as I say it is. The only limitation on God that I can see is that God cannot do something that cannot be done. It doesn’t sit well with the status of omnipotence. Is this a limitation on God? I dont think so, but you may see it as one if you wish. Either way, God still has free will to do whatever he can do. If God is all-powerful (meaning he can do anything that is able to be done) and has free will, then you might ask how humans can also have free will. In other words, how can humans impose their will if it is contrary to God's will? The answer would have to be that God's ultimate will is to give humans a choice of their own. This is called Compatibilism. It doesn’t really explain the nature of things, rather a convenient tool to promote one idea or the other. As for myself, you'll never actually figure out what I believe, but I can tell you that I never believe the whole of what anybody claims to be true. I am a Christian, Athiest, Buddhist and Agnostic, yet I am none of them. In other words, we don’t know anything. sorry to get back to you so late on this. but you're right, i do look at this in terms of physics. but hey, i am a physicist and few other academic institutions have as much to say about the subject of time. anyway, i'll pose this question to you. why should anyone actually believe that this thing called time exists in the first place? Nobody has to believe it exists, as nobody has to believe God exists. Note, that I hold those notions identical for the purpose of this discussion. When it comes to understanding the being, the notions like God, Infinity, Time (BTW I’ve never thought of time in this aspect before) are beyond man’s comprehension. You as a physicist, thus most likely a materialist, tend to split the being into two parts – material and spiritual, while I think of the material being as a particular case of the entire Being which is unknown to men. It all comes to a personal choice what to believe in sure you can remember the past, but that doesn't mean the past is concurrently existing. does that mean that time cannot exist? no, but if it does exists as a constantly splitting reality, then if the realities always split and never rejoin, the theory is untestable. when a theory cannot be tested, it is out of the realms of scientific proof. Again you’re talking as a materialist scientist. I offered you a theory of parallel timelines existing in time and space independently and duplicating each other to a fraction of the tiniest time fraction. And this is something a human can picture in his head. What if Time exists in some form and shape which is totally out of the realm of human imagination? in this case, i'm more inclined to occam's razor which says if there are two equal competing theories, the simplest case is most often correct. that's how we see it in nature anyway. principle of least action and things of that sort. that whole subject can be a HUGE can of worms and i actually have a lot to say about it from perspectives of quantum mechanics and relativity. the purpose of my point was not necessarily to state fact though. i merely wanted to create an alternative possibility which is scientifically and logically plausable (and even something that i see as probable based on my own intuition). Of course, it’s scientifically and logically plausible. It’s possible that you are right. It’s possible that I am. But it’s also possible that neither one of us is. We just don’t know. I've shown that God is not limited by your claim of time if indeed time is natured as I say it is. The only limitation on God that I can see is that God cannot do something that cannot be done. It doesn’t sit well with the status of omnipotence. For me, I find it quite acceptable to say that an omnipotent being cannot do something that cannot logically be done. Your alternative is to disagree and fight with circular reasoning. Can God create a rock so big that he cannot move it? What we're really discussing is whether or not God is limited by logic. I don't think the answer is yes or no by the way. The argument is that God among other things IS logic and God as an unchanging being does not act outside of His own character. It’s not an argument. We don’t know and most likely will never know because it’s not for us to know that. In other words, we don’t know anything. I believe quite the contrary actually. If so, let me repeat my question I have asked earlier in this thread – Where did the first particle of the matter come from? If you couldn’t ascertain that nothingness produced something and abandon the unsustainable promises that some day we’ll learn, the only logical explanation of the matter is God, i.e. we don’t know anything.     I just don't think that any one line of thinking has a monopoly on truth. Agreed fully.

You've agreed with me and you don't know it.  The opening point of this thread was to show that God cannot exist by means of science, logic and philosophy. My purpose was merely to allow for the possibility of God's existence in the context of these things. I'm not trying to prove anything. All I want is to show that things aren't quite as cut and dry as atheists so often try to force me to believe.

You as a physicist, thus most likely a materialist, tend to split the being into two parts – material and spiritual, while I think of the material being as a particular case of the entire Being which is unknown to men. It all comes to a personal choice what to believe in

For the record, if someone believes in a separate body and spirit, they are actually a dualist. A true materialist doesn't believe in the spirit at all, and you're right, I don't believe in the eternal soul as most Christians speak of it. The idea of a soul originates from greek thought anyway and has managed to filter it's way into Christianity and modern Judiasm. Materialism was embraced by Israelites until the influence of greek philosophy and zoroastrian dualism until around 100BC. The idea of a soul is not even "old testament biblical". This changed by the writing of the new testament, since by that time, greek thought had spread as the common view of humanity through the influence of the Romans.

If so, let me repeat my question I have asked earlier in this thread – Where did the first particle of the matter come from? If you couldn’t ascertain that nothingness produced something and abandon the unsustainable promises that some day we’ll learn, the only logical explanation of the matter is God, i.e. we don’t know anything.

Questions such as this are untestable in the realms of science. All that can be done is to conjecture about how it would have happened, but ultimately any one person's response is just as provable as any other's. That being said, there are many explanations of where the first particle came from. Some physicists have suggestions as well. I wouldn't say we don't know anything. We just don't know everything.




Edited by SolariS - January 20 2007 at 17:34

I like that Disraeli quote above...I'll have to keep that in mind. But one distinction that I think needs to be made clear here is this: There's believing in a god/creator, and then there's believing in the god some religious group has designed for you. I wish I could see some "statistics" that would break that out, i.e., do you puzzle over your own concept of god, or do you blindly believe what the church tells you god is.

I admire those who continue to puzzle over creation--admire it, praise it, hate it, resent it, love it, etc. I admire those who feel a simultaneous urge to love god and an urge also slap him upside the head or worse, like gouge his f**king eyes out.

What I don't admire is blind faith in a god that has been created by a group of insular cleric types (and this includes most of the major religions) with their own axe to grind, their own little bit of power to hold on to, etc. and their own little sick hypocracies that they're in denial of.

Thank you...

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: IVNORD wrote: read your pie chart, Ivan. I just throw in a number. I don't think those figures are correct anyway. As Disraeli once said, "There are three sorts of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics." I believe the actual numbers of atheists and agnostics are much higher. Between the former USSR and communist China, they would fetch probably 1B atheists.   I doubt about USSR and China.   People in Eastern Europe remained faithful to Catholic Chuirch and in USSR to the Russian Orthodox Church.   People can say they don't believe when threatened but hardly people will abandon their faith by the pressure of a Government, by the contrary, people become more faithful like the Catholics in Ireland or in Poland, in the last country they weretortured, the priests killed but they stay faithful in more than 90% to the Church.   The largest percentage of Atheists is in Western Europe to be precise in Sweden with 46% Belgium 43% and France 42%.   Iván

Edited by Sean Trane - January 22 2007 at 06:31

"I dropped out of typing classbecause I was the only male in there."

Definately NOT the actions of someone I'd call a "precursor".