Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

Trademark, come on, the "rules" thing is getting old... Is just making you look trollish... 

Edited by The T - August 27 2010 at 15:49

I think the " troll" word is getting totally overused now and everytime a comment is made out of leftfield, people dismiss said comments like......" you are trolling now....". Sorry guys, poor defense mechanism and no longer hip.

Chris S wrote: I think the " troll" word is getting totally overused now and everytime a comment is made out of leftfield, people dismiss said comments like......" you are trolling now....". Sorry guys, poor defense mechanism and no longer hip.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Was not to your post Dean, but to complement your reply to Mike, who insists in the same false statement that  Chtistians claim that only Christians will be save, no matter how many times I post this quote.   But Mike is an expert ignoring any quote that doesn't su´´ort his claims.   I quoted you because Mike's post was quoted by you.

I just think you're wrong - your notion that all good people go to heaven may be something you believe, but I don't think that it is representative of a majority, or even a major part of all Christians. I can't back this opinion with facts, and neither can you back your opinion with facts - at least you haven't so far.

BTW: If it was, then I would declare Christianity meaningless. Once you think that it's more important to go good deeds than to believe in Jesus/God, it becomes completely moot. I wouldn't complain at all ... the world needs more people who embrace reality!

Iván wrote:   Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ We've been down this road before ... I've specifically said that I reject God and am by no means seeking him sincerely, and even then you weren't sure if I was going to go to hell.   We don't believe in hell as a place of punishment or torture, we believe in eternity away of God, and I replied this exact issue to Textbook: Textbook wrote: Ivan: It doesn't matter to you whether other people share your faith? So it doesn't matter to you that they are not saved and go to hell? Either you're incredibly callous and cold, or you don't really believe in your own eschatology.

It doesn't matter for my argument what hell is supposed to be like. All I pointed out that in the statement you quoted one requirement was sincerely seeking God, and since I clearly don't meet that requirement I don't qualify for heaven.

Iván wrote: Now, about the atheists, I have been taught that what was understood as hell is not a place of torture, but the eternal separation from God, and Atheists have already decided they don't need God, as a fact Mike said that he would prefer anything that an eternal life with a tyrant...So eternity without God would not be a punishment for them.

Of course it would be a punishment. The point is not so much whether I would find such a hypothetical place good or bad, the point is that religious people think that heaven is good and hell is bad. To them hell is a punishment, regardless of whether they think of it as fire and torture or just a vague "away from God". What's offensive to me is that as a Christian you claim to know something about who gets to heaven and who gets to hell instead - not in an absolute sense like you know God's mind, but you know some rules to obey - and you endorse them. You participate in a scheme that has no evidence to back it up and which does this "us vs. them" separation. I just don't find that a nice thing to do.

Iván wrote: Iván wrote: So I'm not cold neither I believe in my own eschatology, I believe God gave us freedom to decide what we want, and every person is free to make that choice, an all of this in perfect agreement with my Church's dogma.. Is true, I don't believe you will or want to spend eternity with God, but neither you will burn in hell.   But at the end, I'm not the one who will decide your fate   Iván

If you reduce your dogma to a point where it is meaningless, then I guess you're correct - and so is everyone else (judging by that dogma).


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - August 28 2010 at 02:57

Mr ProgFreak wrote:   Of course it would be a punishment. The point is not so much whether I would find such a hypothetical place good or bad, the point is that religious people think that heaven is good and hell is bad. To them hell is a punishment, regardless of whether they think of it as fire and torture or just a vague "away from God". What's offensive to me is that as a Christian you claim to know something about who gets to heaven and who gets to hell instead - not in an absolute sense like you know God's mind, but you know some rules to obey - and you endorse them. You participate in a scheme that has no evidence to back it up and which does this "us vs. them" separation. I just don't find that a nice thing to do.

Mike, you've stated a number of times that a belief system without practical implications is meaningless. Don't you think that the search for truth is meaningful in itself, even if that truth does not have a direct impact on how you live your life? I do.

For example, I believe that the moon exists, but this belief has no impact on my way of life whatsoever. Would you call such a belief pointless? It seems to me that believing in the moon is worthwhile because the moon does, in fact, exist. I imagine Ivan feels the same way about Christianity.


Edited by thellama73 - August 28 2010 at 08:01

Alternately, a belief system that says that everything God has to say is here, right before your eyes, and that your behavior's reward is in the here and now, would not change how you live your life in the end.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Your subjective experience is the basis, but that doesn't mean that all subjective claims are equally valid. If you feel that calling this universe "god" improves your life, by all means go ahead with that - just don't ask me to support it. You have your subjective experience, I have mine - and I would like to restrict what we call "rational" to the experience that we can actually share by means of demonstration. You can object to my usage of the word "rational" - maybe "real" would be better. But then again I'm not so sure if saying that Christianity isn't real would be accepted by most Theists.

Negoba wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ Your subjective experience is the basis, but that doesn't mean that all subjective claims are equally valid. If you feel that calling this universe "god" improves your life, by all means go ahead with that - just don't ask me to support it. You have your subjective experience, I have mine - and I would like to restrict what we call "rational" to the experience that we can actually share by means of demonstration. You can object to my usage of the word "rational" - maybe "real" would be better. But then again I'm not so sure if saying that Christianity isn't real would be accepted by most Theists.   I don't ask you to support it, though I might want to share the positive aspects if I thought it would be of any use to you.   You've recognized one of the core issues of your own position - that "rational" and "real" are words that don't quite capture what you're trying to get at.

"Non-transcendental" would describe it better, but it's a tad long.

Negoba wrote:   What's more, most people don't want to restrict things in that way. In fact, most interactions have to do with comparing and contrasting subjective experience. And not of all that is just whimsy.

Who said anything about restricting? By all means pursue subjective experience, just please don't turn the purely subjective experiences into religions.

Negoba wrote: "Share by means of demonstration" may be a good choice of words. I'm pretty sure it accurately describes your position. But excludes so much of our existence. Some of those things we must just not have figured out a way to demonstrate yet, and some may not be demonstrable.   And yes, some subjective experience, and some ideas, are only of value to the one who experiences / thinks them.

It only exclude the things you cannot demonstrate - our in other words: Non-existent things. I'll post a link to one Atheist Experience episode where Tracie Harris does a nice presentation about this.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: I just think you're wrong - your notion that all good people go to heaven may be something you believe, but I don't think that it is representative of a majority, or even a major part of all Christians. I can't back this opinion with facts, and neither can you back your opinion with facts - at least you haven't so far.   Mike, again you are makimng wild guesses without any support, most <Christians are Catholics (2/3) and Catholics bel9ieve in this, as a fact they have to because it's a dogma.   But I don't said any good perrson goes to heaven, I said any parson that acts according tothe "Lumen Gentium" MAY be saved, which is a different thing.   As a fact, heaven is a term we rarely use any more, we talk about salvation.

Because you're less and less sure of what it means - just as is the case with hell. This is part of the process of erosion that I was talking about earlier.

Iván wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: BTW: If it was, then I would declare Christianity meaningless. Once you think that it's more important to go good deeds than to believe in Jesus/God, it becomes completely moot. I wouldn't complain at all ... the world needs more people who embrace reality!   It's not meaningless, because we believe it's the truth, and we are born to search for the truth.   The funny thing is that again you try to leave us without option: If we believe only Christians or Catholics can be saved, wre are arrogant  and elitist mother fu**ers who attack other religions and hate anybody who is not a Christian/Catholic. If we believe Christ came to save all humanity, not only Christians/Catholics, then our faith ids meaningless. That's arrogant, if we think "A" it's wrong, if we think "B", it's also wrong, the only way we can embrace reality is thinking like Mike and believing in what Mike believes...This sounds a bit Messianic. Lets all praise Mike, the new Messiah of atheism.

Hey, I didn't design these religions so that they're contradictory in so many aspects. So essentially you're attacking the messenger, which is understandable, but ultimately pointless.

Iván wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^It doesn't matter for my argument what hell is supposed to be like. All I pointed out that in the statement you quoted one requirement was sincerely seeking God, and since I clearly don't meet that requirement I don't qualify for heaven.   Yes it matters, because hell implies torture and punishmen,  not being able to be saved is only a consequence of your own acts, you fought all your life against God, then you get what you want, an eternity without him, that's all, not a punishment, you got what you asked for

Why would I fight something which doesn't exist? I'm not accepting your bogus claim. It's incredibly arrogant for you to assume that your claim is something that I should want to accept, or to imply that
non-acceptance is an unreasonable thing to do.