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Ivan_Melgar_M 
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19557
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 Posted: September 18 2010 at 12:32 |
 Dean wrote:
I'll take a wild stab at this - how about 250,000 years ago? what about 6,000 years ago? how about 2,010 years ago? why not 1,440 years ago? what was wrong with last wednesday?
I know, let's pencil-in next thursday around mid-day (GMT). |
Then we agree, it could have been 10,000 years ago or it may be 10,000 years from now, so the lack of agreement between humans proves nothing except that human knowledge is incomplete.
Dean wrote:
That's an appauling excuse - no, really, it's dreadful. That means that your gods have deliberately and purposely pitted man against man for all history and that justifies and condones holy wars, pogroms, jihads, cherims and crusades. |
Nice move Dean, you ignored the second part of my post: Or even better, that different cultures had a different perception of God?
We have been raised in different cultural, racial and religious convcept, the white man reads that God made us at his image and thinks God is a white Anglos Saxon Protestant, the chinese will see God Chinesse the black person will believe God is black etc...Only when some churches realized that God made our souls at his image this changed,.
But if you find this different perceptions is the superficuial and external, imagine in the doctrine........So most likely it's a human inability to appreciate God's real nature.
Dean wrote:
Your personal observation is not a real observation (hence your quotes), it's not the same for everybody and your personal revelation cannot be shared with anybody, therefore it is neither demonstrable nor repeatable. If we atheists are not "allowed" to explain that as delusion (illusion) or imagination (false memory) then by the same logic you theists are not "allowed" to use it as testimony of gods' existence.
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That's the main point, we don't need or want to demonstrate anybody anything, you haven't seen me giving testimony of my personal relvelation, as a fact when I was asked I replied Mike "This is personal" and he said "I respect that".
Some atheists are the ones investing millions (a few earning more millions) in proving the believers that God doesn't exist, when that evidence is beyond us.
[/QUOTE=Dean]
Actually I don't agree with you because a good number of atheists do not dismiss the possibility of the existence of gods (including Mike and Dawkins) - it is a small number who categorically say gods do not exist beyond any doubt.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but as in the case of the fundamentalist Christians, those small groups are the ones that more noise make. You don't listen about the Priest, Pastor, Imam, Rabi who preaches tollerance, you listen about the a$$hole who burns Qur'ans or the mother fu**/er who goes to make a scandal at the funeral of a gay kid.
I know that maybe 99% of the atheists won't spend their lives trying to prove God doesn't exist, they simply don't believe in God and that's all.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 18 2010 at 12:49
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Mr ProgFreak
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 08 2008
Location: Sweden
Status: Offline
Points: 5195
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 13:01 |
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^ I'm curious - do you even know one popular Atheist who goes around claiming to know absolutely that there is no god?
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Mr ProgFreak
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 08 2008
Location: Sweden
Status: Offline
Points: 5195
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 13:04 |
rpe9p wrote:
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
A weak Atheist is defined as someone who doesn't believe in any gods ... I don't see how that would qualify someone from asking this question. Weak Atheists don't try to "disprove" the existence of god(s), but that doesn't mean that the various arguments put forth by Theists can't be tested and, in some instances, disproved.
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I wasnt referring to you asking the question, but rather the presumptuous nature of the question seemed to suggest that every argument for theism has been disproved |
Every argument that I've ever heard - and the video enumerates quite a lot, and I'm familiar with all of them - has been refuted. I'm deliberately saying "refuted" rather than "disproved". I don't think it is presumptuous to say that knowing that throughout the centuries Theists have not been able to come up with a logically sound argument in favor of their position, it is somewhat likely that they won't come up with one any time soon.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 14:49 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
I'll take a wild stab at this - how about 250,000 years ago? what about 6,000 years ago? how about 2,010 years ago? why not 1,440 years ago? what was wrong with last wednesday?
I know, let's pencil-in next thursday around mid-day (GMT). |
Then we agree, it could have been 10,000 years ago or it may be 10,000 years from now, so the lack of agreement between humans proves nothing except that human knowledge is incomplete. |
Nope. We do not agree - I believe 250,000 years is sufficient for mankind to have some cohesive and coherrant idea of what do you mean by "god" - mankind's ideas of god are diverging, not converging - in another 10,000 years they will be even further apart. Human knowledge (of things divine) is not incomplete, it's non-existant.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
That's an appauling excuse - no, really, it's dreadful. That means that your gods have deliberately and purposely pitted man against man for all history and that justifies and condones holy wars, pogroms, jihads, cherims and crusades. |
Nice move Dean, you ignored the second part of my post: Or even better, that different cultures had a different perception of God?
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Nope, I didn't ignore it, I took it into account. If different cultures have different perceptions of god(s) then that is because god was revealed to different men in different ways - it's not "better" as you claimed, it's the same.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
We have been raised in different cultural, racial and religious convcept, the white man reads that God made us at his image and thinks God is a white Anglos Saxon Protestant, the chinese will see God Chinesse the black person will believe God is black etc...Only when some churches realized that God made our souls at his image this changed,.
But if you find this different perceptions is the superficuial and external, imagine in the doctrine........So most likely it's a human inability to appreciate God's real nature. |
Aside from the minor point that "in his image" only applies to one mainfestation of a god as he was imaged by a middle-eastern tribe some 6-10 thousand years ago, and not to the thousands of other tribes in the world and their respective image of god. The pictorial image of that version of a god as a white-haired guy on a cloud is a relatively recent image (if you consider Rennaissance Italy to be recent in human history). In the Middle Ages there were no pictorial images of god and reason and intelegence was considered to be man in the image of god and not as a physical resemblence. So this realisation you speek of is nothing new, but something that was accepted before Michaelangelo painted the Sistine ceiling and that the superficial and external image is a recent "invention" and not something that originally existed.
However, I am not enquiring after a photograph of any god as proof of anything - I would like to see all the religious people in the world share a common harmonious view of god, even if that view/opinion/appreciation is limited to a human's ability to appreciate it - something that to my limited intelect would appear to be the minimum requirement.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Your personal observation is not a real observation (hence your quotes), it's not the same for everybody and your personal revelation cannot be shared with anybody, therefore it is neither demonstrable nor repeatable. If we atheists are not "allowed" to explain that as delusion (illusion) or imagination (false memory) then by the same logic you theists are not "allowed" to use it as testimony of gods' existence.
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That's the main point, we don't need or want to demonstrate anybody anything, you haven't seen me giving testimony of my personal relvelation, as a fact when I was asked I replied Mike "This is personal" and he said "I respect that". |
Then don't use this "personal revelation vs. delusion" disagreement between all believers and some atheists in answer to one of my direct posts regarding supernatural phenomena. 
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Actually I don't agree with you because a good number of atheists do not dismiss the possibility of the existence of gods (including Mike and Dawkins) - it is a small number who categorically say gods do not exist beyond any doubt.
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Yes, but as in the case of the fundamentalist Christians, those small groups are the ones that more noise make. You don't listen about the Priest, Pastor, Imam, Rabi who preaches tollerance, you listen about the a$$hole who burns Qur'ans or the mother fu**/er who goes to make a scandal at the funeral of a gay kid.
I know that maybe 99% of the atheists won't spend their lives trying to prove God doesn't exist, they simply don't believe in God and that's all.
Iván |
Please Iván you know me well enought to know that I do listen to anybody who "preaches" tollerance and I give no regard to any publicity-seaking bile-spouting hate-inducing facist who perverts religion (or any cause) for their own personal pleasure and satisfaction.
I don't mention the Westboro Baptists, never have, never will. I can spot a fundamentalist lunatic at 1000 paces and I will ignore them.
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What?
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rpe9p
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 31 2008
Location: Charlottesville
Status: Offline
Points: 485
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 16:04 |
I'm confused, if we weaken your statement to "I can make an argument against every Theist argument" then every atheist belief has been "refuted" too
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Mr ProgFreak
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 08 2008
Location: Sweden
Status: Offline
Points: 5195
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 16:25 |
I was saying "every argument that I've ever heard". Maybe I haven't heard all of them - I don't know. And of course I can say that Theist arguments have been refuted, you can say that Atheist arguments have been refuted, and we're none the wiser. Well, if my invisible dragon analogy doesn't convince you, then I don't know what will. 
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Ivan_Melgar_M
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19557
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 16:48 |
Dean wrote:
Nope. We do not agree - I believe 250,000 years is sufficient for mankind to have some cohesive and coherrant idea of what do you mean by "god" - mankind's ideas of god are diverging, not converging - in another 10,000 years they will be even further apart. Human knowledge (of things divine) is not incomplete, it's non-existant. |
You believe Dean, but why?
Still we have racism, sexism, wars, etc, If we can't agree with us...Why should we agree i our perception of a God we can't see in the day to day life?
Dean wrote:
Nope, I didn't ignore it, I took it into account. If different cultures have different perceptions of god(s) then that is because god was revealed to different men in different ways - it's not "better" as you claimed, it's the same. |
You can't blame God for the inability of man to perceive the message of God. If you notice the Messiah is mentioned by two of the three religions who believe in the God of Abraham, but only one of them accepted Jesus.
Take the Bible, even when one Christian Reigion has 1.3 or 1.5 billion of believers, there are 50,000 other religions, cults and sects that understand the same Bible in 50,000 different ways.
And the Bible is essentially the same.
So it's not God or his message to be blamed, but the willingness of mankind to understand it.
Dean wrote:
Aside from the minor point that "in his image" only applies to one mainfestation of a god as he was imaged by a middle-eastern tribe some 6-10 thousand years ago, and not to the thousands of other tribes in the world and their respective image of god. The pictorial image of that version of a god as a white-haired guy on a cloud is a relatively recent image (if you consider Rennaissance Italy to be recent in human history). In the Middle Ages there were no pictorial images of god and reason and intelegence was considered to be man in the image of god and not as a physical resemblence. So this realisation you speek of is nothing new, but something that was accepted before Michaelangelo painted the Sistine ceiling and that the superficial and external image is a recent "invention" and not something that originally existed.
However, I am not enquiring after a photograph of any god as proof of anything - I would like to see all the religious people in the world share a common harmonious view of god, even if that view/opinion/appreciation is limited to a human's ability to appreciate it - something that to my limited intelect would appear to be the minimum requirement.
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The image of God is only a superficial aspect that I took as an example, if men can't agree in something so suipeticial, much less will agree in the fundamental aspecrs
Dean wrote:
Your personal observation is not a real observation (hence your quotes), it's not the same for everybody and your personal revelation cannot be shared with anybody, therefore it is neither demonstrable nor repeatable. If we atheists are not "allowed" to explain that as delusion (illusion) or imagination (false memory) then by the same logic you theists are not "allowed" to use it as testimony of gods' existence.
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Why it's not a real observation?It's real enough for me.
And again I'm not trying to give testimony to anybody, or share it with nobody, as I said before, it's personal. We just want to live our religion without people insulting us all day long.
Dean wrote:
Then don't use this "personal revelation vs. delusion" disagreement between all believers and some atheists in answer to one of my direct posts regarding supernatural phenomena. |
We only reply it's real for us when somebody claims we are delusional guys who believe in fairytales.
Dean wrote:
Please Iván you know me well enought to know that I do listen to anybody who "preaches" tollerance and I give no regard to any publicity-seaking bile-spouting hate-inducing facist who perverts religion (or any cause) for their own personal pleasure and satisfaction.
I don't mention the Westboro Baptists, never have, never will. I can spot a fundamentalist lunatic at 1000 paces and I will ignore them. |
But Dean, other members have mentioned many times the fanatics. You just need to read the pages of this and the previous threads.
To start, this collection of threads began painting Christians as fanatic creationists enemies of evolution, it took a long time to prove that most of us don't agree with this, and even when we proved that we accept evolution we were called hypocrites.(Not by you)
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 18 2010 at 16:49
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rpe9p
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 31 2008
Location: Charlottesville
Status: Offline
Points: 485
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 16:57 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
I was saying "every argument that I've ever heard". Maybe I haven't heard all of them - I don't know. And of course I can say that Theist arguments have been refuted, you can say that Atheist arguments have been refuted, and we're none the wiser.
Well, if my invisible dragon analogy doesn't convince you, then I don't know what will.
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Haha, I usually try to stay away from analogies in arguments because then we will get into some deep specific argument about the dragon and I'll stop and think "wait, what the hell are we talking about anyway"
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TheGazzardian
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 11 2009
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 8766
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 17:00 |
Mr ProgFreak wrote:
If we can't observe something, then how can we tell it apart from "nothing"? It's like saying that you have an invisible pet dragon. You can't show it to anyone, you never even claim to have seen it yourself or know what it looks like (after all, it's invisible), but somehow you insist that believing in it is important to you - and then I come along and say "I won't believe that your invisible dragon exists until you give me some solid evidence that I can investigate" you get angry and defensive because you have no good reason for this belief, and you try to claim that it takes as much faith to not believe in invisible dragons than it takesto believe in them.
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I'm not a Christian or in any way religious myself, but even I can see the flaws with this argument. God is believed to have directly and indirectly affected the world in many different ways throughout the history of mankind. Not just be some invisible force that one believes in for no reason.
Furthermore, I actually can understand the logic that not believing in God requires as much faith as believing - hear me out here, I'm coming from the scientific view - because we are forced to rely on the exact same information as the religious. Those being our observations and our assumptions. And there is no denying that there are assumptions in science - assumptions, such as, "the laws of physics have never changed". Truthfully, there are only good scientific records of the last few hundred years, and although we can explain a lot of what happened before based on our observations and extrapolating them backwards, there are literally, according to science, thousands of years in an infinite universe that mankind hasn't observed directly. So even though theories like the Big Bang might sound sound, in reality they require just as much faith in science as the religious require faith in their religion.
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The T
Special Collaborator
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Joined: October 16 2006
Location: FL, USA
Status: Offline
Points: 17493
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 17:57 |
manofmystery wrote:
If you guys (by that I mean those of you posting in this thread) find evidence that a "God" (what's in a name, really) exists let me know.
Also, if you guys find evidence that "God" doesn't exist let me know.
Please |
I've found it. It's called "The Government"!
Now run away and hide Mom!!
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 18:15 |
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
rpe9p wrote:
Just because we dont know it doesnt mean it is unknowable. |
That's not what I said. 
Theists say god is unknowable to explain why they don't know |
I dont think too many of them say that, I dont |
Fair enough - no point us continuing along this line of reasoning then if theists don't say that gods are unknowable. Gods are either knowable or they are unknowable - if they are unknowable then that is a definative statement, not one with clauses and exceptions.
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
- I simply gave an perfectly logical and reasonable explanation of why the unknowable is unknowable - not why they don't know the unknowable.
Moreover the theists further claim that the gods do not want us to know and that man does not have the capacity to know so they can keep moving the goal posts to justify their lack of knowing. |
I dont think that god "does not want us to know." I still feel like you are equating "unknowable" with "do not know after 100s of thousands of years of trying." We could invent a magic telescope tomorrow that allows us to see god. Perhaps when we die we will understand. Right now either the limitations of our physical bodies or our lack of ingenuity has prevented us from knowing something which is knowable (in those two hypotheticals). |
This is getting less sensical by the minute. A god that is not knowable at our current stage of evolution or at least while we are still living. Forgive me for sounding a little cynical here
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
If we cannot observe it that means it does not matter whether it exist or not. And by "observation" I do not limit that to direct observation of the phenomena, but incudes indirect observation of the effects of that phenomena. If it does not matter whether they exist or not and we cannot observe them or their effects means that they are not different from "nothing". |
I disagree, as just one example we have the Christian idea that god watches you throughout your life and you will be with god when you die. |
The mischeivous side of me want to blurt out "prove it!", but I shall refrain 
Omnipresence is completely unobservable directly or indirectly and thus has no direct or indirect consequence beyond using it to justify how you live your life. If you only do good things because the gods are watching you every minute of the day then that is a dishonesty - I endevour to do good things because I want to, not because someone is looking over my shoulder. |
I dont live my life that way either, so instead of attacking that belief, consider the point I was making by using that as an example. That would be a case where god does not interact with us, but still "matters." It seems clear you do not believe you exist as more than your physical body, but you cannot discount the possibility that we do and that opens up a whole field of scenarios where we cannot observe god now, but god is not "nothing."
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If that was deemed to be an attack on belief then I apologise, I merely criticised one use of a directly attributed phenomena as a reason for living a life in a certain way, which is certainly one I had heard before as a christian (and its opposite - don't do bad things because god sees everything) and it's not something I made-up to take a swipe at you or any one else. If it was just an example then as a supernatural phenomena it still equates to nothing.
Of course I don't pretend to have an existence beyond my physical body - I'm an atheist.
If I pretend that I do, and pretend that a god exists then I can imagine a whole host of scenarios where all maner of wonderful things can happen, including knowing that god is not "nothing", and all the wonderful supernatural phenomena that can be attributed to god as a result can also not be "nothing". But as it stands, with out pretending anything, the unobservable supernatural phenomena do equate to "nothing" and any extrapolation of those supernatural phenomena back to a god or anyother explanation become meaningless.
rpe9p wrote:
And yet even if every religion has been wrong, god could still exist. People would rather have something specific to believe, so they put faith in their ancestors passing down the truth. It is more comforting to believe something on faith than admit you have no clue. I agree with you that this is not a completely logical way to live your life, but it is also not a stupid way. You see these people as deluding themselves into being happy with a fantasy, I see them choosing to believe in something concrete because it will enrich their lives. |
This brings me back to where I started with this line of argument - if every religion has been wrong and god still exists then something has gone mightily wrong somewhere in the past 250,000.
However, if it makes you comfortable I'm not going to argue with that, comfort is good.
Peace.
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What?
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 19:01 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Nope. We do not agree - I believe 250,000 years is sufficient for mankind to have some cohesive and coherrant idea of what do you mean by "god" - mankind's ideas of god are diverging, not converging - in another 10,000 years they will be even further apart. Human knowledge (of things divine) is not incomplete, it's non-existant. |
You believe Dean, but why? |
I'm not going to write every post omitting the word "believe" just because it has a religious connotation - I believe Burger King fries are tastier than MacDonalds fries - that's not an article of faith. I would imagine that 250,000 years is sufficient; I expect that 250,000 years is sufficient; I hope that 250,000 years is sufficient; I think 250,000 years is sufficient; I demand that 250,000 years is sufficient; I deem that 250,000 years is sufficient; I have another life to get to after this one so insist that 250,000 years is sufficient; I banana milkshake 250,000 years is sufficient; I magic rabbits out of a top hat 250,000 years is sufficient; I wonder how much more time you want isn't 250,000 years sufficient?
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Still we have racism, sexism, wars, etc, If we can't agree with us...Why should we agree i our perception of a God we can't see in the day to day life? |
You really, really don't want me to answer that question with the one logical, reasonable, solid answer that it implies.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Nope, I didn't ignore it, I took it into account. If different cultures have different perceptions of god(s) then that is because god was revealed to different men in different ways - it's not "better" as you claimed, it's the same. |
You can't blame God for the inability of man to perceive the message of God. If you notice the Messiah is mentioned by two of the three religions who believe in the God of Abraham, but only one of them accepted Jesus.
Take the Bible, even when one Christian Reigion has 1.3 or 1.5 billion of believers, there are 50,000 other religions, cults and sects that understand the same Bible in 50,000 different ways.
And the Bible is essentially the same.
So it's not God or his message to be blamed, but the willingness of mankind to understand it. |
I cannot blame god for man's inability to reach a consensus on what god is ... I cannot deny that, but not for the same reasons or the same conclusions you do.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Aside from the minor point that "in his image" only applies to one mainfestation of a god as he was imaged by a middle-eastern tribe some 6-10 thousand years ago, and not to the thousands of other tribes in the world and their respective image of god. The pictorial image of that version of a god as a white-haired guy on a cloud is a relatively recent image (if you consider Rennaissance Italy to be recent in human history). In the Middle Ages there were no pictorial images of god and reason and intelegence was considered to be man in the image of god and not as a physical resemblence. So this realisation you speek of is nothing new, but something that was accepted before Michaelangelo painted the Sistine ceiling and that the superficial and external image is a recent "invention" and not something that originally existed.
However, I am not enquiring after a photograph of any god as proof of anything - I would like to see all the religious people in the world share a common harmonious view of god, even if that view/opinion/appreciation is limited to a human's ability to appreciate it - something that to my limited intelect would appear to be the minimum requirement.
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The image of God is only a superficial aspect that I took as an example, if men can't agree in something so suipeticial, much less will agree in the fundamental aspecrs
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 men cannot agree on what any fictional character looks like, even when there are good descriptive lengths of prose describing them, so I do not expect men to agree on the physical appearance of something that has never, ever, been seen by any person dead or alive since the dawn of man. If god is ephemeral or incorporeal then I'm not expecting any pictorial imagery or imaginings, however, I do not think that agreement in fundamental aspects is not unreasonable.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Your personal observation is not a real observation (hence your quotes), it's not the same for everybody and your personal revelation cannot be shared with anybody, therefore it is neither demonstrable nor repeatable. If we atheists are not "allowed" to explain that as delusion (illusion) or imagination (false memory) then by the same logic you theists are not "allowed" to use it as testimony of gods' existence.
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Why it's not a real observation?It's real enough for me.
And again I'm not trying to give testimony to anybody, or share it with nobody, as I said before, it's personal. We just want to live our religion without people insulting us all day long.
Dean wrote:
Then don't use this "personal revelation vs. delusion" disagreement between all believers and some atheists in answer to one of my direct posts regarding supernatural phenomena. |
We only reply it's real for us when somebody claims we are delusional guys who believe in fairytales. |
But I'm not one of those somebodies who claims that so don't use it in a reply to me.
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
Dean wrote:
Please Iván you know me well enought to know that I do listen to anybody who "preaches" tollerance and I give no regard to any publicity-seaking bile-spouting hate-inducing facist who perverts religion (or any cause) for their own personal pleasure and satisfaction.
I don't mention the Westboro Baptists, never have, never will. I can spot a fundamentalist lunatic at 1000 paces and I will ignore them. |
But Dean, other members have mentioned many times the fanatics. You just need to read the pages of this and the previous threads.
To start, this collection of threads began painting Christians as fanatic creationists enemies of evolution, it took a long time to prove that most of us don't agree with this, and even when we proved that we accept evolution we were called hypocrites.(Not by you)
Iván
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No, often the first person who mentions the Westboro Baptists is you. I have searched and no one, not one single agnostic or atheist equates Fred Phelps and the WBC with normal christians or normal religious believers - everyone sees them as something despicable and indefensible.
I proved (ie demonstrated, showed, pointed out, made mention of the statistic) that the majority of the all the believers in all the world religions were evolutionists and not creationists - not just the christian ones.
Edited by Dean - September 18 2010 at 19:04
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What?
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rpe9p
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 31 2008
Location: Charlottesville
Status: Offline
Points: 485
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 19:17 |
Dean wrote:
Of course I don't pretend to have an existence beyond my physical body - I'm an atheist. |
Actually I believe a lot of religions (eastern especially) dont believe in any deities but believe they exist beyond their physical bodies
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 19:22 |
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
Of course I don't pretend to have an existence beyond my physical body - I'm an atheist. |
Actually I believe a lot of religions (eastern especially) dont believe in any deities but believe they exist beyond their physical bodies |
I'm not a follower of one of those either.
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What?
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rpe9p
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 31 2008
Location: Charlottesville
Status: Offline
Points: 485
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 19:31 |
Dean wrote:
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
Of course I don't pretend to have an existence beyond my physical body - I'm an atheist. |
Actually I believe a lot of religions (eastern especially) dont believe in any deities but believe they exist beyond their physical bodies |
I'm not a follower of one of those either. |
Yeah but you said that because you are an atheist, of course you dont believe that, I was saying the two arent mutually exclusive
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 19:46 |
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
rpe9p wrote:
Dean wrote:
Of course I don't pretend to have an existence beyond my physical body - I'm an atheist. |
Actually I believe a lot of religions (eastern especially) dont believe in any deities but believe they exist beyond their physical bodies |
I'm not a follower of one of those either. |
Yeah but you said that because you are an atheist, of course you dont believe that, I was saying the two arent mutually exclusive |
And I wasn't saying they were not mutually exclusive or even mutually inclusive or pointing out any obvious flaw in your statement or criticising you for making it or trying to be clever in any way, shape or form. I said I was an atheist, not that I was a buddhist or a taoist or whatever. If someone is a buddhist then even if that is an atheistic religion they would normally refer to themselves as buddhists, not atheists. I could have said I was irreligious I suppose, since that is a more accurate terminology, but that doesn't carry quite the same weight in a Theism vs.Atheism thread.
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What?
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 19 2007
Location: Penal Colony
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Points: 11420
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 22:00 |
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This is a question for the Theists (though anyone can pitch in) as it is probably one of the many objections raised by Atheists about the inconsistencies in the scriptures that believers tend to gloss over:
'He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning' (Book of John)
1 - If your moral choices are predetermined then it follows you have no moral freewill
2 - If you have no moral freewill then you could not choose to sin or choose not to sin
3 - Without volition you cannot repent but are denied salvation and damned regardless
Also:
Why would God have given the 'Adam and Eve' Garden of Eden gig to his anointed cherub Lucifer?
(Ain't that like entrusting your tropical fish collection to a seal?)
I had a dig around the internet to find some explanations for the foregoing and the best I could find was the faintly transparant chronological gerrymandering of biblical scholars:
There is a GAP between what is termed the ORIGINAL creation (accept no substitutes) and the six day creation of the world re Genesis. During this busman's holiday, Satan (who is sometimes christened Lucifer depending on the author) was created 'perfect and without sin.'
We have been advised in this thread by many Christians that item 2 in my above list is spurious because every man jack of us is considered a filthy sinner on account of our separation from God.
Be that as it may, why then could an entity 'perfect and without sin' (the aim of all Christians and a potted description of their God) be the source of the very evil that they wish to be separated from?
If there is a God, he sure as hell wouldn't win many design awards - (Blackadder)
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Ivan_Melgar_M
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19557
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 23:07 |
ExittheLemming wrote:
Be that as it may, why then could an entity 'perfect and without sin' (the aim of all Christians and a potted description of their God) be the source of the very evil that they wish to be separated from?
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I believe your post is summarized in this last question, and the answer is in the very essence of most religions.
There's no day without night, in the same way, there's no good without evil.
What would be the point to give man freedom of choice without something to choose from?
If men's only possibility was goodness....Then good wouldn't exist, because it would be our only possible course of action and nothing would separate us from animals who act only by instict.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 19 2010 at 00:25
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 19 2007
Location: Penal Colony
Status: Offline
Points: 11420
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 23:43 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
ExittheLemming wrote:
Be that as it may, why then could an entity 'perfect and without sin' (the aim of all Christians and a potted description of their God) be the source of the very evil that they wish to be separated from?
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I believe your post is summarized in this last question, and the answer is in the very essence of most religions.
There's no day without night, in the same way, there's no good without evil.
What would be the point to give man freedom of choice without something to choose from?
If men's only possibility was goodness....Then good wouldn't exist, because it would be our only possible curse of action and nothing would separate us from animals who act only by instict.
Iván |
I agree with you here wholeheartedly but my question wasn't 'why did God give mortal men freewill?' My question was why would an entity created 'perfect and without sin' (Satan/Lucifer) need freewill?
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Ivan_Melgar_M
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: April 27 2004
Location: Peru
Status: Offline
Points: 19557
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Posted: September 19 2010 at 01:02 |
ExittheLemming wrote:
I agree with you here wholeheartedly but my question wasn't 'why did God give mortal men freewill?'
My question was why would an entity created 'perfect and without sin' (Satan/Lucifer) need freewill?
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Lucifer was created perfect in all his ways, but iniquity was found in him. It was not put there by God. Lucifer created it.
Ezekiel 28:15 )
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Like human soul, Lucifer was created perfect, but corrruption reached him, because every creation of God needs free will in orderto choose between right or wrong.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 19 2010 at 01:03
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