Has anyone else noticed this ?

[meridian]

Can you explain that one? We're all atheists but some of us believe in god(s)? I'm aware of the argument that Atheism is as much a faith as 'proper' religions but not the other way round.

What I meant was, to a Hindu you're an 'athiest' in the sense that you don't believe in any/all of their gods.

To use another quote, when you understand why you don't believe in someone else's god(s), you'll understand why I don't believe in yours.

[Mich the Tester]

What makes the Christian ‘God’ more believable to modern believers than Wotan, Thor or Ra?

[Moscow Mule]

What makes the Christian ‘God’ more believable to modern believers than Wotan, Thor or Ra?

Indoctrination.

[EternalOptimist]

What makes the Christian ‘God’ more believable to modern believers than Wotan, Thor or Ra?

Interesting question is this. I never had the slightest inclination to believe in anything supernatural, so studying religion is like studying chemistry to me, if that makes any sense to the believers out there. At the same time, I can see the great passion it arouses, so I accept there must be something real there, to the believers

[shaunbhoy]

The local milkman has one on his float

Well you know what they say...........Blessed are the Cheesemakers!!

[cailin maith]

I still see a few (well, I am in Ireland, the land of the gullible). I have a Darwin fish on the back of mine to wind them up

Piss off

[Mich the Tester]

I'm a scientist as well as a Christian, and the thing that gets me with pure blind evolution is the sheer improbability.

I find evolution less improbable than the spontaneous arrival of an omnipotent, omniscient being capable of making universes, designing and guiding evolutionary processes and judging the actions of every human on a planet somewhere in the backwaters of a relatively unspectacular galaxy, which is only one of millions and billions...etc

What I mean is this; for the big bang to happen you would need a particle of enormous density somewhere in a void. That particle then explodes and leads on to atoms, rocks, gravity, proteins and eventually people, cats and delayed trains. Improbable perhaps, but science has shown quite elegantly how complexity can arise from simplicity (although has failed to do so among some families in East Anglia or the Dutch countryside). Still leaves the question of where the particle came from, and perhaps that question will never be answered; that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to answer it, seeing as we've come a long way in the past few thousand years.

Now then, religious people usually posit that God did all this. But that would make God an incredibly complex being, in fact even more complex than the universe itself, and supposedly he was here BEFORE the universe. I'd be fascinated to know where he came from.

So if the existence of the universe and the process of evolution are improbable, then isn't existence of god before the universe even more improbable?

If God arrived at the same time as the universe, and was created during the big bang, then he's not really the creator, but is another being who is part of the same universe as us and subject to the same physical laws as the rest of us, and thus neither omnipotent nor omniscient.

If God arrived after the universe was formed, then he was surely unnecessary, because a natural process that's capable of producing an omnipotent, omniscient being is surely capable of producing planets, water, oxygen, proteins and life without any outside help.

[shaunbhoy]

I find evolution less improbable than the spontaneous arrival of an omnipotent, omniscient being capable of making universes, designing and guiding evolutionary processes and judging the actions of every human on a planet somewhere in the backwaters of a relatively unspectacular galaxy, which is only one of millions and billions...etc

What I mean is this; for the big bang to happen you would need a particle of enormous density somewhere in a void. That particle then explodes and leads on to atoms, rocks, gravity, proteins and eventually people, cats and delayed trains. Improbable perhaps, but science has shown quite elegantly how complexity can arise from simplicity (although has failed to do so among some families in East Anglia or the Dutch countryside). Still leaves the question of where the particle came from, and perhaps that question will never be answered; that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to answer it, seeing as we've come a long way in the past few thousand years.

Now then, religious people usually posit that God did all this. But that would make God an incredibly complex being, in fact even more complex than the universe itself, and supposedly he was here BEFORE the universe. I'd be fascinated to know where he came from.

So if the existence of the universe and the process of evolution are improbable, then isn't existence of god before the universe even more improbable?

If God arrived at the same time as the universe, and was created during the big bang, then he's not really the creator, but is another being who is part of the same universe as us and subject to the same physical laws as the rest of us, and thus neither omnipotent nor omniscient.

If God arrived after the universe was formed, then he was surely unnecessary, because a natural process that's capable of producing an omnipotent, omniscient being is surely capable of producing planets, water, oxygen, proteins and life without any outside help.

An UNBELIEVER!!!!!!!!!!!! Stone Him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He's only making it worse for himself!!!!!!!!!!

[ratewhore]

These things aren't worth debating until you've had a skinful...

[Moscow Mule]

snip

I used to have thoughts like that, but then my brain melted.

What would be really cool is if our universe is entirely contained within an atom of another universe - in a sort of uber-fractal kind of way.