Split from Welcome FAQ thread - Is there a God? Discuss

[d000hg]

Not at all. Had a busy weekend and now I'm catching up on your hypocrisy.

You learnt a new word, well done. Now you just need to learn how to use it properly. If you don't have anything to add to the conversation, you can feel free to butt out... though on that basis you'd hardly ever post. Isn't there a thread somewhere else you can spill your content-free bile?

Are you sure you were away, you didn't just switch from the Minestrone login?

[d000hg]

But it isn't a one in trillion trillion trillion chance. It's absolutely inevitable. You don't need infinite universes, you just need to accept that things that are possible occur and things that aren't possible don't.

Well OK then, but now you have to find why it has to be that way - why the universe can only exist in a configuration that is so finely tuned as to allow such complex matter to form. Do you think answers to those questions exist through the realms of science alone?

[d000hg]

The existence of god is a completely academic question. If god created us for his own purposes and doesn't actually care about us as individuals, his existence is no more relevant to us than that of dark matter. The real question is whether there is a god who judges us according to what we do in this life and rewards or punishes us in the next accordingly, as established religions tell us. These say there is not:

a) The way that what we are is so determined by our genes, our upbringing, our experiences and the society we live in that the concept of absolute free will is a nonsense. If Christianity is the true religion how could those brought up as Buddhists have any chance of salvation? Doesn't the Christian god care about them?

b) What we are is so dependent on pure chemistry that there is no evidence of any higher self like a soul. You can take a good man and make a monster with a blow on the head or drugs.

c) The prophets and messiahs are clearly the product of their own cultures. Isn't it odd how men who are or speak to god have no knowledge beyond that you would expect of a man of that time living in that place? Muhammed should have known about Cocaine etc and warned against anything that affects the mind. He only forbad alcohol.

d) The prophets and messiahs are limited by time and geography. Didn't people living on the other side of the world matter, or those who lived before the latest messiah/prophet? If god loves us all equally, shouldn't he have sent his message to every time and place? He is almighty after all, so what's the problem?

e) There are too many contradictions: Why would god give us the ability to think for ourselves and then expect us to believe in what some book says? Why give us natural instincts , like the need to protect ourselves and families and then expect us to turn the other cheek? Why give us sexual urges and then expect us to be chaste? Violence, fornication, pursuit of pleasure, these aren't from the devil. Observation of the same behaviour in other social animals tells us they are natural instincts, those god supposedly gave us all. Difficult to make a just god out of that, only a malevolent one who created us for his own amusement.

Long post... It'd be interesting to discuss but a)it's already been covered from every angle in hundreds of books on apologetics b)I don't think it's feasible to have a grown-up discussion here with the trolls ever-vigilant

[shaunbhoy]

I don't think it's feasible to have a grown-up discussion here when some of the protagonists have decided, unwaveringly from the outset, that anyone who does not believe in the existence of their chosen imaginary friend must be wrong

FTFY

[doodab]

Well OK then, but now you have to find why it has to be that way - why the universe can only exist in a configuration that is so finely tuned as to allow such complex matter to form. Do you think answers to those questions exist through the realms of science alone?

Because it's possible.

I think as you go down this road you have to ask many similar questions about the nature of your god. Where did he come from? Where does he live? What framework does he exist in that he can he choose to create something, and if it allows for multiple possibilities that he has chosen between then how can you guarantee that he hasn't tried many if not all of them? Why not just accept that all the possibilities occur and we happen to be in the middle of one of them?

I find it amusing that people accept that something/one they have never seen and have no direct and irrefutable evidence for "just exists" but are unable to apply the same leap of faith to the universe which they experience every day.

[shaunbhoy]

I find it amusing that people accept that something/one they have never seen and have no direct and irrefutable evidence for "just exists" but are unable to apply the same leap of faith to the universe which they experience every day.

It is all to do with the recipe one must follow to become such a person.
1 gram of truth
1 huge pinch of salt
2 shoulder chips
1 set of heavy duty Blinkers
20 kgs of Intolerance towards sceptics
250 gallons of Blind Faith

[d000hg]

I don't think it's feasible to have a grown-up discussion here when some of the protagonists have decided, unwaveringly from the outset, that anyone who does not believe in the non-existence of any deity be wrong

FTFY.

Although, none of us are having a discussion about any religion in particular, we're discussing the idea of a god in the first place. You're the only one who seems to want to, I'm deliberately not stating my beliefs in case you poor thin-skinned folk get offended at having 'religious views forced on you'. As is normally the case in these situations, the 'reasonable' and 'logical' atheists capture the market as far as intolerance go.

Anyway, you carry on making mindless insults now, I don't want to stretch your brain especially on a Monday morning.

[d000hg]

...

I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing science in our mini-thread... I didn't make any statement what I think. It's certainly not science to say the universe "just exists", which was the point I made from a physics background. If the universe only has one possible configuration and is entirely rational, does this mean we can find out why it can only exist in that (apparently unlikely) configuration? i.e why the gravitational force isn't 1% stronger, etc, etc, etc. Are they just magic numbers (to take a coding phrase) or do they come from somewhere?

[fullyautomatix]

It is okay to believe in God ( like I do) as long as this belief is not imposed on others who want to not believe. What is wrong in a bit of god feary belief ?

[shaunbhoy]

It is okay to believe in God ( like I do) as long as this belief is nto imposed on others who want to not believe. What is wrong in a bit of god feary belief ?

Absolutely nothing. It is just the hypocritical zealots that spoil things.
Nothing like a reformed atheist for full-blown insufferable hypocrisy.