Religeous Two Week Fire Gap

Kevin, you understand how that doesn't actually adress the issue, right?

I mean, even if he exists in "spirit" form, rather than physical, he still had to come from somewhere, right?

No matter what, you cannot get around the causality problem. No one can. If you think that you have solved the causality issues involved with the creation of the universe, you are wrong.

At some point, you must accept one of the following two things:

1) Something was simply "always" there. We have never experienced anything with such qualities.

-or-

2) Something was created without a causal actor. Again, we have never experienced anything like this.


Either way, you're believing in something that we have no evidence for, and actually clashes with the core of our rationality. And, you could replace the word "Something" with the word God, or the word Universe, and it's the same.

Sister! You grok in fullness! <hugs>

That's silly. Unless they are harming you, then they have the right to think what they want.

It's totally absurd for you to be upset because some religion, of which you are not a part, says you're going to hell.

If you actually think that they're right, and that you're going to hell, then you should probably start doing what their God says... If you don't think they're right, then who cares?

Well, Memory,

To know there is a creator is to know you are more than simply an animal. There is purpose to life.

What do I do differently because I believe? With the knowledge God exists, and that He created me I see people differently. Instead of seeing them as competion for food and love, I see them as brothers and sisters. When I do something, I try to put myself in God's shoes, and look at my actions from His perspective, as the one who created me. When I do this it makes my personal concerns shrink, and my ability to reach out to others is increased.

Without this knowledge of a higher purpose, I would just be an animal srtuggling to survive in a rat race.

Kevn, for your reading pleasure... I highly suggest you read it, understand it, and stop telling others what they believe. I don't believe you intend to be a bigot, but if you persist in your false characterizations of atheism I will have to conclude that you are one.

No, I disagree. Anything that created this particular universe? Definitely a punk rocker.

Absolutely correct, roland. To imagine that "God made it" is in any sense an explanation is utter delusion. All you are doing is rolling all the mystery and uncertainty and questions into a ball, labelling it "not to be opened" and calling it "God". Hiding the problem by sleight of hand.

And THAT'S where we differ. I don't need a magical sky pixie to inform me of my worth or purpose. Maybe YOU would be an animal struggling to survive in a rat race -- I'd remain the same, creator or no.

We know nothing of the laws of the spirit world. So we can't assume there has to be a beginning and an end in spirit. Acording to scriptures (the only reference we have to the spirit world) God has no begging and end, or that God is the beginning and end. It's a matter of spirit hat we can't understand completely. It's like trying to understand 3-d from a 2-d perspective.

I agree I have no proof of a creator, but the fact there is a creation is evidence of a creator.

atheists often freak out when you explain to them that their belief system is based on faith.

If you want to be clear, Chip, then explain what kind of atheism you practice.

If you believe that you KNOW there is no god (strong atheism), then you are practicing a relgion that is making as many assumptions as any other faith based religion.

This is why your definition of atheism is so poor... because it's unclear as to what you believe in.

I honestly don't see why you actively resist calling it by a word that clearly defines your beliefs. Why don't you just say, "I don't know if God exists", rather than saying you're an atheist, which people consistently misunderstand to mean that you believe God does not exist?

You're just shifting the problem, without solving it.

Now you're assuming the existence of some magical "spirit world". Where did THAT come from then?

You still have the same problem.. you're assuming the existence of something that defies the core of our rationality.

I added that "not so harshly put" bit later, in a moment of weakness and empathy. Can't you tell ?

But, a key point here is that every Atheist has the EXACT SAME PROBLEM.

The issue of causality is not confined to those who believe in God.

That's why every person's belief structure has some major aspect of faith in it.

We don't freak out so much as launch into giggle fits.

Yeah, I suspected that's what it came down to for you. I suspect that a few others in this thread also suspected that. And you could've saved us all a lot of trouble, you know, by just stating your conclusion at the beginning.



That's sad, Kevn, that's really very sad.

But it's no surprise: I've seen a lot of it.

(I have become ... comfortably numb.)

kk

Thanks for the response.

Now, back to the pie!

Gee, Kev, stop digging yourself in. They are not MY reference to the spirit world. I think they are mostly crap for that purpose, and highly misleading. I understand it completely, to the limit of what is possible, and I understand what that limit is, and why. I can easily comprehend 4-dimensional space more or less directly, make a shot at 5, and handle 173 dimensions symbolically with no problem whatsoever. Cut out the "we", me old pal - you just push others into bragging, like this.

But I love you just the same. I salute your bravery, surrounded by a pack of we hyenas, hacking at your ankles. And, for the wrong reasons, at rock bottom, you are right. But you'll never prove it this way.

Oh - and yes - they are right - preserving/creating morality and humanity in the face of apparent bleak meaninglessness is EXACTLY the pinnacle of what we are. It's exactly what god does. You think he has some bigger purpose outside of and beyond himself to trust and appeal to and rely on ? How could that be ? He wouldn't be god.

Why does there have to be a creator, for there to be purpose to life?

Why is it bad to be "just" an animal?

Can't life simply be its own reward?

The core of our rationality is based on a lack of knowledge and ability to see.
Firstly, we are limited to a small range of physical light.
Secondly, We are limited by our perspective, both from the angle of view and the fact light is bent by gravty.
thirdly, we are 3-d creators limited to 3-d knowledge. Anything we can't sense with our limited senses are completely ignored.
and lastly, our tools are primitive compared to the tools of the 22nd. century. They will look back at us and laugh at our technology.

With such a limited range of view, perspective, tools and knowledge it would be wrong to assume we have a clue about reality. But we can see the art of the physical world that is visible to us, and with that information we can see everything is too perfectly set up to be accidental (the result of an exploson we can't verify even happened). It's just not logical to see what we see and believe it has no design.

If, as you say, we are limited by our perspective, why do you accept thge premise that we can accurately judge that everything is "too perfectly set up".

What if our limited senses are seeing patterns and harmony where none exist? Human beings are prone to seeing patterns --this why often we can see faces in woodgrain, or declare constellations to be images of animals and cooking utensils.

Please, please everyone, can we abandon this trivial red herring about which definitions of "Atheist" and "Agnostic" to use. I have established that both meanings of "atheist" are current and alive, which makes the word effectively useless. Ditch it.

Yes Roland, a positive belief that god does not exist , being unprovable, is also a leap of faith. I don't think there are any of them here, and if there are, they are not wholly rational scientists.

So what ?

This is a little bit of Chip-generated confusion. Lets not turn back to it every five minutes to subconsciously buy time when the going gets difficult.

First of all... All that gibberish about light is silly. Humans have developed the ability to perceive more wavelengths of light than what our eyes can normally handle.. We have these things called tools.

The stuff about light being bent by gravity.. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about there.

The notion of being limited to "3D knowledge" is likewise absurd... First of all, I PERSONALLY do mathematics in more than three dimensions as part of my job.

You seem to be rambling off random "scientific sounding things". Sorry, but I actually have a scientific background, so you'll have to do a bit better than that.



Now, all your stuff about tools... that's true. Surely, perception of God could be possible, and it's simply beyond our current technological capabilities. This is why I say that the idea of "knowing" that there is no God, is absurd, and is not based on rationality.

However, you still don't seem to understand the underlying problem that I'm pointing out.

No set of tools, no matter how complex and awesome, is ever going to give you a rational answer for where everything came from. God does not provide that answer. NOTHING CAN provide that answer. The answer itself, by its very nature, must defy the rules of causality.

Do you understand what I'm talking about, when I say causality? I'm thinking that might be part of the problem here.

Ellie, I realize that YOU seem rational, and understand this.. but I honestly don't believe that everyone else here shares that belief.

Ulrica, for instance, seems to believe that she KNOWS there is no God, to the same extent that she knows there is not a leprechan in her head.

Well, I agree, and I'll add this. If the universe came down to you suddenly, completely randomly and appropos of nothing else that was going on, in your nineteenth year, while you were rational, young, healthy, smart, sober, and with other people - and told you in no uncertain terms that they were there, and they were God, or at least very close to God, and they were humor and love beyond your ability to even fathom their display of it, and they were infinite and outnumbered the stars, and outshined the phosphorescence on the seas, and yet were as one, and they stayed with you - engulfed you, OWNED you - for about ten minutes, until you were certain you were about to die, and you were shaking and awe-struck, and they finally let you go, with love, then you would have evidence that there is something greater than us and that It Is God.

And if the next day there was collaboration from someone distant who couldn't possibly have known, that this event had taken place, you would consider that virtually irrefutable evidence.

And if you spent your next two years of your existance blown away by this experience and this knowledge, and experienced several more impossible but verifiable psychic coincidences over the next two years, verifying that it happened and it happened as it happened, and that it has happened to others, who were also sober, rational, etc., then you would have evidence that there is God - though He may not be quite as you learned He was when you were growing up.

And that would stay with you, through all the years of trials, forgetfulness, the mundane grinding-away of daily everyday life, the tragedies and the inevitable pushing away of God that results, and the long stretches of time where you could care less about these weighty matters. It would stay with you, that memory burned into you forever, so that you always, ALWAYS know that they are there, and they can be reached as God, whether you need them or not, and they will ALWAYS love you, and share their gentle and joyous humor with you, and that is sufficient evidence to carry you through long periods of doubt, indifference, or even despair.

I rejected all this when it happened. I didn't reject that it happened - you couldn't POSSIBLY reject that it happened. I mean, I bargained with it. I said to it, on that night, and in the couple of years following, as I grappled with it, "I am not ready for this. What's more, I don't want this. I want a normal life like everybody else. Can't I just have a normal life like other people?" After all, the other people this had happened to had normal lives, so surely there wasn't anything huge expected of me or anything. I had my normal LIFE planned.

And I guess there wasn't. I was able to lead a normal life. I eventually focused all of it back down to the terms I understood, and could handle, for which I chose the Christian terms, and tried to do the best I could by that, and God knows THAT'S hard enough, and I don't even do a good enough job by that.

But God has been with me throughout, and so have they, the infinite voices. They know my limitations, I think, and they don't come often - only a few times since - and never in such a huge, universal way as happened that night on the beach. When they come, it's always a surprise, and a sort of reminder. It has been to celebrate with me something small or large, unexpectedly, and only a few times. It is always in very small, unverifiable ways, sort of like the very rare, occasional voices in your mind of an old friend or a long-lost loved one you hear, which also you are pretty sure are real, but you can just enjoy them, and then brush them off, and return to your "rational" life. And there aren't so many of them; they are distilled down somehow, to something I can deal with better.

But when they have come, they have always had that humor, and that infinite love for me, as an individual, even in all my foibles and human failings, and that has sustained me and helped me keep my faith. And the message seems to be that they are there for everyone, but they try not to be too intrusive, as the human mind and life, like mine, really can't deal with it.

So that, to me, is evidence. Now my brother, the thorough atheist, knew all that, and he didn't doubt me. He never, in fact, came up with any particular rationale for it that would explain it. He just kind of didn't give it much weight. With him, and with others, the whole thing reminded me of this cat I had who could retrieve. People didn't quite disbelieve me, and when I had the cat do it for them, they didn't NOT see it. But then they went on saying, well, cats don't retrieve. (Without even explaining how it was then that they saw the cat retrieve!)

You know I loved my brother. And he was brilliant, and kind. But he was an atheist, and gave no credence to my experience, or just didn't hear it, or something, I don't know. But that's why I think he was unenlightened, in small, but not-really-important ways, while he thought I clung to things that weren't rational, in small, but not-really-important ways.

I don't know why some people experience things like I did - and other things very different, but which also reinforce faith - and others don't. I think each of us has a different path, and none of them is a bad path. I do know that hating Christians, even for what some of them may have done to you, or hating any Christianity or any religious group striving for more spiritual knowledge, is not good or rational, and is not far enough along the path.

coco

This is a fallacious argument known as the argument from ignorance. You do this a lot.

~Ulrika~

Way, way too much credit, darling.



This is a typo, I think. Second sentence should read "But I can certainly say that he does. . ."

I am certain that you have been here already, but "faith" and "belief" are indefensible and unassailable in terms of argumentation.

I believe that there is a transcendent truth or Truth that has been given many, many names in the course of human experience (God, Zoraster, El, Allah, Vishnu, etc.). Notice that I said 'believe.' What I state after the verb "believe" is both indefensible and unassailable.

I only get into trouble when I posit, "There is a God" or "There is not a god."