• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Atheism: How Sure are You Gods Do not Exist?

dimensionallava said:
thats called pascals wager fallacy, do you also beleive in all the other gods in the world "just in case" they might be real too?
Click to expand...

Gotta be the same philosophy behind Blood, Sweat and Tears song:

Now troubles are many, they're as deep as a well
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell
Swear there ain't no heaven and I pray there ain't no hell
But I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell
Yes, only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell
Click to expand...
 
OrphanSlug said:
So you assume they made up what... better than half of what they stated to you? How certain are you of "beliefs" being inserted into systems of science?
Click to expand...

Not science, beliefs being inserted into the documentary to make for good theater, yes. What I saw in that documentary cannot be known in that much detail. It is all a guess, perhaps an educated one, but a guess nonetheless.

Here, see it for yourself, if you have an hour. It's actually quite good.

 
Frank Apisa said:
Since I know with certainty that 97.6% of all probability estimates are made up right on the spot...

...I avoid probability estimates like the plague.

If there is at least one god...then there is at least one god. If there are no gods...then there are no gods.

I will continue to live my life the way I always have...as if there might be a god and might be no gods.

If there is a god like that barbaric, idiot from the Bible...I am in for a very bad eternity.

I am not willing to guess or suppose on the question of whether there is a god or creator...but I am willing to guess that anyone who thinks that if there is a god...it is anything like that barbaric, idiot from the Bible...is nuts. So I do not take the reward/punishment nonsense into consideration when living my life.
Click to expand...

But, He's a loving god. :)
 
Tim the plumber said:
No he does not.

The religious constantly link belief in evolution with disbelief in God. They are different things.
Click to expand...

I cannot remember which book it was of his, but for page after page for nearly 400 pages he explained that evolution proved that God does not exist. That is why I think so very little of him in spite of his brilliant work on evolution theory.
 
dimensionallava said:
thats called pascals wager fallacy, do you also beleive in all the other gods in the world "just in case" they might be real too?

pascals-wager.jpg
Click to expand...

I am affraid that Homer is just not very bright.
 
joG said:
I cannot remember which book it was of his, but for page after page for nearly 400 pages he explained that evolution proved that God does not exist. That is why I think so very little of him in spite of his brilliant work on evolution theory.
Click to expand...

I think you mean that his book shows that there is no guidance from any higher power in evolution. That life has arrisen without the input of design.

He also rants on about the Christian God being a very nasty piece of work. And fiction. With obvious justification.
 
calamity said:
Not science, beliefs being inserted into the documentary to make for good theater, yes. What I saw in that documentary cannot be known in that much detail. It is all a guess, perhaps an educated one, but a guess nonetheless.

Here, see it for yourself, if you have an hour. It's actually quite good.

Click to expand...


Which bits do you mean?

I thought everything in there was generally either very confidently known or said with appropriate cautions.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Which bits do you mean?

I thought everything in there was generally either very confidently known or said with appropriate cautions.
Click to expand...

Going by memory here. They described the weather on the hot Jupiter: rains of iron, winds of thousands of miles per hour etc; from what I gather by simply observing the osculation of its star. Also all the stuff they said about the super earth: continents, oceans, etc; cannot be known as fact, has to be conjecture. It's not like we sent a probe into the atmosphere of those planets. And, we cannot even read the spectographic signature of extra-solar planets to my knowledge; we can only read the composition of their stars.
 
Tim the plumber said:

I think you mean that his book shows that there is no guidance from any higher power in evolution. That life has arrisen without the input of design.

He also rants on about the Christian God being a very nasty piece of work. And fiction. With obvious justification.
Click to expand...

It does not make any difference how many steps one puts into it. It does not prove puff. Or does he think that the size and complexity of reactions that go on in a chemical plant means that there is no design behind it and the compound at the end of the tortured process is not a creation of the willful design of the mad chemist? It is fine and good to believe or not believe. But to think that any amount of science at least at today's technological and theoretical level will prove anything is absurd.
 
I was going to skip this because the thread clearly asks for Atheist opinions but I noticed that other agnostics chimed in.
I lean towards the improbability of the Biblical God (partly because of scientific evidence and partly because, emotionally, I just don't want to believe that something like that might exist, especially the Old Testament version).
I have studied a number of religions, non-theist Buddhism being a favorite and probably the closest to my tastes.
I cannot say with 100% certainty that there are no gods, be it the God of Abraham, Allah, Shiva, the theistic Buddha, etc. (thus agnostic).
 
Ntharotep said:
I was going to skip this because the thread clearly asks for Atheist opinions but I noticed that other agnostics chimed in.
I lean towards the improbability of the Biblical God (partly because of scientific evidence and partly because, emotionally, I just don't want to believe that something like that might exist, especially the Old Testament version).
I have studied a number of religions, non-theist Buddhism being a favorite and probably the closest to my tastes.
I cannot say with 100% certainty that there are no gods, be it the God of Abraham, Allah, Shiva, the theistic Buddha, etc. (thus agnostic).
Click to expand...
This does bring up a thought that is worthy of its own thread.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/philo...-archaic-barbaric-beliefs.html#post1065438237
 
calamity said:
Going by memory here. They described the weather on the hot Jupiter: rains of iron, winds of thousands of miles per hour etc; from what I gather by simply observing the osculation of its star. Also all the stuff they said about the super earth: continents, oceans, etc; cannot be known as fact, has to be conjecture. It's not like we sent a probe into the atmosphere of those planets. And, we cannot even read the spectographic signature of extra-solar planets to my knowledge; we can only read the composition of their stars.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah it's probably a bit on the speculative side on exo planets.
 
joG said:
It does not make any difference how many steps one puts into it. It does not prove puff. Or does he think that the size and complexity of reactions that go on in a chemical plant means that there is no design behind it and the compound at the end of the tortured process is not a creation of the willful design of the mad chemist? It is fine and good to believe or not believe. But to think that any amount of science at least at today's technological and theoretical level will prove anything is absurd.
Click to expand...

Wrong. The compexity of a chemical plant or indeed all the chamical industries on earth is less than that of a single cell.

The way a chemical plant is constructed, sensably, with a clear objective tells of a design in it's creation. The patched, botched and fixed by luck method that is the result of natural selection of randomness is a very clear style of putting together of a mechanism. That these bad, just about sort of working things, have had billions upon billions of opportunities to fine tune there mechanisms means that they actually work very well.

It is very evident that a clock can never be produced by chance.

It is much simpler than any cell. Or even protein.
 
calamity said:
Here's a slightly different spin on the "Atheism is it a belief or not" thread worth its own discussion. I'm about 75% sure the idea of gods is just crap that primitive people made up. I don't believe in them, and I believe the evidence against the gods put forth by man thus far have all been debunked. The 25% I am unsure of would be that gods exist which defy our imagination at the moment.

The closest I can come to explaining a god which I believe might exist would be some unifying entity of which we are all a part of, a stream of energy that is life. Ok, maybe it's 10% not 25.
Click to expand...

Before that can be answerd, can you please tell me 'what is god'. Can you define God in terms of not what God is believed to have done, and in terms that also are not defined except in a conceptual, metaphysical manner?

What is God?
 
RAMOSS said:
Before that can be answerd, can you please tell me 'what is god'. Can you define God in terms of not what God is believed to have done, and in terms that also are not defined except in a conceptual, metaphysical manner?

What is God?
Click to expand...

IMO, god would be something bigger than the known universe, a consciousness that is capable of creating it and/or manipulating it.
 
RAMOSS said:
Before that can be answerd, can you please tell me 'what is god'. Can you define God in terms of not what God is believed to have done, and in terms that also are not defined except in a conceptual, metaphysical manner?

What is God?
Click to expand...

Allow me to answer this for myself:

When I speak of a "god"...I am always and only speaking of a creator.

If this thing we humans call "the universe" was created (something I do not know for sure; may have been...may not have been)...but IF it was created...whatever created it is what I mean when I speak of a god.
 
calamity said:
IMO, god would be something bigger than the known universe, a consciousness that is capable of creating it and/or manipulating it.
Click to expand...

That is a claim about god, but that does not explain 'what god is'. One of your requirements is that 'God is conscious ' and 'bigger than the known universe'. That is just vague characteristics. It does not explain what God is.. but some minor characteristics.

That does not explain 'what is god'.
 
RAMOSS said:
That is a claim about god, but that does not explain 'what god is'. One of your requirements is that 'God is conscious ' and 'bigger than the known universe'. That is just vague characteristics. It does not explain what God is.. but some minor characteristics.

That does not explain 'what is god'.
Click to expand...

God is a conscious entity that is big enough and/or powerful enough to have created the universe and manipulate it such that it functions. God is the author of the first ever string of DNA, and the prime mover setting all that is in motion. That's about all I'm comfortable saying about the hypothetical god.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Wrong. The compexity of a chemical plant or indeed all the chamical industries on earth is less than that of a single cell.

The way a chemical plant is constructed, sensably, with a clear objective tells of a design in it's creation. The patched, botched and fixed by luck method that is the result of natural selection of randomness is a very clear style of putting together of a mechanism. That these bad, just about sort of working things, have had billions upon billions of opportunities to fine tune there mechanisms means that they actually work very well.

It is very evident that a clock can never be produced by chance.

It is much simpler than any cell. Or even protein.
Click to expand...

That is, you know, irrelevant? Wouldn't a creator use a method that worked for the time available? If i wanted to build a watch evolution might seem a good way to go about it. After all, all you need do is start it and then go watch TV till humanity does the job like it does in The Sirens of Titan.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Allow me to answer this for myself:

When I speak of a "god"...I am always and only speaking of a creator.

If this thing we humans call "the universe" was created (something I do not know for sure; may have been...may not have been)...but IF it was created...whatever created it is what I mean when I speak of a god.
Click to expand...

That is a characteristic of God.. that 'Creator' of the unvivese, but that does not describe anything about God except for an alledged action. What is the 'creator'? Describe it , not in terms of 'what it did', but 'what it is'
 
calamity said:
God is a conscious entity that is big enough and/or powerful enough to have created the universe and manipulate it such that it functions. God is the author of the first ever string of DNA, and the prime mover setting all that is in motion. That's about all I'm comfortable saying about the hypothetical god.
Click to expand...

So, you describe it by hypothetical actions, but, you can't describe what performed those actions. That does not answer the question 'what is god', but rather 'this is what God has to have done'. I don't knwo what you mean when you say 'God'.
 
RAMOSS said:
So, you describe it by hypothetical actions, but, you can't describe what performed those actions. That does not answer the question 'what is god', but rather 'this is what God has to have done'. I don't knwo what you mean when you say 'God'.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter. I don't believe in it anyway.
 
RAMOSS said:
That is a characteristic of God.. that 'Creator' of the unvivese, but that does not describe anything about God except for an alledged action. What is the 'creator'? Describe it , not in terms of 'what it did', but 'what it is'
Click to expand...

It is a creator, Ramoss.

You want something more...just because you want something more.

I ask you this: Do you know whether or not what we humans call "the universe" was created.

I don't.

But if it was...whatever created it...is what I call a god.
 
Frank Apisa said:
It is a creator, Ramoss.

You want something more...just because you want something more.

I ask you this: Do you know whether or not what we humans call "the universe" was created.

I don't.

But if it was...whatever created it...is what I call a god.
Click to expand...

That is what God did, that is not define what God is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom