You claim that God does not exist, part 3

I'll not speak for all atheists.
In your dogmatic views why does Shiva not exist? Why do Atlas and Athena not exist? Why do you suppose that only your God (with a capital "G") exists?

My view is that "gods" were the creations of man's imaginings. Gods were originally created to answer (then) unanswerable questions: Where do we come from; why does the earth shake; why did the locusts destroy our crops; what happens to us when we die. Gods existed long before anyone ever spoke about or wrote about your God.

I suspect that you "adhere to dogma" which says gods, except my God, cannot exist.

GodDidIt has been a valid potential best explanation for a lot of things throughout 100,000 of mankind's history. Not a correct explanation, just an understandable explanation at the time.

 

They use the title "God" rather than the entity's name = Yahweh = because they are ashamed. Subsitute Yahweh for God and see how it reads.

 

Funny, it seemed to work just fine for the thousands of Christian scientists who built nearly every single branch of science.

 

Would you mind quoting one of them saying "Goddidit"?

 

"Funny," it seems "Christian scientists" weren't even around to build "nearly every single branch of science."

 

May I point something out to the Theists of the various faiths your deities have a seriously odd way of forming relationships with mortals. See if I as a human want a relationship with another human I first make my presence known as clearly as possible, then greet them then let them know about me and I learn about them, we do things and help each other and demonstrate through time trust and then it gets intimate.

Do gods or goddesses in any form do this since its they that seem to want to have the relationship with us they need to make the proper contact like anyone else would and build a relationship it shouldn't be my responsibility.

 

RE: You claim that God does not exist, part 3
※→ et al,

Is there an actual discussion here?

The idea of a deity [Supreme Being (SB) / Ultimate Cosmic Creator (UCC)] is really a faith based exploration into the nature of a Supernatural Power (SP).

There is no scientific evidence that either SB/UCC does not exist. There is only some indication (not proven) that the universe did not require the intervention of a SP to generate. There are all kinds of possibilities, beliefs, probabilities and potentials in both directions; for ⇔ against. But there is absolutely no Scientific evidence that either supports or counters the belief in the SB/UCC and the theology behind the existence of the SB/UCC. IF there where some empirical evidence, reproducible experimentation or interpretation of a controlled observation for the existence of the SB/UCC through the scientific method THEN an open discussion (such as this) teaches us nothing and would probably NOT reach a satisfactory conclusion or a conclusion with any real meaning.

When debating the existence of a deity (SB/UCC) responsible for the energy of "first motion in the Universe" ("Unless there is a First Mover, there can be no motions" --- Thomas Aquinas) there must be an understanding or consensus as to the characteristic and powers of the SB/UCC; does the SB/UCC even have the characteristic and powers to be a source of the energy required? What then are the implications and consequences of these characteristic and powers?

Unless this is resolved, no argument either for or against has any meaning. Say you believe in "God" has no more substance than saying you believe in the "Cheshire Cat" (an undefined quantity).

Define your "God." Is it a SP and SB/UCC? Or is it less than an SB/UCC with SP?

Most Respectfully,
R

 

LOL. You didn't convince them that God exists. The disbelief in what man has hung the work, God, onto, is driven by emotions. For they are smart enough to know that human knowledge is so extremely limited, and yet this great limitation should logically leave them as being agnostic, admitting that they simply do not know. But they demand certainty in their atheism, and that certainty is impossible to have, if one has intellectual honesty and integrity. Being a scientist does not automatically make an imperfect human being, perfect, when it comes to honesty and integrity. Being a scientist does not cure one of being affected by emotions.

You are right in that when atheists argue their case, which involves generally using the silliest descriptions of God, they always want to make theists look to be as foolish as possible. Yet they in their contention of absolute certainty, relying upon a vast limitation of knowledge, are just as foolish as the people they make fun of. Probably more foolish since they try to use science as somehow providing the evidence, when it does nothing of the sort. Science does not concern itself with this thing man has called God. They want to understand the mechanics of reality, enough to predict and to manipulate the mechanics to achieve a result. They do not need God to do this, they just need to understand the different parts of the machine. Only when some emotional driven scientists want to display their utter arrogance, do they delve into this question of God. Men like Dawkins and Krauss come to mind. These guys get emotional in their attacks on theists, and clearly they have a dog in this hunt. In their arrogance they think their extremely limited knowledge of reality is more than enough to answer this question on the existence of God. When even a village idiot can understand a vastly limited knowledge cannot ever give certainty. Yet they say they are certain. Yet many men of science had enough wisdom to stay away from this certainty. For they knew they could not express it, honestly. Not all men of science are honest, as not many humans in general are honest.

 

Does that include Darwin? He may have thought GodDidIt, but went beyond that belief.
Does that include the folks who came up with Plate Tectonics who realized god does not cause earthquakes?
Does that include Hubble who didn't believe the universe was a little bitty thing.

A lot of Christians discovered many things when they stopped believing GodDidIt.




ETA: Care to comment on my post #151?

 

I mean, the strongest arguments tend to be things like the cosmological argument, which argues for a creator god, but does nothing to argue for Athena or Shiva.

 

Ok, what if we stop the buck right there? If we take only "it's the something which brought about the universe".

If God in any capacity exists, there shouldn't be anything keeping us from labelling him natural, so supernaturalness doesn't seem to need to be a part of the definition.

 

Then you believe Thomas Aquinas.

 

I am agnostic - it's impossible for humans to know if there is a god-like being that created existence as we know it.

 

This has to be a parody account.

 

In a sense, I suppose. Beats a troll account.

 

As opposed to the illuminating "Itjusthappened" offered up by atheism.

 

RE: You claim that God does not exist, part 3
※→ Swensson, et al,

You are just trying to moving the decimal point. Supernatural means "attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature."

(COMMENT)

By doing this, you are saying that the deity (SB/UCC) is within the scientific understanding or the laws of nature. I don't think that you can say that given you cannot even spell-out or define the attributes, characteristic and powers associated with the deity (SB/UCC); let alone understand it. (Do you actually know of something in nature that can create the universe? What powers were required to accomplish that feat?)

You cannot "stop the buck right there."

Most Respectfully,
R

 

Hello! How ya doin'? I am an atheist. A non-believer. You express belief in knowing what's impossible for humans to know. Not me. I don't believe we can know what will be beyond human comprehension should our species manage to survive quite a while longer. Do you have any evidence to support this conviction of yours?

 

Sure, with that definition of supernatural, you can add supernatural if you want to (although I think there is more to supernaturalness, for instance if we didn't understand fluid dynamics, I still wouldn't call rivers supernatural). It doesn't matter much for the rest of the argument. Of course, I don't understand it any further than it supposedly having created the universe, but I don't need more than that for the purposes of indicating it exists.

Edit: I might have misread your post. Yes, the suggestion is that it would be within the laws of nature. Indeed, if it exists and gave rise to the universe, why couldn't that process be said to be within the laws of nature?

 

Respectfully, that sounds to me like a lotta highfalutin hooey. Fortunately, here we all get to decide for ourselves, this being a wide open political discussion forum, what comprises convincing evidence, proof, conclusion, satisfaction, teaching us, and real meaning, scientific or otherwise. Experiments confirming zero detection of supernatural influence are theoretically endless. They're simply not done because the result is so thoroughly predictable, thus a waste of time, money, and effort. It really is logically incumbent upon the claimant to support their claim. Belief in something based on nothing evident is simply nonsense.

 

RE: You claim that God does not exist, part 3
※→ Grumblenuts, et al,

I am not sure I follow all the principles and concept by St Thomas Aquinas, "The Argument from Motion" (Philosophy of Religion); but few can outright say his logic is flawed on this matter.

(COMMENT)

Unless we are to presume that there is no such thing as "nothingness," or that "nothingness" is (in itself) an form of energy; THEN there must be some other source of energy that put the initial (primordial) components in motion that unfolded the universe as it really is.

The general idea and adaptive notion put forth by St Thomas Aquinas can be applied to a number of scenarios. But there will always be the question: What was the original source of energy that set the conditions that allowed the cascade development of the Weak Force, the Strong Force, the Electromagnetic Force, and whatever gravity is in relations to the space-time fabric of space.

There are many mysteries in the universe, but at the end of the day before there was light, there was a source of such power that assembled the constituents of light.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

Why couldn't there have always been something?

 

Dark matter & dark energy! That's too funny. With all of that stuff (95.1% of total mass-energy content) we should be bumping into it whenever we move. I wonder why there isn't any of it in our solar system?

 

You don't believe there's any?

 

Why do you believe silly fairy tales? Is there any evidence such things exist within our area? Maybe coal is dark matter?