Why are you Atheist? page 120

Originally posted by Bobneson:

Those Athesit Are so annying!Why don’t they just go around naked,We humans “envoled from Monkeys” Right?But you’ll then go to jail For Public nudity,So We humans are civilzied Enongh To even wear clothes.If i Don’t make any sense,You Athesit Don’t make Sense.

I can’t seem to get the point you are trying to make, care to at least try?

Originally posted by Bobneson:

Those Athesit Are so annying!Why don’t they just go around naked,We humans “envoled from Monkeys” Right?But you’ll then go to jail For Public nudity,So We humans are civilzied Enongh To even wear clothes.If i Don’t make any sense,You Athesit Don’t make Sense.

I completely agree with you. Public nudity should be legal.

Originally posted by NaturalReject:

Originally posted by Bobneson:

Those Athesit Are so annying!Why don’t they just go around naked,We humans “envoled from Monkeys” Right?But you’ll then go to jail For Public nudity,So We humans are civilzied Enongh To even wear clothes.If i Don’t make any sense,You Athesit Don’t make Sense.

I completely agree with you. Public nudity should be legal.

*Insert pr0n jazz music here *

And one thing (out of the dozens I could make) I would like to point out in this troll post is that chimpanzees also evolved (indirectly) from amoebas, but you don’t see them asexually reproducing. Great, now the whole world doesn’t make sense.

It’s centered around the “you”, whereas for other people it might be actually different (and it is).

1. You misunderstand. What I said was that I don’t know of any other method capable of making objective claims. If you know another, please do tell me. If you don’t, then it is the best currently known one.
2. Ohmylanta covered this, but I as well did, which you replied to in the very next point. Objective claims means they are undeniable. There’s no way for you to say “science isn’t objective to me”, because that’s simply false. Gravity exists whether or not you want it to exist. The Moon is there whether or not you believe in it. Stuff like that.

Undeniable – OK, we can equate it to “I saw it”, at least indirectly.

As I said above, the thing with undeniable is that even a critic has to accept basic theories. You can’t deny gravity or the Moon. They exist.

Verifiable – dude, that’s already a clear reference to PERSONAL experience, cause it relies on a PERSON, not on something abstract.

No, it goes much further than that. We have an objective theory, which you don’t believe in. Verifiability implies that you can verify the theory’s sources and results in order to find out the theory actually stands. This is part of your personal experience, true, but the theory itself is not. What it means, simply said, is that verifiability allows for the claim to stand uncontested.

Reproducible – oh, man…
MOST events AREN’T!
Technically/physically speaking – NONE is.
Cause we should take into account ALL conditions, and this includes even positions of planets, though its importance is minuscule, but to TRULY reproduce, you MUST do it 100%.

That’s just deliberately trying to undermine science with some whacko logic. Are you honestly going to say that everything is an illusion, since we can’t test everything 100%? Or worse, are you going to say everything is equally likely, since personal experience dictates we can believe whatever the hell we want? Science tries to remove such dangerous ideals. In fact, science acknowledges you can’t 100% reproduce something. This is why it tries to remove as much factors as possible. Time can’t be changed, which is, I believe, the biggest factor we have trouble with. Other than that, you can get the same person involved within a certain time period, the same objects, the same events. 99%, 95%, or 90% is enough for us to start making assumptions. Your personal experience method certainly doesn’t come even close to that. What we want is the best method, not a perfect method (we do want it, but it’s not cost-effective, and it’s probably not reachable any way).

Usually, approximations work fine, but you can never know, WHAT caused a “sudden/random” difference in the results.

You really speak out of ignorance. You bring up questions answered hundreds of years ago, explained in every single textbook about half-baked science. It’s really annoying since it feels like I’m teaching you the majority of the time.

Regardless of personal feelings – this is basically the “sum of subjectives” part, at least it feels like it.

No, on the contrary. This means that the fact won’t suddenly change if people think differently about it. It’s not the same with point a, as here it simply means that subjective issues generally considered by society are capable of changing while objective issues are not.

Sun rises.

This is undeniable, verifiable, reproducible, and doesn’t change regardless of a person’s feelings on it. You’re really pushing it by trying to say we “can’t force the Sun to do anything”. That’s not the point. We can witness the event. The witnessing is the reproduction of the observation. I do hope that much was obvious.

“I have a cat in my room”.

This is not undeniable, it is not verifiable, not reproducible, though it doesn’t change due to people’s feelings on the matter. Here, the issue is that it’s a one-time event. So, scientifically, this event cannot assumed to have happend. But, half-bakedly applying science as a casual person, you can accept the fact that not only it’s common sense cats exist, rooms exist, and it’s on a daily basis that cats are within rooms of human beings, it is not surprising someone claims the same. You can also accept the fact that there are no serious changes in government, religion, or personal feelings when you acknowledge the claim. You can accept it as a person, even though scientifically it can’t be correct. This is different from an event that would change the entire world.

Oh, and this is plain weird:
“Something can be personally true, but that means it isn’t necessarily true for another person. If something is scientifically true, it is true for you regardless of whether you think it isn’t.”
The second part sounds kinda stupid: I disagree with something, but it works even according to myself.
It’s a circular contradiction…

How can you disagree with gravity? How can you disagree with the existence of the Moon? Those are the things I’m talking about. What you can disagree with is more subtle issues, such as the existence of VY Canis Majoris (currently, the largest known star in the observable universe), or evolution. You, personally, can’t really observe both issues without resorting to verifying the information. Since you aren’t really verifying this information, you disbelieve the latter based on religious ground (which is a non-scientific way, of course). Had you read more into it, though, you might have been more willing to accept them. I don’t know if you believe VY Canis Majoris exists, perhaps there’s a conspiracy theory as well for you, but that one, too, can be verified. As long as you put yourself into it. You can only disagree with scientific theories if you have verified the information. Up until then, it’s purely based on ignorance and wishful thinking.

Meaning, if someone WAS there, it automatically becomes his personal experience, which you rule out as “unscientific”.

No, but most of this is explained above. Hopefully.

If someone WASN’T there, how can he ever be a source to prove it, since he only has indirect evidence at best?

Because this supposed “indirect” evidence not only is the best we have, it’s significantly useful.

…

Bobneson,

Those Athesit Are so annying!Why don’t they just go around naked,We humans “envoled from Monkeys” Right?But you’ll then go to jail For Public nudity,So We humans are civilzied Enongh To even wear clothes.If i Don’t make any sense,You Athesit Don’t make Sense.

You need to learn how to correctly relate conclusions with observations. Currently, you make several statements:

1. “I believe atheists are annoying.”
2. We human beings have common ancestors with monkeys.
3. Public nudity is disallowed.

Then you draw a conclusion:

1. Atheists don’t make sense, because they don’t run around naked.

This implies several things:

1. Having a common ancestor means you should share one pathetic little feature with them.
2. If we don’t share this one, unique feature with them, we cannot possibly have a common ancestor with them.
3. A virtual rule created by society has any effect on evolution.

I truly don’t think you wanted to make that conclusion, or any of these implications.

Hmm, well I can tell you one good reason I don’t believe in a perfect God from the Bible.

Read Genesis 18: 20-33. God wanted to destroy Sodom, however Abraham reasoned with God and convinced him that it would be bad for God to do that. God realized that Abraham was right and then “went his way”. Would a perfect God’s reasoning need to be corrected by an imperfect human?

CT
You probably never heard of a way of teaching children responsibility by asking their opinion on small things.
Like, I’m giving you a dollar per week, so are you gonna spend it now on candies, or wait a month and buy toy?
The child learns to be responsible.
This is exactly why G-d gives humans directives, in order that we make our own choices – and learn from them.
In your mentioned case, G-d wanted to be ASKED to spare the cities.
Abraham asked to spare them for a REASON – for a number of RIGHTEOUS people, WORTHY of being saved.
When they BOTH saw, that there’s not even TEN worthy people in the entire vicinity, Abraham was silent, cause he AGREED, that it was DOOMED for a reason…
So, G-d actually SHOWED him (and US, the readers), WHY He was destroying the place – and it wasn’t “on a whim”, but for a sound reason of being unworthy of existence.
Thus, your claim is wrong and defeated. :D

Originally posted by somebody613:

CT
You probably never heard of a way of teaching children responsibility by asking their opinion on small things.
Like, I’m giving you a dollar per week, so are you gonna spend it now on candies, or wait a month and buy toy?
The child learns to be responsible.
This is exactly why G-d gives humans directives, in order that we make our own choices – and learn from them.
In your mentioned case, G-d wanted to be ASKED to spare the cities.
Abraham asked to spare them for a REASON – for a number of RIGHTEOUS people, WORTHY of being saved.
When they BOTH saw, that there’s not even TEN worthy people in the entire vicinity, Abraham was silent, cause he AGREED, that it was DOOMED for a reason…
So, G-d actually SHOWED him (and US, the readers), WHY He was destroying the place – and it wasn’t “on a whim”, but for a sound reason of being unworthy of existence.
Thus, your claim is wrong and defeated. :D

“32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home."

I dont know what you were getting at because Abraham wasnt silent and God realized that Abraham was right and then left without destroying the city. I really suggest you actually read the passage before you make claims about it. Every version of the Bible that I have seen shows that God accepted that he was wrong and left without destroying the city.

I am more of an agnostic really because I believe something supernatural had to create the world but we don’t have enough information to really say who it is. Since the first civilizations came to be they had god(s) rather it was Ahura-mazda or allah there had to be a first cause. People will say the big bang created this and then people will ask what caused the big bang and it will be an endless loop of what started this or this. Things don’t just happen without a cause so wherever this endless loop ends something had to come to start it. The problem I see with bible is that it is flawed. You will find so many contridictions in it and half show that god wants to kill non-believers and the other verses will show him as a mercyful god.

You can see this is look at the denominations christianity has Babtist/Roman catholics/methodist/lutherin/prespiterian/east orthodox etc. That’s all I know and they all dissagree with each other like Reverent Fred Phelps teaches the evil versus and the good versus are taught by others who have to cherry pick the vesus out. You can’t take the whole bible in a church or you will run into contridictions.

Now I am ok with following an evil god and I’m sure you will agree that if your god asked you to kill somebody you would do it but god isn’t even that and noteven a mixture because the versus are direct contridictions like do this/don’t do this.

This leads me to believe that it was messed with perhaps by the pope. Not sure if this is true but I heard that he would take parts out of the bible if he didn’t like it so either the bible was perfect at one time but messed up by humans or it was never right in the first place whitch brings me to my next question.

Why would god trust his perfect word to a bunch of sinful humans? If he is all knowing he would have never let it get mixed up even if that means getting a pen and coming to earth to fix it.

Now for hell, Why it hell forever based on a lifetime of sins? I would have simply destroyed the souls so they wouldn’t have to suffer. The reason I don’t believe this religion is because the contridictions are direct so even the wetboro baptists are correct.

About 50 different types of christians all have a different interpertation of the bible, Some follow the evil and some follow the good versus and god isn’t with his humans but gave them free will and if they pick the wrong one they go to hell.

If you don’t agree don’t be mean about it.

I am agnostic. The problem is that there isn’t enough hard evidence. People might quote religious texts at me, but I can quote factual texts just as easily as fantasy. I have a hard time believing things that don’t have supporting evidence.

Since people like to bring up the evolution arguement. Atleast that is a theory supported by fossils, Darwin’s finches, how primates use tools, etc. With a book, there is no way to tell if the information it is true without referencing evidence. People can argue the fact that religious texts may overlap in similarity in some areas and thus as they support each other they must be true, but just as any good movie/story there is potential for spinoffs.

Another problem is people that spout, “If you don’t believe [insert religion here], you shall burn,” annoy me just as the next person (which may push me away from religion). I don’t agree with this and if there is an almighty being I am sure that he/she/it will forgive me if I have been a good enough person anyway.

However, as I said I am agnostic not just an athiest and so I feel oblidged to share my ‘religious’ views.

The first thing is that I would like there to be some sort of end reward for being morally nice to others, even though it may be hard and puts me at a disadvantage from time to time. Having a divine being is always a nice feeling.

Originally posted by Immortal7777:

I am more of an agnostic really because I believe something supernatural had to create the world but we don’t have enough information to really say who it is.

This is the biggest reason why I believe in some sort of divine being. The watchmaker question is always one that gets me. I ask myself, “What happened before the Big Bang?”, “How did it happen?” and most importantly, “Why?” Where did the initial spark come from?

Something shouldn’t be able to happen for no reason, and then why are these phyiscal laws imposed upon us as they are? Would E=mc^2 always have been true, if the intial parameters have been different (say for example wave/particle duality was not true), or did something ‘encode’ that from the start? Could it have been in a different series of multiverse E=mc^3, but here it just so happened that it wasn’t?

I don’t see how hell would push you away from religion because it the god was real you would realize he was a tyrannt but not fake. I however see it as a death threat and I will never adress him as meciful father if that’s the type of barbarian he is.

I get that from my parents a lot because my dad is a pastor.

In the religion I was raised with, there is no hell, you just die which is good in a way, but I just cant get myself to believe in a god even though I want there to be a god that way we could have a possibility to live forever in a paradise like I was raised to think.

CT
About Sodom.
Scroll UPWARDS and read comments on 24-33, it clearly shows my idea, especially 33 about Judge and defender.

Originally posted by somebody613:

CT
About Sodom.
Scroll UPWARDS and read comments on 24-33, it clearly shows my idea, especially 33 about Judge and defender.

Well it seems we have some kind of misunderstanding, your bible’s account is completely different from every Christian Bible I have ever seen, which is what Bible I was arguing against, I have no clue what other bibles say, so I wasn’t arguing against them, I guess I should have been more specific in which Bible I was referring to. But anyways, I assume that you are quoting from the Torah, which just makes me wonder why all of the Christian Old Testament in English is different from the English Translation of the Torah.

CT
Like, due to “religious politics”? O_o
You know, to “amend” things that don’t conform to the “new, right” view.
As in: “there are only two opinions: my and wrong”. :D
The same way they “find” references to J. where it doesn’t even make sense…
There are prophecies/references that are ambiguous enough to be interpreted either way, but also many examples are plain ignorance of the context.
Which probably is the same case here.
Though I don’t understand, WHAT “your” Bible says DIFFERENTLY, than the ORIGINAL TEXT…
(I mean, it shouldn’t, when it comes to TRANSLATION…)
So, HERE is the translation (again, UPWARDS for faster finding).
WHERE is the difference? O_o
THIS and THIS and THIS are pretty Christian…
So?
(The MAIN TEXT remains the same – what “your” version lacks, is COMMENTARIES to clear the CONTEXT…)

This is the biggest reason why I believe in some sort of divine being. The watchmaker question is always one that gets me. I ask myself, “What happened before the Big Bang?”, “How did it happen?” and most importantly, “Why?” Where did the initial spark come from?

The flaw in this reasoning is that having a creator does not magically explain things. It actually makes them more difficult to explain, if you have the creator now you have answer where it came from. You can’t put a creator in to explain something and then not explain the creator itself.

Stilton
Your question is the reason why GREEKS couldn’t fathom “creatio ex nihilo” – for them, “who created the Creator” is a valid question.
For me, it’s not.
The First Cause is exactly that, the FIRST cause, no need for anything “before” it.

It’s nice if you believe that, but it doesn’t change that the question is still a valid one.
If your whole argument is founded on the assumption: “Nothing can come from nothing. Everything needs a creator,” and ends in: “Oh, and by the way, that creator is excluded from the rule. Ladida!” then you are plain and simple arguing against your own argument within your own argument.

The First Cause is exactly that, the FIRST cause, no need for anything “before” it.

You’re right in that it’s a valid reason for a religious belief (anything can be), but as we discussed before this has no effect on whether or not it is objectively true.

@Debron:

For my rebuttal I am going to assume you follow logic.

This is the biggest reason why I believe in some sort of divine being. The watchmaker question is always one that gets me. I ask myself, “What happened before the Big Bang?”, “How did it happen?” and most importantly, “Why?” Where did the initial spark come from?

1) What caused this divine being? Surely since you hold everything has had a cause within our existence, this divine being would have had to have a cause for itself too.

2) Dissimilar to (1), if you hold that this divine being “just was” the first cause, as in it is infinite, then by definition you hold that existence can be infinite (because you believe that said divine being exists, right?). Following Occam’s Razor (the logical rule of thumb that the simplest hypothesis regarding the issue with the least amount of assumptions is preferred), the divine being is just an extra assumption that hasn’t been proven. So why believe in it if you follow logic and/or science on the big issues like this?

Edit: A common misconception people have is that since they see this whole “cause-effect” relationship inside of our existence, they think it applies to everything, even existence itself. While science has proven that there is definitely a cause-effect relationship within our existence, it has not proven that this same relationship is present for existence itself (how can we test cause-effect for existence, right?). Therefore, it is not necessarily impossible for “existence” not to have a cause. It very well could be infinite without a god or gods.

That’s not how it works (Newton’s law) Another force had to act on an object like gravity or inertia to cause whatever caused the big bang. How can something just happen for no reason? Sorry but that goes against everything making a god seem like absolute truth.

Not sure how to post sections of a quote but debron you have a point. If this is just a universe with a type of logic them something could have happened. I never thought of it like that.

I do recommend to read THESE articles, some are quite long, but VERY effective in explaining the major-importance topic of “what truly is meant by the word G-d”.
Who created G-d.
The first creation.
What is Creation.
What is time.
Something from nothing.
G-d’s ultimate choice.
How scientific is Torah.
Jews vs Greeks.

Minor question, why do you keep stating “G-d”?

Second question, all your articles came from a Jewish site. I worry for bias. Do you have any scientific articles on other sites?

EDIT: Also, you never replied to my post in April.

For my rebuttal I am going to assume you follow logic.

I’ve had discussions before with people that don’t follow logic, it is quite hard to argue from there.

DR
Sorry for not answering – I probably didn’t see it worth continuing.
I do hope we won’t end in the same-type stalemate this time…
As of G-d.
As of bias, well, you are “biased” (scientifically-logically) to at least the same degree. :D
As of logic, I do follow it, but I don’t “worship it”, check my last link about GREEKS, it has this point too.
As of scientific articles, about WHAT? You lost me there…

As of G-d.

Interesting, didn’t know that.

As of bias, well, you are “biased” (scientifically-logically) to at least the same degree.

I can’t see how you come to that conclusion. Science and logic are exactly based on the fact that they reach conclusions without bias. It is required to be objective.

As of logic, I do follow it, but I don’t “worship it”

It’s a bit of a stretch to say that anyone does.

check my last link about GREEKS, it has this point too.

Sorry, my internet is really crappy right now, so it can’t open much websites. Logic is not there to be worshipped. It is conveying your thoughts in a way that it can be considered objectively correct.

As of scientific articles, about WHAT? You lost me there…

You posted a load of articles from a Jewish site. This is related to the discussion about bias. If you can find scientific articles about the same, then I’d be less inclined to feel there is a bias.