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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 4:08 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 4:09 pm by Simon Moon.)
(May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: You're right, but faith in Christ is required for salvation.
So, in other words, 'God' created the universe, including 200 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion or more stars, with countless planets, as a giant 'Soul Filter' for several billion hairless ape like creatures (with an overblown sense of importance) on one of the untold countless planets orbiting one mundane star out of the over 100 billion in our galaxy alone.
Got it.
The god you believe exists is tiny and meaningless, and an obvious invention of the same hairless ape like creatures.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 4:30 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: And that's God's fault, if he exists.
No. It's our fault for sinning. That isn't the way he created it in the beginning.
The original sin was the result of God setting a trap for his dumb, simple pair of humans knowing in advance they were going to do what they did. It was a trap and that makes it his fault. The fact that it is also the apotheosis of disproportionate retribution just piles on the blame.
The ultimate being carries the ultimate responsibility. Every negative thing is necessarily his fault.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 4:38 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 4:08 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: You're right, but faith in Christ is required for salvation.
So, in other words, 'God' created the universe, including 200 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion or more stars, with countless planets, as a giant 'Soul Filter' for several billion hairless ape like creatures (with an overblown sense of importance) on one of the untold countless planets orbiting one mundane star out of the over 100 billion in our galaxy alone.
Got it.
The god you believe exists is tiny and meaningless, and an obvious invention of the same hairless ape like creatures.
Who said he created it all just for us? He could have created it for us and all his other creatures, wherever they exist. We don't know.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 4:45 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 4:47 pm by Simon Moon.)
(May 8, 2014 at 4:38 pm)Lek Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 4:08 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: So, in other words, 'God' created the universe, including 200 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion or more stars, with countless planets, as a giant 'Soul Filter' for several billion hairless ape like creatures (with an overblown sense of importance) on one of the untold countless planets orbiting one mundane star out of the over 100 billion in our galaxy alone.
Got it.
The god you believe exists is tiny and meaningless, and an obvious invention of the same hairless ape like creatures.
Who said he created it all just for us? He could have created it for us and all his other creatures, wherever they exist. We don't know.
I agree, there may be more sentient beings in the universe.
But my point stands. If you believe that the only way to salvation is 'faith in Christ', then at least for us, the universe is nothing but a 'Soul Filter'. And we only have 70 or so years to figure how the 'Soul Filter' works.
But if so, are we the only ones that need 'faith in Christ'?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 4:54 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 1:26 pm)max-greece Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 12:41 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Atheism: a study in hopelessness.
Prove your claim that an intelligent being that knows all that can be known and is capable doing anything it is possible to do could indeed have made a better world.
Theist demands proof. You saw it here folks - if you can believe your eyes.
Dunno Chad - how about a simple change to the female malaria carrying mosquito so it didn't suck blood and millions didn't die of the disease? Let it eat nectar and fruit like the male does.
Now tell me how the world wouldn't have been a better place had God chosen to do that. How can you know that you have considered all the possible ramifications of this change in order to claim that this is not the least unfortunate option?
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 5:11 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 4:54 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: How can you know that you have considered all the possible ramifications of this change in order to claim that this is not the least unfortunate option?
OMNIPOTENT
adjective
1. (of a deity) having a level of ability which is provisionally most convenient for whatever argument a theist makes at any given moment.
synonyms: all-powerful, almighty, supreme, preeminent, most high;
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 9:41 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm)Lek Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 3:50 pm)Tonus Wrote: If the Genesis stories are allegorical, then you cannot state this with any certainty. If the stories are to be taken literally, then it's not reasonable to fault humanity for what happened. To speak of god as a being of such great power and wisdom and intellect and then pretend that he was so effortlessly bested by the devil and two humans does not make sense. If God is who or what you think he should be then it doesn't make sense. If we allow him to be who he is then it does. It's not a case of just deciding that he should be one thing or another. We would logically expect him to be much wiser and more considerate than the story implies. The fact that he falls short so often in the Bible is the reason that excuses like "he works in strange and mysterious ways" and "we cannot know his mind" had to be invented. Because if we consider his actions under a typical framework of ethical or moral behavior he comes off looking either cruel or foolish.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 10, 2014 at 7:10 am
(May 8, 2014 at 4:38 pm)Lek Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 4:08 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: So, in other words, 'God' created the universe, including 200 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion or more stars, with countless planets, as a giant 'Soul Filter' for several billion hairless ape like creatures (with an overblown sense of importance) on one of the untold countless planets orbiting one mundane star out of the over 100 billion in our galaxy alone.
Got it.
The god you believe exists is tiny and meaningless, and an obvious invention of the same hairless ape like creatures.
Who said he created it all just for us? He could have created it for us and all his other creatures, wherever they exist. We don't know.
Do you think Jesus died for their sins too or does every planet get their own Jesus?
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 10, 2014 at 8:43 am
(This post was last modified: May 10, 2014 at 8:44 am by Chas.)
(May 7, 2014 at 9:43 pm)Lek Wrote: I'm glad to see that you, like myself, are interested in why the world was created. I know it was because God wanted to, No, you don't know that. Quote: but I don't know his specific reasons. He could have also created billions of other universes with totally different properties than ours for different reasons, which boggles my mind to think about. The atheist option to God creating this world is that everything is just here for no purpose - it just is.
No, there is no known reason. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't - no one knows.
Quote: Either everything always was or it just popped into existence from whatever was here before everything was. I don't think that because God created the world that all of our problems can be blamed on God. Starving children are usually caused by things like oppressive governments or anarchy. In places where people are miserable, the misery is usually caused by other people. I'd say that people in free countries are less miserable that those in which tyranny prevails. Do you really think that this world is just a place where creatures suffer for millennium after millennium? I think it's a lot more than that.
You just make shit up, don't you.
(May 8, 2014 at 12:41 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Atheism: a study in hopelessness.
(May 8, 2014 at 12:40 pm)Kitanetos Wrote: Because a supposedly all powerful and all loving god would actually attempt to make this a better world for its creations rather than watch the horrific drama as though we are an entertaining reality show for it.
Prove your claim that an intelligent being that knows all that can be known and is capable doing anything it is possible to do could indeed have made a better world.
First prove the existence of such a being.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 10, 2014 at 12:25 pm
(April 26, 2014 at 4:34 pm)nogodchick Wrote: Can anyone tell me why, if there is a God, he created the world in the first place. It would be a bit self-indulgent of him, surely. Wouldn't he have to be some sort of a power crazed Voyeur to do any of this in the first place? Why would a just and loving God create a world and then watch its creatures suffering for millennium after millennium.
What the hell was God thinking? I have yet to hear a convincing argument advanced about this. Perhaps non atheists could take a shot at answering this question
Intelligent creatures like making things, so God creates the universe. It's fun and challenging and there is a feeling of achievement. However that does not mean that God wants or needs a personal relationship with one insignificant species on a tiny ball of rock located in the fringes of a pretty common type of galaxy. Perhaps our species wasn't created specifically but was a by-product of God creating the universe.
Keep in mind that it does not necessarily follow that just because a deity exists, it either cares about us humans, or wants us to worship him. Simply accepting the existence of a deity need not necessarily produce the religions we are familiar with. Why should God care whether we live or die, or want to dictate which hand we should eat with, how many partners we take etc?
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