Pascal's Wager

[Tiberius]

God also gave us free will so we have the choice not to worship him. Did your parents give you choice of whether or not to like them/love them? In fact they couldn't make you like them/love them. But most people love their parents.

Ok, fair enough. So why does such a God demand we worship him or we go to Hell? How is that a choice? It is a forced outcome. Nobody wants to go to Hell, so everyone would worship him, except those brave enough to think "wait a minute..." (i.e. us)

Actually an atheist is a person who rejects what theists accept as evidence of the existance of God.

STOP *holds up red flag*

No redefining atheism on these forums.

Do you know much about why so many scientists believe in God? Have you looked into it at all or read anything about it? There is a question that physicists are struggeling with now regarding the fine tuning of the constants of nature. Are you familiar with it?

The so-called "fine tuning" isn't something that scientists are struggling over at all, for the simple reason that there is no evidence that fine tuning exists. Victor Stenger put it this way:

"Fine-tuning, Stenger argues, comes with caveats. The fact that a universe with different physical constants might be inhospitable to life as we know it does not necessarily mean that it is inhospitable to any form of life. Currently, there is no way of determining if a universe allows for life or not. Further, most of this universe, especially the interstellar vacuum, appears to be devoid of life; other physical constants may exist that allow a much greater density of life than in this universe." (Wikipedia)

So until someone can prove that you can't change a universal constant and create a hospitable universe the argument is as useless as the I.D argument.

[Jason Jarred]

God also gave us free will so we have the choice not to worship him. Did your parents give you choice of whether or not to like them/love them? In fact they couldn't make you like them/love them. But most people love their parents.

No silly billy, the flying spaghetti monster gave us free will. It says so in my FSM Gospel.

Actually an atheist is a person who rejects what theists accept as evidence of the existance of God.

That's the wrong answer, but don't worry - you still have the chance to participate and win a consolation prize.
An atheist does not believe in God. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't tack on your bit about 'evidence' to the definition of atheism.

Do you know much about why so many scientists believe in God? Have you looked into it at all or read anything about it? There is a question that physicists are struggeling with now regarding the fine tuning of the constants of nature. Are you familiar with it?

It matters as much why they believe in God, as it does their belief in unicorns, unless they have a valid reason for that belief. Yup, their reasons are invalid.
Why God? Why not the flying spaghetti monster?

[Meatball]

You have to question a God that gives us free will, doubt, and rational thought, then removes all presence of himself from the world and demands we worship him.

God also gave us free will so we have the choice not to worship him. Did your parents give you choice of whether or not to like them/love them? In fact they couldn't make you like them/love them. But most people love their parents.

The problem with this comparison is that we have reason to love our parents. They are present throughtout our upbringing, they clothe us, they feed us, they love us unconditionally. I can see that one might argue the same for God, but we have no demonstratable proof that it's God providing this to us. God makes himself difficult to find, and expects worship.

If a life-long orphan is approached by it's parents, does the orphan instantly feel love? No, because love is a response to nurture.

[Brick-top]

God also gave us free will so we have the choice not to worship him. Did your parents give you choice of whether or not to like them/love them? In fact they couldn't make you like them/love them. But most people love their parents.

---

How could we have free will if God has omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence?

God is the ultimate designer with ultimate knowledge and power. He knows what we're going to do before we do. Therefore our 'fate' is already predestined. Otherwise he would not be able to know our future because it would be a series of random events.

If I have three cups sitting in front of me and I have to choose one. God already knows what I'm going to pick. If I pick the red one God will know and I can't pick the blue or the green.

God designed us, he knows how we work. He knows how we think. Basically we're programs and God knows every line of code.

UNLESS however he is merely predicting our future. Similar to how we can predict the weather. In that case God cannot see in te future and he isn't all powerful and all knowing.

If he can then it's predesigned and our decisions have already been made. We can't change those decisions.

Actually an atheist is a person who rejects what theists accept as evidence of the existance of God.

Like.....?

Do you know much about why so many scientists believe in God? Have you looked into it at all or read anything about it? There is a question that physicists are struggeling with now regarding the fine tuning of the constants of nature. Are you familiar with it?

lol

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2...-God'.html

People have many reasons for believing in a God. From personal experience I've seen people believe in God because of their upbringing. Some because they fear death. Others like the emotional security and we're naturally supersitious. Maybe the "God did it" answer gives you satisfaction of knowing the unknown. However those unknown answers are now becoming known. 1000 years ago you would've claimed God makes the grass grow, making the sun rise and fall, making it rain etc. But now we know what causes these things.


People being highly superstitious and believing the supernatural is evident in our society and most likely the most probaible cause of believing in God. Like conspiracy theorists, Ghost and alien investigators etc.

However if you're trying to incorperate a supernatural entity to a form of study that only deals with natural occurences then...........wha?

[Tiberius]

Have we already discussed how you can't be omnipotent and omniscient at the same time? I forget. Great paradox:

"Does God know what he's going to do tomorrow? If so, could he do something else?"

[Eilonnwy]

Actually an atheist is a person who rejects what theists accept as evidence of the existance of God.

I don't like the implication of that statement. Rejecting evidence implies we can see God exists but chose to ignore it. Rather based science that flies in the face of God and lack of convincing evidence from theists we come to the conclusion that he doesn't exist, ebcause the burden is on theists to prove and they fail in that. The nuance may not seem like much to you but it's important. The former implies we defy logic and that couldn't be farther from the truth. We embrace it.

Let me tell you, it's not easy to disbelieve something you're brought up to believe as a child. It may seem silly, especially to some atheists here, but I sometimes miss beleiving. Life was so much simpler then. I could believe someone was watching over me, that I would go to heaven. But just because those beliefs are comfortable doesn't mean I should hold them dear when I can't logically justify them. It took me a long time from when I began to doubt till finally accepting complete atheism. I say I was an atheist around 16...probably a weak atheist by then. I'm certainly a strong atheist now. The more I learn the more I disbelief.

I remember when I was young crying in bed praying to God to give me a friend. I was so alone because I was always sick and I was socially inept. I knew people and sometimes hung out with them, but I couldn't consider them friends. When I became an atheist I realized the most important thing I have ever come to learn. I control me, and the only one I have to blame for my lack of friends was me. Now I have TONS of friends and a few really close ones. This lesson helped me deal with my depression and suicidal tendencies as a teen, and my father's alcoholism when he relapsed a year ago.

But anyway, I kind of when on a tangent. The point I was making is Atheist is not an easy thing to suddenly decide, maybe for some people, but certainly not me. And I would suspect it wasn't easy for a lot of other people. If you try for just one minute and consider everything you believe about God is false, just entertain that idea. Then analyze how you feel about that. I'm sure you'd be upset. I was no less upset. But when I finally came to the conclusion I did...it was liberating.

[Pete]

I don't like the implication of that statement.

What do you think it implies? What do you think I meant to imply?

Rejecting evidence implies we can see God exists but chose to ignore it.

That's not what I said and it's certainly is not what I meant. I must admit that I'm confused as to how you came to that conclusion.

What I meant by it is the fact that what people consider as evidence of something is very subjective. I also reject the claim made by people here that I'm trying to redefine the term atheist. I would like to ask people not to put words into my mouth. Agreed?

The term atheist refers to a person who does not believe that God exists. I do not reject that definition. I accept it in fact. I believe people have mistaken my comment to mean that I believe that an atheist is defined by rejecting evidence. That is not what I said, meant or implied. It is simply my opinion that this is a property of atheists, at least for many. I.e. many, if not all, atheists believe that there is no evidence of the existance of a God. I take that to be a truism. If people disagree then that's fine.

Rather based science that flies in the face of God and lack of convincing evidence from theists we come to the conclusion that he doesn't exist, ebcause the burden is on theists to prove and they fail in that.

I agree. You mentioned convincing evidence/. What you take as being non-convincing others take as being convincing. That was my point.

The nuance may not seem like much to you but it's important.

Please do not assume what I meant regarding something. If you simply ask me what I meant I will gladly tell you.

The former implies we defy logic ..

I disagree. I never said or implied that the reason for having a different opinion regarding evidence has to do with logic. It is merely a difference of opinion. Differences of opinions does not imply that one side is being logical while the other isn't.

Let me tell you, it's not easy to disbelieve something you're brought up to believe as a child.

I was raised Catholic. I was force to go to church every sunday and I had to go to a Catholic school for first and second grade. Thank God my parents didn't force me to keep going. As I grew up I came to question the existance of God. I.e. I became agnostic. And for a while I was even an atheist. So its not like I don't know what its like to disbelieve something your brought up to believe as a child.

But anyway, I kind of when on a tangent. The point I was making is Atheist is not an easy thing to suddenly decide, maybe for some people, but certainly not me.

OI understand. Believe me I do. When I was an atheist I was going steady with a girl who was a Christian. She wasn't that comfortable with me being an atheist I can tell you that for sure!

If you try for just one minute and consider everything you believe about God is false, just entertain that idea.

Is there a reason that you believe that I have never considered that?

When I was in college I had to take a class in statistical mechanics. One of the problems I had to solve as homework was equivalent to a problem one might have to calculate in trying to determine how likely it is for a functional protein molecule to form by chance. The probability was astronomically small. So small that I have never even considered a probablity to be that small. At that time I decided never to make an assumption about whether something could happen by chance unless I actually calculated it myself. It was at that point that I felt it was best not to assume that God didn't exist.

Regarding fine-tuning. I see a lot of assertions made here which I disagree with. There were claims that life could have formed in ways that are radically different than our own and thus this fine-tunning is a mislead concept. There were aslo claims that scientists don't really consider this as a problem to be solved. That is something that I've not seen demonstrated in this thread. Since there are articles published on this very topic in respected physics journals and addressed by well known scientists in various places in the physics literature I see no basis for such a claim. I've even posted a link to one such article which was to an article that appeared in Mod. Phys. Lett. in 2004 by a well known physicist Paul Davies. I've read about this subject in several places and have discussed it with physicists too.

Counter arguements to fine-tunning have been based on such things like the fact that we don't know what is sufficient for life to exist. But there are reasonable assumptions that we can make for what must be neccesary for life to exist. For example: life form must be made of atoms. That is quite reasonable. Another reasonable assumption is that life must consist of atoms other than hydrogen. That too is quite reasonable. I've not seen any arguement that life could exist in the absense of matter. Want to take a shot at it?

There is a chapter from a book regarding fine-tuning in cosmology which can be read online at
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/prepr...tuning.pdf

Again there were too many comments to address so I've left most of them alone. However I'd be more than willing to discuss them in PM and then, if requested, place my responses in the thread. I'm just not sure that people are that interested in my opinion on this so I'm not giving one in all these cases. But would be more than happy to if asked.

Best wishes to everyone and thank you all for your responses. They are all appreciated.

Pete

[allan175]

I don't like the implication of that statement.

What do you think it implies? What do you think I meant to imply?

Rejecting evidence implies we can see God exists but chose to ignore it.

That's not what I said and it's certainly is not what I meant. I must admit that I'm confused as to how you came to that conclusion.

I know exactly what you meant by your statement (and how Eilonnwy read it).

Many years ago I stayed with a christian work mate (she lived near the site we had to work at), we had a couple of (very) minor discussions about religion and she said "I just look around and see the world and what's in it and that convinces me there is a god.", or words to that effect.

That reason was *exactly* the same as my reasoning that there wasn't a god. It was a bit of an eye opener for me in terms of what other people think!

[Eilonnwy]

Sorry if I confused you. It's just that I've dealt with way to many people who think evidence of God is the Bible and it's frustrating. (Not saying you do) To say we reject evidence implies there is valid evidence we refuse to look at. I understand now that wasn't you're implication but still, I don't like that definition of atheism for that reason. Like Adrian said, you shouldn't redefine atheism.

I can certainly understand believing in, at the very least, a universal god. As there is already a discussion on this, I won't get into detail. I personally don't care if there is a UG and could be considered agnostic in respects to a UG. I do however care about the personal god because of the horror it causes in this world. I am no scientist, I certainly can understand it when I learn about it but I don't have a degree and couldn't have a substantial discussion about atoms to be perfectly honest. I don't like to get into the nuances of what started life because I'm not qualified to debate that elvel of science. What I care about is the evidence that a personal god exists, of which there is absolutely none. And it is lack of this evidence that makes me 100% atheist in respects to a Personal god.

[Pete]

Sorry if I confused you. It's just that I've dealt with way to many people who think evidence of God is the Bible and it's frustrating. (Not saying you do)

No problemo my dear lady!

I understand now that wasn't you're implication but still, I don't like that definition of atheism for that reason. Like Adrian said, you shouldn't redefine atheism.
[/qoute]
Adrian was wrong since I never attempted to define atheism in any other way than that you all agree on. But given that definition there follows certain things that atheists have in common. It doesn't define the term "atheist" but it merely states a property shared by atheists. That may not be true but I fail to concieve of an instance where it isn't true. But one has to keep in mind that I don't believe there is such a thing as evidence that is not subjective and as such evidence of God is also subjective.
[quote]I am no scientist, I certainly can understand it when I learn about it but I don't have a degree and couldn't have a substantial discussion about atoms to be perfectly honest.

I don't see the need for being a scientist when discussing one's views. After all it'd make no difference if I was a bus driver or a physicist since that wouldn't make what I've said more right or more wrong.

I don't like to get into the nuances of what started life because I'm not qualified to debate that elvel of science.

That indeed is a very interesting subject but to my knowledge nobody has a clue as to the origin of life. So there's not a lot to discuss.

What I care about is the evidence that a personal god exists, of which there is absolutely none. And it is lack of this evidence that makes me 100% atheist in respects to a Personal god.

You'd have to admit that what you say depends on what the term evidence means and whether its subjective or not.

Think about the scientific process for a moment. Scientists take observations of the world and try to come up with ideas which will lead them to predictions. What they observer can sometimes be misleading. For example; it was not too long ago assumed that the mass of a neutrino was zero. Physicists were always assuming that this was the truth. I'm sure they based their opinion on what they considered to be evidence of their assumption or a collection of observations which seemed to imply it. So if, 10 years ago, you were to ask a physicist what the mass of a neutrino was they'd tell you that it was zero. But it has recently been shown that the mass is non-zero. So what they thought was a good reason for saying it has zero mass turned out to be misleading. There's lots of examples like that in nature. Some people, like Adrian, consider evidence to be defined as that which provides proof which is fine since that is how he chooses to use that term. However it doesn't mean that anything exists which fits that definition or that what he considers to be evidence of something actually isn't upon closer examination. Many physicists today believe 100% that photons exist. To them they believe that they have evidence of their existance. But there is also a Nobel Laureate (Dr. Willis E. Lamb) who was part of the creator of quantum electrodynamics who has argued that photons don't exist where by that he means that any so-called evidence that exists today can be interpreted without invoking the photon theory.

There is a very imporant distinction between having a very good reason to believe something is true based on observation/measurements of nature and the things in it, and proof of such things. That's why you will rarely see scientists that they have proved anything in the strictest sense.

Take the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun. It was once believe that the Sun orbited the Earth. Then came along what was thought to be "proof" that the Earth orbited the Sun. Then came Einstein who argued that there are no preferred frames of reference and as such one has to first define what frame of reference they are speaking about before they can talk about the motion of objects. Thus in a very real sense one can take a coordinate system attached to the Earth and in that sense one can actually say that the Sun orbits the Earth. What is now meant by the Earth orbiting the Sun is in reference to a particular frame of reference, i.e. one which has the Sun at rest and which is an inertial frame of reference at great distances from the Sun.

Whew! All that typing made me dizzy! One bad thing about me posting here (and why I need to keep the number of my responses small) is that I have a bad back and sitting for this long is a no no for me.

Pete