(January 18, 2016 at 8:16 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote: Ktrap, before you take any bows for your doctrine free belief perhaps you could explain precisely what use you have made of the bible and why it is that god you call God.

 Religious texts are source of inspiration and spiritual guidance, it does not fulfill any path to God.  There is no one text that is end all be all.  And for me by reading all religious texts, you get to see a lot similarities among the faiths and you get to see the differences as well.  There is the sensible and nonsensical.  But that is not the litmus to prove everything is wrong in every religion.  There is no magic bullet.  And the tough part and hard truth is that you are alone when it comes to unwavering belief/faith in God or whatever term you would like to use to a path to God.  Sorry no one and no religion can give you a short cut.
 What does this God do ?  From my experience, it is responsible for creation, it sustains it and destroys it.  God allows us the opportunity to move away from our desires and reach a level of tranquility.   Does this happen overnight? No, it will probably a lifetime and for some it would continue beyond.  The soul is considered immortal and the physical body is temporal.  Your responsible for your own fate, i.e. every action will have a consequence.  Here there is no fear you just have to accept the consequences of your action, hence be accountable for it.

(January 18, 2016 at 10:57 pm)ktrap Wrote:

(January 18, 2016 at 8:16 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote: Ktrap, before you take any bows for your doctrine free belief perhaps you could explain precisely what use you have made of the bible and why it is that god you call God.

 Religious texts are source of inspiration and spiritual guidance, it does not fulfill any path to God.  There is no one text that is end all be all.  And for me by reading all religious texts, you get to see a lot similarities among the faiths and you get to see the differences as well.  There is the sensible and nonsensical.  But that is not the litmus to prove everything is wrong in every religion.  There is no magic bullet.  And the tough part and hard truth is that you are alone when it comes to unwavering belief/faith in God or whatever term you would like to use to a path to God.  Sorry no one and no religion can give you a short cut.
 What does this God do ?  From my experience, it is responsible for creation, it sustains it and destroys it.  God allows us the opportunity to move away from our desires and reach a level of tranquility.   Does this happen overnight? No, it will probably a lifetime and for some it would continue beyond.  The soul is considered immortal and the physical body is temporal.  Your responsible for your own fate, i.e. every action will have a consequence.  Here there is no fear you just have to accept the consequences of your action, hence be accountable for it.

Do you believe that the sins of man are redeemed through belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?

The problem is that everyone except brain-dead people are religious and worships a deity, even if they are not aware of it.  That's because politics and what we think of a "religion" are one and the same.  If you believe in a political idea it is your religion.  You accept it as the truth and you strive to live by its doctrine.  Your god is your leader.  You obey his commands even when he tells you that you must die for your religion (your political ideas).  

Traditional religions take advantage of that and get the herd to support the con men who run the religious organizations.  Politicians use the religious model in order to give themselves additional legitimacy by associating themselves with the dominant religion in the society.  

In the current American election cycle all of the candidates want to be "commander-in-chief", aka "God".  Then they can send people off to their deaths in foreign lands even if the sheep have no idea where those places are.  They are obeying their "god" without a second thought because he represents their religious (political) beliefs.  Very few people are willing to declare themselves "atheists" under those circumstances because they would be turning their backs on their society's values.

It wouldn't matter if evidence were provided to me that convinced me of a god's existence. I find the the concept and practice of worship to be primitive, demeaning, and creepy. 

That'll have to be a no for me. Can't do it.

(January 18, 2016 at 10:28 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote: The ever-expanding "if it were real" list.
Werewolf: Kill it
Vampire: Kill it
Ghost: ... Kill it?
Zombie: Kill it
Godzilla: Kill it
Predator: Kill it
Xenomorph: Kill it
Jim Carrey: Kill it
Minotaur: Kill it
Chimera: Kill it
Medusa: Kill it
Yahweh: Kill it

Proverbial Buddha on the road:  ____ __

(January 18, 2016 at 10:25 pm)ktrap Wrote:

(January 18, 2016 at 3:58 pm)SinClueless Morgan Wrote: How is this different than saying "I do not consider Theism as a good option.  At best, Theism has good arguments FOR dogma in religion, but beyond that there is NOTHING."?

I mean, you can't prove that a god absolutely exists any more than an atheist can prove that a god doesn't absolutely exist.

    I know you trying to take my original sentence and change one word, but then it loses meaning.

  "I do not consider Theism as a good option.  At best, Theism has good arguments for dogma in religion, but beyond that there is NOTHING"

  Does not make sense, especially when an Atheist is trying to say it

  It would read better this way

  "I do not consider Theism as a good option.  At best, Theism avoids dogma unlike religion however  it still believes in GOD"

 See now that sounds better from an Atheist.

  I was not sure what exercise you were trying to have me do.

  As a theist "beyond everything there is a GOD"

  Anyway, your point on the absolute existence of God
  
  I do not need to prove God absolutely exists to anyone.  I am happy with that fact that God exists.  This is not something I can extrapolate and show.   You can not use logic and reasoning, etc nor there is any need of it.  This is my personal experience.   It does not concern me to prove this to anyone.  Nor I do expect anyone to believe it.

I can grant you that, for you at least, god exists so long as you have that belief.  But what is this god which exists?  What does she want from you and what is all this silliness about a life after death?  How did that idea get smuggled in?

As for it being a "creator" god in particular, why do you assume that this god is literally responsible for everything empirical?  Couldn't a god of much more modest dimensions be your creator and insofar as it makes your ground of being possible, it does in a sense create the world as you experience it.  Why does every theist insist on the trans-galaxial, extra-celestial size?  Your experience of god is personal, a personal sized god seems more fitting.

I don't know why it's generally assumed God is "good", either. All we have to go on is the creation. And it's full of suffering and terrible "design" decisions.

Or more accurately, we see just what we'd expect to see from some initial conditions and rules being set and then our reality being left to develop. It sounds like an experiment. What's "good" about that? We just happened to end up congealed on a lump of rock after billions of years of weird interactions, according to these initial conditions and rules. To try and argue that we are somehow the focus of this system is to entirely misunderstand it, in my opinion.

I also don't know why it's assumed God has any idea we have become self aware. If parts of computer simulations we set up became self aware somehow, we would be blissfully unaware. And we would be "gods". We don't match the general description much, do we?

(January 19, 2016 at 3:07 am)robvalue Wrote: I don't know why it's generally assumed God is "good", either. All we have to go on is the creation. And it's full of suffering and terrible "design" decisions.

Or more accurately, we see just what we'd expect to see from some initial conditions and rules being set and then our reality being left to develop. It sounds like an experiment. What's "good" about that? We just happened to end up congealed on a lump of rock after billions of years of weird interactions, according to these initial conditions and rules. To try and argue that we are somehow the focus of this system is to entirely misunderstand it, in my opinion.

I also don't know why it's assumed God has any idea we have become self aware. If parts of computer simulations we set up became self aware somehow, we would be blissfully unaware. And we would be "gods". We don't match the general description much, do we?

Good point.  Must be on account of the awe it is said to engender.  But dangerous malevolent things can be awe inspiring too .. a rock crusher for instance.

Thanks Rock crusher for the win!

Indeed, unknown forces can just as easily be "bad", but in our case I would describe them as entirely indifferent. If they have any interest, it's in the results of the overal experiment, and we will be of no relative significance.

This is my most likely scenario of a "God", if there is one, given the evidence. The fact that it's being run at all implies to me that the outcomes are unknown to "God".

(January 19, 2016 at 3:07 am)robvalue Wrote: All we have to go on is the creation. And it's full of suffering and terrible "design" decisions.

That is where my suggestion would bail theists out.  If they scaled back god to being just that which creates them personally (in a psychological sense) and plugs them into the empirical world, they'd be cleared from at least this cognitive dissonance.  Unfortunately, they rarely are so modest in appraising their own capacity to imagine god.