What are you talking about? What does that have to do with what I said?

People can preach all they want, in my opinion, as long as they're not getting in people's faces or imposing their beliefs on others.

That goes for peaceful religions and horrible ones.

(November 26, 2016 at 4:30 pm)robvalue Wrote: What are you talking about? We were having quite a good discussion up to that point.

People can preach all they want, in my opinion, as long as they're not getting in people's faces or imposing their beliefs on others.

Sorry, I didn't mentioned my point. What hold religion is this world, is not evidence, but religious claims that their religion spreads morality.

I met Yahweh witnesses a few times, and those people were polite and funny enough, they said that If I remain atheist, I will get "permanent death" from God, for such behavior according to their version of bible, not the hellish torture.

Permanent death is far more preferable than infinite anything, be it torture or paradise. That to me is the definition of hell. Give me oblivion every time.

Religion spreads its own version of morality, sure. That's not a good thing though as it's dogmatic and often circular. It also often paints morality as a points system for prizes after you die. Actual meaningful morality based on wellbeing is simply common sense, by and large. It's religion itself that often tries to pretend people can't be moral without religion.

Sure, well religious stuff is all made up. It's much better to preach permanent death, which is fine with me, than hell. It's still blackmail though, holding this supposed better future hostage.

(November 26, 2016 at 4:45 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Permanent death is far more preferable than infinite anything, be it torture or paradise. That to me is the definition of hell. Give me oblivion every time.

Well said no matter how pleasant or unpleasant living forever is hell

Often I hear oh but in heaven you can't get bored because that would be suffering and that doesn't exist in heaven in this they miss the point. Short of totally modifying the human mind a eternity of bliss would be torture and life of forever would be torture in itself .And if I must  be so modified so heaven can be pleasant then it's no longer really me going to heaven  or enjoying it so what's the point

You are right that religion has nothing to do with evidence. That's exactly why nothing science ever finds will be god.

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Thanks PP for listening and having quite a good debate, I feel we made a little progress.

(November 26, 2016 at 2:09 pm)purplepurpose Wrote: Science is pretty young and it might take many generations to detect something even close to God. Like supernatural phenomenons. That's why many people still take "leap of faith".

The development of the scientific method may have begun more than a thousand years ago. People have been using some form of it to increase human knowledge for at least that long, if not much longer. During that time humanity has transformed the world by building on what we know as we learn more, thanks to a system that does that efficiently by accounting for bias as best as it can. The religious approach to gaining knowledge has not changed in that time because the belief is that anything and everything that we need to know is written down in an old book authored by a being that has all possible knowledge and information in his mind.

I'm not sure that science is young anymore, though it is definitely much younger than religion. Scientists have detected neutrinos-- particles that are trillions of times smaller than an atom. They've measured the age and size of the universe and made amazing strides in understanding how it works. And they can't find god anywhere. Religion's contribution during all of this has been to explain that they never will detect him because he's just that far out of our reach. That leap of faith is akin to stepping off of a diving board into an empty pool that you were told was filled with supernatural water.

My reason for disliking the idea of God is not objective in the strictest sense. Sure, there are logical problems with God. For example, life is a test? Everyone gets the same test, the same time length, the same difficulty, no cheating....tests are fair. Life's not fair. Therefore life is not a test.

But the logic is not the main reason why I reject God, much less evidence. I only care about evidence if it benefits ME. All the evidence points to life as crap. No free will, no self, just a crappy existence.

Instead, my rejection of God is based on convictions. For example, "fuck authority." Why should I be a slave to an authority figure or multiple authority figures in a hierarchy with me at the bottom, seeing as I'm a young laywoman? Or another issue, spiritual oneness. I don't want to be at one with ISIS. I like to feel my aloneness. I like to feel like a separate, individual entity. Another thing, turn the other cheek, not seven times but 77 times seven. Why?? They'll just do it again and again (I guess that why they say keep forgiving, over, and over, and over). If it's their nature to be a douche, just write them off!