(August 21, 2023 at 6:22 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: -and it'll take control to do it.  It would actually be a pretty fucked up situation if swat told me to get down and, for some reason, I just couldn't work my arms and legs anymore.  IDK whether I have a free will, but I know I can lie down flat on the ground with my hands behind my back under the instruction of a group of armed men, lol.

Believer: "You have a rainbow emoji on your bio. I will pray for you."

Me: "God didn't stop me from putting a rainbow emoji on my bio so it must be part of his plan."

Believer: "We believe God has given you free will."

Me: "So you will ask God to override my free will?"

(August 18, 2023 at 5:15 pm)Barry Wrote: Hi,
I’ve just joined this forum. 
I see a lot of discussion about religion and Jesus and being saved.  I think that in a forum for atheists the most important question is “Does God exist?”. Jesus Christ is irrelevant if he isn’t the Son of God. And all other religious faiths are meaningless if our world occurred by accident with no creator God. 
So how did the world begin? 
My answer is that science proves nothing can be created from nothing in our material world, so the only explanation is that something external created the world. And that is what we call God. The problem for humankind is that they don’t want to feel responsible to God, despite knowing in their hearts God exists. 
Cheers Barry

Hello there!

I've never believed in God. I didn't even know of the God you speak of before I was 5-6.  In fact when I was first introduced to the idea of the christian God, I found it completely ludicrous. I don't mean to offend -- that's just the way I thought and felt. So I disagree that humankind as a whole knows "in the hearts" that God exists. It's of course possible that "something cannot come from nothing" but you're not thinking about the possibility that the universe may always have been there, in one form or another. Therefore there are at least two possible explanations for the existance of the cosmos.

(August 28, 2023 at 11:00 am)Moebius Wrote:

(August 18, 2023 at 5:15 pm)Barry Wrote: Hi,
I’ve just joined this forum. 
I see a lot of discussion about religion and Jesus and being saved.  I think that in a forum for atheists the most important question is “Does God exist?”. Jesus Christ is irrelevant if he isn’t the Son of God. And all other religious faiths are meaningless if our world occurred by accident with no creator God. 
So how did the world begin? 
My answer is that science proves nothing can be created from nothing in our material world, so the only explanation is that something external created the world. And that is what we call God. The problem for humankind is that they don’t want to feel responsible to God, despite knowing in their hearts God exists. 
Cheers Barry

Hello there!

I've never believed in God. I didn't even know of the God you speak of before I was 5-6.  In fact when I was first introduced to the idea of the christian God, I found it completely ludicrous. I don't mean to offend -- that's just the way I thought and felt. So I disagree that humankind as a whole knows "in the hearts" that God exists. It's of course possible that "something cannot come from nothing" but you're not thinking about the possibility that the universe may always have been there, in one form or another. Therefore there are at least two possible explanations for the existance of the cosmos.

Welcome.

The "in their hearts that god exists" is a couple of fallacies. 
1. The ad populum fallacy, 
2. and it implies that what the majority of humans (who are totally ignorant of the subject), think that what they see as "intuitive", is true. We know that fundamental reality, as we now understand it, (quantum reality), ... is not intuitive. Roger Penrose, (Haking's friend) agrees with you that it's possible the universe may have always been there ... "see "Cycles of Time".

The 'in our hearts' nonsense reminds me of the fake polygraph story that christians like to tell. It goes like this: When hooked to a polygraph an atheist is asked if god exists or if they believe in god. When the atheist responds 'no' the polygraph indicates that they are lying.

Telling this story only demonstrates the desperation present in some christians.

(August 18, 2023 at 6:19 pm)Barry Wrote: God exists outside of time.

Without extension in time (even a minuscule extension) things cannot be said to exist. To exist is to be, for some amount of time. Take some time to think about it.

godiboi exists outside of logic.

(September 23, 2023 at 8:49 am)no one Wrote: godiboi exists outside of logic.

Yes, but it's worse than that. 
There are a number of human logics. 
Christian debaters attempt to appear to be using "logic" (for example WL Craig on his Reasonable Faith site.)
When asked, (as he was by Cal Tech's Sean Carroll "which" of them he thinks he's using, and how he knows the gods obey his logic, 
he couldn't reply. That was 10 years ago. He still can't. Some of the human logic systems, while being used perfectly correctly, do not "obtain" in reality.

Christian logic:

Hebrews 6:13 For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself

Matthew 12:43-45 When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first...[i]  [/i](So why was Jesus casting demons out of people?)

John the Baptist (while free): "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"

John the Baptist (after getting thrown in prison): "“Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Yeah, good exists......and? It's gravy. Doesn't mean anything. Even the best things in life are as empty as the calories in a candy bar.

There is a fundamental flaw in making theistic claims with no empiricism to corroborate reality.