(January 3, 2024 at 11:55 am)Ahriman Wrote: Well you can know enough to believe in Him or not.

Him? And what happened to the goddess Venus? Is she just chopped liver?

If you know enough, you don't believe in fairy tales.

(January 3, 2024 at 7:55 am)Authari Wrote: Real question here, I mean most people become Atheists because either one they're vexed at God or two because they can't reconcile their Faith with Science. So I ask you, in the scenario that you can't reconcile your faith with science does that make you smart that you ditched your old beliefs or does that make you an idiot because you couldn't conceive of a way in which you would still believe in God even if the book were verifiably proven to be wrong. Which leads us to the first scenario, you'd have to be vexed at God in order for you to stop believing in this force that governs the universe. Which means that in order to be vexed at someone you'd have to let your emotions control you, so in this light Atheists are just idiots who couldn't reconcile their faith with science and let their emotions control their line of thinking.

It wouldn't seem to me that these people are critical thinkers at all but people who lack the capacity for true critical thought otherwise surely they would be able to reconcile some belief in a power that is higher than them in this universe. Rather I feel they like to just stroke their own egos boasting themselves as intellectuals while berating someone as 'stupid' for cherishing their faith. Envy no doubt.

It likely comes down to the difference between what is possible and what is probable. It's possible to reconcile faith and the things we know -- Duhem-Quine tells us that any theory can be reconciled -- but it is not also the case that any possible solution which reconciles the two is probable. As Hume said, a prudent man apportions his belief to the evidence, or what, in other words, is probable.

(January 3, 2024 at 12:04 pm)no one Wrote: If you know enough, you don't believe in fairy tales.

Snake tells girl to eat an apple...

Wait...?

At what point does Christians NOT start to think someone made this shit up? For real?

(January 3, 2024 at 12:00 pm)Ahriman Wrote:

(January 3, 2024 at 11:58 am)zebo-the-fat Wrote: Ok, who made that place then?

Nobody did. Who cares?

Well, you seem to care about who made this place, so why don't you care about the other place?

Please provide some falsifiable, testable evidence for this god thing, a fairy story about magic apples and talking snakes just isn't good enough for anyone over 5 years old.

@Authari shows up every six months and vomits out a bunch of nonsense and insults. Mission accomplished. Maybe just let him crawl back under his rock till around June. And...if by some miracle he shows up with new material, won't that be grand?

@Authari

Prove to me that God exists. Then we can discuss who's stupid and/or deluded. 

I have no objection to believing in a god as long as proof based upon a rational standard of knowledge is forthcoming. Is that too much to ask? But surely theists can’t expect me to adopt their beliefs on the basis of what has been presented thus far. Every “proof” I’ve heard and every piece of evidence I’ve seen for the existence of god(s) is easily countered by rational evidence and arguments to the contrary. No convincing evidence for the existence of any deity has ever emerged. But I’m more than willing to listen to theistic arguments or view theistic evidence as long as cross-examination is permitted. As conditions now stand, theology rests far more on superstition and faith than upon facts and reason.

(January 3, 2024 at 11:55 am)Ahriman Wrote:

(January 3, 2024 at 11:49 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: No one ‘understands’ God, by definition. People become atheists because 1) there is no evidence for the existence of gods, and 2) the arguments for the existence of gods fail on multiple levels.

Boru

Well you can know enough to believe in Him or not.

There’s a wide gap between ‘knowing’ and simply ‘believing’.

Boru

That's why it's called knowledge and not belief

(January 3, 2024 at 12:00 pm)no one Wrote: I am an athiest because, god is a ridiculous concept conjured up by frightened, ignorant, arrogant creatures. There is absolutely nothing that points to a god, other than "I can't imagine I mean nothing, seeing how I am so special, so therefore, god has to exist."

I'm an atheist because religion doesn't do anything for me.

However, you don't have to be religious to find this kind of doltish, insulting sloganeering absolutely pathetic. When your opinion is so grotesquely uncharitable that you're quite consciously accusing literally billions of complete strangers of being stupid, credulous and immature just for having personal commitments that differ from yours, doesn't an alarm ever ring to suggest to you that maybe your approach needs some critical scrutiny? Or have you just been patting yourself on the back for your clear-eyed rationality for so long that you can't tell when you're being sociopathically unreasonable?