So your an Athiest

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

We all need evidence. Mine is found inside myself, yours is found outside yourself.

Yeah, that's the thing: Evidence is, by definition, found outside oneself. What's found INside is known colloquially as self-delusion.

Boru

[AAA]

You guys are funny. You really believe you are outside the box. We all believe what makes us comfy, to a point. I have no evidence, but neither do you. You don't even know you need evidence, "I am an athiest". You think that is a catch all phrase. We all need evidence. Mine is found inside myself, yours is found outside yourself. We all wonder why bad things happen to good people, why do we love, where does hate, justice, etc. come from, whats it all about. You put on a front like it dosn't matter, or you never think of such things. You think its from our neurons or whatever. I'm sure you believe in evolution, talk about your mental masterbation. But you do believe its from something. Come back down to Earth. And one more thing, thanks for the comment about my english--Public Schools

I seriously, just cannot believe how obtuse this is.

There is a claim that X exists. There is no evidence that X actually does exist, and every line of inquiry into X brings up nothing. As such I cannot honestly say that I am convinced that X does exist. I do not need proof that X does not exist, because if the claim was never made then I would still by default not believe in X.

You are also posing several other things that you are compounding into the god question, many of which have NOTHING to do with it. There can be a god and the universe could still be unjust. There could still be a god and the brain would still be responsible for mental functioning such as emotions. Most theists also accept evolution (as I did when I was a christian). It does not have ANY bearing upon the god concept. The existence of god must stand or fall on its own merit. And IT HAS NOT GOT ANY.

If you honestly believe that a god exists then you have to first provide a solid definition of this god, and then provide reasons to believe that this thing exists. And a feeling inside yourself does not count as evidence. If you want to be believed you have to provide some reason that can be independently verified. I need some thread that does not unravel as I follow it. If you can't do this, if you can't explain WHY you believe what you do, then you can not fault anyone for not buying into it.

Well I think there is plenty of evidence of an intelligent mind having designed the universe and life itself. I don't know that we can definitively say that that intelligence was god.

[Natachan]

ok. Provide your evidence.

[ignoramus]

But I believe, and also believe Athiests are driven to their beliefs firstly by rejecting God.

Why are you asking questions when you already insist you have the answer?

More converts =more virgins for him!
Every single person does things for selfish reasons!

[AAA]

ok. Provide your evidence.

I study biology, and I am blown away at how information rich even the simplest organisms are. The theory of evolution does a poor job of explaining the origin of new genetic information, and I think that it is more logical to assume that intelligence played a role in the origin of genetic information than to assume that it has some other explanation that we will discover later. Based on our experience, information only has one cause and that is intelligence. If you are more comfortable waiting for a different answer that's fine, but then you are relying on a mild type of faith.

Also the universe itself has many specific physical properties that allow it to support life. For example the rate of expansion of the universe and the strength of gravitational pull are so finely balanced that the slightest variation in either of the two variables will lead to the inability of the universe to produce planets.

[Simon Moon]

ok. Provide your evidence.

I study biology, and I am blown away at how information rich even the simplest organisms are. The theory of evolution does a poor job of explaining the origin of new genetic information, and I think that it is more logical to assume that intelligence played a role in the origin of genetic information than to assume that it has some other explanation that we will discover later. Based on our experience, information only has one cause and that is intelligence. If you are more comfortable waiting for a different answer that's fine, but then you are relying on a mild type of faith.

Also the universe itself has many specific physical properties that allow it to support life. For example the rate of expansion of the universe and the strength of gravitational pull are so finely balanced that the slightest variation in either of the two variables will lead to the inability of the universe to produce planets.

Actually, it is a logical fallacy to assume that an intelligence played a role. It is called, "argument from ignorance".

The universe has just as many physical properties for the formation of black holes. Maybe it was intelligently designed for producing black holes, and life is just an accidental by product.

Seriously, the vast majority of the universe is not conducive to support life. We can't even survive on the majority of this planet, most of the universe means instant death for us. 

The universe is not here for us, we are here because we have adapted in such a way to survive in an extremely small part of the universe. 

What you are saying is similar to Douglas Adams parable about the puddle of water:

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

[Natachan]

Just because you have some issues believing that evolution can not be responsible for new forms or for complexity does not make it so. Just because you are in awe of the physical laws of the universe does not mean a god or an intelligent agent had some part in it. I too have studied physics and chemistry, and I am satisfied enough that there should be some naturalistic explanation. Why not? Personal incredulity is not sufficient reason to assign agency to the creation of the universe.

Moreover, as I have stated before, YOU HAVE NOT DEFINED GOD. You need to clearly define this entity and then provide positive evidence for this entity. Incredulity and gaps in our current knowledge are not enough.

[AAA]

Just because you have some issues believing that evolution can not be responsible for new forms or for complexity does not make it so. Just because you are in awe of the physical laws of the universe does not mean a god or an intelligent agent had some part in it.  I too have studied physics and chemistry, and I am satisfied enough that there should be some naturalistic explanation. Why not? Personal incredulity is not sufficient reason to assign agency to the creation of the universe.

Moreover, as I have stated before, YOU HAVE NOT DEFINED GOD. You need to clearly define this entity and then provide positive evidence for this entity. Incredulity and gaps in our current knowledge are not enough.

Well I don't think that it is an argument form ignorance or a God of the gaps way of thinking. I think there is positive evidence for design, not just the absence of evidence for a naturalistic explanation. If you saw a stone with carvings on it and someone offered that the carvings were produced by intelligence, it is illogical to tell them "you're wrong, we just have to figure out how they got there by natural means." I think intelligent design is evident in the many examples of complex molecular interactions in the cell. We have many complex structures that we cannot live without. They had to appear in fully functional form at one time in order to be selected for, yet mutation is incapable of producing such rapid changes. In other words, we cannot trace our evolution backwards because we run into problems when we have incomplete molecular structures that would keep the population from surviving and reproducing.

I would definitely agree that the universe is an inhospitable place in general. That is one of the reasons that our planet is so unique. This is just a thought, but maybe the universe was created this way so that we would realize how uncommon our planet is.

 As for defining God, I told you right off the bat that I just think evidence points to an intelligent mind. I said that we have no way of knowing if this is "God". I happen to believe that this intelligence cause is God, so I guess I would define it as the force of intelligence that is not governed by the laws of our universe that caused our universe to come into existence.

[Natachan]

Your definition is a bit broad. Steve the blue alien who lives in a parallel universe and who has a space ship that poops universes fits that definition just as well. Why not?

And yes, this is an argument from personal incredulity. I tend to think our planet is not so unique as we have thought. I tend to think there could easily be some type of life in our own solar system. You still have not demonstrated that our universe was "created" just said some fallacious argument about design. We KNOW how planets and galaxies come to exist. No agency is required for them to come about. We know how new organs and systems within biological systems come about, no agency is required.

Now if you want to argue that abiogenesis is impossible and requires an intelligent agent I would again state that this is an argument from incredulity. There are perfectly sound models that do propose mechanisms for how it could happen. That is all that is required for the moment. We might not have the be all and end all explanation, but there are working models that look promising.

You still haven't provided positive evidence for your agent. Simply equated writing with biological adaptation does not do it since it is extremely fallacious.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Just got back online. I read the posts, and see I made a mistake. I do not believe athiests hate God. I should have said a parent would not doom their child if they did not believe in them.

If I had children, the last thing I would want to do is doom them. Doom is what happens to children who are taught by religious people, particularly Christians. They are taught from their earliest days that they are doomed to be sinners who displease their god, and will suffer eternal punishment for being what they were born to be if they don't try and atone for it and make like their parents do in their "relationship" with their nonexistent Big Bad Daddy In the Sky.

Teaching a child that he is naturally bad is nothing like passing on the shrewd observation that we are not perfect and all of us make some mistakes. It can really rake some children's self-esteem over the coals, especially if they are having difficulty adjusting or have learning disabilities, while other kids often go with the lies and learn how to use dishonesty as a major item in their personality toolbox. Show me a car salesman who isn't religious, and doesn't have similar personal traits to the aggressive evangelical preacher, and I'll show you a flying pig.

Children who are raised religiously are far more prone to spend their entire lives living in fear of their own biological nature, living with shame and guilt for traits which do not cause anyone any harm, terrorized by fear of supernatural bogeys needlessly - I would not doom any child of mine to such a fear-ridden life, this is the worst form of child abuse! The children of atheists are far more likely to grow up doom-free than those who are raised religiously.

As I said, I am not an atheist basher, but i'm sure you guys get a lot of it, so I understand the defensiveness.

You'll never get an atheist on the defensive, because he has no ideas to defend. Any ideas which he believes never required apologetics games to make them believable, they have been vetted by empirical evidence, not argument.

On the contrary, it's the religious believer who makes the unfalsifiable claims in place of evidence-backed ideas, and it is he who must argue to defend them. This is entirely what the Christian apologists do, it's all defensive argument (spun with bombastic aggression to make it appear authoritative), with no substance. They post virtual reams galore of such nonsense, none which stand up to the hard light of reason - it's quite an uphill battle for you to maintain beliefs which are most probably not true at all, and were most certainly invented in other people's heads, and that is why they rally each other to fight unbelief as if they were in some kind of war. It's why they are so vociferous and loud in their proselytizing, political meddling, and educational sabotage. They need the public affirmation, and they need to repeat publicly their ideas, and even more so they need to hear agreement from others, because that's what it takes for them to believe those ideas are true.

You can come here and argue all you like as long as you keep your end of the dialogue level, but you probably won't see us on religious forums because we don't need to recruit you in order to keep our own ideas. However, the world would be better if more people made their decisions by the sobriety of critical reason, and that's why a lot of us are happy to talk to the believers who come around.

I still believe God does not care if you believe in him or not. And the lack of evidence is so we can determine our lives in a way that would not be possible otherwise. Once again, I did not say anything about evolution, holy books, or whatever else most of you guys are used to hearing.

You're right that god doesn't care, nor does Osiris, Odin, Thor, although possibly the Flying Sphagetti Monster does (I try and make a sauce donation every so often just in case).