The main reason I'm an atheist

[Little Rik]

It also make sense because the whole Indian subcontinent is full of Shiva History and is unlikely that
a billion people follow someone who never existed and never did the things attributed to him.

People claim the same thing about Jesus, therefore Jesus is God.  You can't both be correct.  The existence of a myth about someone, believed by millions of people, is no evidence that the myth is a true story.  The Indian subcontinent is filled with all sorts of magical stories.  You don't believe all of them.  Why believe these particular stories?  You've given no good reason to believe them.  You'll accept the popularity and ubiquity of stories as evidence for Shiva's acts, but you don't accept the existence of physical flutes as evidence that ancient Chinese had music.  That's a double standard and an irrational stance.  You believe the myths about Shiva because it is part of the legendary basis of Yoga.  You believe the myths because you believe in Yoga.  That's dogmatic belief.

Yog, you are running too fast with your fantasy.  
Slow down and think instead.  
I never said that those instruments were not capable of producing sound.
You are confusing sound with real music.
I can produce sound with my seashells but that is not music created with the 7 notes.
Capish? (right?)

As far as believing in Shiva and not in today Indian religions and culture that is because
Shiva teaching create progress and I can feel it while today Indian culture and religions only create misery, corruption and dogma.  

Take the caste system.
It is absurd and lead to suffering but that is part of the Indian way of doing things.
Shiva was totally against the caste system.
Strange enough these Hindus fanatics thinks that it come from Shiva.

[Brian37]

@Wry

I did my research. You're assuming you have the right club and right deity is your baggage. I am not treating you any differently than I do Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists. You have the same amount of evidence for your club being the correct club as they do. Not impressed with your naked assertions. You might figure out your religion isn't the center of the planet or universe if you actually spent time debating multiple religions instead of being a used car salesman.

[Brian37]

People claim the same thing about Jesus, therefore Jesus is God.  You can't both be correct.  The existence of a myth about someone, believed by millions of people, is no evidence that the myth is a true story.  The Indian subcontinent is filled with all sorts of magical stories.  You don't believe all of them.  Why believe these particular stories?  You've given no good reason to believe them.  You'll accept the popularity and ubiquity of stories as evidence for Shiva's acts, but you don't accept the existence of physical flutes as evidence that ancient Chinese had music.  That's a double standard and an irrational stance.  You believe the myths about Shiva because it is part of the legendary basis of Yoga.  You believe the myths because you believe in Yoga.  That's dogmatic belief.

Yog, you are running too fast with your fantasy.  
Slow down and think instead.  
I never said that those instruments were not capable of producing sound.
You are confusing sound with real music.
I can produce sound with my seashells but that is not music created with the 7 notes.
Capish? (right?)

As far as believing in Shiva and not in today Indian religions and culture that is because
Shiva teaching create progress and I can feel it while today Indian culture and religions only create misery, corruption and dogma.  

Take the caste system.
It is absurd and lead to suffering but that is part of the Indian way of doing things.
Shiva was totally against the caste system.
Strange enough these Hindus fanatics thinks that it come from Shiva.

Morso in the west, we think the religions of Asia/Orient and India are better. No, it only seems that way because their is an uneasy truce going on currently. There is not one religion or era in history where the planet has not had human divisions.

ALL those religions, both polytheism and monotheism were still concocted by humans in an age of tribalism and superstition. 

Now I cannot stress this enough, you cant force 7 billion humans not to believe, that is simply impossible and if you tried to force any religion out of existence you'd have to become a monster to do it. But intellectually nobody should ever be afraid of challenging any religious claim or the social norms of any society. 

Hinduism is just as much a fantasy and even Buddhism, like Jesus and Christianity, was marketed as a rejection of the religion it was spawned from. Humans make up all religions, and they are nothing more than the placebos we event to give ourselves a sense of false comfort. You cant rid the world of it, but it is important to challenge people to make their priorities common law, not common religion. Religion causes tribalism and there is no polite way to put it. You can only manage it with the idea that we are all capable of getting along when we chose, and we can all agree to be non violent, even when someone offends us.

[Angrboda]

People claim the same thing about Jesus, therefore Jesus is God.  You can't both be correct.  The existence of a myth about someone, believed by millions of people, is no evidence that the myth is a true story.  The Indian subcontinent is filled with all sorts of magical stories.  You don't believe all of them.  Why believe these particular stories?  You've given no good reason to believe them.  You'll accept the popularity and ubiquity of stories as evidence for Shiva's acts, but you don't accept the existence of physical flutes as evidence that ancient Chinese had music.  That's a double standard and an irrational stance.  You believe the myths about Shiva because it is part of the legendary basis of Yoga.  You believe the myths because you believe in Yoga.  That's dogmatic belief.

Yog, you are running too fast with your fantasy.  
Slow down and think instead.  
I never said that those instruments were not capable of producing sound.
You are confusing sound with real music.
I can produce sound with my seashells but that is not music created with the 7 notes.
Capish? (right?)

As far as believing in Shiva and not in today Indian religions and culture that is because
Shiva teaching create progress and I can feel it while today Indian culture and religions only create misery, corruption and dogma.  

Take the caste system.
It is absurd and lead to suffering but that is part of the Indian way of doing things.
Shiva was totally against the caste system.
Strange enough these Hindus fanatics thinks that it come from Shiva.

You believe a bunch of arbitrary claims about Shiva because you feel Yoga works. The followers of Jesus believe something similar. Neither proves the truth of their claims.

So Yoga works and the rest creates only misery. (Like Ananda Marga terrorist bombings.) Right. I don't believe you. The situation is more complex than that. Many followers of Krishna would claim that their practice leads to peace and fulfillment. Their claims are no different from yours. You want us to believe your claims instead based on why exactly? You've given no reason to believe you over them. You admit your beliefs about Shiva aren't based on evidence. Why should I believe you when all you've got backing your claims is more unevidenced claims and religious dogma?

[drfuzzy]

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People claim the same thing about Jesus, therefore Jesus is God.  You can't both be correct.  The existence of a myth about someone, believed by millions of people, is no evidence that the myth is a true story.  The Indian subcontinent is filled with all sorts of magical stories.  You don't believe all of them.  Why believe these particular stories?  You've given no good reason to believe them.  You'll accept the popularity and ubiquity of stories as evidence for Shiva's acts, but you don't accept the existence of physical flutes as evidence that ancient Chinese had music.  That's a double standard and an irrational stance.  You believe the myths about Shiva because it is part of the legendary basis of Yoga.  You believe the myths because you believe in Yoga.  That's dogmatic belief.

---

Yog, you are running too fast with your fantasy.  
Slow down and think instead.  
I never said that those instruments were not capable of producing sound.
You are confusing sound with real music.
I can produce sound with my seashells but that is not music created with the 7 notes.
Capish? (right?)

---

As far as believing in Shiva and not in today Indian religions and culture that is because
Shiva teaching create progress and I can feel it while today Indian culture and religions only create misery, corruption and dogma.  

Take the caste system.
It is absurd and lead to suffering but that is part of the Indian way of doing things.
Shiva was totally against the caste system.
Strange enough these Hindus fanatics thinks that it come from Shiva.

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Here is the report on the flutes and two recordings.  7 notes.   http://archive.archaeology.org/9911/news...flute.html

[drfuzzy]

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Why was posting memes that I thought answered the question construed as laughing? 
wiploc and Ape posted excellent answers.  I agree with them.
Earth is insignificant even within our own solar system.  There are literally billions of galaxies.  And yet many people actually believe that god created the entire universe 6000 years ago, to house his pet humans.  The vastness of the universe seems (to me) to refute the concept of god that I knew as a child: as a sky-father who knew every thought in your head and freaked out when you said "god damn".   I have come to the point where I also believe that a deity is very unlikely to exist.  And that's where I am.  

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I considered them as laughing because they did not have any honest intention of debating and gave no information, they are entirely made for the mere purpose of mockery.

I do not see your statements as correct. "Earth is insignificant even within our own solar system", that depends on how do you measure significance. In my opinion, the earth is the only significant part of the universe, since it is the place (known place) where God created humans in His image and likeness.

"There are literally billions of galaxies.", I did not know that, but I am not a follower of blank statements, and I need proof in order to believe things. Where did you get this information from?.

"And yet many people actually believe that god created the entire universe 6000 years ago, to house his pet humans", I believe exactly nothing of what you have posted here.

"The vastness of the universe seems (to me) to refute the concept of god that I knew as a child: as a sky-father who knew every thought in your head and freaked out when you said "god damn", the idea that you can actually do something to change God's emotions (as you said in "freaked out") is entirely made-up. God's can only feel love for you, and all the other feelings are born from the love He feels for you. If you believe "God" will get angry at someone for cursing you are not talking about the christian God at all, because, how can you believe that a created being can change an uncreated being?

"I have come to the point where I also believe that a deity is very unlikely to exist.  And that's where I am.", I see.

The picture you have posted gave no information to our cause. I need to know what means that "God make things happen just for you". What kind of things?

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"I considered them as laughing because they did not have any honest intention of debating and gave no information, they are entirely made for the mere purpose of mockery."
And I saw them as an excellent visual representation of my position.  I have no interest in debate, other than learning from members here who are better at that skill than I am.

I do not see your statements as correct. "Earth is insignificant even within our own solar system", that depends on how do you measure significance. In my opinion, the earth is the only significant part of the universe, since it is the place (known place) where God created humans in His image and likeness. 
-- And from the Voyager spacecraft at Saturn - are you actually unfamiliar with the "pale blue dot" image?  


"There are literally billions of galaxies.", I did not know that, but I am not a follower of blank statements, and I need proof in order to believe things.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field project.  http://www.spacetelescope.org/science/deep_fields/
"The nearest galaxies seen in the Hubble Deep Field are about 2.5 billion light years away. The furthest are estimated to be about 10.5 billion light years away."

We will just have to agree to disagree.  Your assertions about god are useless to me - - you might as well be talking about leprechauns, sparkly vampires, or pink unicorns.  I do not believe that god exists.  The only thing that will change my mind is hard data.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

(Edit to Add: In a spirit of fairness, I should point out that the above is only a summary of what the men actually said. If you want to see their whole answers to the question, go here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringou...onnye.html )

[Pat Mustard]

The bible itself describes yhwh as an impossible being, giving him the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience which are mutually exclusive, and also attributes free will to humanity which is contradictory to the other two as well.

But in this thread we've an argument by atheists stating that as there is no evidence for god and also no evidence to show god is necessary that god is needed to create the universe there is no rational need to believe unless new evidence comes to light, and on the other hand we've got Little Rik whose argument is "herpa, derpa, derp". So where you're getting assumption from is unclear to me.

In this thread it is stated that the OP does not believe God exists because the universe is too big, so, how exactly that is? Why the size of the universe prove that God does not exist? You did not answer me in your message. In fact, you did not even adress my question in your message, you only made statements which I do not know where did you get them from. I am interested, though, in answering them, so you can start another thread, since answering to them in this thread would mean going offtopic.

The two bolded bits don't chime. Do you believe in the celestial teapot? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "probably not" because it is a device created by Bertrand Russell to show the ridiculousness of christians shouting "you cannot prove god doesn't exist". With that being said, neither you nor I can prove that a teapot doesn't orbit the sun which is too small to observe with a telescope, but the concept is so absurd as for it to be safe for us to dismiss it unless evidence came to light that it either existed or had to exist.

It is for the same reason why I and other atheists are confident, without evidence to the contrary, to dismiss the idea of god.

[Pat Mustard]

That is, what we could call, speculation. No matter how big the universe is, I do not know if God has actually done something to that vast universe (I am talking about outside of the Milky Way), but I do know for sure that God has personal interest in human affairs, as you put it. That is proven by the fact that since the very human ever existing (Adam) God never stoped having a relationship with humanity, ultimately seeking to redeem it from the corruption and death that its ancestors (Adam and Eve) have put them to, by uniting the fallen human nature with the divine nature of Christ, God. If you do not believe that God is intimately united with every human person on earth and is present at every movement you make, or every thought you think, you are not talking about christianity, because this is exactly what christianity states.

You're going to have to bring some evidence to the table for your assertion, there. Because we have not yet encountered a single phenomena which cannot be explained by natural means.

Oh, and to the theology of christianity, that was created c1,700 years ago by a bunch of men who collectively knew less of the workings of the world than the average fifteen year old European does today.

[Pat Mustard]

I considered them as laughing because they did not have any honest intention of debating and gave no information, they are entirely made for the mere purpose of mockery.

Cut the bullshit, you dismissed them out of hand because they gave answers to your question which weren't your preferred answer, viz "yeah you're right, we should all bow down and worship yhwh because truly he is god". Even this early in your stint at this website it is obvious that you are not willing to properly engage with those who disagree with you no matter how strong their arguments.

Oh and I'll say one last thing before I go down to cook dinner, your god, the christian one, is an impossibility from the very standards laid out in the bible. There are two mutually contradictory creation stories in the very beginning one depicting a single god and the other a pantheon of god (Elohim literally means "the gods" note the plural), the attributes given to your god by the bible are mutually impossible (you cannot have all power and all knowledge, having the second constrains your power, because you cannot change what you know will happen, and having the first constrains your knowledge because if you can do anything you cannot know what you will do in the future), and most of the events described in the bible never happened (there never was an Egyptian captivity or exodus, never was a unified kingdom, "predictions" of jesus such as the "virgin" birth were either made up of thin air or deliberate mistranslations and misattributions and stories like the Legion demon or jesus' home being Nazareth get the geography massively wrong, the Nazareth one especially so as the town didn't exist until c4th century CE). Your god is a busted flush, and has been so for the last 150 years for anybody with ears to hear, eyes to see, and hands to touch.