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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 1:27 am
Quote:I'm pretty sure ants are not aware of your LIFE experiences like going to work, driving cars, relationships, they may see us as a presence.
Nope ants are fully aware we exist. We are not just an invisible otherworldly presence like a supernatural being is proposed . They don't need to experience highly specific things to view us a more the a presence .
As for Wooter he is confusing knowledge with belief . And axioms have nothing to do with god .
As for the OP I possible but unlikely . Till I see a reason to accept it. Aside that the idea sounds like a re hatch of " you don't know everything so you can dismiss nothing"
Seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy -- myself.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 1:34 am
Ants could devour our bodies while we're still alive. Not exactly the same power dynamic between us and Superman.
Religions were invented to impress and dupe illiterate, superstitious stone-age peasants. So in this modern, enlightened age of information, what's your excuse? Or are you saying with all your advantages, you were still tricked as easily as those early humans?
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There is no better way to convey the least amount of information in the greatest amount of words than to try explaining your religious views.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 1:46 am
(This post was last modified: August 25, 2017 at 2:42 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(August 24, 2017 at 10:53 pm)Khemikal Wrote: May as well hand a toddler a push mower. We all know he's going to end up under the thing rather than behind it.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of life.
(August 24, 2017 at 11:39 pm)Magilla Wrote: Speaking for me, I count myself as an agnostic atheist. I'm atheist, because I believe in no gods, whilst not going so far as saying that I know to a certainty that no gods exist. This lack of absolute certainty exists because I can't prove the universal, that there are no gods whatsoever. Thus the agnostic part of my self classification. This means that if in the future I find some convincing evidence for the existence of a god, then I'd change my position.
Yep.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 3:55 am
(This post was last modified: August 25, 2017 at 3:57 am by budsa11.)
(August 24, 2017 at 6:42 pm)Khemikal Wrote: (August 24, 2017 at 6:15 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: A proposition is either true or not true. So with respect to the proposition "God(s) exist." there are only two options. The proposition is either true, the theist stance, or it is not true, the atheist stance. The meaningful definition of atheism I have given does not force atheists to claim metaphysical knowledge; but rather asks them to own where they stand with respect to the question.
(Well, maybe there is a third option called 'I don't care' but I do not seriously believe any AF member falls into that category.)
Hm, I must have missed it, where's the nihilism in a negative stance to the god proposition? Let me check again. Nope...still not there. Third times the charm....ah.....maybe if I squint real hard?
Yes, thanks for the replies everyone, and i feel i have come to a conclusion...
Ithink what i have done here is just repackaged the "God exists out of time a space argument" but just reworded it very differently (as i am 100% NOT inserting a god into the equation)..... it's a nonsensical question.
I guess this is what happens when an atheist thinks like a theist without realizing it, as i am as far away from being an theist at this point as i could possibly be.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 5:38 am
(August 24, 2017 at 9:17 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: main logical demonstrations for theism, such as First Cause and Necessary Being. ... the skeptics are either denying reason's efficacy and/or asserting absurdity. Both approaches are nihilistic in nature.
Well yeah first of all so called First cause says nothing of the nature of god, meaning it can't say if it's Buddha, Medusa, Jesus, Krishna and so on. Second the problem of First cause is that then someone also had to make God and if you don't need explanation who created god then you don't need an explanation of the "first cause" of the universe or in other words why could that cause itself not be natural? Not to mention that we have a highly successful theory of probabilistic causes called quantum mechanics.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 5:40 am
(August 24, 2017 at 12:11 pm)budsa11 Wrote: i'm wondering if you can help me im an atheist but am struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself it goes something like this.....
If you see an ant crawling across the ground, to the ant, you are his god that could wipe him out at time, he has no intelligence of you or that you exist, for the ant he is as intelligent as he is going to get, and can't even comprehend we exist.
So could we be in the same position as the ant? as far as we can see humans right now are as intelligent as we can get, but growing up we do not have the intelligence capacity to comprehend our surrounding. As children, take a 1 year old or any age under 3-4 we are also at that point, (The same as the ant) as intelligent at THAT time as we are going to get and cannot comprehend to world around us intelligently.
So just the same as the ant, adults at our height point of intelligence, to the toddler we are the Gods. What if we, right NOW are at this point in time, at our current level of intelligence are in the same position as the Ant and Toddler? Could there be an unknown Force, Entity, that just the same as we are unknown to the ant and the toddler to his or her world, that is looking at us as we look at the ant?
As its happening right now to the ant and toddler, this is proof it can, and is happening, It doesn't seem that extraordinary somthing is looknig at us in the same way,
Would love to hear what you think,
Thanks
Very quick answer ant doesn't see us.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 6:18 am
(This post was last modified: August 25, 2017 at 6:18 am by Amarok.)
Quote:main logical demonstrations for theism, such as First Cause and Necessary Being. ... the skeptics are either denying reason's efficacy and/or asserting absurdity. Both approaches are nihilistic in nature.
There has never been I good case for a first cause . Let alone a case for a god being sais cause . And a rejection of both is in no way nihilistic or absurd no matter how much apologists assert this .
Same goes for the ontological argument universally these have failed to establish a Necessary Being let alone a god in that role . A rejection of this is in no way nihilistic or absurd no matter how much apologists assert this .
Once again you all hot air and apologist bluster .
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 6:42 am
God exists and God doesn't exist are two different claims, I can address either from the position of non belief until there is enough evidence to warrant a belief.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 7:38 am
(August 25, 2017 at 6:42 am)Mr.wizard Wrote: God exists and God doesn't exist are two different claims, I can address either from the position of non belief until there is enough evidence to warrant a belief.
yeah, its like faith, if you come up with something i don't have evidence for, guess what ? i'll stop believing it.
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RE: Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself
August 25, 2017 at 8:26 am
(This post was last modified: August 25, 2017 at 8:38 am by Neo-Scholastic.)
(August 24, 2017 at 10:15 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The fact that axioms are accepted doesn't not imply that your god is why they are axiomatic. Arguing otherwise is a non sequitur. You are correct. Good thing I didn't say or mean to imply that. Accepting certain truths as self-evident is an existential choice that carries through all later reasoning. As such it would be inconsistent to later compromise them when their application undermines a cherished belief.
(August 24, 2017 at 9:39 pm)mordant Wrote: Inherently, no creature in this universe can observe or remark on anything or have any knowledge of something outside this universe. The instant we have any actual data about a god, that god then is part of the natural order, and can be observed / debunked. 100% (not 99.999%, but 100%) of everything claimed about gods are simply asserted without valid and admissible evidence, and can therefore be dismissed without consideration of this non-evidence.
That seems like a reasonable objection for many naive god concepts. It doesn't apply when the evidence is ubiquitous such as the fact that beings persist in there being despite change or the general observation that causes have regular effects.
(August 25, 2017 at 5:38 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: (August 24, 2017 at 9:17 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: main logical demonstrations for theism, such as First Cause and Necessary Being. ... the skeptics are either denying reason's efficacy and/or asserting absurdity. Both approaches are nihilistic in nature.
Well yeah first of all so called First cause says nothing of the nature of god, meaning it can't say if it's Buddha, Medusa, Jesus, Krishna and so on. Second the problem of First cause is that then someone also had to make God and if you don't need explanation who created god then you don't need an explanation of the "first cause" of the universe or in other words why could that cause itself not be natural? Not to mention that we have a highly successful theory of probabilistic causes called quantum mechanics.
When someone brings up "who created god?" I can tell either they haven't thought it through or don't understand the argument.
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