Testing the strength of your Atheism

[Strongbad]

If a god had the power to make rescue teams find people, why the fuck would he require begging in order to do it?

[robvalue]

Cos he's the biggest dick ever. Literally. He's everywhere, you can't get bigger than that.

[Norman Humann]

Cos he's the biggest dick ever. Literally. He's everywhere, you can't get bigger than that.

That's the most unpleasant thought I had today.

[robvalue]

Whoops, sorry about that!

It's like the riddle goes, what is everywhere and nowhere? Nothing.

[Alex K]

If a god had the power to make rescue teams find people, why the fuck would he require begging in order to do it?

He's given us a sign...

[AFTT47]

AFTT47,

Yep. Think about it - none of your actions can ever be purely based on rationality, because logic is simply a system to arrive at conclusions from given premises or axioms. The first motivation for any action must be a non-rational one, be it instinct or emotion. Suppressing all that would mean loss of all inner drive.

I'm not sure what you mean by "inner drive." The will to live, perhaps? That's the only reason I can fathom for evolution selecting for emotion. Without that, I might not figure it's worth the trouble to continue on.

Then again, very simple organisms do well enough. An ant takes action to avoid attacks on it and it seems too simple a creature for something as complex as emotion.

[jackson]

Say you were in building in an earthquake zone and a large earthquake struck.
You were buried and in great pain as concrete trapped your legs and arms.
The hours went by and you heard some activity outside.

As days then passed without any rescue would you then decide to pray
to be rescued as a kinda last resort as the pain increased even more?

[CapnAwesome]

Say you were in building in an earthquake zone and a large earthquake struck.
You were buried and in great pain as concrete trapped your legs and arms.
The hours went by and you heard some activity outside.

As days then passed without any rescue would you then decide to pray
to be rescued as a kinda last resort as the pain increased even more?

No I doubt it. I've certainly been very close to death and the thought didn't even occur to me. I also don't spend my whole day thinking about the fictional character of God or the bible either (unlike some people), so it's never really on my mind. There are Atheists in foxholes.

[Thackerie]

I don't know. I suppose pain and panic might affect my mind to the point where I'd do something like pray, which I'd recognize as stupid and useless if I were in my right mind.

I surely hope I wouldn't, though. I'd feel like I had betrayed my father. Right before he died (of heart problems, not being crushed in a building collapse), he had what I call a deathbed deconversion but he was probably just being honest about feelings he had kept to himself for years. He announced that he didn't believe in god and followed that up by saying, "But if there is a god and it's anything like that nasty cosmic ego in the bible, I want nothing to do with it."

That was 17 years ago, and I'm still proud of the old man.

[Alex K]

AFTT47,

Yep. Think about it - none of your actions can ever be purely based on rationality, because logic is simply a system to arrive at conclusions from given premises or axioms. The first motivation for any action must be a non-rational one, be it instinct or emotion. Suppressing all that would mean loss of all inner drive.

I'm not sure what you mean by "inner drive." The will to live, perhaps?

Yes, in the widest sense, including protection of close relatives esp. offspring.

That's the only reason I can fathom for evolution selecting for emotion. Without that, I might not figure it's worth the trouble to continue on.

For example hunger and thirst are not rational reasons to take action, right? They are states of mind that urge you to do something. Then kicks in rationality and tells you how to obtain them.

Then again, very simple organisms do well enough. An ant takes action to avoid attacks on it and it seems too simple a creature for something as complex as emotion.