Why is belief in a higher power required?

[Godscreated]

no original thoughts of your own, just parrot those who come before you.

Seems absolutely no different than Christian interpretation to me. After all, what a Christian family has learned regarding the interpretation of scripture merely gets passed down to the next generation verbatim.

I may offer atheist quotes from time to time, giving credit to the author, but by no means do I parrot what other atheists have learned in regards to studying the bible. I read the bible on my own, studied the scripture on my own from when I was a regular church going believer, and my logical mind simply could not accept the obviously misinterpreted scripture that theists around me gobbled up as though it was divine rather than atrocious.

One thing you can count on, I'm not parroting my parents if I believe what I was taught is not correct I will search out my questions until I find the truth. When you see the sovereignty of God you, you then will see the difference in atrocities and justice.

---

@ Esquilax, You are looking at all this through a narrow tube, picking at things without looking at the total picture, I've explained this over and over and yet you ignore the facts from scripture. I can not see carrying this on since you ignore the reasons I've shown through scripture, it seems you only desire to tear down scripture and will ignore the facts to do so.

Yes, you've explained the total picture in your eyes, and I've explained to you that I find that justification entirely lacking, given the actions we're talking about. You say it was for the greater good, that it was in fulfillment of god's will, you've even given the greater context of what bad blood there was between the groups.

And I don't care.

Mostly, your actual justification amounts to "it was in accordance with god's will, and is therefore justified." That's not a justification at all; it's just the excuse you're willing to swallow for the amoral ravings in the bible. You might be willing to accept the things you've said as something truthful and worthy of consideration, but don't you dare pretend that the reason I don't agree with you is because I don't know the whole story. The truth is, you've given nothing to agree with; you've just said that what the book represents is what the book represents, and hence you take it as true and right.

I don't. But then, I'm not looking at it with a presupposition that every word of it is divine truth. I'm looking at it with my feet planted on the ground.

Well I guess will have to agree to disagree, one note though I know you did not know the entire story of this discussion until it was told to you, your answers before I broke down the story was a great indicator of that. I guess we'll be on to hopefully new discussions.

[Ryantology]

@ Esquilax, You are looking at all this through a narrow tube, picking at things without looking at the total picture, I've explained this over and over and yet you ignore the facts from scripture. I can not see carrying this on since you ignore the reasons I've shown through scripture, it seems you only desire to tear down scripture and will ignore the facts to do so.

Prove that your interpretation is more correct than ours.

[Statler Waldorf]

I don't actually make a positive claim that God doesn't exist (if only because I know how readily Christians like you will latch onto that point to shift attention away from the fact that you can't prove your positive claim).

It doesn’t matter whether it is positive or not (even though it is); you still share the burden of proof.

All I state is a simple fact: no evidence exists suggesting God does exist. And you don't help by not providing any.

I didn’t provide evidence, I provided proof: you.

Prove this assertion.

Prove what assertion?

Assertions don't prove assertions. I'm sorry, but this is not proof that your God exists.

It was not a mere assertion, it was supported by you. You could not justify your belief that your senses were reliable, and yet a Christian can.

My beliefs, themselves, have nothing to do with your God or scripture.

And yet they’re only justified if the God of scripture exists; so I’d say they have a lot to do with Him.

Unsupported assertions don't even begin to qualify as evidence that your God exists.

That’s correct, but supported ones do, and you’ve supported that assertion for me.

Unsupported assertions don't prove other unsupported assertions. Is this all you have? You really suck at this.

Actually I’d say you’re the one who sucks at all of this, here you have helped me demonstrate exactly what I said I’d demonstrate, and you still seem to be oblivious to the fact that you did it for me.

God planned to regret his decision? That sounds logical.

God planned to exhibit His might and wrath through the destruction of the wicked yes.

Such shoddy standards you have for discovering facts. There's no proof that any original manuscript is the original form of the story you know. Tales were often passed by word of mouth, sometimes for centuries, before someone committed them to paper.

You seem to be ignorant of how the Jews would learn and pass their oral traditions down through the generations, it is actually rather amazing. The Bible is the best preserved and attested book we have of antiquity, scholars all agree on that.

Of course. And you have no idea what it is, a rough idea of what it said, and no idea where the actual stories originated or the forms they first took. Ever heard of the game "Telephone"?

Yup, and if you told thousands of people the sentence in “telephone” you could easily get back to the original sentence by examining the similarities and variances in the copies. You act like there is only one manuscript copy we have, we have thousands, and they were separated by hundreds of miles isolating them from tampering. We know what the originals said to an amazing degree of certainty.

If I am to believe that the Bible is the truth of the universe as delivered by a perfect god, the tiniest flaw calls the entire text into question.

Why? How would you know it was a flaw existed?

Of course it's a starting point, the point from which the legitimacy of all copies follow. Until you establish the legitimacy of your story, it's only true to you because you want it to be true.

What did you say about assertions? Care to back yours up?

Yet, you dispute me when I merely repeat what they say?

If I recall correctly, that was not the definition of evil you gave.

I've just finished responding to one.

Ok, which one? Why is it terrible? Be specific.

[Bad Wolf]

I don't actually make a positive claim that God doesn't exist (if only because I know how readily Christians like you will latch onto that point to shift attention away from the fact that you can't prove your positive claim).

It doesn’t matter whether it is positive or not (even though it is); you still share the burden of proof.

You don't understand the burden of proof do you?
You are making a positive claim that a god exists
we are reacting to it by saying: we don't believe you.
If we said that a god doesn't exist, then the burden of proof would be on us.
Here is an example:
I make this claim to you: unicorns exist. However i don't give any evidence for their existence. In fact, since you obviously don't believe me that unicorns exist, I tell you to prove that they don't.
Do you see how ridiculous that is?
You could believe anything if the only basis for believing, is that you can't prove it doesn't exist.

[Statler Waldorf]

You don't understand the burden of proof do you?

I do.

You are making a positive claim that a god exists

Yup, and you are making the positive claim that naturalism and materialism are true.

we are reacting to it by saying: we don't believe you.

Yes, because of your naturalism and materialism.

If we said that a god doesn't exist, then the burden of proof would be on us.

That’s what atheism means. “Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief” - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I make this claim to you: unicorns exist. However i don't give any evidence for their existence. In fact, since you obviously don't believe me that unicorns exist, I tell you to prove that they don't.
Do you see how ridiculous that is?

Unicorns (which is also the name of older Scottish currency, so they do in fact exist ) are material creatures that we have a neutral position for examining their existence from. God is not material, and there is no neutral ground to determine whether He exists or not from so a person must either assume He exists beforehand, or assume He does not exist beforehand thus meaning the burden of proof is shared by both sides. Additionally, in debates where the topic is an interrogative such as “Does God exist?” both sides of the debate share the burden of proof. The positive claim/negative claim way of looking at this issue is a gross oversimplification because any position can be stated negatively or positively.

Can you prove your materialism?

[Ryantology]

That’s what atheism means. “Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief” - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Whatever. You still can't prove your own positive assertion and you insist on resorting to a definition of atheism which has no practical application in the real world, so as to prevent that creeping feeling of intellectual inferiority. At best, you're as bad as you insist we are.

You could just prove that your God exists, then the definition of atheism would be irrelevant. This seems to be all you are capable of.

Can you prove your materialism?

We're living in a material world. Done. Now prove your spiritualism.

[simplexity]

I believe there is probably some kind of higher power out there, but I also don't feel the need(even if I knew this higher power) to put it it on some kind of pedestal.

For one this "higher power" had to have come into shape in some manner, maybe the same way we did, so it is just another being, maybe more advanced than us, not really that difficult. I don't feel the need to call anything I could describe as a higher power a God. Whatever this "higher power" is, I don't think it has much interest in us, if its ever even heard of us in the first place. In the meantime it's kind of pointless to think about it.

[Bad Wolf]

Yup, and you are making the positive claim that naturalism and materialism are true.

I don't remember claiming anything about naturalism and materialism

That’s what atheism means. “Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief” - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

That is the 'strong atheist' position, there is more than one type of atheism. The majority of atheists are 'weak atheists' we claim: we don't believe a god exists
I don't tell you what you believe, don't tell me what I believe.

Unicorns (which is also the name of older Scottish currency, so they do in fact exist ) are material creatures

How are they material creatures?

that we have a neutral position for examining their existence from.

How is our position neutral over unicorns but not god? We can either assume they exist beforehand or assume they don't beforehand.
Most atheists don't claim to know a god doesn't exist, they just claim they don't believe he exists. There is a big difference there.

[Silver]

That’s what atheism means. “Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief” - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

If the burden of proof is on me, which I fail to logically see it being considering that the burden of proof tends to be upon the individual making the extraordinary claim, then it is veritably easy to discount the existence of god due to the fact that there is zero verifiable evidence in support of his existence.

There is nothing in this reality that alludes to the existence of a god. Simple as that.

Since theists make the extraordinary claim that god does exist, when there is obviously no evidence in support of him, then the burden of proof is on the theist.

[Esquilax]

Well I guess will have to agree to disagree, one note though I know you did not know the entire story of this discussion until it was told to you, your answers before I broke down the story was a great indicator of that. I guess we'll be on to hopefully new discussions.