Strong Atheism starts from faith

[fr0d0]

You're talking about a fantasy god that doesn't feature in any religion VOID. That's nice and naive, but this is the rational world where we consider rational notions. Yours is no where near a rational notion.

I'm sorry, where in your religious texts does it state that there is and cannot ever be a way to verify the existence of God?

Exodus 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Exodus 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

It's all over the bible. Show me one place where it says God is verifiable

In the real world, with real understanding, we know that God cannot be verified.

I'm not interested in you asserting that God cannot be verified, i want to know why you hold that position. Where is your reasoning?

It's not me that's asserting it... it's the basic precept of every religion. You apparently don't get this.

Look at the reasoning.. why need faith; how, given omnimax attributes could this entity also be verifiable? If you can make that work your whacko beyond my estimation.

Additionally you propose a god we don't know yet. This isn't anything any theist here is talking about either. Yes there are infinite possibilities of anything yet unknown to us existing. The Christian God isn't one of these.

Assuming there is evidence for the existence of God, do you still not need faith in his actions? Do you not need faith to believe that this Omni-benevolent does not prevent natural disasters because they are a necessary evil? Do you not need faith to believe he has a good reason for giving children cancer so they spend their short lives suffering in and out of hospitals?

No I'm not entering your psychotic world. This is your child like reasoning yes. For me it's just purile.

[theVOID]

If you want to argue that is is more reasonable to assume there is no god rather than to admit it is not known then i will gladly have that debate with you.

Ok, but don't you think we need more room?

More room for?

That debate.

You keen for a formal debate on the subject in? I'll PM you about it later if keen. We'll have to agree on the motion.

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I personally find agnosticism a hypocritical position since in my view to be agnostic you have to assume that the concept of god was not a creation of man but that somehow he/it revealed himself to mankind one way or another. And at the same time you assume he doesn't exist unless you have proof that he does. If that is not hypocritical then I don't know what is.

Dude, Agnosticism does not say that God was not a man made concept, i'm almost absolutely certain that it is just that, the key world being 'almost'. I cannot disprove the existence of God nor am i claiming to know that he does not exist - that makes me Agnostic by definition.

There is nothing at all hypocritical about such a position.

My position is simple, based on the evidence of history itself, this includes the history of world lores and myths; that god is a concept of man, in other words we created gods in our own image.

I agree with you, however I would be intellectually dishonest if i claimed that this was a certainty. We have no way of knowing that all these contradictory religious lores are entirely man man made as opposed to one being true and the rest wrong, or all of them being a misrepresentation of a real phenomenon, i consider the latter two extremely unlikely, but cannot be honest in claiming certainty.

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You're talking about a fantasy god that doesn't feature in any religion VOID. That's nice and naive, but this is the rational world where we consider rational notions. Yours is no where near a rational notion.

I'm sorry, where in your religious texts does it state that there is and cannot ever be a way to verify the existence of God?

Exodus 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Exodus 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

It's all over the bible. Show me one place where it says God is verifiable

1) What is meant by God's face?

2) "Thou shalt see my back parts" implies some trace of God being available does it not? What exactly do you believe that passage is about?

Also, i didn't claim that the Bible claimed your God to be verifiable, I was simply curious to see if it contained anything to the contrary which i guess it kind of does, but it's all so damn ambiguous.

I still however hold the position that if God (or anything supernatural) manifests in reality in any way to make changes then we should be able to observe the effects of this interaction, such as the prayer example, it would be easy to spot a statistical abnormality with prayer, if the results are repeatable and independently verifiable then you can deductively reason that there is a phenomenon in place related to prayer.

In the real world, with real understanding, we know that God cannot be verified.

I'm not interested in you asserting that God cannot be verified, i want to know why you hold that position. Where is your reasoning?

It's not me that's asserting it... it's the basic precept of every religion. You apparently don't get this.

Look at the reasoning.. why need faith; how, given omnimax attributes could this entity also be verifiable? If you can make that work your whacko beyond my estimation.

I KNOW it's a precept of religion, that doesn't make it any less of an assertion. Would you like to explain why God cannot be verified?

Also, i never said you would have to verify every single attribute given to God, but if you could logically necessitate his existence you would have evidence that God exists in at least some form, which would be a damn epoch more convincing than the proposition currently is.

[quote]
Additionally you propose a god we don't know yet. This isn't anything any theist here is talking about either. Yes there are infinite possibilities of anything yet unknown to us existing. The Christian God isn't one of these.

Assuming there is evidence for the existence of God, do you still not need faith in his actions? Do you not need faith to believe that this Omni-benevolent does not prevent natural disasters because they are a necessary evil? Do you not need faith to believe he has a good reason for giving children cancer so they spend their short lives suffering in and out of hospitals?

No I'm not entering your psychotic world. This is your child like reasoning yes. For me it's just purile.

Psychotic world? WE ALREADY LIVE IN THIS WORLD!

Would you not, assuming God is proven to exist, still require faith in the righteousness and benevolence of his actions in the face of tragedy that you know he could prevent?

It's a more than reasonable question so i'm sure you won't have a problem giving me a proper response.

[chatpilot]

theVOID wrote:"I cannot disprove the existence of God nor am i claiming to know that he does not exist - that makes me Agnostic by definition. "

George Smith said it best in 'Atheism the case against God'

"If god is completely unknowable, the concept of “god” is totally devoid of content, and the word
“god” becomes a meaningless sound. To state that “god exists”—where “god” represents an
unknown, a blank—is to say nothing whatsoever. It is on a par with, “Unies exist” or, “A blark
exists.” The agnostic, by refusing to state the content of his belief, exempts himself from reason
and serious consideration. Religious agnosticism is so indefensible that one must regard it as
nothing more than the antics of a confused and muddled mind.
Religious agnosticism is predicated on the concept of the “unknowable,” and herein lies the root
of its irrationality. To posit the existence of something which, by its nature, cannot be known to
man is to submerge oneself in hopeless contradictions.
First, we must ask: If god cannot be known, how can god be known to exist? Quoting Nathaniel
Branden, “To claim that a thing is unknowable, one must first know that it exists—but then one
already has knowledge of it, to that extent.” To assert the existence of the unknowable is to claim
knowledge of the unknowable, in which case it cannot be unknowable.

That is pretty much how I feel about agnosticism in its entirety.

[tackattack]

God is unknowable, until he reveals himself to us through spirit, miracles, Jesus and prophets, etc.

[Zen Badger]

God is unknowable, until he reveals himself to us through spirit, miracles, Jesus and prophets, etc.

You mean like like John of Patmos?

Then God is one freaky dude.

[tackattack]

John probably was one freaky dude, God is a rationalized, yet unknowable, absolute.

[rjh4 is back]

I don't believe there are objective moral truths, I only believe in social morality, a consensus amongst society at a given time that states what is and what is not an acceptable way to behave to keep your place in society and receive the benefits.

But it's tricky, because I also believe in individual morals, what you do to yourself or with others in consensual exchanges in private residence is entirely up to you, whether it be drugs, sex, music, art etc.

So individual laws are for the individual to decide and is shouldn't be up for debate, nobody should have the right to decide what isolated individual behavior someone else should have, but this stops at the point of interaction with the rest of society, where social law comes into play and is decided by consensus.

Was that what you wanted to know?

Yes, that is the sort of thing I wanted to know.

Based on what you said, does that mean that if a majority group of a society was ok with killing members of a minority group in that same society (consensus reached in the society overall based on the majority group) and made it legal do to so, that you would be ok with such killing?

No, that would violate the individual rights of the members of the minority group.

You seem to be contradicting yourself, Void.

You say that when social law comes into play, issues are decided by consensus (I am taking this to mean a "majority of opinion". If you mean something different, please indicate how you are using the term.).

Clearly a member of a majority in a society killing a member of a minority in that same society is a point of interaction with that society that would be governed by your position requiring consensus (you appear to even admit that in your answer to my hypothetical).

In my hypothetical, the decision to allow killing of the minority was by consensus of the society as a whole.

So it would seem to follow that such killing of the minority should be acceptable to you since your consensus method for deciding what is right/wrong was followed.

Yet you still answer that such killing would not be ok.

So I ask that you please clarify your seemingly inconsistent position on this issue.

In addition, when you say: "No, that would violate the individual rights of the members of the minority group." does that not presuppose that the members of the minority in a society have some "rights" separate and distinct from anything that the consensus of the society might decide? From where does such a "right" come?

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Would you not, assuming God is proven to exist, still require faith in the righteousness and benevolence of his actions in the face of tragedy that you know he could prevent?

I know you did not direct this question to me, Void, but I do think it is a good and reasonable question so I would like to give you my answer (for whatever it is worth ). The answer is "yes".

[chatpilot]

tackattack said: " God is unknowable, until he reveals himself to us through spirit, miracles, Jesus and prophets, etc."

Christians are hilarious! You have no proof of the existence of the spirit, you have not personally witnessed any of these so called miracles, you never met Jesus nor even have proof outside of your holy writ that he existed, and the same applies to the so called prophets. Christianity is the most irrational nonsensical system of belief to date. All of your beliefs are based on negative evidence and assertions based on faith.

[rjh4 is back]

Christianity is the most irrational nonsensical system of belief to date.

This from a guy who has said that he rules out agnostic atheism and holds to strong atheism (a positive assertion that there is no God), a position that could only be held with any certainty by an all knowing being, i.e., by God himself. Seems pretty irrational and nonsensical to me.

[Edwardo Piet]

Ironic, is also a word I'd use

EvF