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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 8:20 am
(June 29, 2015 at 7:58 am)Alex K Wrote: (June 29, 2015 at 7:57 am)pool Wrote: I didn't change the definition of a God i simplified it.
Read my post and understand it.
Well if you do have unicorns inside your fridge you are inclined to prove that to us(Burden of proof).
Well if you create a definition of a unicorn as "anything which has a somewhat pointy piece or edge" then yes,you'd have a unicorn inside your fridge
according to your definition .
If you can convince a quite huge group of the human population that " anything which has a somewhat pointy piece or edge " is a unicorn.Then i'd
be inclined to accept your definition and consider " anything which has a somewhat pointy piece or edge " as a unicorn.I will accept it.Of course
the trick is to convince this huge mass.Good luck.
In my condition,i didn't "create" a definition for "God".I simply followed an already accepted definition of "God" which was already accepted by a significant mass.
Also i provided enough input to justify my action which was to choose this particular definition.You'd have to do that too.
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 8:22 am
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2015 at 8:25 am by Alex K.)
Now read the rest of my post.
Ok I'm done here
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 8:23 am
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2015 at 8:43 am by ErGingerbreadMandude.)
(June 29, 2015 at 8:09 am)Tonus Wrote: (June 28, 2015 at 8:25 pm)pool Wrote: I went into that discussion as a strong atheist but i came out as a not-so-strong atheist which was a resultant of my own argument against myself and atheism. That sounds like a kind of subliminal self-programming. We don't control our subconscious, but we can influence it to some degree. We might think that taking the "devil's advocate" approach won't affect what we think and believe, but our subconscious is influenced by our activities, and it can adopt and reinforce behaviors that we perform routinely. If you are regularly arguing a side that you disagree with, you might find yourself accepting that side in spite of yourself.
It's not a bad thing, in the sense that it can give you a broader perspective on an issue. But you'll need to dig deeper than "we can't know everything, so maybe there's a god." Or you can go that route until you "find" the "evidence" that you need in order to believe. If that seems a bit far-fetched, look into Cotard's syndrome to see just how far the human mind can go in order to force the world to make sense.
You may have to read all the posts inside this thread as "we can't know everything, so maybe there's a god" is not as deep i went.I went deeper.
What really happened was that i was providing arguments to some admin on the page.I didn't actually believe the arguments i put forward.I just brought them up
to see if they could counter my arguments(I guess you could say that it was my way to trying to access if they were worth my time).Among the many points i put forward i (automatically contradicted my own arguments in my mind)i just wanted to see if they could do it.Among these random points i put forward,i put forward an argument and they couldn't really put forward enough points to contradict it and i was grinning but at that moment i realized even i couldn't contradict that point.It made me freak out.I remember spending the entire of the next day on my bed trying to prove my own point is wrong(because i was a strong atheist then).Sadly i couldn't so i decided to be a not-so-strong atheist.This is what really happened in all honesty.Nothing more.
@ Alex K ,
The current definition of unicorn is " a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead." according to google,you'd have to provide enough input for people to believe why this is wrong and why your definition is better.
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 9:00 am
Welcome pool. Hope your enjoying you initial swim here. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming...........
My view, just not a concept I will ever believe. I'll let you continue to debate and watch from the sidelines.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 9:16 am
OK, there may well be aliens that are more powerful than us. What does that matter to anything?
When someone else asks me about God, I will ask them too what God means to them before I answer.
It seems you're trying to discredit the very idea of atheism by using one very narrow and unusual definition of "God". What's the point?
If the question changes, the answer changes. Words can mean different things. I don't know what else you're trying to say.
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 10:40 am
(June 29, 2015 at 8:23 am)pool Wrote: You may have to read all the posts inside this thread as "we can't know everything, so maybe there's a god" is not as deep i went.I went deeper.
The impression I'm getting is that you're asking the same question in a few different ways. In any case, I wasn't saying that you had to look deeper for our benefit. If you've found reason to doubt and question things, then you've got to follow it wherever it leads. Personally I find it unsatisfying to reach an "it could be this/that" type of conclusion.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 11:43 am
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2015 at 11:52 am by ErGingerbreadMandude.)
(June 29, 2015 at 10:40 am)Tonus Wrote: (June 29, 2015 at 8:23 am)pool Wrote: You may have to read all the posts inside this thread as "we can't know everything, so maybe there's a god" is not as deep i went.I went deeper.
The impression I'm getting is that you're asking the same question in a few different ways. In any case, I wasn't saying that you had to look deeper for our benefit. If you've found reason to doubt and question things, then you've got to follow it wherever it leads. Personally I find it unsatisfying to reach an "it could be this/that" type of conclusion.
NASA an organisation dedicated to space exploration spend billions in dollars,they have some of the top minds on earth working in a confined space with one of the high priority aim being "looking for foreign life".They pay their employees $120,614.00 to $156,802.00 .This whole organisation's existence is based on a "it could be this/that" type of conclusion.Are you telling me that,according to your logic what NASA is doing is hokum?
If a "it could be this/that" type of conclusion is enough for an organisation to spend billions,pay their employees six figures.Boy i'm glad i think its enough to see there's reasonable doubt that there is something out there.And i'm glad i'm not alone.
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 11:46 am
If NASA had reached a conclusion, they wouldn't still be looking.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 11:47 am
(June 29, 2015 at 5:32 am)pool Wrote: Like i said,we all believe in "God" we just don't know it yet.
There is your mistake. Your opinion of what we believe is not transcendent. Just because you posit a class of superior things doesn't make you one of them. Oh, and bite me.
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RE: Do you have the right to be an atheist?
June 29, 2015 at 11:59 am
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2015 at 12:00 pm by LostLocke.)
(June 29, 2015 at 5:32 am)pool Wrote: I typed down "Atheist definition" onto google and i got this:
"a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods."
I typed down "god definition" onto google but i got religious definitions of god only but what i understood is this:
"the supreme being","a superhuman being".
Doesn't that make an superior alien race in some distant planet a "God"?
Like i said,we all believe in "God" we just don't know it yet. Going by "a superhuman being" as a definition, then sure, a technologically superior alien race could be considered gods. Hell, even some of the larger dinosaurs could be considered superhuman, therefore they would be gods too.
That definition is so vague and all encompassing that it doesn't really have much use.
And no. Using that we don't believe in "God", we believe in "gods".
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