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savethebabies |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 2:20 AM
Edited Friday, December 3, 2004 at 2:20 AM Forget about what the books or schools or churches say...
Can you tell us your personal reason for your belief, or lack of, in GOD.
I believe in God because I see so much beauty in the world that, for me, it is just too much to assume that this is all just a cosmic accident.
Please refrain from personal attacks. If you believe differently, it does not make you smarter, but only says we see the world through different glasses. —savethebabies |
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ZT |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 3:23 AM
Edited Friday, December 3, 2004 at 3:29 AM 99% of people who "believe" in Occam's Razor think that it means something like "keep it simple", or "simple is best." Those people are wrong. What it really says is, according to William of Occam, is "Plurality should not be assumed without necessity." From that approach, I have to honeslty ask myself why should I assume that there's a God in the first place? I have heard people make the argument before that the beauty and complexity of the Universe are evidence of a God, but I've never quite understood why they made that assumption. Why is it that when something is beautiful or complex that it means there must be a God or creator? After talking with many educated christians (and believe me there are plenty of them out there) at the end of the day they all seem to agree that "faith" is to corner stone of their belief in God/Christianity. This brings up another question about the nature of proof. I definately have a sense of intution that I see as being similar to faith -- a "gut feeling" about things that I can't really prove. But, what does it mean to prove something? When you think about it a proof is just a really good argument. How good your argument is, is how solid your proof is. I don't know if it's possible for anything to be completely proven. Science is constantly discovering different ways to look at things finding flaws in things that it once thought was solid. I accept that process as being part of the nature of science. And, I believe that the question of the existence of a God should be approached with an open-mind. However, I still have to be strict about what I personally consider as evidence. Since I haven't seen a good argument for the existence of God, I am an Atheist. —ZT |
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swifty |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 3:28 AM I couldn’t make as eloquent of an argument as one of my favorite authors, George H. Smith, so I would refer you to his work. http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/smith.htm There are a couple of pieces there. —swifty |
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Dark Laith |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 8:45 AM We have enough of these topics going already, don't we? —Dark Laith |
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FlyinACE |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 9:19 AM Interestingly these are the only threads i read which are above 3 lines in text. —FlyinACE |
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Full Meat |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 10:12 AM The guy's a troll. If he exercised good netiquette kept himself to one goddamn thread per subject, people would start ignoring the thread and he would get no gratification. There's a thousand alt.religion forums on the usenet. Go troll over there. —Full Meat |
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Full Meat |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 10:21 AM And by the way, I know I was resoundly shouted down for proposing the threaded conversation feature of modern forum software, but I'm the only one who would want the 5 current God-related threads to be threaded within a single root-level topic so I could just ignore the whole thing? —Full Meat |
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clodhopper |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 11:36 AM In one sentence: I do not believe in God because the very idea of God is something which can not exist. You can get a much more detailed explanation in the other thread about this which I've posted in. But I have to make one more comment: "If you believe differently, it does not make you smarter, but only says we see the world through different glasses." But it very well could. Suppose there are two people, one who believes the Earth is a sphere, the other who believes it is flat. Do both of those people "see the world through different glasses?" Certainly. Of course, that's irrelevant. I am deeply bothered by this dismissive attitude that somehow everyone is right and it is somehow an "attack" if someone points out the holes in someone's thinking. Possessing some ideas DOES make you smarter because some ideas are more in line with reality than others. Not all opinions have equal validity and not all of them need to be respect either. Such a permissive (or "open-minded") attitude advocates the rejection or at least suppression of reason. As Adam so aptly says "Cannot judge." We can and, in fact, we must. —clodhopper |
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Dark Laith |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 11:51 AM Yeah, now that's the thing. Absolutism is really the only way you can't judge. If the world were absolute, with everything in terms of black and white, individual opinions and perspectives wouldn't matter at all, and then we couldn't judge. The fact that there is any semblance of relativism at all in the universe means judging is a part of existence. And in many cases it's the right thing to do anyways. —Dark Laith |
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gouranga3221 |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 12:24 PM savethebabies: We've been hearing the argument for quite some time that the world's beauty offers proof of the existence of god. Let's use the grand canyon as a small 'for instance'. We know it was made by water erosion over millions of years. My question to you being.. Did god cause the water to erode out a huge canyon, working over millions of years.. Or is the grand canyon just an exception to the rule? There are a thousand cases just like this, take Pangea, the supercontinent, versus the way tectonic plates are currently aligned. These things take so much time to form into what they are now, and the argument for god seems to be that he created them as they are presently. This argument for god's existence does not seem to hold water. —gouranga3221 |
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Dark Laith |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 1:43 PM Oh, but gouranga, he works in mysterious ways! —Dark Laith |
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clodhopper |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 2:35 PM "Yeah, now that's the thing. Absolutism is really the only way you can't judge. If the world were absolute, with everything in terms of black and white, individual opinions and perspectives wouldn't matter at all, and then we couldn't judge." I have no idea how you concluded this, but it's completely wrong. The fact something is black and white (for example, existence or non-existence but not both) in no way means individual opinions cease to matter. If an opinion managed to properly identify reality, how would it not matter? Also, this does it imply we can not judge, though it will place restrictions on what judgments are true. I also never intended to suggest the world is always black and white. Circumstances DO affect judgments. This, however, has nothing to do with subjectivity, just variations in the objective nature of what is being judged. The fact that different individuals might be privy to different facts does not make those facts subjective, it does not imply everything is in terms of black or white, and it does not in any way refute objectivity. (Don't confuse absolute with objective either, which I think you did.) "The fact that there is any semblance of relativism at all in the universe means judging is a part of existence. And in many cases it's the right thing to do anyways." No, the fact that the human are not governed by instinct and must rely on reason to understand their surroundings is what necessitatings judging. Subjectivity has nothing to do with it. (Subjectivity would hold that judgments about the same thing, even if they are contradictory, must both be true because two different people claim they are true. Truth is NOT dependant on the observer in that way.) —clodhopper |
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Faygo |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 2:48 PM God and the Devil is just an excuse for being good or bad. Live your own life GOD DAMMIT! —Faygo |
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gouranga3221 |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 3:34 PM That's a tad oversimplified, faygo. Break it down now Those bibles? NOT a chair! —gouranga3221 |
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gouranga3221 |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 3:53 PM Oh, but gouranga, he works in mysterious ways! —Dark Laith Yeah, Dark Laith, so mysterious, in fact that it seems only the blind and dumb can understand them. Hmmm.. —gouranga3221 |
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Dark Laith |
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Friday, December 3, 2004 at 3:55 PM heh heh heh heh The fact something is black and white (for example, existence or non-existence but not both) in no way means individual opinions cease to matter. You misunderstand. I was talking about a hypothetical universe where every aspect of existance was completely unquestionable. Kind of. Hell, forget it, I'm not sure what my point was anyways. —Dark Laith |
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Folgers |
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Saturday, December 4, 2004 at 7:16 AM For a good reminder of how f'ed up Christians can be, do yourself a favor and watch "Seven" once more...it's a real treat for all you pious ones out there. —Folgers |
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ZT |
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Sunday, December 5, 2004 at 3:02 PM Actually, I changed my mind. I forgot about this show I did back in July where myself, Bulge, Granola Girl, and Monk talked to dead people and then to desperate people one a phone sex line. http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=10546 —ZT |
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savethebabies |
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Monday, December 6, 2004 at 12:26 AM "savethebabies: We've been hearing the argument for quite some time that the world's beauty offers proof of the existence of god" —gouranga3221 It's not really my "argument" per se, it's more a visceral belief in God, coming from that part of us that enjoys art, falls in love, weeps during Disney movies... that's where my belief comes from. —savethebabies |
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gouranga3221 |
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Monday, December 6, 2004 at 12:22 PM savethebabies:
I was merely addressing my post to you, it's not a personal attack type thing. I realize you didn't start that argument for god, because I've been hearing it since I was 3. —gouranga3221 |
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