The Existence of God

Jeez it's been a while since I've been on Sythe, and especially SFA, so I'll start off not by bashing others but my working upon this, because this guy basically summed up my views.

Generally, religious folks believe as they do because it may be comforting, and therefore to legitimize it would only increase the happiness that such an endeavor may grant them. Therefore, when the fact that it can neither be proven nor disproven, they would rather lean toward the "it can not be disproven" side of the argument, for it fits their wants and needs much better. Also (though the Bible which they believe in frowns upon this), they cling to any evidence in support of the bible like a beetle clings to fecal matter. For example, the salt statues that supposedly were part of Sodom or Gamora (that really are just deposits) to them verify the stories in the Old Testament (conveniently forgetting the incest committed shortly afterward). If something makes someone happy, there is absolutely no point in trying to counter their claims with evidence, but rather an equally effective emotional plea. For example: "When you realize how vast and beautiful the universe is, and that it was NOT designed, that this beauty came as the work of billions of years, the feeling is truly amazing and astounding" would be one way to start a conversation with the intent to convert.

Logic means nothing to these people, so trying to attack faith using logic is like attacking air using a knife.

 

I am not getting through to you, it seems. I am not convinced by the Big Bang theory, either you don't understand it or you're building a strawman.

An Atheist literally means "someone who doesn't believe in a higher spiritual power". It does not mean someone who follows mainstream sensationalist science. Get that into your head before you discuss further.

 

So to you guys,out of curiosity, the idea / concept of "God" creating the earth is too fanciful?

 

I'm glad there's one person in this god forsaken forum who knows what he's talking about.

 

Hmm, you did a poor job of "not bashing" other peoples' views. So according to you, religious zeal and/or belief encompasses lack of logic?

 

Ah, quit acting butthurt ffs. This is a debate and this person you quoted said his opinion. It isn't ALL about you, okay? Also what he said perfectly made sense. Christianity seems to have a problem of pushing people into their religion which is why we people who don't believe in it act so defense.

Why don't Buddhism or Muslim believers try to MAKE people believe in their religion? Maybe because they know that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Sure, you think the rest of us are going to hell but we make a pretty good argument against the bible except your so full of emotional feelings towards it that you just can't see the logic of it.

 

The essence of religion is that it requires faith, and faith is established with or without logic/evidence. The Bible iteself, for example, frowns upon the requirement of evidence to believe, for then it shatters the very idea of faith. For how can you have faith if you have evidence? It doesn't remain faith, but rather a normal accepted ideal. All the mysticism is taken out of it, and the religion disintigrates. Therefore, religions are established with the ideal that it does not require evidence.

Religions also tell you not to listen to anyone trying to convince you to abandon your beliefs. People with strong faith have a tendency to be immune to logic pleas, because the deity they follow has a tendency to defy logic. As such, we must employ an emotional plea to bypass their deity (which tends to be metaphysical and physical at the same time) and instead of attacking their faith or religion, plead with them.

Modern religions get members through emotional satisfaction and appeasement, so we must use the same tactic to pull them out of the hole.

This really is not the way to prove your case. Accusing someone of being "butthurt" is really aggressive and so people will blacklist you and as such render all of your arguments pointless, because they suddenly deem you a bad person.

 

Are you joking me? Islam has a history as being one of the most merciless religions in terms of forced conversions. I don't want to go through it all, just brush up on your history.
What you said was so subjective and biased it's not even funny. You're presenting facts about religion in your sense of things, not the objective sense.

P.S. He never mentioned any religion in his post
P.P.S. I'm neither Christian nor Muslim.

 

I agree with most of your statements in the case of certain religions; however, I do not agree with your statement that religion is constructed on a basis lacking proof. All religions stem from either one or more colossal occurences.

Edit: As well, I really think, as a principle, you should refrain from merely saying, "The Bible" and identify which bible, as there are many.

 

Notice half the people that posted are banned lmao athestic people are prone to being banned

 

Beautiful.

You're more stupid *try again.

You are equally foolish to believe that a mere digression from an opinion, especially one as poorly-constructed as yours, to be an indication that there's some lack of understanding in how it was built.

Amateur.

Ironic that you post that; after all, your religion did pursue this view for some time. However, it's addition to your post adds little relevance. While my intentions were to show that I didn't care what type of omnipotent God you believed because my arguments could be universally applied, you are merely showing everyone that you have a general lack of understanding in what my argument was saying.

Either way, sarcasm tags? Oh the irony...

My assertion is that there is NO evidence, as I can find none. In a situation in which there is no evidence for something, the rational approach is not make an assertion about it at all. Instead, you are asserting that God exists, which clearly does not follow the logic described by Russel's Teapot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

 

Name one colossal occurrence that can prove a religion. GO!

Edit:
Of course, you'll have to prove the occurrence took place as well. No "Jesus resurrected" or similar.

 

Look, this diest view is almost impossible to contradict.
The fact of the matter is, people then - in terms of raw intelligence - were identical to us. Do you deny that something significant had to happen and say that all these people randomly started following...nothing?

And, if this counts, there has been evidence that about the time in the Jewish bible of the parting of the Red Sea there was possibly some sort of tsunami that created the effect of the two walls of the ocean.

 

What does raw intelligence have to do with anything? They still failed to understand many things we do today. That's why they needed to come up with an explanation just for the sake of having an explanation. People are still doing this today, but they are slowly being pushed into a corner as new discoveries are made.

 

It's really hard to argue with this because of the dogmatical nature of science and deism. I have to admit, I'm really not that knowledgeable.

 

Oh, you're telling me I have to argue against deism? Screw this, I'm out. That's bordering impossible.

I have flirted with deism numerous times, because it does make plenty of sense, but I ended up going atheist because deism seems to me to be a way to fill in the blanks, to describe what we don't know. However, I realized that just because we do not know something, does not mean that, through scientific exploration, we will not uncover whatever secrets we may not be privy to currently.

EDIT: My mistake on "The Bible" thing, but usually when I refer to any other bible I just refer to it as "the (insert religion here) bible" as Christianity and the New Testament/King James edition Bible are very prominent and are innevitably going to be the target of most discussions here.

 

Many theologians believes "The Red Sea" is another of the hundreds of translation errors in the Bible - they're convinced Moses parted the The Reed Sea, which is a lake not far from The Red Sea. It's long since dried out.

 

The Reed Sea was a wet marsh. No miracle to go through there.

 

I'm the fence about this. The concept is silly, but everything in the Universe works in such perfect harmony it's tough to believe it's ALL evolution.

 

I don't think everything works in perfect harmony. War, poverty, disease, destruction, etc.