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Author | Topic: A question for Athiests/Evolutionists. (re: How can one not belive in something greater than himself? et all) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
I haven't yet read the 43 posts so sorry if I'm repeating what's already been said.
TheClashFan writes: I do not intend on sounding airy or mad, but I do have a question regarding faith. How can one not belive in something greater than himself? How can one go through life's difficulties and be unable to always know that at least one person loves you? At times, it is my only comfort knowing that God loves me, and I cannot understand how one can go through life without belief in something. Can anyone give me a good reason on why they do not belive in any omnipotent being or diety? I can't believe in something just because it would be nice if it existed. I lack belief in a god due to a complete lack of evidence that one exists as far as i'm concerned. There is little comfort in pretending something exists when I know full well that I do not believe it. Why would I fool myself like that?
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
jazzlover_PR writes: So you are basically saying that the history of the jews is also "an invention of wishful thinking" and that a person named Jesus who made one of the biggest impacts in history is also "an invention of wishful thinking" It it was an invention of our imagination why do we divide time in BC and AC The day is spit into two 12 hour halves because the ancient egyptians believed that Osiris spent the night passing through the 12 gates of hell. Does this mean that this literally happens, or just that humans are very symbolic? Not all countries ground their date the same as we do btw.
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
Thanks for the complients
TheClashFan writes: Many others, I assume, like to feel apart of something greater than themselves. I consider the universe to be greater than myself, if that counts
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
I guess that all boils down to what you mean by spirituality. If you mean something refering to an actualy "spirit" that you think exists seperate from your body, then I have no belief in that.
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
Morte writes: Perhaps my thought process is simply different from most, but I cannot simply say, "I want to believe this" and cause myself to believe it. I don't think your thought processes are at all different from most, what you describe is exactly the way it is. There is no way whatsoever to simply choose to believe something. As an example I usually say something like "Take a look at your sofa and choose to believe a leprechaun is sat in it. Truly believe it, not just pretend it's real." It simply can't be done. The same is true of the opposite of course. If I truly do believe something is true I can't just choose to stop believing, unless something external to myself makes me stop believing.
Morte writes: I get the sense, though, that your question was more directed at how one can exist without the hope of a guiding being, rather than how one can not believe in it (since your questions, last one aside, had more to do with the comfort religion brings than the basis of one's belief). Yes, I get that impression too. As I said in my original post in this thread though, if you don't believe in a god to start with then there is absolutely no comfort to be gained from the concept of a god. You would be wasting your time to try and get comfort from something you know you don't believe in, it would be self delusional and probably not all that helpful.
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
TheClashFan writes: Rarely do they talk about the amazing survivors of a crash... If that is a miraculous sign from god then it is a very bad, ambiguous one. I see nothing out of the ordinary in every so often someone surviving a crash. Now what WOULD be miraculous is if the crash was averted from happening altogether in such a way as to be definately go against the laws of physics. If that happened often then it would be a great sign that something strange was going on.
TheCrashFan writes: ...or how a pair of attached twins survived their seperation. Now the media definately does report on this when it happens as I remember a case of this recently. I can definately see that some thanks need to be given in a situation like this. Problem is i'd give the thanks to the doctors and other medical staff that made the seperation possible. It was their skill and ingenuity that made it happen. Miracles seem to be on a downward spiral. Take a look in the OT and you'll see miracles aplenty with god directly intervening in the day to day happenings in the word in a very overt and obvious way. Move steadily forwards to the present day and miracles seem to be drying up, until now there are no more overt miracles on display. No more does the sun stand still for several days etc. All we're left with are perfectly possible events that we just so happen to attach a great deal of signifigance to (such as people not dieing).
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
Doesn't detract from the point that I was making...that what was offered as miracles are in fact not good examples.
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
Most of us have undeniable proof that our parents exist, yet that doesn't demean our love for them. Knowledge of existence in no way forces love, but it does make love possible.
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
Oh, no I wasn't trying to do that. Just to point out the difference between what miracle was then, and what it has become now. We understand the motions of the planets almost perfectly, so if the sun stood still in the sky it would be truly against anything we would expect to happen. Someone surviving an accident, while unlikely in any one instance, becomes almost certain to occur somewhere at sometime given the huge number of accidents as Ned explained (much better than I).
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
How would you tell the difference between someone who had wisdom of something they couldn't know naturally implanted in them and someone who didn't have that wisdom, but thought they did?
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
TheClashFan writes: People earn our love through physical expressions, usually. Parents feed us and raise us, friends share with us and help us. God does these things, but in ways that we can't see very obviously. Well thats the whole point. It's silly to expect humans to love something they don't know. If a god is ambiguous that in no way makes any love it gets better, anymore than if a person is ambiguous or anonymous it does. It just confuses the issue. A god being obvious also in no way makes love inevitable, it just enables people to make a choice of wether to love or not. As an example I'm adopted. If I walked past my biological mother in the street I wouldn't know it, for all I know i've already done that. If that ever does happen i'll feel no love or any connection of any sort towards her simply because I don't know it's her. I don't know about other people, but I can't love people or entities that I have no idea exist
TheClashFan writes: "Proof" of our parents' existance adds to the reasons we love them, I guess I'd say if there's no proof there's no love, as I pointed out with my example of my biological mother above.
TheClashFan writes: Proof of God comes from within. The way my family sees it is this: from the moment we're born on earth, we have a longing to go Home. Well I guess not everyone is the same then. I have no longing to go home because i'm already there
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
TheClashFan writes: I can agree with your statement to a point, but I would like to see some scientific proof on your part for why God doesn't exist. You'll never see scientific proof that god doesn't exist since it's not logically possible to prove a negative like that. On the same note, you'll never see scientific proof that faeries, pixies, the easter bunny or Santa don't exist either. In fact, there will be an infinite number of beliefs that can't be disproved (well, as many beliefs as the human imagination can cup up with anyway). That's why it's not possible (for me anyway) to just believe something.
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
TheClashFan writes: If He was known to mankind, wouldn't everyone belive in Him because we knew that He was real? How many people would fear Him and love Him half heartedly? And don't tell me that someone would still choose not to love Him is we knew He was real, because who wants to spend eternity in hell? Who wants to be damned? I fail to see how you can properly love a being that you don't know exists. If a god exists and wants to be loved, it is in it's interests to make sure everyone knows of it's existence so that they are able to love it. If people don't know of it's existence then they will never love it in a meaningful way. As for people loving god purely out of fear of hell, that is something that happens now! In fact that position is formalised with Pascals Wager, so people not knowing about god doesn't stop them faking belief and love out of fear of hell. At least if everyone had solid evidence that the god existed they would be able to make an informed decision on what stance they wanted to take. And as Scraf pointed out, there is a big difference between people knowing of gods existence and actually supporting and loving that god. This message has been edited by happy_atheist, 11-27-2004 08:59 PM
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
TheLiteralist writes: Also, many religions put people at a disadvantage. My own religion does this, if only this life is considered. I could make much more money if I could be dishonest. I actually disagree. Humans in general live in and fully depend of society. As individuals we're pretty weak and vulnerable. We require a level of integrity to keep the society working. While true that you may be able to make a gain if you and you alone were dishonest, quite the opposite would be true if everyone was dishonest. You would then lose out as an every-man-for-himself state would be produced. I don't think religion is necessary for this level of cohesion to exist, but I think it would certainly help to unite people to a common purpose, or at least a common set of values. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if some people have a genetic predisposition to be religious.
TheLiteralist writes: I could have many more offspring if not for the Biblical restrictions on mating practices. I am unmarried and, therefore, have no offspring. Well it's true that rapid procreation involving many offspring is one way to ensure survival of the species, but it's not the only way. Nurturing a few offspring but with a high success rate is another. This is too far off topic to continue here though...
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happy_atheist Member (Idle past 4944 days) Posts: 326 Joined: |
Whirlwind writes: For example, I could tell you where food is by giving you directions. If we had no power of imagination, I would have to take you to the food. Bees can direct other bees to food without taking them there. Obviously I have no idea what goes on inside a bee's head, but I would guess the common opinion would be that they don't have imagination. Also i've seen people talk of examples of studies on monkeys (chimps if I remember correctly), where the chimps formulated a hunting plan and gave each member of the group a role that they went off and performed out of sight of others. This was in a thread on here, about what makes humans seperate to animals. I don't know how true that is, but if it were true, would it constitute imagination? I would think it would. I guess the problem with imagination is that we don't know what is going on in an animals head. Imagination is generally thought of as us creating images in our head that don't exist, or creating abstract ideas. We can see things such as birds building elaborate nests or doing dances with the sole purpose of attracting other birds, but I guess we can have no way of knowing what's actually going on in their minds.
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