http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mick-mooney/why-id-still-believe-in-g_b_59...
Nothing new here but another telling of the aftermath of discrediting of the bible. People still need to cling to a metaphysical comfort in the form of AI and a role they can play in it. I do believe (I have faith) that man's propensity for failure to acknowledge mortality lies in his dismissal of reality for the comforts of his imagination. In that padded room he can dream up all manner of treats awaiting his corporeal demise and (assumed) spiritual rise.
The cat in the blog isn't so much consumed by some flowery eventuality awaiting him as he is preoccupied with a god-like source of existence. He can't fathom existence otherwise and I do understand it's a lot to fathom. But, to simply dismiss it as inexplicably there until a rational answer is in hand is the way of atheism as opposed to conjuring up grand ideas to placate the currently vacuous mind of man due to its innate impatience to know all or otherwise fake it.
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Why do you believe that man conjured up God? Aka what makes you believe God is fake? Why is it ridiculous to believe in God and rational to dismiss his existence?
Caitlin
Humans created the gods to explain the unknown. Your god is a human construct, created by your religion. The is a lack of evidence that any god exist. What proof outside of your religion and holy text do you have that any god exist?
Caitlin: "Why do you believe that man conjured up God? Aka what makes you believe God is fake? Why is it ridiculous to believe in God and rational to dismiss his existence?"
Which god are you asking this about?
Caitlin,
When you speak of God which God are you talking about?
http://www.graveyardofthegods.org/deadgods/listofgods.html
@Caitlin
There is no evidence of a god anywhere unless you investigate writings paintings etc by humans. There is nothing left to discover that is a reference to a god that isn't manmade. You might say look at nature, the planets, the universe, but there is no link that any of that is god made.
So by default god is from the imagination of man.
It is irrational to believe anything that cannot be proven. God isn't proven and therefore it is irrational to believe in a god. It is ridiculous to base your life on a god.
If I told you that the secret of all life the world the universe was because of a pink elephant, you demand that I prove it. I would reply I can't you just have to have faith. You'd think I'm nuts and you'd be correct. If I further offered a book written by unknown authors that were filled with allegory, hearsay testimony, fictitious characters, and myths, that not only proves my pink elephant but also justifies how to live one's life, you call the police and have me committed.
That is exactly what all religious people do. They don't have ANY proof of a god, offer a book of fairytales as proof, and demand that we believe their god on faith (lack of evidence). That IS justification for having your head examined.
xenoview,
You have no proof that Caitlin's God is a human construct. Prove it. You just make such statements, but make no effort to justify your beliefs and claims.
the universe looks like an invention, a creation. So it is rational to believe there was a creator. There is not a single fact that contradicts belief in a creator God.
Which god was the creator?
Pitar,
I don't see the Bible as being discredited. Its not a science book, and was not intended as such. It was written by ancient people. It is conditioned by their culture. They simply believed that the world was a creation and wrote accordingly within the limits of their cluture. the fact that humans have developed a deeper understanding of the universe since ancient times does not mean that God does not exist. There is no scientific fact or theory that disproves God. Usually Atheists pull out the theory of evolution as if that proved God does not exist. The reality is Darwin was a christian. His parents were christian. His wife was christian. His teachers at Cambridge were christian. Darwin had no fight with the church. The church had no fight with him, and in fact honored him by giving him a burial in Westminster Abbey. Amazing that athiests have to latch onto a theory devised by a christian who was honored by the church, to try to prove God does not exist. Many of the greats of science were theists. Why couldn't atheists devise their own theories?
Atheists claim, but don't justify, that the universe is not a creation, thus, no creator. That's a faith, despite claims that atheists have no beliefs. Why don't you prove that the universe is not a creation?
Apollo: Can you proof that unicorns do not exist? Or invisible flying elephants? It is not possible to proof a negative. The burden of the proof is on the one who make the claim. If you say God exist, you have to give proof. The one who say God does not exist do not.
@Apollo: "Darwin had no fight with the church. The church had no fight with him"
Have you not heard of the Huxley-Wilberforce debate? Darwin's ideas were vigorously opposed and ridiculed by the Church of England. They recently issued an apology.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/2910447/Charles-Darwin-to-recei...
Darwin was a man of his times. Christianity was the default in English society. Darwin appears never to have thought of himself as an atheist, but late in his life he admitted to being an agnostic. Burial in Westminster Abbey is a national honor rather than a religious one. All sorts of people are buried or memorialized there.
Apollo,
The biblical God, Yahweh (the God of the Hebrews and the God of the armies) was simply the series of men who ruled the various dominant empire in the Middle Eastern area during ancient times. He died when the last Babylonian emperor kicked the bucket and the Babylonian empire collapsed around 530 B.C. He isn't coming back.
Around the First Century the Yeshua character was created as the son of God so that a con man could sell his new religion of resurrection. If Yeshua was still wiggling on the cross the story would be believable.
All gods are imaginary. There is no celestial deity of any kind in this solar system.
You're all obviously intelligent and thoughtful individuals. Do you think it's more likely that life is the design of an intelligent being, or the result of chance circumstances leading the the formation of living organic matter, which would have had to be composed of particles of previously "dead" inorganic matter?
Sinner,
Do you agree that all matter is made from assorted atoms of various elements?
Do you agree that all elements are dead, which is to say that they have no life of their own?
Do you agree that at some point the dead atoms and elements become living entities and that at some point in the future they die and degrade?
When you were first created by the union of an egg and a far small single sperm did you have all of the elements that you now have in your body?
So as your original cell continued to multiply and divide by taking in dead atoms and bringing them to life do you now realize that are a product of previously dead organic matter?
This is very interesting I have nothing to add, however, I do enjoy reading the serves and volleys of the subject It seems to running pretty even now, as if no one can prove anything, However we seem to lean toward the opinion of least astonishment.
aperez241,
The claim was, by xenoview, that God was a human construct. As you say, people who make claims outght to justify them. so I'm not trying to prove a negative, I want xenoview to prove his/her claim. The onus is on xenoview, no?
And it is interesting that atheist is a negative, a negative that atheists believe is true. And since you say you can't prove it, it must be a faith.
I should mention that an atheist I ran into insisted that atheists are science based, science establishes imutable fact, and so claims made by atheists are imuatable fact. He referred me here to get the immutable truth, as according to him, everything that flows from an athiest is scientifically proven. so I'm wondering, what xenoview's immutable proof is that god is a human construct.
That person sounds like a loon; I wouldn't take anything they said seriously.
The evidence that man created god is overwhelming compared to the evidence that god created man. I use tools like evidence, testing, my senses, supporting ideas and so on to define my world. These highly useful tools we all use to advance our selves point VERY! strongly to the man created god idea.
The above idea is different than "atheist" an atheist does not have to any way prove there is no god.
Definition of an atheist: one who is not a theist. That is the negative. Do not apply your own definitions to an atheist. Following the proper true, simple definition of an atheist, "not a theist," an atheist does not have to "prove" they are not a theist. Again that is the negative.
But! If someone wants to claim a particular idea is correct over a different idea, (man created god versus god created man) they do need to evidence and support to that idea to not be beyond simply unsupported rambling that is utterly baseless as useful. Fortunately for the person that claims such, the evidence is there, an overwhelming amount of it, especially compared to the counter argument. This argument is completely separate from the definition of an atheist. Do not try to bring the two together.
That person you say you ran into, does sound like a loon. As Nylar said.
LogicForTW,
Even the Bible says that men create gods so it's amazing that believers refuse to believe that their favorite deity was also created by unknown dead men.
Did not know that, does not surprise me though. Sometimes I feel like the bible writers go out of their way to create contradictions.
LogicForTW,
The Bible as an unified book didn’t exist until the late 7th Century when a committee of story tellers, writers, and artists based in England produced three master copies. Since each book was written by different people following a basic outline it was easy for contradictions to creep in. On top of that England had its own traditional religion so it would have been easy for the writers to alter the story just a little bit to show that it was all an elaborate joke. And since there was no master copy to verify their accuracy no one knew that it contained so many major discrepancies. We can detect them because we use computers and can quickly find them.
LogicForTW,
Wisdom chapters 13 & 14 (CEB) have an essay on how men create gods. It talks about idols but it can be applied just as easily to any deity, like Yahweh or Yeshua.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=wisdom13-14&version=CEB
Diotrephes- 7th century? Is that when the Codex came out?