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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@ Vochensmut
Please define "Absolutely Nothing".
"We all know this God exists intuitively"
Not me. I was (as well as the great majority of people) raised in an environment where religion and a god was assumed, just like air and water. It was not intuition, it was cultural imprinting. For the very same reason most people take on the same religion of their parents, were are led to assume a god exists.
"it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to attempt to explain him away"
No, it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to explain a deity. My position is incredibly simple, all I ask for is proof or evidence. You can not provide that, thus I fall back on the default position, in not believing a claim without evidence.
"Only a fool would say there is no God"
Where did anyone make that statement? Please provide a quote from this forum.
Vochensmut you obviously do not know the difference between stating there is no god, and stating that one does not accept the god proposition because they have not been convinced.
Is there another way to state there is no God other than atheism ?
@ Vochensmut
"Is there another way to state there is no God other than atheism ?"
First off, as many have explained countless times, atheism is not the denial of a god or gods, it is the lack of belief. Despite your continual attempts to slip that dishonest statement into the conversation, I will continue.
SCIENCE
The early gods were used to explain natural phenomena. Daddy, what made lightning? That was the gods fucking around up in the clouds. Yet when all natural phenomena are dutifully studied, measured, and explained, no god required. Of all the millions, billions of natural phenomena studied and explained, every one has a rational and testable explanation that did not require a god.
And that is one huge reason why religion does not make sense to a skeptical mind.
Science also has a much higher level for acceptance than religion. For example, Einstein's brilliant Theory of Relativity was not accepted by the scientific community until it was proven. With science, no one can just spout bullshit and ask everyone to just accept it, unlike religion.
Is there another way to state there is no God other than atheism ? Absolutely Nothing is a state where not only the space time continuum does not exist but God does not exist , which is what you believe , that God does not exist . Nothing , nil, zilch , zero , less
than zero, nada cantata is Absolutely Nothing .
@ Vochensmut
"Is there another way to state there is no God other than atheism ?"
Atheism is the lack of belief in a god of gods. Atheism is not stating that there is no god or gods.
Holy fucking fiddle-faddle! Did Voch and Jo study at the same apologetic school or something. Or does one have a hand up the other's ass? Do ANY of these mentally dense yo-yo brains own a dictionary? Atheism: Lack of belief in any god or gods. PERIOD. The shit just ain't that complicated! Hey, Voch, if you think you know soooooo much about what happened before the Big Bang, then please go explain your groundbreaking solution to the cosmologists and astrophysicists who have been studying such things and working in their fields as professionals most of their lives. I am certain they would be in absolute AWE of your divinely gifted insight. Otherwise, for most of us who try to keep at least one foot in the realm of reality, WE DO NOT KNOW.
COG! Where in the hell did you put my aspirin?... *rummaging through medicine cabinet*... Oh, let me guess. You gave THOSE away too, with all my cookies... *grumble*...
Yea, I know Tin-Man. How many times do we have to continually inform them on the definition of atheism? Yet, like a broken record, they keep coming back to the tiresome and just plain stupid repitition that atheism is much more than the simple, one line definition.
@Vochensmut
I think I can figure out where you are stuck.
God, your god, any ones idea of god, a vague definition of "all gods" whatever, any and all of it is simply a human created idea.
I just made up a god. Let's call it Vochensmut, a god that likes to post on atheistrepublic.com forums. This god is an idea created by me.
Ridiculous right? Do you believe in this god "Vochensmut" that I just made up? Why not? Do you agree it is ridiculous to even consider this god I made up as possibly being real?
Well guess what, your god idea, your neighbors god idea, the god idea of a family on the other side of the planet? They all too are just ideas. Human created ideas.
How do you separate out simple, human created ideas and thought to actual reality?
Well this should be obvious, but: you evidence it.
And you realize that "talk" or written word, is not evidence by it self. Those words have to add up to evidence by creating scenarios that can be tested in reality. Kind of like what a theory presented in science journals or the like.
I have yet to hear of any actual evidence presented of any god idea ever. All of it just talk or written word. And hilariously most of the "god" ideas are highly edited, translated and obviously sourced from ~2000 year old human superstitions.
Not so hilarious is people have been killing, and worse over variations of their completely unevidenced god idea for thousands of years.
.
TLDR:
You can not even begin to talk about the various implications of your god idea until it is evidenced. At least not to most atheist with out sounding like a confused kid. Sure you can do it within your own echo chamber of your own religion. (It is set up to do exactly that!) But here, most of us do not believe unevidenced claims. With "god" being the grandaddy whopper of all unevidenced claims.
To us it is the same arguing that fluffy foo foo the half rabbit half puppy god exist and we should all believe in that because if you walk far enough you will eventually find this god's poop.
@Vochensmut: Thank you for the mind reading / fortune telling bullshit. How many times must you be told, "YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE AT ALL FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING." There is as much evidence for nothing existing as there is for your god existing. If nothing existed, it would not be nothing. Your bullshit is senseless.
@Vochensmut: " Or to put it simply, if Nature can create itself then all reason and rationality are out the window . The law of non-contradiction has left the building again , for something cannot exist prior to itself otherwise you've just given up all ground to the monotheists who could say the same about God ?"
So you completely understand the fact that physics breaks down at the big bang and that we know absolutely nothing beyond Planck time and still you want to make inane assertions about that which you can't possibly know anything. "But one God who Is and is the un-caused Cause of all things is not a stretch of the imagination anymore" YOU WIN THE IDIOT COMMENT OF THE WEEK. GOD OF THE GAPS BULLSHIT. How is it these people can not see the idiotic comments they make?
RE: "Absolutely Nothing" WHAT IN THE HELL MAKES YOU THING "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING" is possible? Are you not paying attention. WE KNOW NOTHING about what is beyond PLANCK TIME. Physics breaks down. We have no example of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING anyplace. You have no more evidence for ABSOLUTELY nothing than you have for your idiotic version of GOD!
RE: "But Absolutely Something must exist " Demonstrate how you have ruled out everything possible but for your version of God.
Demonstrate how you have ruled out Absolutely Nothing, given that we have no way of knowing anything.
RE: Spirit: Define your terms. All you are doing is piling unsubstantiated assertion on top of unsubstantiated assertion.
RE: "All rational beings can consider these things and conclude there must be a God." WRONG You have no rational basis at all to conclude "There is a god." You do not understand rationality. To be rational an idea must be based on or in accordance with reason or logic. There is not one argument for the existence of God that is not based on fallacious ideas. NOT ONE.
RE: "We all know" Idiotic presuppositional nonsense.
God of the Gaps ? Something exists rather than nothing and nothing ( which is the default God of the gaps for atheism) cannot account for it . Like father like son , if the universe contains personal, rational living beings then Something or Someone is also personal, rational and alive .....no gap there . People believe what they want to believe or not, even when the facts are staring them
in the face.....like the Creation which screams out daily , there is a God . What you do with the evidence is up to you but deny the obvious to your own hurt .
Gotta go for now , I'm a delivery driver ...big day tomorrow , blessings to you for now David hope to connect with you later my friend .
@ Vochensmut
"which is the default God of the gaps for atheism"
No, it is not. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods.
@Vochensmut: " Like father like son" Really? Why not "birds of a feather." or .... "Monkey see, monkey do." Are you really that lame?
RE: Nothing, "The default god of the Gaps" (Which you brought up, not me. Which I clearly stated there was no evidence for and yet it turns out to be ( the default for atheism) demonstrates you have your head up your ass.
RE: "People believe what they want to believe or not, even when the facts are staring them." Well, you sure got that right! But why go through your life sounding like a dweeb when the facts are right there in front of you? You do not have to be ignorant!
RE: "like the Creation which screams out daily." What creation? Now we have moved from GOD OF THE GAPS to BEGGING THE QUESTION fallacy. You do not get to assert "CREATED." You don't actually even get to assert "Beginning." The universe as we know it seems to have a beginning, a beginning for time and space as we know it; however, it could all be a continuation of something larger. If you assert beginning you must demonstrate beginning. That is what PLANCK TIME does. It is the origin of our version of space and time. What was before it is unknown to us.
Gotta go now, the monkeys need to be fed and the coconuts cut down for sale tomorrow. Cheers.
"hope to connect with you later my friend"
Take care, drive safe. The most important part of going to work is making sure you get home in one piece at the end of the day.
We may be at great odds in our positions, but you are a fellow human being and I wish you nothing but a happy day.
False equivalency fallacy, we know for an objective fact something CAN exist, what objective evidence can you demonstrate that "nothing" is even possible?
Oh dear, the idiocy of your trolling is getting worse. Atheism requires no assumptions, or beliefs...by definition.
Not people, but biased closed minded people, and theists set a biased standard solely for their deity, but not for all the others. Creationists deny all the objective evidence of species evolution, but accept al other scientific facts, as long as they don't contradict their archaic superstition.
You can't evidence any deity, and you can scream creation all you want, it's is meaningless drivel, with claims to magic at its core, that has no explanatory powers whatsoever.
You have yet to demonstrate any objective evidence, and your threat is hilarious, you might as well threaten to have me trampled by a herd of unicorns after I die.
Oh look, more drivel ...
So fucking what? That's precisely what those csomological physicists are postulating in their research. Or did you fail to understand this elementary concept when I presented it earlier? They're simply postulating that the requisite 'something', sufficiently far in the past, wasn't an imaginary magic man from mythology.
Drop this lie now. Because it is a lie. What part of "cosmological physicists postulate the existence of well-defined entities and interactions in their research papers" are you continuing either not to understand out of stupidity, or ignore out of duplicity?
Except that, oh, wait for it, as I've repeatedly schooled you on the matter, THIS IS NOT WHAT PHYSICISTS POSTULATE. Going to learn this elementary fucking concept once and for all?
Demonstrated to be the products of testable natural processes again ...
People believe what they want to believe or not, even when the facts are staring them
You and all the other mythology fanboys certainly fall into this category.
No it doesn't, because the universe and its contents aren't a fucking "creation" from an imaginary magic man. Even before we factor in to the equation, that your mythology contains assertions about the observable universe that are not merely wrong, but fatuous and absurd to the point of being retarded, because they were fabricated by piss-stained Bronze Age incels who were too stupid to count correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses, a task I completed successfully at the age of three, there's the little matter of how the supertanker loads of scientific evidence for testable natural processes renders your imaginary magic man superfluous to requirements and irrelevant wholesale.
The only one exhibiting butthurt here is you.
It's not a matter of "belief", it's a matter of practice. As in "do I ask myself what evidence supports this assertion?"
What part of this do you not understand?
Cue canards and strawmen in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
But I don't. I point to evidence that I dispense with belief, courtesy of my requiring evidence in support of any assertion presented to me.
Which means your weak, failed attempt at a "gotcha" is precisely that - weak and failed.
Bullshit.
What part of "the moment one demands evidence in support of an assertion, one is dispensing with belief" do you not understand? Courtesy of the fact that belief, certainly as practised by mythology fanboys, consists of uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions. NOT doing so, is, by definition, the antithesis of "belief". Will this elementary concept register with you at some point in the future?
Total and utter bullshit, and I don't even need to have read Quine's Methods of Logic to know that this is bullshit.
What part of "one can be suspicious of a postulate and its negation simultaneously" did you fail to learn in basic logic classes?
Nothing. The postulates I accept as valid, I do so on the basis of evidence, which, when present, makes belief superfluous to requirements and irrelevant.
Moving on to the rest of your garbage ...
No fucking kidding? And how, exactly, did you fail to extract this implication from my previous post? That is, of course, if you were reading my post honestly, instead of quote mining it for duplicitous apologetic purposes ...
Are you deliberately being stupid here, or just duplicitous?
The whole fucking point of my presenting the requisite postulates from cosmological physics, was to demonstrate that the requisite cosmological physicists regard ALL testable natural processes as constituting "nature", including those present before the instantiation of the current observable universe.
Were you being deliberately stupid when you failed to recognise this elementary concept, or were you merely engaging in that familiar and mendacious practice we see all too ofgten from mythology fanboys here, known as "playing apologetics with science"?
What part of "these processes are considered part of nature by cosmological physicists" did you fail to understand from my post?
Oh, you failed to extract from my post, the elementary concept that cosmological physicists, working in the requisite field, regard testable natural processes as having eternally existed? And that their research is aimed at elucidating the nature of those processes regarded within that field, as having operated prior to the Big Bang? How did you fail to recognise this, given that I explicitly stated in my previous post, that said physicists were working on, wait for it, a pre-Big-Bang cosmology?
You need to work on your reading comprehension.
There wasn't any. Again, you need to work on your reading comprehension.
Yawn. Drop the mythology fanboy thinking for a moment, and learn the elementary concepts at work here. Namely, that the view prevailing in the world of physics, is that nature consists of well-defined entities and interactions, and all of the products thereof in operation. Furthermore, that nature is entirely self-contained, and doesn't need any magic to set it going, in no small part because if it regarded in the physics community as having been going forever. Drop the crap Aristotelian "first cause" nonsense, because it's regarded as nonsense in the world of physics, which has moved on in the 23 centuries since Aristotle first penned this idea.
See above.
Because your view of nature is mistaken. See above.
Fucking hell, why do supernaturalists and mythology fanboys write such drivel? And why do they have such a hard time grasping elementary concepts of the sort that were understood in high school by those of us who paid attention in class?
Is it his statement? Odd that he has put in quotes. Though clearly the author was referring to unevidenced belief anyway.
Rubbish, but by all means explain what alternative postulate your disbelief in unicorns represents?
That's a begging the question fallacy if ever there was one, you have assumed the very thing you are arguing for in your argument, that nature did not exist at some point. Can you evidence this claim? We know nature exists as an objective fact, we know natural phenomena exist as an objective fact, we kn ow the universe exists as an objective fact, YOU are the one adding magic that you can neither evidence nor explain.
Historically the only argument for the Christian or Muslim gods has been a despot, with an army, shouting "Because I say so".
@ No no no...... My favorite ! "You can't prove God doesn't exist!" MAKES ME WANNA SCREAM!
@Cognostic: My favorite ! "You can't prove God doesn't exist!"
What's more, god can't prove god doesn't exist. Therefore god isn't omnipotent and omniscient. Therefore god isn't god. Therefore god doesn't exist.
@Hey Tin: RE: Algebe! I didn't understand any of that. Is Algebe picking on me?
@Cog Re: "Is Algebe picking on me?"
Hell if I know! I got tongue-tied just reading his post!
God is defined as a perfect omnipotent being. If god exists, it can't prove that it doesn't exist. Therefore it isn't omnipotent or perfect and can't be god by definition. Hence god doesn't exist.
Round and round we go like every other cosmological, ontological, and epistemological argument put forward by apologists.
I've discovered a whole new approach to theology. They should make me a saint or the Pope or something.
@Algebe: Fuck! I need an Advil.
Sounds good until closer examination reveals that if you exist then you can't prove that you don't exist therefore you don't exist ? Do you exist or not ? If not I'll just disregard this post as non-existent too ? Use your own logic against yourself and ....... oh , you can't because you don't exist ?
God does not exist because he exists ? Maybe we need to take a closer look at the existence of the Law of Non-contradiction here because it has clearly left the building .
strawman
Explain
@Vochensmut
This is not a difficult argument.
An omni god idea, (all powerful, all knowing, all good, etc)
This god idea/concept creates a million and one contradictions, inconsistencies and paradoxes. A casual glance from someone not sucked up in the "god loop" can easily tell an omni god is terribly flawed idea. But for those stuck in the loop, to them it's just more proof that their god idea is "divine," even if they can not even begin to see how flawed the concept/idea is.
Most theist unknowingly when defining their god idea, actually make it not truly omni, just "partially" all powerful/knowledgeable etc.
For example: I have yet to meet a devout theist that understands: a fully omniscient god = no free will for itself or any of us humans. A basic concept that no matter how hard we try to simplify it and dumb it down, so many theist I have met simply seem to be unable to understand.
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