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Donating = Loving
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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Thanks but you almost made me have a heart attack. :)
I like the Hitchens-esque aggressiveness.
What do you think of the definition for God?
Which god? Most gods are demonstrably false. There can not be an all powerful omnipotent omnipresent omniscient being who created everyone knows everything, has a plan and then gave people a free will. It is logically impossible. It's like a square circle. You can not have free will if God created you knowing full well you were going to hell on the day he did. Either your god is a lie or free will is a lie.
There can not be a God that is both Just and merciful. Mercy is the suspension of justice. Justice shows no mercy.
There can not be a God of love who butchers more innocent people than Adolph Hitler.
There can be no god beyond time and space. (God of the gaps - Occam's razor for starts) If there is a god, there is no space in which he can exist and no time in which he could take an action. No time, no thought. No movement of any kind. No way to create a universe. This god is logically impossible.
Which god do you have? They are all based on fallacious assertions and unfounded assertions.
Thanks.
Not to mention "God is immaterial". Immaterial being another meaningless BS word. God is "immaterial" made of no matter or energy or parts; a corporeal/disembodied mind WTF is that?
Thanks everyone who posted a response. You have to see it from the POV of my history: I debated on the forum graveyardofgods over a decade ago as an agnostic then came to what you all saw me as at the start of this thread. I then went into the cave-dungeon that is Twitter and debated theists there not atheists. So visiting this forum has been a real eye opener. I must have come out of the cave talking gibberish.
Strong Atheist : Hang in there then. None of us are exempt from being called out on bullshit around here. I know there are several apologies posted by me on the site. People around here will call you on your crap no matter who you are. Recently there was a discussion about infinity plus one equaling infinity. I found a great article explaining it but to be honest, I could not bring myself to post it and pretend I knew something about infinity. The article claimed that one needed to treat infinity like an idea or concept and not an actual number. It can not be a number because infinity plus one would be bigger than infinity and that is not possible. Anyway it was interesting but I just don't have the math skills or balls to step out there and start spewing stuff that I am actually not certain about. We got experts around here. Sometimes you just gotta sit back and learn. Then there are times you take a stab at something and get your pee pee whacked..... and that's just another way of learning something as long as you maintain a positive attitude. I am happy you find the conversations challenging and seem to be catching on to some of the stuff being said. You are not exempt from the level of Skepticism on this site. But neither am I. No one here would hesitate to drag me kicking and screaming into the light.
Strong Atheist: I think you need to get to the point where you admit to yourself that you actually do not know some of the claims you are making. I am thinking that there is a fundamental problem with your idea of what atheism is. You have tagged yourself "Strong Atheist." I actually dislike that term because I think it is an attempt to sound more pleasing than "Anti=theist. I am a proud antitheist myself, however, there is always a place and time to attack an idea and when you attack the idea, you have to be correct or good at apologizing.
Just get any theist to define "nothing" and their position breaks down.
Street epistemology - is what David is referring to - There are youtube videos about it. Here is a good example. The God hypothesis is indefensible with valid arguments,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic8O-m1lAZo&list=PLh10RgQgGuM-Jy4ADVLUjJ...
I
@Strong Atheist the statements made in your original post suffer the same flaws that are ubiquitous in arguments that are made in favor of religion.
They are all the product of induction. The power of your argument is all in your premise and you finish very weak.
You present your premise with heavy confidence (and no real way to back it up) Therfore implying that it's highly likely the conclusion is true.
People who value Empirical evidence do not do this.
I try to get theists to define God and nothing and they end up struggling / giving BS answers.
Thanks for the link Cog. Thanks David and SecularSon.
@Strong Atheist Re: "...they end up struggling / giving BS answers."
Uh-oh... Somebody will be getting a lump of coal in his stocking this year.... *discretely pointing toward Strong Atheist*.... I'm afraid Bad Santa might take offense to that remark you made. As I have reminded others, use the little "b" and the little "s" when referring to ordinary bs that some folks talk. Use the big "B" and big "S" only when referring to the Bad Santa BS we have come to know and love. Honest mistake on your part, so BS may actually forgive you and leave only half a lump of coal in your stocking.
LOOK AT YOUR OP:
Something almost certainly cannot come from nothing.
How do you know this? There is no example of nothing anywhere. Anything you say about nothing is fallacious. You can not back it up with facts, experiments, or any kind of knowledge. Where is this nothing you speak of? Theists assert "beyond time and space" or "beyond the universe." There is nothing known beyond time, space, or the universe. What we do know is that when we look at what we think is nothing in our universe, it is filled with all kinds of stuff. There is no example of nothing. Not even in the space between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons.
So God cannot create something from nothing and God cannot exist in nothing.
How could you possibly know this. You are asserting what a god can and can not do? You have accepted the god idea and now you are ascribing attributes to it in the very same way that the theists ascribe attributes to it. Asserting a negative quality to God is no different than asserting a positive quality to god. (In a previous post I showed you that the god beyond time and space is self contradictory.) This is a better place to go. The Christian response is usually, "Well, we can not know what god is capable of." And the epic response, "But you seem to know he exists beyond time and space. How did you arrive at that conclusion and why cant I use the same logic to put anything at all in that creator slot?"
An all-powerful God likely doesn't exist. As the universe couldn't have come from nothing it probably always existed.
These are simply more assertions. If an all powerful God likely does not exist, you must provide evidence for your assertion. On what are you basing your assertion. I generally use a "Bear Cave" analogy and attempt to demonstrate that an absence of evidence is indeed an absence of existence - at least to some degree. The God hypothesis is "Unfalsifiable." It can not be falsified. "Unfalsifiability. (also known as: untestability) Description: Confidently asserting that a theory or hypothesis is true or false even though the theory or hypothesis cannot possibly be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of any physical experiment, usually without strong evidence or good reasons."
So when you begin making assertions about God, you are engaged in the same sort of logic that the Christians are using.
What you want to learn to do is look at the claim itself and not the conclusion. "God is great" for example.
Taking the opposite position is the same thing as taking the positive position. "No, god is not great."
Both require facts and evidence. Both are inane assertions.
A much better tact.... When you say God, what are you talking about? Bible god? How is murdering people "great?" FACT - god does murder people in the bible. Beyond time and space god? How do you know anything at all about this god? No one knows what is beyond time and space or even if it is possible to look beyond time and space. The concept is vacuous. We have no example of it anywhere. It's simply imagination.
How do you define "Great." What has god done that is great and how do you know it. How do you know it is God that creates tornadoes and why would that be great? How do you know God created life and .... well..... frankly......... just how great is life? Disease, deformity, natural disasters.... etc etc etc.... Wouldn't a great god do a better job? I could do a better job if I was a creator god. Am I greater than your god?
There are ways to address these issues that do not result in blatant logical errors or that lead you to indefensible positions. In my opinion, your comments are coming from a lack of understanding of what Atheism actually is. You are treating it like a system of belief. It appears that you confuse the "I don't believe in a god." with "God does not exist." These two positions are nothing alike. One of them requires facts and evidence because it is an assertion and the other is a simple disbelief of a god claim.
If you believe in the Big Bang Theory of creation thenyou must believe in the concept of nothing. The reason is because according to the theory everything from from one ball of something. And since everything was in that one ball the void around it was completely empty because it was absolutely nothing. Then once the ball exploded it sent stuff into the void, filling it with something. Since the universe is still expanding there is nothing in the void beyond the border of something (the stuff that we see). So no matter how large the universe grows there will always be nothing beyond its edge.
Isn't that cool?
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
HUH? The big bang is not a theory of creation. WTF are you talking about. The "Big Bang" is a theory about the expansion of the universe. It has been substantiated with all sorts of facts and evidence.
"The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today."
"IT STARTED FROM A SMALL SINGULARITY" (((( N O T N O T H I N G )))))
https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html
THIS IS FROM THE SOURCE YOU CITED: Are you just trying to appear intelligent by citing sources without bothering to read them? https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
"The universe began as a very hot, small, and dense superforce (the mix of the four fundamental forces), with no stars, atoms, form, or structure (called a "singularity"). Then about 13.8 billion years ago,[1] space expanded very quickly (thus the name "Big Bang"). "
"THE UNIVERSE BEGAN AS A VERY HOT, SMALL, DENSE, SUPER-FORCE" (AKA MASS)
Again ---- (((( N O T N O T H I N G ))))).
IN SHORT: You have no idea at all what in the hell you are talking about. High school science books do a better job of explaining the big bang theory.
Cognostic,
"HUH? The big bang is not a theory of creation."
According to the link =
"The Big Bang is a scientific theory about how the universe started, and then made the stars and galaxies we see today."
So it is saying that the Big Bang started the universe and then made the stars and galaxies. When you use the words
"started" and "made" together in such a descriptive sentence about how things came to be they are synomous with "CREATED".
This link = https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html = has a silly graphic that depicts the universe flowing in one direction from its starting point. That makes as much sense as your rant.
@Diotrephes
The big bang theory describes the homogeneous, isotropic expansion of a pre-existing plasma. Or in other words, the theory starts with the hydrogen nuclei (and a few other trace light elements) already existing.
Also, the graphic you complained about (everything comes from a single point), is a depiction of more than just the standard model. Or in other words, the part you are complaining about, isn't part of the standard model.
Nyarlathotep: Ever feel like just running, head down, into a brick wall?
"The Big Bang is a scientific theory about how the universe started, and then made the stars and galaxies we see today."
FFS - I gave you the exact quote from the article. Do you know how to read English. The BIG BANG IS NOT A THEORY OF COSMOLOGY!!!!
"The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today.
"THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT STARTED (STARTED) WITH A SMALL SINGULARITY. " (That is how it began. It began from a singularity.) Perhaps we will have a new model in 20 or 30 years, but for now ---- THIS IS IT.
STOP BEING SO FRIGGING DENSE!
Yeah; sometimes I feel rather foolish for even trying.
/e: For example: a while back I made this post and was going to move on to show that with just that information and a tiny uncontroversial postulate, you can derive the 2nd law. But what is the point when the response is essentially: nuh-uh.
You heard the "nuh nuh?" I didn't even get that. The drool bucket kept banging against the chin and I couldn't make out what the lips were uttering. Glad I didn't miss anything important.
From Diotrephes:
"So it is saying that the Big Bang started the universe and then made the stars and galaxies. When you use the words
"started" and "made" together in such a descriptive sentence about how things came to be they are synomous with "CREATED".
No they are not synonymous. Plus,Big Bang is not a person-like entity.
For the 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000th time, the current theory which describes the Universe does not say what happens before the planck time. Even the supposed singularity poses some theoritical problems as it is a naked one and specialists (not me) think it can not exist.
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