If you are an atheist
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
No, that is not hard to believe. What I was responding to was the previous posters who stated that the only reason why they pray or go to church is for support. I don't get that. If you need support, join a club. You believe in God because you believe there is a creator, you have faith in what your belief system is, not primarily for support, that's what I don't get |
Anonymous
It's not support for the sake of support, or something that could be replaced by any random club (whatever "support" means here, presumably camaraderie). It's a specific type of support that takes the form of studying specific texts, encouragement, and advice in daily ethical matters. I mentioned above that you don't just wake up one day and say, "from now on I'll be perfectly good." It's a long road, and your bike club or your 5K training club, while offering support in matters of exercise and nutrition, won't offer this specific kind of support. |
takoma
Member Offline
Member Offline
|
Does anyone have an explanation of why, if you believe in a Creator because you see this vast universe behaving in a way that seems to involve intelligence, you think that Creator singles each of us insignificant creatures and all of our minor actions for concern, among the thousands of births, deaths, illnesses, pain, torture, etc, that goes on every moment of history?
I can accept the idea of an intelligence beyond my ken that put this all in motion, but thinking that I can communicate with such an inconceivable Entity is, well, inconceivable for me. |
Anonymous
|
I think death is simple non existence. Much like before we were born (was it so bad then?)
If a god was to exist and that god was as loving and just as many believers claim, I don't think that god would send people to hell or eternal torture for being fallible people like he supposedly created them to be. |
Anonymous
I don't understand your first question, can you rephrase it? As far as the second, why would it be inconceivable, since we are His creation? Lets say you are a scientist or an engineer or even a designer, and you "create" something in your lab? wouldn't you be proud of that creation? wouldn't you communicate with it? You wouldn't just create, or design something and forget about it, especially if its your masterpiece, you love it, you are proud of it and you want to remain connected to it |
takoma
Member Offline
Member Offline
As to the first question, I'm not sure how to make it clearer. I meant that in the realm of existence, with all the good and bad things happening in the universe, if good and bad are meaningful terms, I can't believe that whether I die of cancer, find the love of my life, or win a ball game, would merit special consideration. As to the second issue, which is perhaps related, I happen to write computer programs to do jobs that would take me years, if I were able to focus on them enough to actually finish them. Sometimes, despite the fact that I wrote them and understood everything I programmed into them, the results amaze me because the interactions of the thousands of simple steps lead to totally surprising results. I find it much easier to believe that there could be a creator and even that the creator might watch with amazement and amusement, than that It would interfere with Its incredible creation. I could easily call mysef a deist rather than an atheist, but I think it would be dishonest because the God of religion, the One people pray to and praise, is so different from whatever I can envision as explaining the universe. Or, more honestly, whatever I cannot possibly envision that might explain it. |
Anonymous
What a marvelous demonstration of Christian tolerance ... right up there with burning people at the stake (fools). 
|
Anonymous
Oh, ffs, blow it out your stuck up ass. Self-righteous fool. Seriously... 
|
Anonymous
What a marvelous demonstration of Christian tolerance ... right up there with burning people at the stake (fools).
My bet is this is a troll stirring the pot. The same person who tried to get attention with the gif of Joan rolling her eyes and other failed attempts to derail the whole Islam discussion. |
Anonymous
My husband was raised very strict Baptist. He was very involved until his early 20s, at which time a string of events led him away from the church and god. He VERY much misses the community aspect of church. He has tried for years to replace it with something else -- community involvement, continued education, random clubs and activities. But for many there is no "community" like a church. If anyone knows of one, let us know. 
|
Anonymous
Now, lets look at 3 different things: The Order of the Universe, beginning of the Universe, and Human Nature ( This is from an Islamic Perspective btw of our concept of God) Order in the Universe When we reflect upon the nature of our world, we see order everywhere from the water cycle to the movement of the earth around the sun. Commenting on the order found in the universe, the physicist Stephen Hawking explains that the overwhelming impression ‘‘is one of order, the more we discover about the universe, the more we find that it is governed by rational laws.’’ This observation is shared by the vast majority of scientists. Since the universe has order and is governed by the ‘laws of science’, we should question how this order came about. The most effective way to answer this question is to reason to the best conclusion. Take your cellphone for example, your phone is made of glass, plastic and metal. Glass comes from sand, plastic comes from oil and metal is extracted from the ground. Imagine you were walking in a desert (where there is lots of oil, sand and metals in the ground), and you found a mobile phone lying around. Would you believe that it came together by itself? That the Sun shone, the wind blew, lightning struck, the oil bubbled to the surface and mixed with the sand and metal, and over millions of years the mobile came together by chance? No one would believe such an explanation. A cellphone is clearly something that was put together in an organized way, so it would be rational to believe that it must have an organizer. In the same way, when we see the order in the universe, isn’t it rational to say that the universe also has been organized in an amazing way by some being? This organization is best explained by the existence of God. God is the one who brought about the order in the universe. Beginning of the Universe If something has always existed it doesn’t need a creator. In the first part of the 20th century some physicists held the view that the universe had always existed. If the universe had always existed it wouldn’t need a creator.However, according to Cosmology the universe had a beginning some 14 billion years ago with a cosmic event commonly known as the ‘Big Bang’.Imagine you heard a loud bang, and you asked ‘where did that sound come from?’ Would you be satisfied with the answer that it came from ‘nothing’ and it ‘just happened?’ Of course not! You would say ‘what was the cause of that loud bang?’ In the same way, rationally the ‘Big Bang’ must also have a cause that bought it about. Now we can ask since the ‘Big Bang’ has a cause, what was the cause of that cause? Then we can ask, what was the cause of that cause? And so on and so on. But this can’t go on forever and must end with a first cause, because of the following example: Imagine a sniper who has just found his target and calls back to base to get permission to shoot. The person at the base tells the sniper to hold on while they seek permission from someone else higher up. So the guy higher up seeks permission from the guy even higher up and so on and so on. If this goes on forever, will the sniper ever get to shoot the target?The obvious answer is that he wouldn’t be able to shoot. The only way the sniper can shoot is if someone gives permission without asking for anyone else’s permission. That person would be the first cause of the sniper shooting. In the same way, the Big Bang must have a first cause. We can conclude that this first cause must be powerful as it brought the whole universe into existence, and it must be intelligent as it caused the ‘laws of science’ which govern the universe. Also, this first cause must be timeless, spaceless and immaterial, because time, space and matter began at the ‘Big Bang’. Finally, since it is uncaused it must have always existed. All of these attributes of the first cause make up the basic concept of God. God is the uncreated first cause of the universe. Human Nature Throughout the history of the world, the majority of people have believed in God. There seems to be something built in the human mind that makes us want to believe. Over the last decade some really startling facts have been found that show that children have an innate belief in God. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford Centre for Anthropology and Mind, states “The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems to be built into the natural development of children’s minds than we once thought, including a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose…” He adds that “If we threw a handful [of children] on an island and they raised themselves…they would believe in God”. To put it simply, his answer as to why anyone would believe in God is that, our minds are designed to do so. Disbelief in God is something which is unnatural to the human being. Oxford University development psychologist Dr Olivera Petrovich, who is an expert in the Psychology of Religion states that, belief in God develops naturally and that “atheism is definitely an acquired position”.So where did this natural belief in a creator come from? We can’t say it is taught by society as this belief is innate, and studies show that it is independent of societal pressures and is cross-cultural. The best explanation for this belief is that God has instilled it into humanity. Now, you have just read three independent reasons why it makes sense to believe in God. Belief in God is not only rational but it’s also part of human nature. There are many questions raised by the existence of God, such as why is there evil and suffering in the world? Doesn’t evolution disprove God? Do we have a purpose in life? But the truth is, we have answers to all of these questions
|
Anonymous
Circular logic. You should read about Intelligent Falling sometime.
But this gets us no closer to defining "God". By your definition, I could define "God" to be the pre-Big Bang state. Of course, the pre-Big Bang state doesn't make for a very compelling Intelligent Designer. But worse, you're presupposing a "first" when all evidence points to the conclusion that time does not work that way.
It's not just "gods" but all sorts of ghosts, fairies, and supernatural phenomenon. By implication, you are saying that all of these exist as well... |
Anonymous
|
^^^^
Now, you have just read three independent reasons why believing in God is largely wishful thinking unsupported by any kind of evidence or rational argument. |
takoma
Member Offline
Member Offline
|
Thank you for the response, 11:30. Although the three reasons strike me as very articualte ways to "Because", they all seem to go to God the Creator -- of the universe, its order, and its creatures. Given that I am awed by all of that, I am happy to accept that you wish to call the unknowable reason for those wondrous things God, while I call it The Great Unknowable.
That still leaves me with my question of what gives people the idea that God who is responsible for all that exists would interfere with that great Master Plan to deal specifically with my cancer, my love life, or my ball game. That people are amazed by God is fine with me; that they think they have a personal relationship -- that's the part I don't understand. |
Anonymous
Well, I know you are not arguing that a ghost or a fairy created all of this? You're right that we can go around and around. Here's the thing we cannot prove to an atheists the existence of Allah (God). In fact we cannot prove the existence of God to anyone. We can at most find evidence to support our claims, but in the end it comes to "belief". An analogy occurs in mathematics, where people ask, can we prove all the correct statements? The answer is no and it is proven by Godel's incomplete theorem. That an axiomatic system capable of arithmetic is either complete or consistent. In plain words there are always statements that are true but we cannot prove.
To believe in God is to take as an axiom the existence and uniqueness of Allah. It is the basis upon which we do rational reasoning, and we donnot do reasoning on that, if you already chose your axiom. But then of course different people choose different axioms. An atheist's axioms are by definition different. Therefore, the Quran itself is a miracle, [i]but only if you believe so. Just like:
If you believe so, then it becomes correct. If you don't, then it becomes incorrect for you, and it is still consistent. That being said, of course, Muslims believe that God alone decides the truth and it is (at least its complete version is) above human understanding.Therefore we are the people who accept these axioms, and atheists are the people who reject these axioms. We cannot prove to them, but merely show evidence to them of what we believe, just like they cannot prove us but show evidence to us of what they believe. Makes senses? Look at a building and a person thinks of the architect, at a sculpture and a person instantly comprehends an artist. But examine the elegant intricacies of creation, from the complexity and balance of nuclear particle physics to the uncharted vastness of space, and a person conceives of…nothing? Surrounded by a world of synchronous complexities, we as mankind cannot even assemble the wing of a gnat. And yet the entire World and all the Universe exists in a state of perfect orchestration as a product of random accidents which molded cosmic chaos into balanced perfection? Some vote chance, others, creation
|