Question for atheists RE: 9/11

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey, I just thought of someting! Here is a proof that God is random chance:

1. The Universe exists in three dimensions of space and one direction of time.
2.The Universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore the beginning of the Universe was the beginning of time.
4. Before the beginning of the Universe and the beginning of time, there must have been a chance that there would be a Universe.
5. Anything that exists outside of the Universe must be God.
6. Therefore the chance of a Universe is God.

Or the universe before it. Or nothing but a universally hot, dense point.

[Anonymous]

So why don't we use one another as food?

Other animals rarely kill and eat another from the sub-species, ie, lions dont kill lions etc.

Why do we protect the weak and heal the sick? Why do we care for the elderly?

You got me on those two.

Why do we even notice that it feels wrong to sneak up on someone and hit them over the head? What makes us different from instinctual mammalian behavior?

Yet, we are the only animal that does this on a regular basis. Other animals usually kill to eat, not for fun or malice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I don't understand that whole differentiation between humans and animals. Most people completely underestimate animals. We're just a different kind of one as far as I'm concerned.

So why don't we use one another as food? Why do we protect the weak and heal the sick? Why do we care for the elderly? Why do we even notice that it feels wrong to sneak up on someone and hit them over the head? What makes us different from instinctual mammalian behavior?

Because we're smart enough to figure those things out and saavy enough to teach them to our young so they won't hit us over the head and will care for us when we're old. If you are a parent, you know that what you describe is learned, not instinctual. Your average 3 year old thinks it's hilarious to hit people over the head and couldn't care less about the sick, weak, and elderly. On the other hand, nearly all animals care for and protect their young until they have a decent chance of surviving on their own.

If you need another answer, the instincts you describe are adaptive traits for living in a society, and living in a society is an adaptive trait for a comparatively weak animal that takes more than a decade to grow to adulthood and that could easily be prey to large predators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yet, we are the only animal that does this on a regular basis. Other animals usually kill to eat, not for fun or malice.

Except cats. Which is why we are better than them. QED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand OP, how you can still believe after hearing the victims scream OH GOD...and him answer them with death. The idea that God would hear them and let them die in fear and pain after they called out to him as some part of his great awesome plan? That is what scares me most about God. I hope he's not real.

I've really struggled with this too, and here is what I've come up with: Try to step back and look at it from a broad, rather than individual person, point of view. We perceive that these lives were cut short, but is it possible that their purpose on earth was finished? Everyone is going to die and few of us have a choice in how it happens. As horrible, frightening and painful as we know/ imagine the 9/11 deaths to be, were they "worse" than dying a painful drawn-out death from AIDs, cancer, starvation or something else? And is God answering with death necessarily the worst thing, at least to a believer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yet, we are the only animal that does this on a regular basis. Other animals usually kill to eat, not for fun or malice.

Except cats. Which is why we are better than them. QED.

ya, my cat thinks torture is about as much fun as a cat can have.

[Anonymous]

I was raised in a ultra conservative Southern Baptist home. We were in church every time the doors were open. My dad was a deacon. My mother taught Sunday School. My sisters and I were involved in youth group.

As a matured, I realized that none of what I had been taught made any sense at all. The God that Jesus described was a loving, kind, compassionate God. The Baptist God was mean and smitey. And I couldn't figure out why only Christians got to go to heaven. What about the Muslims, Jews, Hindu, etc..... Why would a loving God create entire groups of people only to condemn them to hell. It makes no sense.

My husband and I are both very spiritual. I am not an atheist by any means. I absolutely believe in God and in an afterlife. I've experienced way too much to doubt that our souls live on long after they leave their temporary shells. However, I think most religions have it wrong. I think the "truth" is sprinkled throughout all religions. And I think very few humans have the capacity to comprehend what God is. I know I can't. But at the same time, I feel the urge to try. And I think we are hardwired to seek God. We found a Church that is much more tolerant of others' beliefs. I love the phrase, "Different paths to the same destination".

I firmly believe that we never cease to exist. We just exist in a different way. There are people who are able to better sense and communicate with the spirit world. But most of us just can't see it. And seeing is believing, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yet, we are the only animal that does this on a regular basis. Other animals usually kill to eat, not for fun or malice.

Except cats. Which is why we are better than them. QED.

Wow, is this really true. Cats kill for sport? Just holdhold cats? Lions and Tigers Too? This is very interesting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand OP, how you can still believe after hearing the victims scream OH GOD...and him answer them with death. The idea that God would hear them and let them die in fear and pain after they called out to him as some part of his great awesome plan? That is what scares me most about God. I hope he's not real.

I've really struggled with this too, and here is what I've come up with: Try to step back and look at it from a broad, rather than individual person, point of view. We perceive that these lives were cut short, but is it possible that their purpose on earth was finished? Everyone is going to die and few of us have a choice in how it happens. As horrible, frightening and painful as we know/ imagine the 9/11 deaths to be, were they "worse" than dying a painful drawn-out death from AIDs, cancer, starvation or something else? And is God answering with death necessarily the worst thing, at least to a believer?

I guess that, when they yelled "Oh God" as they fell, they might have been letting God know that they were coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yet, we are the only animal that does this on a regular basis. Other animals usually kill to eat, not for fun or malice.

Except cats. Which is why we are better than them. QED.

Wow, is this really true. Cats kill for sport? Just holdhold cats? Lions and Tigers Too? This is very interesting!

Come hang out with my cats for a while. The longer they can keep their catch alive before they kill it slowly by playing with it, the happier they are. And many of their kills end up as presents at my feet, instead of dinner for them.

[Anonymous]

So if humans aren't special, why do we care when they die, if we don't know them or if they were just regular people? Why not oppress weaker and less intelligent humans for the benefit of the stronger and smarter?

Why did the almost the whole world mourn with us on 9/11?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yet, we are the only animal that does this on a regular basis. Other animals usually kill to eat, not for fun or malice.

Except cats. Which is why we are better than them. QED.

Wow, is this really true. Cats kill for sport? Just holdhold cats? Lions and Tigers Too? This is very interesting!

Come hang out with my cats for a while. The longer they can keep their catch alive before they kill it slowly by playing with it, the happier they are. And many of their kills end up as presents at my feet, instead of dinner for them.

This is only domesticated cats. WIld animals do not kill for sport. In a way, domesticated cats are much more similar to humans than other animals. Animals in the wild that live in groups have societal structures that they follow much the way most humans do. Animals that do not follow these structures are kicked out of the groups in nature as well. We are not different than animals and we are certainly not better or "higher." As far as nurturing the sick and the elderly: this is not an innate human quality. My goodness, only a few of us do those things and it is partly because of societal expectations and what we learn from others. Plenty of humans do terrible things that animals would never do. That's prrof enough that we are not "higher beings."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if humans aren't special, why do we care when they die, if we don't know them or if they were just regular people? Why not oppress weaker and less intelligent humans for the benefit of the stronger and smarter?

Why did the almost the whole world mourn with us on 9/11?

What world are you living in? In my world, humans do oppress weaker, poorer, and less advantaged humans every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was raised in a ultra conservative Southern Baptist home. We were in church every time the doors were open. My dad was a deacon. My mother taught Sunday School. My sisters and I were involved in youth group.

As a matured, I realized that none of what I had been taught made any sense at all. The God that Jesus described was a loving, kind, compassionate God. The Baptist God was mean and smitey. And I couldn't figure out why only Christians got to go to heaven. What about the Muslims, Jews, Hindu, etc..... Why would a loving God create entire groups of people only to condemn them to hell. It makes no sense.

My husband and I are both very spiritual. I am not an atheist by any means. I absolutely believe in God and in an afterlife. I've experienced way too much to doubt that our souls live on long after they leave their temporary shells. However, I think most religions have it wrong. I think the "truth" is sprinkled throughout all religions. And I think very few humans have the capacity to comprehend what God is. I know I can't. But at the same time, I feel the urge to try. And I think we are hardwired to seek God. We found a Church that is much more tolerant of others' beliefs. I love the phrase, "Different paths to the same destination".

I firmly believe that we never cease to exist. We just exist in a different way. There are people who are able to better sense and

communicate with the spirit world. But most of us just can't see it. And seeing is believing, right?

This is a very Hindu-esque set of thoughts.

[TheManWithAUsername]

Anonymous wrote:WIld animals do not kill for sport.

I once heard that wolverines and peregrine falcons (and humans, of course) are the only animals that do, but maybe that just sounded cool to someone.