Atheists and God

[Revoltingest]

.....I would like to be the Easter Bunny.

+
I see that you've been practicing already.
[youtube]B04xngldt2k[/youtube]
YouTube - Hilarious!! The Evil Easter Bunny

 

[gerobbins]

Actually it does, or at least that you don't understand coincidences. But it all depend on what you define as coincidence. Saying you don't believe in coincidence just means you disagree with what some people define as coincidence. Traveling to Europe and seeing someone you know would be coincidence to most people. Are you saying you think there's something more to that, or do you agree that it's coincidence?



I highly doubt you actually actively didn't believe. I'm guessing it was more like you just didn't think about it much, and if asked during that period, you'd just have said you didn't know.



Yes, we can. I'm not even so interested in whether or not you believe in God. What I'm interested in is your reasoning for doing so and the conclusions that has led you to.

I am not going to argue the first two points because you came to your own conclusions and I don't feel like debating them any further as it will get us nowhere.

As for the last point; Simple, it was prayer. Things happened that were prayed for and not just once or twice buy many many times.I know hat you will consider that a coincidence. For me it just reaffirmed my belief.
I don't however consider myself to be Catholic or any other denomination either.
I just can't get into all the dogma that comes with it.
And the reason being is I have my own way of believing, things that I perceive of who and what God is. Which, puts me into great debate as well with the Christian community.


I have never been one to conform and I guess I never will be.

I do believe in doing unto others as you would to yourself.

 

[gerobbins]

I think you missed the part about God deciding Earth was perfect and not some other planet. The question was why God made the conditions we have here perfect. Why not create different life on Jupiter instead?

I did not miss the point. I think I explained it to you.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

As for the last point; Simple, it was prayer. Things happened that were prayed for and not just once or twice buy many many times.I know hat you will consider that a coincidence. For me it just reaffirmed my belief.

Did they happen at a rate greater than would be expected by chance? How would you know?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I did not miss the point. I think I explained it to you.

No, you didn't. You explained that life as we know it can only survive under certain conditions, but you never explained why life must be as we know it.

 

[gerobbins]

What about the 'old Atheist'? Was he any better?

I think you're right, however, there should be atheist campaigns against the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause. As a matter of fact, though I'm not really an atheist, either a new one or an old one, I am just as angry at the Easter Bunny and Santa as I am at God.

And like the new Atheist that wants to be God, I would like to be the Easter Bunny. I don't think I'd like being Santa Clause, given the fact that he is stuck up at the North Pole 364 days of the year. But the Easter Bunny, that I could handle. Nothing to do but eat chocolate and colored eggs all year round, and hang out with a bunch of kids at the mall. Doesn't seem like too hard a life.

I would like to be Santa Claus. But I would vacation in the caribbean for the summer.

 

[Eliot Wild]

+
I see that you've been practicing already.
[youtube]B04xngldt2k[/youtube]
YouTube - Hilarious!! The Evil Easter Bunny

Hey, I thought all copies of that video were destroyed or erased before my upcoming court date. I knew that yellow chick was lying to me. When I get my hands on . . .

(The elevator shot on that video was wicked funny. I had to stop it and play it back while laughing outloud. The bunny just jumps out of freakin' nowhere. Hilarious.)

 

[gerobbins]

No, you didn't. You explained that life as we know it can only survive under certain conditions, but you never explained why life must be as we know it.

yes, I explained it. I asked how do we not know there is not life on Neptune for even Jupiter not like life as we know but life none the less.

Life as we know it could not survive under those conditions. Call it simple design if you like.

 

[gerobbins]

Hey, I thought all copies of that video were destroyed or erased before my upcoming court date. I knew that yellow chick was lying to me. When I get my hands on . . .

(The elevator shot on that video was wicked funny. I had to stop it and play it back while laughing outloud. The bunny just jumps out of freakin' nowhere. Hilarious.)

I think I know why you don't want to be santa
[youtube]HTGlUMvbhSw[/youtube]
YouTube - The Night Santa Went Crazy

 

[Magic Man]

As for the last point; Simple, it was prayer. Things happened that were prayed for and not just once or twice buy many many times.I know hat you will consider that a coincidence. For me it just reaffirmed my belief.

It could be more than coincidence, but only if it happened more often than if you hadn't prayed. So far all studies show that prayer has no effect on the outcome of things. My main question is how many times you prayed for something and it didn't happen. If you do something enough times, anything can happen a few times. If I sit at a red light and pray to God for it to change within 2 seconds, it may or may not. If I do it 1,000 times over the course of a year. It's pretty much guaranteed that it will change at least some of the time. That doesn't mean prayer worked. The only reason your prayer reaffirmed your belief is that you wanted it to. You were looking for that affirmation. I'm not looking for it, so I see it for what it is.

 

[Magic Man]

I did not miss the point. I think I explained it to you.

Well, you certainly haven't shown that you understood the point.

 

[tumbleweed41]

If I take a box of 1000 toothpicks. Open it, and dump the toothpicks onto the ground.
What are the odds that they would have landed exactly the way they landed?
How many times do you think I would have to repeat my actions to get them to land in the exact same positions, and in the exact order, as my first throw?

What are the odds? Well, as you said, they are 'way out there'.
But guess what? It did happen. Once. On that first attempt.
That is all it needs. Just once.
Therefore, the odds that it DID occur are 1:1.
Pretty good odds.

You are comparing toothpicks to life on other planets? Think about it. You have billions of planets and lets say most have the same condtions of that as earth does.

Meaning the tilt of the axis, a moon orbiting at the same distance, the perfect distance from its sun and you are saying it just happened?

You need to look at the big picture here.

Billions of other planets.
If I have a a few billion boxes of toothpicks.
The odds INCREASE that I will get repeats of my initial throw.

(BTW, most planets do not have the same conditions as earth. Odds are there are quite a few. But we have only verified one that is even close. And it does not rotate, so therefore has no axis. Nor is a moon or moons at any distance necessary for life.)

Ok lets see your proof that it just happened?

It did not 'just happen' as you put it. The initial conditions at the beginning (if there was one) of the universe had to right to get our current results.
A god or 'deity' may have helped, but the necessity for such a being has not been shown or evidenced by any empirical data.

 

[waitasec]

You seem to have missed the point. The point is you're saying the odds are too high for life to have formed on its own without an intelligent creator. You're using high odds as your evidence.

In the toothpick example, the odds of having the toothpicks land exactly the way they did are astronomical, but it happened with no intelligence behind it at all. The point being highly improbably odds aren't evidence of anything.

the concept of chance/chaos does not resonate with the theists...
everything has to have a purpose because there is a creator

chaos is a concept that atheists can grasp...
it's not the why, it's the how...

it's like fusing water with oil...it will never work

 

[Midnight Pete]

Didn't have to read past the opening sentence to know the whole thing would be crap. But it is nice to have such warnings right up front---the only "good" thing about it.

Skwim, you had a similarly rubbish article about atheists being the most knowledgable
about religion. I didn't even have to read to it know it was rubbish.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Skwim, you had a similarly rubbish article about atheists being the most knowledgable
about religion. I didn't even have to read to it know it was rubbish.

Knowledgeable about religion.
And it was in reference to a Pew Forum poll that evidenced that it was so.

Not a bit like the overgeneralized and misinformed article presented in this OP.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

the concept of chance/chaos does not resonate with the theists...
everything has to have a purpose because there is a creator

chaos is a concept that atheists can grasp...
it's not the why, it's the how...

it's like fusing water with oil...it will never work

This is making it way too complicated. The fact of the matter is that it takes a certain minimum level of intelligence to be able to fully grasp analogies and the relevant variables and relationships which constitute them. There are simply a lot of people who don't meet this minimum requirement, and these people often seem to be those with the most fundamentalist or extremist religious views.

 

[waitasec]

This is making it way too complicated. The fact of the matter is that it takes a certain minimum level of intelligence to be able to fully grasp analogies and the relevant variables and relationships which constitute them. There are simply a lot of people who don't meet this minimum requirement, and these people often seem to be those with the most fundamentalist or extremist religious views.

well speaking from experience,
as a believer there was a why to everything..."because god willed it so"
needless to say, i was indoctrinated into this small mindedness
thankfully i had real friends on the other side of the fence that i argued with for years about this small mindedness...and one day it clicked.

it's all about the willingness to open your mind and not be afraid of the questions but to ask them instead...

i may still lack a lot of intelligence though

 

[McBell]

You are comparing toothpicks to life on other planets? Think about it. You have billions of planets and lets say most have the same condtions of that as earth does.

Meaning the tilt of the axis, a moon orbiting at the same distance, the perfect distance from its sun and you are saying it just happened? Ok lets see your proof that it just happened?

Calculating the odds of something happening AFTER it has happened is nothing more than an argument from incredulity fallacy.

 

[McBell]

IYou know what? I did not purposely go out to insult them. However, some have no problem going out of their way insulting those who do believe don't they? And their arguments have just as much empy conjecture and weak suppositions as well.
Anyways, I don't take things to heart. This is a debate forum and we are debating. Its all more about the fun of the debate anyways.

Either way no one is going to concede to the other. So we will just keep debating the issue.

So you admit your "arguments" are nothing more than "empty conjecture" and "weak suppositions"?

 

[gerobbins]

So you admit your "arguments" are nothing more than "empty conjecture" and "weak suppositions"?

No I did not admit that at all. You misread it, I meant I see their argurments the same as they see mine.