Legitimate reasons not to believe in God

[muhammad_isa]

But isn't a car also a part of the universe? If the whole and the parts must all share the same characteristics, shouldn't the car also be conscious?

No .. I do not say that each part of the universe has to share the same characteristics .. I am saying that awareness is part of the cosmos, because one of its parts is.

Or, if you think the car is unconscious and without purpose or intent, then by your argument, so is the universe.

No .. another part of the universe might be aware .. you are making illogical conclusions.

"The fallacy of composition occurs when one makes the mistake of attributing to a group (or a whole) some characteristic that is true only of its individual members (or its parts), and then makes inferences based on that mistake."

That might be true, but in this case it is not.
If you don't consider human awareness to be part of the cosmos, then that is the only way that the cosmos does not include awareness.

"Pope Pius XI declared that contraception was inherently evil and any spouse practicing any act of contraception “violates the law of God and nature” and was “stained by a great and mortal flaw."

Yes, so the source of authority in this case is the Pope.
We then need to ask how the Pope has made this moral judgment .. but many Christians will argue that the Pope is God's vicegerent on earth.
However, the Pope does not claim to be a "son of God" .. or prophet/messenger, so he could be wrong.
In fact, the Catholic church regularly updates its recomendations.

For example, I've never indicated that I consider you to be an inferior person for being a believer. My criticism of you has been your unwillingness to explain why you considered the ideas of mine you reject incorrect.

I try to explain .. sometimes quite well, and sometimes badly.
Sometimes, I have no answer .. nobody knows all except God.

I see it the other way around. I count myself fortunate to have escaped religion and found atheistic humanism (one can be a humanist with a god belief, but he has to reject most if not all religious dogma).

OK

But he's frustrated that people like me just aren't interested in becoming a theist with him, because to him, it saved his life. I eventually had to explain to him that he was like a guy whose vision benefitted from glasses, and with them he could see in focus, and thought everybody needs a pair.

I would imagine that he is sincere, and is only wishing good for others.
It is down to us at the end of the day. Life is a personal journey for all of us.

 

[F1fan]

Mmm .. awareness then. You are thinking of the conscious/unconscious properties of creatures..

I am defering to what science describes. You are intent to impose human characteristics onto non-conscious life and material. That's calld anthropomorphism.

Of course I do .. I am not really making "claims" about rocks being able to speak or feel pain etc.
I just don't rule it out, and see everything in black and white.
i.e. no brain, no awareness

Yet the science are clear and concise about understanding nature as it is. You are doing what many theists do and trying to blur what science reports so you can make room for bad religious assumptions, like a universal consciousness. I understand theists often want their beliefs to be onto something profound, but it's not. We know what you are doing. It is what some theists do to justify religious beliefs that are not fact-based, or even contrary to facts. It's ok to believe whatever you want, it just won't work as an argument in a diverse forum.

I never said that it did "represent" cosmic awareness .. more that it is a part of it.

I said represent because you are trying to extrapolate consciousness onto the whole universe only because there are some organisms that evolved consciousness. Life is very rare in the universe, and conscious life is even rarer.

You want everything in neat boxes .. awareness is generated by brains .. the rest of the universe is dumb.

False. I am defering to experts in the sciences, not religious folks who hold beliefs that aren't fact-based. It is your problem that you are dissatisfied with my position on this.

It really doesn't matter if it were true, awareness is still present in the cosmos [ meaning material and non-material concept ]

Awareness is only a material process.

And there could be a serial killer in your neighborhood, but that doesn't mean everyone is a serial killer. This is a fact, a neat little box. So your attempt to extrapolate consciousness and awareness doesn't work. Consciousness exists in specific places, that is organisms with working brains. There is no consciousness anywhere else.

If you say so..

You can explain to us why you need to believe in religious concepts.

Yes, this is a finite mortal world. We all must die.
Believers have some hope in life after death.

Why? I understand death is final and scary, but why live with an illusion that life kees going on? I fear my mortality but I see no purpose in pretending that I will live beyond my death. It takes a lot of work to maintain and reinforce such beliefs due to fear. I like the idea, but it's not believeable.

I think you mean "won't act on them" in an instant manner, and what we see as beneficial to us.

Give us examples of any time that a God intervened on behalf of a person praying. I have seen many examples of situations that a God should have intervened, but didn't. The 5 year old daughter of a client is a prime example. God had a year and a half to do something, but didn't.

It surely is a cruel world.

And it exists as God designed, as some theists claim. So we blame the Creator for things being as they are.

The believer tries their best not to cause suffering to others.

As do many non-believers. But we also see many believer cause pain and suffering, usually extremists. Look at Islam's extremists as examples of what believers can do against innocent people.

However, believers are human like anybody else, and are capable of evil and selfishness.

I'm not impressed by believers who can't match the decency of non-believers. At the very least their devotion should pay off in some sort of better base morality and wisdom. It doesn't. There are good people and bad people. Religion might help good people be better, but it doesn't make bad people good.

You cite evil and suffering as a reason to disbelieve.

That is a reason to reject what believers claim about their religion being a basis for moriality and good. We see many believers do evil and cause suffering. What gives? Where is the God taking care of his followers breaking bad? It's all pretty fishy.

We critical thinkers cite the lack of evidence to reject the claims that any God exists.

I personally do not see how that helps a suffering person.

Believers keep praying to an absent God for a reason. Those who can't help themselves can't do anything but hope.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I am saying that awareness is part of the cosmos, because one of its parts is.

That's not what I understood you to mean. It's trivially (tautologically) true that if the universe contains a conscious element, it contains a conscious element. I understood you to mean that the universe itself was conscious when you said that the cosmos was not aimless, which I understood to mean was not lacking conscious intent.

If you don't consider human awareness to be part of the cosmos, then that is the only way that the cosmos does not include awareness.

We're not discussing the same thing any more. I never said that the cosmos does not CONTAIN awareness, I obviously don't believe that, and I don't know why we're discussing it.

We then need to ask how the Pope has made this moral judgment

I explained my position on that - the church has always promoted the highest possible birthrate for any population (except priests and nuns for obvious reasons) since the days when life expectancy was much lower and was therefore valuable right up until now when it is counterproductive and family planning is more necessary than ever - but it doesn't matter what the pope's motivation was. It's still dogma when presented as it was.

But regarding needing to ask about the pope's* motives, why would any non-Catholic care about what the pope said or even why he said it? Humanists don't get their moral judgments from popes or religions.

*I looked up capitalization of this word - only when used as a title: Galileo was sentenced to house arrest by the pope, who was Pope Urban VIII at the time.

the Pope does not claim to be a "son of God" .. or prophet/messenger, so he could be wrong.

That's not how the Catholic church presents it. From Papal infallibility - Wikipedia : "Any doctrine 'of faith or morals' issued by the pope in his capacity as successor to St. Peter, speaking as pastor and teacher of the Church Universal [Ecclesia Catolica], from the seat of his episcopal authority in Rome, and meant to be believed 'by the universal church,' has the special status of an ex cathedra statement. Vatican Council I in 1870 declared that any such ex cathedra doctrines have the character of infallibility."

I would imagine that he is sincere, and is only wishing good for others.

I agree, but that is irrelevant to my point that like you, he considers himself lucky to have faith in a god, whereas I consider myself fortunate to be free of religion.

 

[Hawkins]

legitimate: If you say that something such as a feeling or claim is legitimate, you think that it is reasonable and justified.
Legitimate definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

In my opinion, two legitimate reasons not to believe in God are as follows:

1. There is no proof that God exists
2. There is too much suffering in the world for God to exist

I believe there are also legitimate reasons to believe in God as either position can be argued and justified with reason.

You must put your faith in human stupidity then.

If God is proved (empirically), how can men be saved as it is said that the current Covenant between God and men requires that humans are saved by faith and faith alone.

Do you have a fish tank? A fish tank is clean simply because you have filtration system to keep the dirt. Earth is such a filter to secure the eternal Heaven.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

And the scientific enterprise has demonstrated long ago that the diverse structures of living organisms does not require any gods.

Demonstrated? Through unguided, mindless processes? Not with any empirical evidence they haven’t.
Many in the scientific community acknowledge that there are “explanatory deficits” of the MS.

‘The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Philosophical and Historical Dimensions’ Workshop Report – Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsfs.2017.0015

But you’d have us believe it’s already been explained.
That is inaccurate, according to the above links.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

life looks too complex

It just *looks* too complex? Discoveries reveal it is complex.

Evolution well explains species’ survival, but it doesn’t explain their arrival. Not concerning the higher taxa of families, with their distinct phenotypes.

 

[muhammad_isa]

You must also realize that "people" aren't rational or irrational.
People are people and can hold both rational and irrational beliefs.
Theists and atheists alike.

Agreed.

And that is your religious belief, for which you have no evidence.

It is not something that requires physical evidence.
It is more of a philosophical opinion.
For me, I cannot accept that everything I see has no source.

I will also note that in the above, you are lumping all non-atheists together as if you are all in the same camp. But the vast majority of them don't share your beliefs at all. In fact, YOU are an atheist concerning all the gods you do not believe in.

All you are doing here is lumping together all the various "gods" that a person might believe in, and not differentiating one belief from another.

Some claim Divinity, whilst others do not.
That doesn't affect you. You treat them all equally as falsehood, with one being neither more likely than another, it would seem.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Slight but crucial correction here: YOU have to use the NT to read the OT, and vice versa, because your religious doctrine demands it. I am under no such requirements.

Reading the Bible as historical literature, I can take into account the religious, social, political, etc., situation of the time the authors lived, and use that as a basis to speculate as to their purpose, intended audience, available resources, and methodology to communicate their ideas.



Same slight but crucial correction -- YOU can't explain it without help, but it makes perfect sense to me as is.

Yes, I can explain it, where what is meant within its pages makes sense.

But be honest, the only “perfect sense” it makes, in your eyes, is nonsense. And you reached that conclusion based on the lies that Christendom has taught for centuries. Like hellfire.

Even the Jews aren’t in agreement about the Scriptures. In Jesus’ day, way back then, they were divided: the main schools of thought were among the Essenes, the Saducees, and Pharisees.
And today, there are about 50-60 different branches of Judaism. If there was consensus among them, I could see where accepting their understanding might be helpful. But they’re as fractured as everyone else.


Later, cousin.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

God told them "On that day you will die." They didn't.

But they did die within that “day.” In Hebrew, Yom can mean an indeterminate length of time.
Yom - Wikipedia (see ‘Overview’)

This actually shows the Creative Days weren’t literal days…the same word (yom) is used for them, too.

Do you really think the author would be that inept?
Those words have been around for thousands of years. It’s ridiculous to think, that for millennia, no one caught that “mistake.”

It’s just unfortunate that the most-read book, ever, is also the most misunderstood.
But that’s to be expected, since it requires help from Jesus’ Father, Jehovah / Yahweh, to properly understand stand it. Luke 10:21

 

[muhammad_isa]

I am defering to what science describes..

Science doesn't describe anything.
There are scientific observations, and conclusions are made based on them.
Things aren't so black and white as you make them out to be.

I said represent because you are trying to extrapolate consciousness onto the whole universe only because there are some organisms that evolved consciousness. Life is very rare in the universe, and conscious life is even rarer.

It doesn't matter if there was only one creature in the world.
We only know that awareness exists because we experience it .. it is not something that you can see, like an object.

I don't have to extrapolate .. it exists, so is part of the cosmos.

False. I am defering to experts in the sciences..

You refer to the conclusions they make from their observations.
Their conclusions may be right or wrong.
Psychology is not an exact science like chemistry, for example.

We can make observations, and draw conclusions.
Our knowledge is not static .. it is subject to change.

Consciousness exists in specific places, that is organisms with working brains. There is no consciousness anywhere else

You may be right, or you may be wrong.
You view it as a "scientific fact", because many scientists have drawn that conclusion.
You have faith in them being right, because you see it as entirely reasonable.

Myself, I have faith in science and scientists, but know they are not infallible.
..particularly when it comes to conclusions about non-material concept.
I also have faith in priests/imams, but I don't view them as infallible either.

You can explain to us why you need to believe in religious concepts.

I thought that I already had.
If I could accept that a world without a source was credible, I wouldn't have a need to seek for reasons why we are all here.
Having sought for reasons, I am satisfied that my religion has more answers than any other I have come across
Does that make it true? No.
I might be totally deluded

..but there you go. We have to assume we are not, unless it can be shown our beliefs are unlikely be true.

I like the idea, but it's not believeable.

I like the idea of heaven, but not of hell.
To me, it's believable.
That is because I find myself aware right now .. experience pleasure and pain,
and have no reason to believe that it can't happen again.
The exact mechanism of how it happened, and how it will happen, is immaterial. [ irrelevant ]

Give us examples of any time that a God intervened on behalf of a person praying.

Sorry, no can do. I am not a "seer" .. I do not know, but I believe that the One who is responsible for all we see
is able to change our lives, in all so many ways.
It is not just a matter of whether God gives us what we ask for.

I have seen many examples of situations that a God should have intervened, but didn't. The 5 year old daughter of a client is a prime example. God had a year and a half to do something, but didn't.

Yes, a lot of people lose their faith due to the so-called "problem of evil" or suffering.

..but whenever I start having doubts due to the cruel nature of the world, or so many people being in hell after death and so forth, so far I go round a full circle, and think "if there is no God", then what?
I struggle with the problem of evil .. it is easy to say that it is a necessary, but that is not entirely satisfying as an answer, but "God doesn't exist?" .. that makes no sense at all to me, after the life I have lived as a believer.

I also know that evil exists, and those that are involved with it, often find it amusing to see others fall.

I'm not impressed by believers who can't match the decency of non-believers.

That is just useless talk .. we are all capable of good and bad.
It shouldn't be a competition to feed our egos.

We see many believers do evil and cause suffering. What gives?

We do. We see human beings in general guilty of bad behaviour.
The blame game is just throwing accusations.
Ignorance is a human condition. Muslims will often blame "Kafirs" for all the evil.
..and atheists like to blame religion or believers.
It's all nonsense to me .. I see that we are all capable of evil, and there are various reasons for it.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Thomas addressed Jesus thus:
“My Lord and my God!”

Yes, seeing and believing.

24 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
- John 20 -

Thomas thought that he had died on the cross. They all did.
Perhaps you can explain to me why Jesus still had the wounds of being crucified?
Why didn't "the Father" cause Jesus to become alive in a perfect body?
It all looks much like confusion to me. Thomas thought Jesus was God, beacause he appeared again? Is that why Jesus is God .. because he was seen alive after his ordeal?

 

[allright]

legitimate: If you say that something such as a feeling or claim is legitimate, you think that it is reasonable and justified.
Legitimate definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

In my opinion, two legitimate reasons not to believe in God are as follows:

1. There is no proof that God exists
2. There is too much suffering in the world for God to exist

I believe there are also legitimate reasons to believe in God as either position can be argued and justified with reason.

Please explain thru logic and reason how anything can exist just have been here for ever

 

[muhammad_isa]

I understood you to mean that the universe itself was conscious when you said that the cosmos was not aimless, which I understood to mean was not lacking conscious intent.

Yes I understand the confusion.

Humanists don't get their moral judgments from popes or religions.

Obviously not.

That's not how the Catholic church presents it. From Papal infallibility - Wikipedia : "Any doctrine 'of faith or morals' issued by the pope in his capacity as successor to St. Peter, speaking as pastor and teacher of the Church Universal [Ecclesia Catolica], from the seat of his episcopal authority in Rome, and meant to be believed 'by the universal church,' has the special status of an ex cathedra statement. Vatican Council I in 1870 declared that any such ex cathedra doctrines have the character of infallibility."

Mmm .. that is how the Vatican works, yes. There has to be some sort of structure when it comes to "the church", but it is to do with the affairs of men, and believing that a Pope is "infallible" is just an accessory to believing the Bible is "infallible".

I agree, but that is irrelevant to my point that like you, he considers himself lucky to have faith in a god, whereas I consider myself fortunate to be free of religion.

I can understand that .. many people turn away from organised religion for a variety of reasons.
However, our beliefs are a personal thing.
Our view of reality and truth evolves along with our experiences.
It doesn't have to be static, but we might prefer it to be .. particularly as we get older and find change harder to deal with.

 

[TLK Valentine]

No, that's not true imo.
The disciples didn't believe that Jesus is God and Christianity did not yet exist. They all prayed to "the Father".

But the Messiah was not God -- not by Jewish beliefs. As I said, he is either a military leader or a harbinger of the end times (depending on who you ask).

Jesus was clearly not the former, as he left Israel the same way he found it -- under a Roman boot. Many of his believers began to consider him the latter. They were still Jewish (up until about AD 80), but they saw Jesus as the newest, greatest and most likely, final prophet from their God.

 

[TLK Valentine]

Yes, I can explain it, where what is meant within its pages makes sense.

And I am happy for you.

But be honest, the only “perfect sense” it makes, in your eyes, is nonsense.

That's not being honest, it's being arrogant. Kindly refrain from telling me what I see in my eyes.

And you reached that conclusion based on the lies that Christendom has taught for centuries. Like hellfire.

Hellfire was mentioned in the Bible many times over... first by Jesus himself.

Look in Matthew's Gospel alone: 3:12, 5:22, 5:29, 10:28, 13:40-42, 18:9, 25:41, 25:46...

Jesus of Nazareth was the original "Fire and Brimstone" preacher... a far cry from the Warm Fuzzy Jesus of Sunday School...

Anyway, if He's lying about that, His credibility is more or less shot, and we can pack it in and go home.

Even the Jews aren’t in agreement about the Scriptures. In Jesus’ day, way back then, they were divided: the main schools of thought were among the Essenes, the Saducees, and Pharisees.
And today, there are about 50-60 different branches of Judaism. If there was consensus among them, I could see where accepting their understanding might be helpful. But they’re as fractured as everyone else.

I don't see the Christians as any less fractured... but so long as these particular scriptures were written by Jews for Jews, their unadulterated theology is going to be a lot more useful to me.

Later, cousin.

Until next time, cousin.

 

[TLK Valentine]

But they did die within that “day.” In Hebrew, Yom can mean an indeterminate length of time.
Yom - Wikipedia (see ‘Overview’)

This actually shows the Creative Days weren’t literal days…the same word (yom) is used for them, too.

I addressed this before -- it takes no small amount of poetic license to make it all work, doesn't it?

Do you really think the author would be that inept?
Those words have been around for thousands of years. It’s ridiculous to think, that for millennia, no one caught that “mistake.”

Not inept, but certainly unoriginal. These stories were lifted from centuries of oral tradition, and who knows where or with whom those traditions began?

And who says it's a "mistake"? The whole purpose of mythology is to express higher truth without fretting over literalistic minutiae... as you have already demonstrated.

After all, you've already demonstrated a willingness to engage in poetic license... don't stop now.

It’s just unfortunate that the most-read book, ever, is also the most misunderstood.
But that’s to be expected, since it requires help from Jesus’ Father, Jehovah / Yahweh, to properly understand stand it. Luke 10:21

Ah, here we go... Since I have no help from Jehovah, The Bible is "nonsense" to be -- after all, you've said it, it must be so.

I suppose the next best thing would be for me to seek the guidance of someone who does have Jehovah's ear, so that I can be reading and understanding the book in the "correct" manner.

Now, where, oh where, would I ever find such a person? Could it be.... oh, I dunno.... someone like... hmmm, let me guess... you?

 

[Trailblazer]

You must put your faith in human stupidity then.

If God is proved (empirically), how can men be saved as it is said that the current Covenant between God and men requires that humans are saved by faith and faith alone.

I was not suggesting that we need proof that God exists, I don't believe that. I was only saying that lack of proof is a legitimate reason for 'some people' not to believe in God.

That said, I do not believe that the current Covenant between God and men requires that humans are saved by faith and faith alone. I believe that Christian Covenant has been superseded by the Covenant of Baha'u'llah.

Bahá’u’lláh and His Covenant

Baha'u'llah said nothing about being saved, since there is nothing to be saved from, except our attachment to this world and our own selfish natures.

40: O MY SERVANT! Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more.
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 36

 

[Trailblazer]

God told them "On that day you will die." They didn't.

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

God did not say that Adam would not have died physically if Adam had not eaten the fruit. God did not say "because you ate the fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil you will die physically, but it you had not eaten that fruit you would have lived forever in the same physical body," which is what Christians believe.

I believe this verse refers to spiritual death, not physical death.

 

[Trailblazer]

Please explain thru logic and reason how anything can exist just have been here for ever

I do not understand your question.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Hellfire was mentioned in the Bible many times over... first by Jesus himself.

Nope… Ge’enna is not hades. If you’ll check, you’ll see the mistranslation. It was used that way, to promote a doctrine….to support a bias.
Hell is not Gehenna.