The Folly of Atheism

[leov]

Real evidence is objective, ie: independent of human opinion or belief. Opinions and perceptions are subjective, ie: features of the individual -- the subject.
Proof is a mathematical term, not scientific. Science doesn't prove anything, it just amasses and tests evidence. Scientific theories are always provisional and subject to change pending new evidence.

I'm not angry. I'm responding to opinions already voiced, that I may agree or disagree with. That's what one does in public forums. Outside RF, in fact, issues of religion and atheism never come up.

Competing ideologies? Like Catholicism vs Islam?
I hope you're not including atheism as an ideology. It has no particular beliefs, doctrines, moral codes, ethics or rituals. It's no more an ideology than lack of belief in unicorns is.

Faith actually is action on one's intuition, if one can detect that non material action it provides plenty of proof.

 

[ArtieE]

What I said is that the criteria is that they be biologically dependent upon another. It just so happens that a physical connection is required for an entity to be biologically dependent. Once an entity can survive without that biological physical connection they become an independent individual human being.

Yes that's what I mean. A newborn baby can't survive without that physical connection on its own and is therefore per definiton not an "independent" individual human being.

 

[Valjean]

I've provided a complete thread, dedicated to 'evidence' for God. It is there, for those who seek truth. But for those who want personal affirmation and justification, that is easily found, too.

What are you looking for? Justification or Truth?

I must be abysmally obtuse, then, cause I'm still not seeing this evidence.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Yes that's what I mean. A newborn baby can't survive without that physical connection on its own and is therefore per definiton not an "independent" individual human being.

If you can't comprehend the difference between an entity being biologically dependent on another and an entity requiring physical assistance from another then continued discussion is a complete waste of time.

Educate yourself concerning the difference and perhaps we can have a fruitful conversation.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

God's existence is visible - from the universe He created and maintains in being.

The invisible dragon's existence isn't.

But don't you know, the ID created the Universe not God. Look around you: all this wonder and pattern. It could only come from a creator as magnificent as the Invisible Dragon.

At this point, "God" or the "Invisible Dragon" simply become placeholders for a person's relationship to their environment.

 

[osgart]

There are certain religions that set up an Ultimatum. High pressure to avoid eternal doom. Right from the onset if you do not know God exists then you are the enemy of God and God's believers. So right away these God's set up War against new creatures who do not know God exists. 82 years of life is a drop in the bucket, and yet war is declared against the non believer.

Whether you are Christian, or Islamic, or Judaism, your God seeks to remove so called infidels from life. Infidels turn out to be non believers.

This religiosity is the cause of many wars throughout history. They say peace and love, but peace and love never come by force of such ultimatums.

Bottom line is these groups of people cannot accept that non believers are honestly non believing.

So in life they seek to make life hard, if not impossible for the non believer.

If a gun is pointed at your head, and the message is ' know that i exist, love me, do my commands or die forever ', how much love are you going to feel? That is the nature of the Ultimatum.

 

[leov]

There are certain religions that set up an Ultimatum. High pressure to avoid eternal doom. Right from the onset if you do not know God exists then you are the enemy of God and God's believers. So right away these God's set up War against new creatures who do not know God exists. 82 years of life is a drop in the bucket, and yet war is declared against the non believer.

Whether you are Christian, or Islamic, or Judaism, your God seeks to remove so called infidels from life. Infidels turn out to be non believers.

This religiosity is the cause of many wars throughout history. They say peace and love, but peace and love never come by force of such ultimatums.

Bottom line is these groups of people cannot accept that non believers are honestly non believing.

So in life they seek to make life hard, if not impossible for the non believer.

If a gun is pointed at your head, and the message is ' know that i exist, love me, do my commands or die forever ', how much love are you going to feel? That is the nature of the Ultimatum.

It is not God, it is those who do not understand One True God.

 

[ArtieE]

If you can't comprehend the difference between an entity being biologically dependent on another and an entity requiring physical assistance from another then continued discussion is a complete waste of time.

You said: "It becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity." I am just pointing out that a baby doesn't become a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity. It'll be dead in a few days without physical assistance. So why doesn't your definition say that somebody becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent of or don't require physical assistance from another entity to feed itself?

 

[leov]

You said: "It becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity." I am just pointing out that a baby doesn't become a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity. It'll be dead in a few days without physical assistance. So why doesn't your definition say that somebody becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent of or don't require physical assistance from another entity to feed itself?

Birth process is happening according to the Natural Laws. We have no choice but follow it. It is inhumane to deny others opportunity to live, we have no right to stop human life.

 

[ArtieE]

Birth process is happening according to the Natural Laws. We have no choice but follow it. It is inhumane to deny others opportunity to live, we have no right to stop human life.

Christian group conducts study on abortion, finds that Christians have the most abortions

 

[leov]

Christian group conducts study on abortion, finds that Christians have the most abortions

I know. Sad.

 

[QuestioningMind]

You said: "It becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity." I am just pointing out that a baby doesn't become a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity. It'll be dead in a few days without physical assistance. So why doesn't your definition say that somebody becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent of or don't require physical assistance from another entity to feed itself?

Because being biologically dependent upon another and requiring physical assistance from another are two completely different things. Do you honestly not comprehend the physiological differences between the two? If not then I suggest that you take a course in basic biology.

 

[ArtieE]

Because being biologically dependent upon another and requiring physical assistance from another are two completely different things. Do you honestly not comprehend the physiological differences between the two? If not then I suggest that you take a course in basic biology.

You said: "It becomes a viable human individual when it is no longer biologically dependent upon another entity." Do you honestly not comprehend that a baby doesn't become viable just because a physical connection is severed?

 

[dfnj]

My greatest problem with atheism is that it is material, and they want material type of proof of God .

It's not only the atheist will only accept a particular type of evidence, but they ignore evidence that contradicts their own philosophical materialism. We do not live in a clockwork Universe. When you consider the observer changes the results in double slit experiments just what exactly is the IT detects something is being observed! It's NOT material whatever it is. The implications are astounding yet most atheists, who are philosophical materialists, simply ignore the evidence suggest we do not live in a clockwork Universe.

Here's a good video on the subject if you are interested. I don't agree all the author's conclusions completely but it certain outlines the problem:

Here's another good video I like because it's thinking is so outside the box of the standard model:

I think the problem with the philosophical materialists is they do not appreciate the radical implications of quantum physics. The idea the Universe is composed of bits of material spreading out creating a spatial dimension with an independent element of time does not exist. In quantum physics every primordial piece of matter is "an organized system of vibratory streaming of energy" existing within waves of energy. Time is something existing within each piece of matter acting or vibrating independently of every other vibration. The vibratory parallelism of reality is truly breathtaking. This idea of time is not independent of the vibratory material creating our experience of it is the theme of Alfred North Whitehead's book Process and Reality (1929).

There is no easy or clear explanation why energy vibrates at all or why any energy exists at all as opposed to nothingness. You can have the opinion "So what, it's not a big deal. There is a mathematical explanation for everything we just don't know it yet." Or, you can have the opinion, "The way reality exists is truly miraculous and divine. God exists and is beautiful." Choose which opinion floats your boat.

 

[Left Coast]

Well, yes the question does require a "who." Life doesn't exist by chance.

To pretend otherwise is to choose to dodge the issue.

False dichotomy. Chance and God aren't the only options.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

But as it affects your beliefs on issues such as abortion, that is not strictly the case.

What could you possibly mean by this? Abortions happen in the real world, and can be witnessed. I can go and talk with any number of women who have had abortions. Abortions are based on real-world situations and involve interactions between inter-subjectively verifiable beings - doctors, patients and unborn children. How is this anything like a God claim? The fact that all parties being discussed exist within the case of abortion means necessarily that my "beliefs" about the issue of abortion move into the realm of opinion. I form an opinion as to whether abortion is good or bad for society, good or bad for the mother, good or bad for the unborn child, etc. - and these things can be based on actual effects I see in the world. In the case of "God", it doesn't even get to the stage of "opinion" about God specifically, because no one has demonstrated the reality of the claim in the first place. All I can possibly have opinions of, therefore, are the ideas I am given by other people, or I can have opinions of the people that talk about God and the texts that are written. That's all I've got. I don't have any concrete opinions of "God" because I don't even have a "God" to evaluate!

And of course, whether one believes in God must affect one's behaviour.

This is what you'd like to believe... but this simply isn't true. And it has been evidenced by isolated tribes whose mental meanderings never came up with a supreme being concept, but who have survived for generation after generation just fine. The Pirahã, for example:

As far as the Pirahã have related to researchers, their culture is concerned solely with matters that fall within direct personal experience, and thus there is no history beyond living memory... the Pirahã have no concept of a supreme spirit or god,[9] and they lost interest in Jesus when they discovered that Everett had never seen him. They require evidence based on personal experience for every claim made.

From what I have read of them, there is no talk of their being morally bankrupt, but instead that they have strong kinship systems, elect no leaders (imagine that!) and actively do not tell one another what to do as an intrinsic part of their culture.

 

[leov]

It's not only the atheist will only accept a particular type of evidence, but they ignore evidence that contradicts their own philosophical materialism. We do not live in a clockwork Universe. When you consider the observer changes the results in double slit experiments just what exactly is the IT detects something is being observed! It's NOT material whatever it is. The implications are astounding yet most atheists, who are philosophical materialists, simply ignore the evidence suggest we do not live in a clockwork Universe.

Here's a good video on the subject if you are interested. I don't agree all the author's conclusions completely but it certain outlines the problem:

Here's another good video I like because it's thinking is so outside the box of the standard model:

I think the problem with the philosophical materialists is they do not appreciate the radical implications of quantum physics. The idea the Universe is composed of bits of material spreading out creating a spatial dimension with an independent element of time does not exist. In quantum physics every primordial piece of matter is "an organized system of vibratory streaming of energy" existing within waves of energy. Time is something existing within each piece of matter acting or vibrating independently of every other vibration. The vibratory parallelism of reality is truly breathtaking. This idea of time is not independent of the vibratory material creating our experience of it is the theme of Alfred North Whitehead's book Process and Reality (1929).

There is no easy or clear explanation why energy vibrates at all or why any energy exists at all as opposed to nothingness. You can have the opinion "So what, it's not a big deal. There is a mathematical explanation for everything we just don't know it yet." Or, you can have the opinion, "The way reality exists is truly miraculous and divine. God exists and is beautiful." Choose which opinion floats your boat.

I suspect that atheism is still running on Newtonian mechanics.

 

[Willamena]

I suspect that atheism is still running on Newtonian mechanics.

More properly, Aristotelian.

 

[Left Coast]

Thus COMPELLING us to believe.

But God is a libertarian, not a dictator.

God in the Bible directly revealed himself repeatedly to people. If it was good enough for them, why isn't it good enough for us?

And second of all, we're all compelled to believe what we believe, regardless of content. If belief means being genuinely convinced something is true, beliefs can't just be freely adopted or discarded at will. See my thread exploring this:
Do We Choose Our Beliefs?

 

[dfnj]

Christian group conducts study on abortion, finds that Christians have the most abortions

More children die of poverty than do abortion. Why are the holier-than-thou Christians not marching for better wages from corporations to save our Children from being murdered by poverty wages.