The Folly of Atheism

[Bob the Unbeliever]

No - it isn't circular, but linear..

So you claim. So you fail to prove.

Except in the opinion of those who want everything to be futile and go round in circles, like their own minds.

Perfectly describes anyone who thinks the bible is "proof"...

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Why ? It's ALIVE isn't it ?

So?

The bacteria on your hands are alive-- OOOPS! You washed your hands, and just "murdered" millions of the little suckers....

Oh.
My.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes of course. And any "messenger" whose message you do consider contradictory you of course don't recognize as a "true" messenger. Just like virtually every other faith group whose theology differs from yours.

I consider the Messengers of all the major religions to be true Messengers, but no I do not believe anyone who claims to be a Messenger/Prophet, not unless they meet certain criteria:

“What then is the mission of the divine prophets? Their mission is the education and advancement of the world of humanity. They are the real teachers and educators, the universal instructors of mankind. If we wish to discover whether any one of these great souls or messengers was in reality a prophet of God we must investigate the facts surrounding His life and history; and the first point of our investigation will be the education He bestowed upon mankind. If He has been an educator, if He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge, then we are sure that He was a prophet. This is a plain and clear method of procedure, proof that is irrefutable. We do not need to seek after other proofs.” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 273

Whatever the why is, my entire point is that the why is entirely God's problem. He created the game. He invented the rules.

It is not God’s problem at all, because God does not have any problems. It is a problem for those people who expect God to show up, since God is not going to show up.

First of all, that's just a giant argument ad populum.

No, it is not ad populum, because I never claimed that God exists because 93% of people believe in God. God either exists or not, and it has nothing to do with how many people believe in God. 93% of people could be wrong, or they could be right.

All I was saying is that most people believe in God because of a Messenger/Prophet/Holy man, etc. so that is sufficient for most people. For some rather odd reason, atheists and agnostics cannot understand that God communicates via divine men who I call Messengers because that is the BEST way to communicate, obviously, because it has worked to garner belief in God for most people in the world.

Second of all, I'm sure that a member of a religion that composes something in the neighborhood of 0.1% of the world's population wouldn't be so completely blind to their own bias to try to make an argument ad populum about their religious beliefs.

Please do not waste your time using that argument on me, as you are grasping at straws. There are perfectly logical reasons why the Baha’i Faith is still small compared to the older religions, the main reason being that it is still relatively new, and all religions were small when they were new. History demonstrates that. There are many other reasons it is still small; I have many posts I have written regarding that, all saved in various Word documents, in case you want to know.

Third of all, that 93% of theists in the world are wildly divided every way from Sunday on who/what that God is, what its attributes are, and what it expects of us. So if its soooo obvious that there's some God out there, why the hell can't you guys get on the same page about literally anything to do with it?

Do you know anything about psychology? Most people who have a religion are attached to their religions and they are convinced they are true, so why would they be willing to give them up and get on the same page as everyone else?

Logically speaking, if there is a God, all those religions cannot be true as they are presently believed and practiced, because they contradict each other. So if someone were to try to figure out which religion is true they would have to first try to understand why these religions contradict each other, if all of them came from the same God. The reason is rather simple; the believers in these religions have strayed far from what the Messenger/prophets of these religions originally revealed, so they believe in all sorts of different things. Just look at all the different beliefs within Christianity alone, and the same applies to Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

Religion appears to have begun as nature-worship/animism. The priestly class of people who claimed to be the legitimate mediators between humanity and the divine evolved later over time.

Whereas that might be true, Baha’is believe that God has always sent Messengers, even before the Adamic Cycle of religion which began 6,000 years ago. There is no record of such Messengers or religions because the art of writing had not been developed, so our belief is based upon what Baha’u’llah wrote.

That analysis completely ignores the actual history and sociology of religion. Most people adhere to the religion they do because their parents did. Furthermore, most people adhere to the religion they do because either currently or in the past, their culture/country enforced said religion by rule of law.

Whereas that is true, their parents believed because of some Messenger/Prophet or their culture/country enforced said religion that was established by some Messenger/Prophet.

Utter bull. I can no more choose to believe in God than I can choose to believe the moon landing was faked.

That is a straw man. I did not say that YOU can choose to believe in God. I said “man has free will so man can choose to believe in God or not.” You have chosen NOT to believe in God.

Do We Choose Our Beliefs?

I do not think that we are completely free to choose our beliefs because free will has many constraints such as childhood upbringing, education, and adult experiences, which will determine the choices that we are ABLE to make, However, I think that there is some element of choice. For example, by completely rejecting the idea of Messengers you have pretty much made it impossible to believe in God, since that is how God communicates.

I understand that atheists are not completely free to believe in God and conversely, some of us believers are not free to not believe in God. Believe me, I have tried to NOT believe in God, but I cannot do it.

Why someone would want to NOT believe in God when they firmly believe in God is the subject of another conversation.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

As God - when on earth in the person of Jesus Christ - founded the Catholic Church, that's toot..

Not even slightly close. Jesus was a JEW. Died a JEW (if he was ever real in the first place-- highly doubtful)

"Christianity" did not exist, as an organized single entaty until around 300ACE, when the first Official Handbook--erm-- Bible™ was fabricated by a committee of old, power-hungry men.

And why hate Catholics ? It's bigots - unbelievers, mainly - who hate.

Who hates Catholics? Is it because of their wide spread and systematic covering up and enabling child-raping priests? And handing out pay offs, instead of prosecuting these criminal "men of god"?

Or is it how the Catholic church systematically lied about the effectiveness of condoms at preventing the spread of AIDS, and thereby created millions more AIDS victims?

Maybe it was convincing the Poor of the World to give them money that the poor could ill afford to part with, so that yet ANOTHER Gold Statue could be erected in Vatican City?

Or should I mention.... The Spanish Inquisition? (which nobody expects anyway)

We don't hate Catholics. Pity, perhaps... sympathy? Maybe. But hate? Naaah.

We also don't hate Unicorns.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

As an ideal - that is, as founded by Jesus Christ - the RCC is perfect..

Really? Care to explain..... Hitler, then? The NAZI party was blessed-- multiple times -- by the RCC.... we have PHOTOS and everything.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Thereby betraying Christianity, in that case.

Who died and made YOU God?

Show me in your bible where Jesus forbids abortions.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

A non-random force other than God.

Universe-creating Pixies.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Superman.

All are equally "valid" replacements for a "god".

All have equal amounts of evidence.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Only IF we choose our beliefs.

That's the RUB, isn't it?

Nobody really GETS to choose such things-- DO they?

It's pretty much where you are born...!

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

No such force exists. As of course you know.
.

correct: your god does not exist! Good!

 

[Trailblazer]

If your god was as evil as you have painted?

Then?

Being a **god** it would never be happy with any human progress.

Yet-- here we are. We, on average, live over twice as long as before. In most places on Earth, women need not fear childbirth-- it is no longer a nearly 50% chance of death, to have a baby.

We have gradually recognized what we call Universal Human Rights, over much of the planet.

These are a scant few things of PROGRESS-- that a monster god? Would have put a stop to, long ago.

That pretty much eliminates a maliciously evil deity.

We know there are no good deities-- for the list of Evil that a god would prevent if it was caring AND good, is quite long.

Leaving? What? Callous indifference? That's also evil. See above.

The REASON for all the progress we have seen since the 19th century is the coming of Baha'u'llah, so ultimately, God is behind all this human progress, although humans deserve all the credit for it and God does not want or need any credit.

That God should prevent evil simply because some atheists don't LIKE to see evil is an ABSURD notion... It absurd because humans are responsible for DOING the evil, so there is no reason God should remove it. It is also absurd because there would only be one way to remove it... Take away human free will in which case humans could not make any decisions to do either good or evil because they would be reduced to being God's robots.

Evil exists because some humans CHOOSE to do evil. God is not evil just because God allows humans to choose. That is so utterly ridiculous, trying to blame God for what humans CHOOSE to do with the gift of free will.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

..just like, 'Is not!!'



What else is there, when discussion subjective opinion?

Hitchen's Razor: If you make a claim without evidence?

Nothing further than "is not" is sufficient.

 

[Trailblazer]

There is no functional difference; either your incompetent god CAN do it or it CAN NOT or it WON'T (which is worse).

Why should God dial it back, just because you want Him to?
If you cannot even understand what is wrong with that I am sorry for you.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

The REASON for all the progress we have seen since the 19th century is the coming of Baha'u'llah, .

Absolutely FALSE. Proof? Your tiny god is not worshiped by very many people-- NONE of whom contributed to the Progress I mentioned.

So there you go: Dismissed for lack of evidence, and circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Why should God dial it back, just because you want Him to?
If you cannot even understand what is wrong with that I am sorry for you.

Why should an Expert Sniper *not* use a Sniper Rifle to "discipline" an unruly child, by shooting him in the head at 1000 yards?

You would correctly say, "EVIL" and "LUDICROUS".

The Sniper is responsible for his child...

But your Bully God gets an ... excuse because it is incompetent?

 

[Trailblazer]

Nope. You cannot use your ancient Bronze Age Book Describing An Evil God as evidence for said god.

Your book is your Claim. You cannot use your Claim to "prove" your Claim.

Gleanings is not a Bronze Age book, it is a new age book.
Straw man. I was not trying to use the book to prove my claims.

 

[Trailblazer]

Prove it.

Nobody can prove that God exists, all we have is evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

And we are back to Maliciously Evil, or Maliciously Incompetent.

Which is it?

Neither.

 

[Trailblazer]

nope. It's the CLAIM. You cannot use your claim to "prove" your claim.

Got anything else?

I am not trying to prove anything.
I just said that the Bible is evidence that God exists, it is not proof.

 

[Skwim]

As an ideal - that is, as founded by Jesus Christ - the RCC is perfect.

How can it be perfect if it changes from one position to its opposite? Either it was wrong before or is wrong now. To wit:

"The Council of Trent, an ecumenical council held in Italy between 1545 and 1563 and prompted by the Protestant Reformation, commissioned in the seventh canon ("De Reformatione") of Session XXIV the first Church-wide catechism of the Catholic Church, later known as the Roman Catechism and also as the Catechism of the Council of Trent. A commission of eminent theologians supervised by three cardinals produced a catechism, which was published in Rome under Papal authority, after the Council had concluded, under the Latin title "Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini ad parochos Pii V jussu editus, Romae, 1566" [in-folio]. In its section on the Fifth Commandment, the Roman Catechism teaches that civil authority, having power over life and death as "the legitimate avenger of crime," may commit "lawful slaying" as "an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder" by giving "security to life by repressing outrage and violence."

VS

In 2015, Pope Francis addressed the International Commission against the Death Penalty, stating that: "Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed." Francis argued that the death penalty is no longer justifiable by society's need to defend itself, and the death penalty has lost all legitimacy due to the possibility of judicial error. He stated that capital punishment is an offence "against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person, which contradicts God's plan for man and society" and "does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance."

On 2 August 2018, it was announced that the Catechism of the Catholic Church would be revised to state that the Church teaches that "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person". A full letter to the Bishops regarding the change stated that it was consistent with the previous teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the dignity of human life, and that it reflected how modern society had better prison systems with a goal of criminal rehabilitation that made the death penalty unnecessary for the protection of innocent people.
Source: Wikipedia​

So who or what created the cells and atoms?
Nature and its scientific laws ?

Yup.

But who or what created them ?

They were the result of the Big Bang.

And what created the Big Bang? Don't know.

.​

 

[ArtieE]

Quantum fluctuations - random or other - are features of the universe.

Ergo, they didn't exist before the universe did.

Ergo, they didn't create the universe.

There was no universe before that particular quantum fluctuation.