Body & Soul3 mins ago
What Is There About Atheism That Makes A Theist Want To Remain A Theist?
78 Answers
Some say that Atheists have nothing to offer.
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@Goodlife - finally, some actual interaction with other people who are posting here. Thats a good thing. And some answers in your own words - even better.
I do find it ironic that you use phrases like this;
"Too many people I see accept the opinions of others and repeat their ideas like parrots rather than taking time to examine the facts."
And this is exactly what we accuse people like yourself of! You parrot words from Watchtower without examining them first, or checking the source of the story. Witness the debacle over you story that concerned a "local newspaper" in the UK - you could not verify that. And more recently, the story of the 2 boys in finland, one allegedly in a wheelchair - a little independent research of your own, like JacktheHat did, would have shown you that one of the boys mentioned in the story has told the truth about that tale- correcting some of the untruths.
So here is what is wrong with your posts, in a nutshell. You offer stories that you claim as some sort of evidence of the fact of gods existence- which often cannot be substantiated, and when they can, they are often factually incorrect.
You cannot offer any evidence at all to substantiate your assertion of the existence of god - god remains a notion, sustained by myth and legend, sustained by slavish adherence to often misinterpreted biblical scripture, with no real world evidence in thousands of years for his existence.
What the evidence does overwhelmingly does tell us is that god is almost certainly a man-made construct -an idea to explain the universe, creation, life; and that people subsequently have bolted on their own interpretations, their own codes or morality to offer their communities.
What god offers - what the bible offers - is a creaking edifice of supposition, fable and myth, underpinned by the shakiest of foundations - subjective and selective interpretations of the bible - in order to offer what you call a vision to believers. But it is a false vision, and comes with restrictive and repressive teachings that impact millions on a daily basis. That cost is too high.
I would rather the clarity of the facts as they stand - The universe was not created as a place for humanity to grow up in - it cares nothing for us. We are what we make of ourselves, and the quality and worth of our lives are determined by the degree of co-operation and help we can offer to family and friends,powered by positive emotions of openness and friendship and altruism, not tainted by suspicion and doubt that adherence to religious teachings of exclusion can often create.
I do find it ironic that you use phrases like this;
"Too many people I see accept the opinions of others and repeat their ideas like parrots rather than taking time to examine the facts."
And this is exactly what we accuse people like yourself of! You parrot words from Watchtower without examining them first, or checking the source of the story. Witness the debacle over you story that concerned a "local newspaper" in the UK - you could not verify that. And more recently, the story of the 2 boys in finland, one allegedly in a wheelchair - a little independent research of your own, like JacktheHat did, would have shown you that one of the boys mentioned in the story has told the truth about that tale- correcting some of the untruths.
So here is what is wrong with your posts, in a nutshell. You offer stories that you claim as some sort of evidence of the fact of gods existence- which often cannot be substantiated, and when they can, they are often factually incorrect.
You cannot offer any evidence at all to substantiate your assertion of the existence of god - god remains a notion, sustained by myth and legend, sustained by slavish adherence to often misinterpreted biblical scripture, with no real world evidence in thousands of years for his existence.
What the evidence does overwhelmingly does tell us is that god is almost certainly a man-made construct -an idea to explain the universe, creation, life; and that people subsequently have bolted on their own interpretations, their own codes or morality to offer their communities.
What god offers - what the bible offers - is a creaking edifice of supposition, fable and myth, underpinned by the shakiest of foundations - subjective and selective interpretations of the bible - in order to offer what you call a vision to believers. But it is a false vision, and comes with restrictive and repressive teachings that impact millions on a daily basis. That cost is too high.
I would rather the clarity of the facts as they stand - The universe was not created as a place for humanity to grow up in - it cares nothing for us. We are what we make of ourselves, and the quality and worth of our lives are determined by the degree of co-operation and help we can offer to family and friends,powered by positive emotions of openness and friendship and altruism, not tainted by suspicion and doubt that adherence to religious teachings of exclusion can often create.
-- answer removed --
Well yes, we can. Though I suppose it depends on what you mean by "proof". It's very difficult, if not impossible, to ever stop someone from jumping up and rejecting any point you make, no matter how convincing it is. But there are a number of reasons that "prove" to beyond any reasonable doubt that the moon is not made of green cheese:
1. Its density would be different from what it is. cheese has an average density not much more than water. Since we can measure the mass of the moon as well as its size, we can say confidently that the moon is too dense to be made of cheese. Initially, at least, a cheese moon would have to have a radius of approximately 2,500km as opposed to 1,740km.
2. even though the outer surface of the moon is a vacuum, inside cheese-eating bacteria could, and would, happily live and eat away turning the cheese into something else. After such a long time all, or virtually all, of the cheese would have been consumed and turned into waste products. So it would have rotted from the inside out.
3. Someone's gone and calculated the effects of pressure on such a large mass of cheese -- find here: http://
4. Anyway the moon has been hit by many objects over the eons (see all the craters). A cheese moon would have been blasted away, indeed possibly destroyed entirely, if it were still cheese - the temperature involved in a collision would have melted the cheese or even made it evaporate.
5. We've visited the surface and found that the surface, or at least that part which we landed on, is rock. As described above a cheese moon would turn into water + gases which is not what we see.
Anyway, a green cheese theory is completely unsustainable and fails to match the evidence in any way. Therefore it's "proven" experimentally that the Moon is not made of green cheese.
A silly post, perhaps, but there is a serious point here. Atheism, or any world view, shouldn't be about "can't be bothered wasting time trying to prove that we're right". It should be almost precisely the opposite. Looking at the evidence and forming a view of the World that is based on that evidence. If that evidence points convincingly and overwhelmingly towards the existence of a God, then you should acept that God's existence. If, on the other hand, the evidence cannot be fit into a theory including a God, then you should reject the existence of God.
Perhaps a case cannot be built either way, and it may stay that way forever. But even then, you should continue to try. It's not a matter of "oh, that's silly and I can't be bothered thinking about it". Or, at least, it shouldn't be. It shoudl be more rational than that, and accepting that the "Ultimate Truth" is how the World is, not how we think it should be.
1. Its density would be different from what it is. cheese has an average density not much more than water. Since we can measure the mass of the moon as well as its size, we can say confidently that the moon is too dense to be made of cheese. Initially, at least, a cheese moon would have to have a radius of approximately 2,500km as opposed to 1,740km.
2. even though the outer surface of the moon is a vacuum, inside cheese-eating bacteria could, and would, happily live and eat away turning the cheese into something else. After such a long time all, or virtually all, of the cheese would have been consumed and turned into waste products. So it would have rotted from the inside out.
3. Someone's gone and calculated the effects of pressure on such a large mass of cheese -- find here: http://
4. Anyway the moon has been hit by many objects over the eons (see all the craters). A cheese moon would have been blasted away, indeed possibly destroyed entirely, if it were still cheese - the temperature involved in a collision would have melted the cheese or even made it evaporate.
5. We've visited the surface and found that the surface, or at least that part which we landed on, is rock. As described above a cheese moon would turn into water + gases which is not what we see.
Anyway, a green cheese theory is completely unsustainable and fails to match the evidence in any way. Therefore it's "proven" experimentally that the Moon is not made of green cheese.
A silly post, perhaps, but there is a serious point here. Atheism, or any world view, shouldn't be about "can't be bothered wasting time trying to prove that we're right". It should be almost precisely the opposite. Looking at the evidence and forming a view of the World that is based on that evidence. If that evidence points convincingly and overwhelmingly towards the existence of a God, then you should acept that God's existence. If, on the other hand, the evidence cannot be fit into a theory including a God, then you should reject the existence of God.
Perhaps a case cannot be built either way, and it may stay that way forever. But even then, you should continue to try. It's not a matter of "oh, that's silly and I can't be bothered thinking about it". Or, at least, it shouldn't be. It shoudl be more rational than that, and accepting that the "Ultimate Truth" is how the World is, not how we think it should be.
An ironic statement, I'm sure, Ratter -- still, this is always the problem. Some people are just determined to face against the face of cold, hard reality. No case will ever be foolproof. Because fools tend to know what they think and refuse to listen to reason and sense.
Anyway, that's my case for what we can know beyond reasonable doubt. I'm not going to say one way or another what, if anything, this says about God. But it certainly is true that atheism, or even religion, should be rational and not just a random statement thrown up that you claim the other side can't disprove. And then ignore the other side if they do manage to do so.
Anyway, that's my case for what we can know beyond reasonable doubt. I'm not going to say one way or another what, if anything, this says about God. But it certainly is true that atheism, or even religion, should be rational and not just a random statement thrown up that you claim the other side can't disprove. And then ignore the other side if they do manage to do so.
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