Thread: Question about atheists

I highly doubt you could say anything I haven't said myself. I was once very strongly an atheist. I only saw religion as antithetical to science. But I later came to see how the apparent paradox resolves; the two lines of inquiry are different and complementary. Both are necessary, each complements the other and each is necessary.

Im sure i could because i can see the errors in your stance.

But tell me, if i did somehow manage to convince you (hypothetically) that there was no "meaning" would it upset you?

What i want to know, is would you want to know if you were wrong?

This sounds like philosophy, but then again philosophy covers much of the same ground as religion. As I understand it, philosophy is all about figuring out why things are as they are and how things could be or should be. If you begin pondering how society could order itself to be more equitable to the individuals who compose it, then you've begun a thread of philosophical thought. If you ponder whether there can be such a thing as absolute proof, you've again made a philosophical thought.

Well science is the continuation of natural philosophy, and i have no issue with "good" philosophy, like Descartes premise of absolute doubt.

There is plenty of philosophy I dislike (including theology - which i guess could be considered a facet) mostly becuse the philosophers work on the premise that the way things look/feel must be the way they are.

People using religion as a easy explanation cause harm. I don't think you will find the place in Bible or Quoran where it says "and crash a plane unto the unbelievers so they may die in thousands". That's simply not in there. Fanatics and idiots will always find a reason to kill. If it weren't for religion, they would kill for pink cows or world peace.

I don't buy the argument that "if there were no religion they would just use something else".

It seems to imply there must be x amount of conflict/pain/violence in the world (which is crazy), and that by removing one causative agent another will spring up.

If there no religion the Northern Ireland conflict simply would not exist, it wouldn't replaced by anything its cause like the others are specifically related to religion.

People using religion as a easy explanation cause harm. I don't think you will find the place in Bible or Quoran where it says "and crash a plane unto the unbelievers so they may die in thousands". That's simply not in there. Fanatics and idiots will always find a reason to kill. If it weren't for religion, they would kill for pink cows or world peace.

Do you really think that Bin Laden would have been anything other than a buisnessman if he were not raised into Islam?

A world without religion would be a better world than one with it, because all the conflicts and brutality done as a result of religiously held beliefs or religiously inspired governments would drop away. That doesn't mean all conflict would end, of course it wouldn't, but some of it would.

Originally posted by *ClownPimp*

Yes, but people like osama bin laden wouldnt be able to line up millions of people willing to fly those planes into those buildings. Religion is the tool he uses to convince millions that the west is the enemy and everyone remotely associated with the west must die. Without religion his message would fall on deaf ears.

Those who have nothing to lose are the most dangerous people. For instance, if you are rich, are you going to be a terrorist? How come Osama isn't the one crashing the planes? It's because he has something to lose. He is VERY wealthy.

Now, if someone were to say, here's how you can get revenge on all those who have the money that should be yours, that is going to be motive right there. "It will help your people get the money that belongs to them." You're a martyr for your people, a hero. No religion there.

As for no Osama without Islam, do you really think that there wouldn't have been someone else like him?



The root of the problem if twofold. First, the unequal distribution of wealth causes a lot of friction. Those who crash the planes aren't exactly Bill Gates when it comes to money. Second, Americans have forced their culture onto this society. Some places have accepted it, others have not. We did this in ignorance and it has hurt us greatliy.

About your 2, 3, 4 paragraphs and perfectness:
But, as I have already told you, now we are not perfect. Of course and we are not perfect, since we die etc. However, what we were talking about is if God created us perfect. And yes, we were created perfect. There is no need in telling me that now we are not perfect, since I agree with you.

>You are suggesting that we willfully left paradise? Then God made us stupid
When you don’t follow the rules of your master, that means that you don’t want him. God warned us that if we eat from the tree we will die. However, we disobey Him.

>So you maintain that mankind CHOSE to leave paradise, and come to Earth, and die?
They disobey God, and they choosen not to apology.
When you live in a house, and there is the rule “Keep this house clean” and you dirty that house, then you go to another house.

>The other dog is a good dog, he is perfectly behaved, they BOTH have free will. Why didn't God make man good dogs?
It’s the same question you asked me ( Why did God create Satan and not John ) and I anwered to you.
Anyway, one more comment: Say you believe in A. And you choose your friends. You want your friends to believe in whatever they want. You just want to have friends. So, you choose both people who believe in A and other people who believe in B.
However if you choosed only the people who believed n A, you would not like free will. If you did like free will you would have choosen both people who agree with you and the others who disagree with you.
The same appeals with God and humans. If He was going to “like” all the people who follow Him and destroy the others, he would not like free will.

>Point me to the paragraph in the bible the says angels have free will.
Well, since some left from the God, they were free to stay with Him or leave.

>he could have made it in our nature to choose good over evil, why didn't he?
I think I said too much about this. In case you have missed this part of the paragraph, I post it again:

Well, i don't thing - as i said at the beginning, that perfectness relies on this thing, because he gave us the power to choose, and we can always choose the right thing if we want to. Since God, did gave us the power to choose the good between the good and the bad, there was no need for Him to create as like robots to choose the good thingand never never the bad, because then he would not give us free will.

>For God sake, that's a stupid thing to say, only someone who had never felt real pain (and was particularly dense) could make such a statement.
And only one who does not has faith to God will keep his self busy on such a thing, and not how he will save himself. All these things are temporary. Wait untill you die.
And also, believe me, as many of the prophesies of the Bible have already happened, you will be very surprised when God will “ask” you for reasons for all you sins.

>You didn't answer my question, is it ok to make my children crawl through glass to see if they will continue to love me afterwards?
I just told you what the difficulty is ( resist to temptations ) just to make it sure that we are talking for the same thing. Well we, humans, may find them difficult, but these are the laws of ethic; and as I know, God said that it is not difficult. I ‘ll try to find this quote from the Bible.

>Compare a religious person who's disease ridden and in agony with a religous person whos healthy. Who is happier Aprog?
If both of them do the good and the feel sorry for their acts etc, the will be the same happy.

>If God puts misery on the Earth to bring people closer to him, he's a bastard, because he could make people closer to him by just clicking his metaphorical fingers.
I again tell you that all these are temporary, if you are close to God and have faith you will be very happy and no misery, and you have “to be ethical to get closed to Him”. If He just clicked His fingers, all the murderers, theefs and people who do only bad things will be closed to Him and now our word would be more worst. I hope you understand the reason, buddy.

>Right so theres lots of room for interpretation like i said before and you disagreed, you now agree?
I just told you that the way of presenting the facts is just in a simplified form to be understood from all people. That’s all.

>Abiogenesis.
Expand a bit more on this explanation.

>Science doesn't need to "prove" anything, it need only point out that there is an easy solution that has evidence supporting it, that does need the addition of "magic" to explain it.
Science doesn’t need to explain the facts with “magic”. And, yes, you have to proof that living can be produced from non-living if you wanted to explain the origin of human ( if you believe that he came from something nonliving ).

Also.. I haven’t seen your explanation to the question how humans were created.

>Those answers are COMPLETELY contradictory, if species were created separately clearly they didnt have evolve from a common ancestor did they!?
Sure. But I did not say something like that. Go back to the paragraph and see that I never said that.

>You think the morality in the bible is the "best", even when it says you can beat your slaves? When it says you should punish people children for their parents mistakes?
I don’t think that you will ever understand this one. I’ll try, but because I want to keep each post small in length, let’s leave it in the end.

Aprog, you simply do not grasp the ideas being discussed. I can continue to deconstruct every point you attempt to make, but given how poor your arguments actually are i don't think its really necessary.

With you a much more important topic, is whether or not other religions are somehow worse than Christianity.

Islam and Muslims in particular get demonised an amazing amount by the Christian right wing idiots. If you do not judge Christianity by the extremists who claim (based on the bible) that the Earth is 6000 years old or who went round butchering every non-Christian they could find (Spanish inquisition, Crusades, etc.), then you should equally not judge Islam by its extremists either.