Atheism 2.0

[sufiandy]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
You can’t make a case for atheism. You can certainly make a case for agnosticism but what evidence exists that G-d doesn’t exist? And for every paradox you can provide for non existence an equally compelling paradox can be made for existence. For example, the first law of thermodynamics: matter/energy can’t be lost or created. Matter can be converted to energy and energy to matter but the amount must always remain the same. So where did matter/energy come from if someone or something didn’t create it in the first place? Someone or something that is able to break the first law of thermodynamics.[/quote]

I prefer atheists over agnostics. I don’t like fence sitters. Agnostics are always ‘waiting’ for more info. I guess they haven’t been to a library before. There’s reams and reams of info for both sides of the argument. We’re more in danger of information overload, than a lack of info.
Pick one, have some balls![/quote]

Maybe they are constantly jumping over the fence, or is it against the rules to change once you pick a side?

[SkyzykS]

[quote]bigflamer wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]bigflamer wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
So he wants to add some structure to atheism and improve it’s methods of delivery.

I think that the thing he is missing is that with organized religions there is not just a communion of the spirit with God, but also with your fellow members. That is the tie that binds congregations and gives structure through out the world- The shared experience and belief of having been through the rituals and sharing ownership of some of the worlds best known works of art an appreciation for their significance within the whole system of belief.

So what do you do when there is no spiritual experience or binding that holds people together or connects them through out the world? It’s a bit of a gordian knot if you can not acknowledge the human spirit or spiritual existence of a group of people because you do not believe in the existence of the human spirit or any other for that matter. Without that most fundamental element- the spiritual experience- all of the art and architecture in the world isn’t going to mean anything. Travel or pilgrimage? To what? A lecture hall? A coffee house? Woo-Hoo! Did you see the earth tone walls of the original Starbucks? Wow. How bout those seats in the lecture hall at CMU? OMG! I could spend hours in those!

Thats why atheism comes off as flat and empty. The snarky, superior tone that some take doesn’t help either. It’s like a lesbian comedy hour.

[/quote]

The question is, what’s the message? Delivery of what, exactly?[/quote]

That there is nothing else. No human spirit, no holy spirit, just the life you have for the time you have it, which is nothing more than a chain of chemical reactions and electric signals in response to your surroundings.

At least that is what I get from atheists. Not that the ones I’ve talked to don’t value and enjoy the life that they have, but as soon as you approach any type of spiritual existence, the conversation changes real quick.

Me and a guy had a running inside joke for a while. He sneezed and without thinking about it I said “God bless you.” He told me he doesn’t believe in god, and that I may as well just say “Hey, you just sneezed.” from a Seinfeld episode. So I did. It was good for a few laughs, but I found it interesting that he didn’t care for the sentiment of the statement, which for me amounts to “Feel better soon.”. Usually just friendly and innocuous, but for an atheist it can be a bit of a land mine.
[/quote]

LOL
[/quote]

In what regard?
[/quote]

In regards to the fact that I have a similar situation with a catholic friend of mine. I sneeze and he says “bless you”, and when he sneezes I say “gesundheit”, and we both laugh about it.

And your view of atheism is way off, my friend. Yours makes us sound like some robot like creatures with no value of friends, family, loved ones, culture, or anything that comprises the stuff of real living.
[/quote]

Where in my view of atheism did I discount an atheist value of life? In fact, I stated pretty clearly that the ones I know do value and enjoy life.

It is axiomatic to atheism that there is no God. You can hang your hat on good works without an supernaturally created morality, or run through the no proof of one line of thinking, but they are only in support of the basic proposition that there is no God, or that a person does not need one.

It would also be good to distinguish the difference between a religion and a spiritual existence. I’m not religious at all and do not practice any formally organized rites or rituals- But I do believe in God, that human beings do have a spirit, and supporting a spiritual existence is at least half of the equation of life.

Probably not much different than most agnostics or atheists, except for the acknowledgement of the existence of God and the human spirit. Practically speaking, by doing all of the things suggested in the video, what the speaker is recommending is to create a spirituality without acknowledging the spirit- hamstrung by the fundamental axiom of a shared belief.

[Severiano]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
I’m not Christian, I’m an Agnostic.
[/quote]

Chicken! Pick a side.
[/quote]

Oh I have picked a side. It’s a definite side as I have to defend my position against both theists and atheists, so I’ve picked what is IMO the most difficult side to be on.

There are certain types of Atheists who display all the telltale signs of Dogma. Things like fervor to insult people who don’t agree with them or who are theists, or who are even agnostics. These are usually Dawkinites as I have coined them. They always bring up burden of proof and play on the slippery slope of comparing theism to fairy tales, and from that stupid logic, a theory of degrees of certainty about God not existing. It’s like they are too angry to realize they commit the same fallacy by creating a degree of certainty which is based on nothing. In that sense they are worse in that they don’t see the similarity to faith that they have in there being no God.

That specifically puts me and people who think like me in my own category. If something cannot honestly be quantified, then I will see it. It doesn’t matter if you compare God to the flying spaghetti monster in that concepts of God range from simple deism to very specific refined Abrahemic gods. Which God are they claiming doesn’t exist and on what grounds? I guess in this sense I’m actually an Ignostic. How do you go about deism as an atheist? How do you go about religious concepts that have yet to be thought up as an atheist? You paint yourself in a position of a degree of certainty when there is none. That is the lie about atheism I’ve been pointing out for years now that none of my atheist peers know how to refute.

IMO my position is the most reasonable, and it’s clearly, by far the most certain position there is about God or no God. To boot, I think it’s the most honest position there is.

[pat]

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
The problem of proving a negative, as presented by James Randi

James Randi Lecture @ Caltech - Cant Prove a Negative

He’s wrong. Not totally, but mostly. First, I don’t consider it ‘proving a negative’ Atheism is a claim. It’s a claim that the agency of the origin of existence is unknown, or just is, but it’s not God.

If you say there is no God, then there is vacuum in knowledge that needs to be replaced. Often it’s replaced by science or scientific findings which is a misuse of the discipline since it is method and it’s not in the business of proving or disproving the existence of God. So it’s not proving a negative. It’s proving that the agency that God occupies, is not in fact God but something else. So what is it? We don’t have a replacement, we have some theories, but those theories largely deal with mechanism and not agency.

Further, there are the common 5 arguments for the existence of God. It’s fine to not believe them, it’s fine to give them no regard, but neither of those prove them wrong and in the end, they have to be proven wrong and they have not been. There have been provided some reasons to doubt some premises here and there, but their debunking has not occurred. So with regards to this, it’s not proving a negative but disproving the current arguments.

The burden of proof for theism is and has been fulfilled. There is no need to consistently claim burden of proof when the burden has been fulfilled. In other words I agree the original burden of proof lies with the theist, but that burden has been fulfilled. Giving them no regard, or belittling them as ridiculous or silly does not make them so. And when you make a claim, burden of proof shifts. So if a claim is made, and a counter claim is made that it is ridiculous, stupid or silly, the burden shifts so that it must be proven to be ridiculous, stupid or silly.

Thirdly, in many cases asserting or affirming a negative can be done. If there is a box in a room, and someone says ‘there is not a rattle snake in the box’ another party can simply open the box and determine that there is no rattle snake in it.
If I got pulled over by the po-po and I told them “There are no drugs in my car.” They can simply search the car and determine there are no drugs in it.
Also, negatives are affirmed in math all the time. 2-3=-1, I can plot on a chart x=-1, y=-5. So negatives can be proven. A mathematical proof is a legitimate proof.

[pat]

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]
Atheists are lying, either to other people or to themselves, when they say that they “know” God not to exist. They don’t know it, they can’t prove it.[/quote]

So we can’t know that Azathoth and Cthulhu do not exist.
So… They may be real after all.

Cool ![/quote]

No, I don’t know they don’t exist. Are the Citroens?

[pat]

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

Maybe they are constantly jumping over the fence, or is it against the rules to change once you pick a side?[/quote]

I reckon you can do what you want, but at some point your going to get tired. If nothing else, you’ll die on one side or the other then then you will have made a choice.

[pat]

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
I’m not Christian, I’m an Agnostic.
[/quote]

Chicken! Pick a side.
[/quote]

Oh I have picked a side. It’s a definite side as I have to defend my position against both theists and atheists, so I’ve picked what is IMO the most difficult side to be on.
[/quote]
You do know I was just joking around, I hope.

There are certain types of Atheists who display all the telltale signs of Dogma. Things like fervor to insult people who don’t agree with them or who are theists, or who are even agnostics. These are usually Dawkinites as I have coined them. They always bring up burden of proof and play on the slippery slope of comparing theism to fairy tales, and from that stupid logic, a theory of degrees of certainty about God not existing. It’s like they are too angry to realize they commit the same fallacy by creating a degree of certainty which is based on nothing. In that sense they are worse in that they don’t see the similarity to faith that they have in there being no God.

I agree.

[quote]
That specifically puts me and people who think like me in my own category. If something cannot honestly be quantified, then I will see it. It doesn’t matter if you compare God to the flying spaghetti monster in that concepts of God range from simple deism to very specific refined Abrahemic gods. Which God are they claiming doesn’t exist and on what grounds? I guess in this sense I’m actually an Ignostic. How do you go about deism as an atheist? How do you go about religious concepts that have yet to be thought up as an atheist? You paint yourself in a position of a degree of certainty when there is none. That is the lie about atheism I’ve been pointing out for years now that none of my atheist peers know how to refute.

IMO my position is the most reasonable, and it’s clearly, by far the most certain position there is about God or no God. To boot, I think it’s the most honest position there is. [/quote]

True, but that can be said about many things. After all, there is very little one can prove about most things. One thing is certain, certainty is a scant thing in our existence. There is very little we can know, most ‘knowledge’ is belief with varying degrees of supporting evidence.

[sufiandy]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

Maybe they are constantly jumping over the fence, or is it against the rules to change once you pick a side?[/quote]

I reckon you can do what you want, but at some point your going to get tired. If nothing else, you’ll die on one side or the other then then you will have made a choice.[/quote]

You could say the same thing about my favorite flavor ice cream too.

[MattyG35]

How is a vacuum of knowledge generated that needs replacing if there is no God?

[SkyzykS]

[quote]pat wrote:

If I got pulled over by the po-po and I told them “There are no drugs in my car.” They can simply search the car and determine there are no drugs in it.
Also, negatives are affirmed in math all the time. 2-3=-1, I can plot on a chart x=-1, y=-5. So negatives can be proven. A mathematical proof is a legitimate proof.[/quote]

Numbers can also be imaginary though, like -1^1/2 (square root of negative one or (i))

They are also an agreed upon convention so that we can have a somewhat uniform system of numbers and mathematics, so in that sense don’t really even exist except by agreement.

[kamui]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]
Atheists are lying, either to other people or to themselves, when they say that they “know” God not to exist. They don’t know it, they can’t prove it.[/quote]

So we can’t know that Azathoth and Cthulhu do not exist.
So… They may be real after all.

Cool ![/quote]

No, I don’t know they don’t exist. Are the Citroens?[/quote]

In a very narrow definition of the word “know”, i guess we don’t know that Cthulhu doesn’t exist.

Technically, it’s possible that H.P.Lovecraft wasn’t really a author of fiction, but a prophet who inadvertantly found some horrific cosmic truth. And miraculously managed to give us a not-too-distorded glimpse of this truth.

But it’s also ridiculous.

Fictive origin + occam’s razzor = more than enough reason to affirm Cthulhu doesn’t exist.

Maybe not with 100%, absolute, fully deductive, cartesian-like certainty.
But with an happy and serene, sleep.

[SkyzykS]

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]
Atheists are lying, either to other people or to themselves, when they say that they “know” God not to exist. They don’t know it, they can’t prove it.[/quote]

So we can’t know that Azathoth and Cthulhu do not exist.
So… They may be real after all.

Cool ![/quote]

No, I don’t know they don’t exist. Are the Citroens?[/quote]

In a very narrow definition of the word “know”, i guess we don’t know that Cthulhu doesn’t exist.

Technically, it’s possible that H.P.Lovecraft wasn’t really a author of fiction, but a prophet who inadvertantly found some horrific cosmic truth. And miraculously managed to give us a not-too-distorded glimpse of this truth.

But it’s also ridiculous.

Fictive origin + occam’s razzor = more than enough reason to affirm Cthulhu doesn’t exist.

Maybe not with 100%, absolute, fully deductive, cartesian-like certainty.
But with an happy and serene, sleep. [/quote]

Does anybody even read Lovecraft?

His books are right up there on the best seller list with “The Great Chefs of Ireland.”.

[Severiano]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
I’m not Christian, I’m an Agnostic.
[/quote]

Chicken! Pick a side.
[/quote]

Oh I have picked a side. It’s a definite side as I have to defend my position against both theists and atheists, so I’ve picked what is IMO the most difficult side to be on.
[/quote]
You do know I was just joking around, I hope.

There are certain types of Atheists who display all the telltale signs of Dogma. Things like fervor to insult people who don’t agree with them or who are theists, or who are even agnostics. These are usually Dawkinites as I have coined them. They always bring up burden of proof and play on the slippery slope of comparing theism to fairy tales, and from that stupid logic, a theory of degrees of certainty about God not existing. It’s like they are too angry to realize they commit the same fallacy by creating a degree of certainty which is based on nothing. In that sense they are worse in that they don’t see the similarity to faith that they have in there being no God.

I agree.

[quote]
That specifically puts me and people who think like me in my own category. If something cannot honestly be quantified, then I will see it. It doesn’t matter if you compare God to the flying spaghetti monster in that concepts of God range from simple deism to very specific refined Abrahemic gods. Which God are they claiming doesn’t exist and on what grounds? I guess in this sense I’m actually an Ignostic. How do you go about deism as an atheist? How do you go about religious concepts that have yet to be thought up as an atheist? You paint yourself in a position of a degree of certainty when there is none. That is the lie about atheism I’ve been pointing out for years now that none of my atheist peers know how to refute.

IMO my position is the most reasonable, and it’s clearly, by far the most certain position there is about God or no God. To boot, I think it’s the most honest position there is. [/quote]

True, but that can be said about many things. After all, there is very little one can prove about most things. One thing is certain, certainty is a scant thing in our existence. There is very little we can know, most ‘knowledge’ is belief with varying degrees of supporting evidence.[/quote]

This is true, in that even things like laws don’t always hold true in all situations. Even the things we are most certain of, we have a degree of incertainty about. The likelihood of winning the lottery for example.

One of my old professors always compared the existence of God to a crazy lottery. He’d look at us and tell us, “Your never gonna win it, they just want you to keep buying those tickets, keep hoping.”

That’s actually what convinced me he was wrong. What are the odds of say winning the lottery, yet how often does someone win it? I’m pretty damned certain if I buy a ticket I wont win. But the point is that someone wins all the time.

Of course there are things like verifiability. How do you verify there is a God??? Die and come back? People of near death experience, or have been clinically dead and come back have differing opinions but how do you quantify experiences in terms of things that cannot be repeated in a controlled environment? The nature of us is to explain away these sorts of examples, I’m not convinced by them either, but the fact that we cannot quantify these sorts of things, I’m not just talking about near death experiences but all sorts of odd shit that cannot be verified one way or another. I’m thinking creative, brain in the vat scenarios that throw wrenches into what we can even verify about our own reality.

To boot, what are we even talking about when we refer to God? What of Spinoza’s God? What of the various Deist God concepts? There’s basically a whole world of ideas about God out there. It would seem we are wired to believe in Gods in order to make sense of the world. Does that make us stupid idiots?? I don’t think Dawkins was joking about it. I think Hitchens was an ass about it to make people think, he liked to get under peoples skin and force them to really think. Dawkins talks and writes about the subject with a level of certainty that he probably knows he shouldn’t have. But, sometimes the smartest of us like to argue positions because we can, and because it brings attention to us.

[pat]

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
I’m not Christian, I’m an Agnostic.
[/quote]

Chicken! Pick a side.
[/quote]

Oh I have picked a side. It’s a definite side as I have to defend my position against both theists and atheists, so I’ve picked what is IMO the most difficult side to be on.
[/quote]
You do know I was just joking around, I hope.

There are certain types of Atheists who display all the telltale signs of Dogma. Things like fervor to insult people who don’t agree with them or who are theists, or who are even agnostics. These are usually Dawkinites as I have coined them. They always bring up burden of proof and play on the slippery slope of comparing theism to fairy tales, and from that stupid logic, a theory of degrees of certainty about God not existing. It’s like they are too angry to realize they commit the same fallacy by creating a degree of certainty which is based on nothing. In that sense they are worse in that they don’t see the similarity to faith that they have in there being no God.

I agree.

That specifically puts me and people who think like me in my own category. If something cannot honestly be quantified, then I will see it. It doesn’t matter if you compare God to the flying spaghetti monster in that concepts of God range from simple deism to very specific refined Abrahemic gods. Which God are they claiming doesn’t exist and on what grounds? I guess in this sense I’m actually an Ignostic. How do you go about deism as an atheist? How do you go about religious concepts that have yet to be thought up as an atheist? You paint yourself in a position of a degree of certainty when there is none. That is the lie about atheism I’ve been pointing out for years now that none of my atheist peers know how to refute.

IMO my position is the most reasonable, and it’s clearly, by far the most certain position there is about God or no God. To boot, I think it’s the most honest position there is. [/quote]

True, but that can be said about many things. After all, there is very little one can prove about most things. One thing is certain, certainty is a scant thing in our existence. There is very little we can know, most ‘knowledge’ is belief with varying degrees of supporting evidence.[/quote]

This is true, in that even things like laws don’t always hold true in all situations. Even the things we are most certain of, we have a degree of incertainty about. The likelihood of winning the lottery for example.

One of my old professors always compared the existence of God to a crazy lottery. He’d look at us and tell us, “Your never gonna win it, they just want you to keep buying those tickets, keep hoping.”

That’s actually what convinced me he was wrong. What are the odds of say winning the lottery, yet how often does someone win it? I’m pretty damned certain if I buy a ticket I wont win. But the point is that someone wins all the time.

It’s great that you deduced that yourself and he was a fool not to see it. You may never win it, some fat woman in a trailer park in Alabama will. But I disagree with his analogy.
There are solid deductive logical arguments for the existence of God, not based on chance but reason. In this case it’s not a hope. But it’s also not religion. Philosophy only gets you to a certain point.

Of course there are things like verifiability. How do you verify there is a God??? Die and come back? People of near death experience, or have been clinically dead and come back have differing opinions but how do you quantify experiences in terms of things that cannot be repeated in a controlled environment? The nature of us is to explain away these sorts of examples, I’m not convinced by them either, but the fact that we cannot quantify these sorts of things, I’m not just talking about near death experiences but all sorts of odd shit that cannot be verified one way or another. I’m thinking creative, brain in the vat scenarios that throw wrenches into what we can even verify about our own reality.

Well, these things don’t really belong under the umbrella of science, they belong to the discipline of theology. You’re never really going to get quantification of God or the stuff of religion. Religion survives off personal experience. I cannot explain, or justify this in a way that one could put in a petri dish or plop out some mathematical equations. It’s based on trust. The belief that every religious person, or somebody who experience something ‘divine’ are not all 100% liars, nuts, or hallucinating. The problem is that there are liars. That doesn’t stand to reason that everybody is a liar, but those assholes cause credibility problems and some people can’t get over that.

To boot, what are we even talking about when we refer to God? What of Spinoza’s God? What of the various Deist God concepts? There’s basically a whole world of ideas about God out there. It would seem we are wired to believe in Gods in order to make sense of the world. Does that make us stupid idiots?? I don’t think Dawkins was joking about it. I think Hitchens was an ass about it to make people think, he liked to get under peoples skin and force them to really think. Dawkins talks and writes about the subject with a level of certainty that he probably knows he shouldn’t have. But, sometimes the smartest of us like to argue positions because we can, and because it brings attention to us.

There is only one God and it’s the ‘Creator’ or the ultimate reason anything exists. So yes, this would include Spinoza’s concepts or deist concepts. ‘Creator’ would be the lowest common denominator. On that, all flavors of theist agree. So no, we’re never talking about Thor, or Zeus, or Abercrombie, or Justin Beiber, when we speak of God, who we mean is the Creator. What one believes about the Creator may vary, but that it is the Creator does vary… That which begat existence itself is God, anything else is not. So when we speak of God, we only mean the one ‘Creator’ and nothing else.

[Severiano]

The thing about a creator, who knows if there was one? Maybe there was just stuff? Or maybe there were multiple creators who just were for eternity? Maybe there were multiple successive ones? Maybe there is a creator line who are mortal like us, just making things and passing on how to maintain them? Maybe the creator died?

We don’t, and at this point cant know about any of this or the countless possibilities out there. I consider them all in the same category of possibility, which seem to be infinite and possibly not conceived.

We also have to leave open the possibility that some sort of God or Gods or other creators may reveal themselves at some future point in time. Who knows?

It just seems stupid to discount the magnitude of possibilities. If they all seem dumb they are like chances at the lottery, they all have some minute probability of being true, and not all have even been conceived… How do you discount that? You really can’t… Which is more the point I was trying to make.

[pat]

[quote]Severiano wrote:
The thing about a creator, who knows if there was one? Maybe there was just stuff? Or maybe there were multiple creators who just were for eternity? Maybe there were multiple successive ones? Maybe there is a creator line who are mortal like us, just making things and passing on how to maintain them? Maybe the creator died?

We don’t, and at this point cant know about any of this or the countless possibilities out there. I consider them all in the same category of possibility, which seem to be infinite and possibly not conceived.
[/quote]
That’s what the 5 arguments for God’s existence are for, to establish just that. Those arguments address all your above questions.
And if those are your questions, they are worth investigating and they are worth putting through their paces. If you really want to know, then you will give them the look they deserve.
We are not living in a time of ignorance, we live in a time where all these age old questions have been mulled over for centuries and answers do exist. Clearly some are better than others, but none have been refuted. That doesn’t mean objections haven’t been brought up, it just means that those objections either don’t stick, or they themselves require more proof to be valid.

We also have to leave open the possibility that some sort of God or Gods or other creators may reveal themselves at some future point in time. Who knows?

This is logically impossible. If there is a creator, there can only be one.

[quote]
It just seems stupid to discount the magnitude of possibilities. If they all seem dumb they are like chances at the lottery, they all have some minute probability of being true, and not all have even been conceived… How do you discount that? You really can’t… Which is more the point I was trying to make. [/quote]
They haven’t been discounted, they have been addressed. It’s fine to have the questions, but it’s also incumbent that you find the answers because this has been dealt with. There’s not a subject that has been written about more, there is no shortage of resources…

[MattyG35]

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
How is a vacuum of knowledge generated that needs replacing if there is no God?[/quote]

[Bismark]

If God Exists, Why Doesn’t He Throw Us, Like, A Really Fucking Sweet Party?

If God Exists, Why Doesn’t He Throw Us, Like, A Really Fucking Sweet Party?

[espenl]

[quote]Bismark wrote:
If God Exists, Why Doesn’t He Throw Us, Like, A Really Fucking Sweet Party?

http://www.theonion.com/articles/if-god-exists-why-doesnt-he-throw-us-like-a-really,35674/[/quote]
Sounds like Valhall Fight all day, drink all night. We do that at some training camps.

[Severiano]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
The thing about a creator, who knows if there was one? Maybe there was just stuff? Or maybe there were multiple creators who just were for eternity? Maybe there were multiple successive ones? Maybe there is a creator line who are mortal like us, just making things and passing on how to maintain them? Maybe the creator died?

We don’t, and at this point cant know about any of this or the countless possibilities out there. I consider them all in the same category of possibility, which seem to be infinite and possibly not conceived.
[/quote]
That’s what the 5 arguments for God’s existence are for, to establish just that. Those arguments address all your above questions.
And if those are your questions, they are worth investigating and they are worth putting through their paces. If you really want to know, then you will give them the look they deserve.
We are not living in a time of ignorance, we live in a time where all these age old questions have been mulled over for centuries and answers do exist. Clearly some are better than others, but none have been refuted. That doesn’t mean objections haven’t been brought up, it just means that those objections either don’t stick, or they themselves require more proof to be valid.

We also have to leave open the possibility that some sort of God or Gods or other creators may reveal themselves at some future point in time. Who knows?

This is logically impossible. If there is a creator, there can only be one.

[quote]
It just seems stupid to discount the magnitude of possibilities. If they all seem dumb they are like chances at the lottery, they all have some minute probability of being true, and not all have even been conceived… How do you discount that? You really can’t… Which is more the point I was trying to make. [/quote]
They haven’t been discounted, they have been addressed. It’s fine to have the questions, but it’s also incumbent that you find the answers because this has been dealt with. There’s not a subject that has been written about more, there is no shortage of resources… [/quote]

So, you are bent on there being only one God, no polytheism. No Remus and Romulus?

So certain are you?