Does Prayer Work? Is There a God?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
422

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
Mick28 wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
pat wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
ZEB wrote:
forlife wrote:
Nice try, but I have quite a few gay friends that believe in god. Call me crazy, but I choose not to believe in things for which there is no evidence.

Or in things that interfere with your lifestyle.

Hmmm…nope. Doesnt interfere with my lifestyle. Guess that only applies to certain people huh. Whats my reason for not being among the faithful?

I already addressed your situation, you’ll have to pay better attention.

Actually no you didnt. Here is a question. Why is it that so many people who were born and raised christians, catholics, or whatever, end up turning into aeithiests or agnostics? Simple question.

You should ask them…How the hell are we supposed to know? I guess the same reason people feel like it is still a good idea to go streaking at a baseball game.

Actually I have thanks. Ya want to take a stab at what they say? Its usually pretty consistant.

You dumb little bastard…you know all about the mysteries of the universe yet you can’t even spell CONSISTENT.

Really get the fuck off the Internet…go read a book or something.

Good one buddy. Tough guy talk on the internet. We havent seen that before. You must feel so brawny and manly now. BTW thanks for taking the usual route you bible thumpers take and turn agressive, not bothering to answer the simple question I posted and call me a dumb little bastard because I used an a instead of an e. The testosterone must be seeping from your body at this point. Now that you have reinforced a typical stereotype to everyone reading ill ask again if ya feel like answering the question posted or are you too busy looking through my others posts to find any other spelling mistakes, which in your world is obviously a HUGE part of feeling superior to someone.

Says roll on roll off. The reason they probably become atheist is for the fact that some liberal mainline church has spewed a modern fad to the congregation, and the congregation takes it as truth and then becomes inevitably atheist. Which is I put no blame on the members of congregation that have this done to them, except that they should take a little responsibility and try to keep their leaders accountable to orthodox.[/quote]

Fair enough, but what about the people who simply look at the bible, what it teaches and say to themselves ‘this makes no sense.’ Thats what happened to me. I was brought up to believe all that the bible said, but then when I actually sat back and compared things in the bible to everyday life it suddenly made no sense. Seriously, not to try and tear it down or make light of your beliefs but I suddenly could not see any difference between the bible and fairy tales. They both seemed to be nothing but outlandish stories in a book with no basis in fact.

423

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
forlife wrote:
Does it not make you a little suspicious that your belief system is, by definition, unconfirmable? You’ve set up the perfect crime for yourself.

Think about it.

You can claim whatever you want about your god, and how your life is blessed in material ways due to your faith and prayers.

However, the moment anyone actually attempts to assess the truthfulness of those claims, you respond that your god refuses to be measured in such a way.

Thus, it is impossible to actually confirm any of your claims.

Given that your claims literally cannot be substantiated, what differentiates them from any fairy tale that someone might concoct?

I have one question, how is our faith uncomfirmable? Which is not a word by the way, but I get your gist. You can very well see if you look at the earth that there has to be some creator.

No, the earth is amazing however everything on it can be explained without the need of recourse to a supreme being. It is lazy to use a supreme being to fill in the gaps in your personal understanding or education.

Statistically speaking it would be impossible for the earth and Universe to be as it is by chance. There has to be something that created it. Second, a cause and effect for you little “God doesn’t existites”, does cause and effect not explain that something one and of itself and separate have to be, to cause a line of effects and causes. Meaning that there has to be an Eternal Causer for all the effects in the world.

Look, the whole world is already here. So either it sprang into existence (through the big bang since that’s what the evidence points to) or an Eternal Causer randomly sprang into existence. In order to create the world, the Eternal Causer would necessarily have to be more complicated than the world, and would therefore be less likely to exist. This is philosophy 101, please educate yourself before making foolish claims.

Well, the fact that you just fucked up the basic vocabulary of English vocab, I have a hard time believing you understand basic philosophy. If you can figure out your own mistake, I’ll poor your own modernism flavored kool-aid for you.[/quote]

could you poor [Sic] me some while you are at it? This is thirsty work.

424

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
Mick28 wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
pat wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Buff HardBack wrote:
ZEB wrote:
forlife wrote:
Nice try, but I have quite a few gay friends that believe in god. Call me crazy, but I choose not to believe in things for which there is no evidence.

Or in things that interfere with your lifestyle.

Hmmm…nope. Doesnt interfere with my lifestyle. Guess that only applies to certain people huh. Whats my reason for not being among the faithful?

I already addressed your situation, you’ll have to pay better attention.

Actually no you didnt. Here is a question. Why is it that so many people who were born and raised christians, catholics, or whatever, end up turning into aeithiests or agnostics? Simple question.

You should ask them…How the hell are we supposed to know? I guess the same reason people feel like it is still a good idea to go streaking at a baseball game.

Actually I have thanks. Ya want to take a stab at what they say? Its usually pretty consistant.

You dumb little bastard…you know all about the mysteries of the universe yet you can’t even spell CONSISTENT.

Really get the fuck off the Internet…go read a book or something.

Good one buddy. Tough guy talk on the internet. We havent seen that before. You must feel so brawny and manly now. BTW thanks for taking the usual route you bible thumpers take and turn agressive, not bothering to answer the simple question I posted and call me a dumb little bastard because I used an a instead of an e. The testosterone must be seeping from your body at this point. Now that you have reinforced a typical stereotype to everyone reading ill ask again if ya feel like answering the question posted or are you too busy looking through my others posts to find any other spelling mistakes, which in your world is obviously a HUGE part of feeling superior to someone.

Says roll on roll off. The reason they probably become atheist is for the fact that some liberal mainline church has spewed a modern fad to the congregation, and the congregation takes it as truth and then becomes inevitably atheist. Which is I put no blame on the members of congregation that have this done to them, except that they should take a little responsibility and try to keep their leaders accountable to orthodox.[/quote]

Or maybe, just maybe, they see through the bullshit and start thinking for themselves. Possibly after actually reading the bible and then reading some earlier religious books and seeing the bits that have been plagerised line for line and sold as a new religion.

425

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
forlife wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
I have one question, how is our faith uncomfirmable? Which is not a word by the way, but I get your gist. You can very well see if you look at the earth that there has to be some creator.

I was referring to claims about divine intervention, which supposedly affect the material world.

On the reason for the earth’s existence, there are many possible hypotheses, none of which requires a supernatural explanation.

Except and uncaused cause, the rest would be illogical since they are statistically impossible.

You keep on using this term. It does not mean what you think it means.

Statistics, as a discipline, provides tremendous insight when studying phenomena that occur repeatedly. The smaller the sample size, the harder it is to draw statistical conclusions. For example, if I survey a thousand people at random about some political issue, it is very likely that their opinion is representative of the whole population. If I ask one guy at random, it isn’t.

But when we’re talking about the beginning of the universe, none of this is relevant. Are there other universes? Are there other possible-universes that never began for some reason? We don’t know, so our sample size is one. So talking about “statistics” is just meaningless here.

Prove it, I can figure out statistically what the probability of a royal flush is without performing the act once. Never mind on proving it, I just proved you wrong. I win. Maybe if you stop listening to your professors so much and actually read something that has been around for more than ten years, and has been backed for longer than you have been alive, maybe your arguments could be valid.[/quote]

You’re only embarrassing yourself.

It’s easy to calculate the probability a given hand will be drawn. Doing this requires the assumption that no card is more likely to be drawn than any other. But this is an eminently reasonable assumption, both because the cards are physically identical except for the ink on the front, and because it can be confirmed by experiment.

We have NO FUCKING CLUE what the factors potentially leading to the beginning of the universe were, so there is NO FUCKING WAY to assign a probability, and NO FUCKING BASIS for making any assumptions. Do you not see how your example made no sense? Please? Try reading it again, and thinking, just a bit.

426

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
forlife wrote:
Does it not make you a little suspicious that your belief system is, by definition, unconfirmable? You’ve set up the perfect crime for yourself.

Think about it.

You can claim whatever you want about your god, and how your life is blessed in material ways due to your faith and prayers.

However, the moment anyone actually attempts to assess the truthfulness of those claims, you respond that your god refuses to be measured in such a way.

Thus, it is impossible to actually confirm any of your claims.

Given that your claims literally cannot be substantiated, what differentiates them from any fairy tale that someone might concoct?

I have one question, how is our faith uncomfirmable? Which is not a word by the way, but I get your gist. You can very well see if you look at the earth that there has to be some creator.

No, the earth is amazing however everything on it can be explained without the need of recourse to a supreme being. It is lazy to use a supreme being to fill in the gaps in your personal understanding or education.

Statistically speaking it would be impossible for the earth and Universe to be as it is by chance. There has to be something that created it. Second, a cause and effect for you little “God doesn’t existites”, does cause and effect not explain that something one and of itself and separate have to be, to cause a line of effects and causes. Meaning that there has to be an Eternal Causer for all the effects in the world.

You clearly have no understanding of statistics. If there are infinite universes as some posit then our existence on this planet has a probability of 1.

You are also looking at things the wrong way round. Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space. Because it is so big and varied there are parts of it that are condusive to life of the type found on Earth. Now add in a very, very long time and surprise surprise in one of the tiny bits of the universe that is condusive to life we find life. The statistical probability of this is actually pretty high when you look at the universe and time as a whole.

The problem is that our minds have problems coping with quite how big the universe is and quite how much time we are talking about. This is no surprise because we are conditioned to think in terms of a couple of lifetimes at most and spaces not much larger than a small village.[/quote]

I’m not talking about the probability that we are here on earth, I am not a philosopher who questions if this is reality. I am saying that if randomly the situation we are in was created by random causes, it would be impossible to be here.

427

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

I’m not talking about the probability that we are here on earth, I am not a philosopher who questions if this is reality. I am saying that if randomly the situation we are in was created by random causes, it would be impossible to be here. [/quote]

what

428

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
pat wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Pat,

I wouldn’t waste too much time with those two, they each have a lifestyle agenda and God deosn’t exactly fit in. I wonder if they’d believe if the Bible encouraged homosexuality, and a host of other “fun” things that they like?

I bet we’d not be having this debate huh? Some people are easy to figure out, they want what they want and anything that tells them the can’t just can’t be real.

Anyone who has studied Christianity knows that the Bible is one of the most well researched ancient documents of all time. More accurate than all the works of Socrates, Plato and many other well respected ancient writers. One only has to use google, it’s not a hidden secret.

The Bible is true and It’s the word of God.

I’ve had many prayers answered in my life and I know many others who have as well. Some very amazing things have happened just from prayer alone. We don’t need a scientist to stand by measuring the perceived accuracy to know that prayers are indeed answered.

However, it is all about faith and you cannot argue science to confirm faith.

One last thing, many if not most of the “atheists” on this site are between the ages of about 21 and 30’s. When they grow up and stop playing “know it all” they just might come around. For those who don’t maybe a life changing event or two will bring them around, maybe not.

As my grandfather used to say " I never saw an atheist in a foxhole."

Take care Pat and God Bless!

So your grandfather was unoriginal as well?

You are more deluded than I thought if you really believe that the Bible is a historically accurate document. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just a short list of inacuracies.

The Jews were from Judea area originally, they didn’t come in from Egypt.

The Jews were never enslaved.

Herod never masacred any babies.

Solomon and David never existed as powerful kings.

Daniel 5:1-2 says Belshazzar was king of the Chaldean Empire (Babylon), and son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar. In reality, Nebuchadnezzar’s son and successor was Amel-Marduk. He was assassinated by his Brother-in-law Nergal-Ashur-Usur, who took the throne. His reign was followed by his son Labashi-Marduk, who was opposed by a faction that overthrew him and placed Nabu-naido on the throne. Belshazzar (who’s name was actually Bel-shar-utsur) was the son of Nabu-naido. He was NEVER king, but crown prince, and was no relation at all to Nebuchadnezzar.

Hosea 5:13 tells us the Assyrian King at that time was named Jareb. There was never an Assyrian king by that name, and the name of the king who did rule at that time was Tiglath-Pileser the third.

Esther 1:9 tells us Vashti was queen of Persia at the time the story occures, but the queen at this time was actually Amestris, and there never was a queen of Persia named Vashti. Vashti was the name of an Elamite goddess. Most probably that is the origin of the name in this story.

If Jesus even existed, he certainly wasn’t born in Nazareth as it didn’t exist at the time.

Sources, please?

I think he found it here:

or here:

www.mylifesucksandiblameGod.com

or here:

www.mommyneverlovedmesothereisnoGod.com

or possibly here:

www.imyoungandmuscularandiknowjustabouteverythingandimnoteven25yet.com

No seriously, don’t encourage this kook.

You base your life around a badly translated, badly cobbled together, contradictive set of books that were written 1,500 years ago to try to bring together various fables about totally unrelated people in order to control the masses in an area several thousand miles away from where you live and I am the kook?

I have a very happy life. I am happily married, I have a beautiful daughter, I have a succesful career and a group of close and supportive friends. I also have no need to ask someone else how to live my life. I don’t need a priest or a vicar to interpret a book for me and tell me what is right and wrong. I am also a tad older than 25.[/quote]

Good for you, seems like you should be happy then, but not unlike forlife you seem to spew hate toward Christians. That’s not being happy is it? That’s internal turmoil. Now tell me why is it there?

429

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
pat wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Pat,

I wouldn’t waste too much time with those two, they each have a lifestyle agenda and God deosn’t exactly fit in. I wonder if they’d believe if the Bible encouraged homosexuality, and a host of other “fun” things that they like?

I bet we’d not be having this debate huh? Some people are easy to figure out, they want what they want and anything that tells them the can’t just can’t be real.

Anyone who has studied Christianity knows that the Bible is one of the most well researched ancient documents of all time. More accurate than all the works of Socrates, Plato and many other well respected ancient writers. One only has to use google, it’s not a hidden secret.

The Bible is true and It’s the word of God.

I’ve had many prayers answered in my life and I know many others who have as well. Some very amazing things have happened just from prayer alone. We don’t need a scientist to stand by measuring the perceived accuracy to know that prayers are indeed answered.

However, it is all about faith and you cannot argue science to confirm faith.

One last thing, many if not most of the “atheists” on this site are between the ages of about 21 and 30’s. When they grow up and stop playing “know it all” they just might come around. For those who don’t maybe a life changing event or two will bring them around, maybe not.

As my grandfather used to say " I never saw an atheist in a foxhole."

Take care Pat and God Bless!

So your grandfather was unoriginal as well?

You are more deluded than I thought if you really believe that the Bible is a historically accurate document. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just a short list of inacuracies.

The Jews were from Judea area originally, they didn’t come in from Egypt.

The Jews were never enslaved.

Herod never masacred any babies.

Solomon and David never existed as powerful kings.

Daniel 5:1-2 says Belshazzar was king of the Chaldean Empire (Babylon), and son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar. In reality, Nebuchadnezzar’s son and successor was Amel-Marduk. He was assassinated by his Brother-in-law Nergal-Ashur-Usur, who took the throne. His reign was followed by his son Labashi-Marduk, who was opposed by a faction that overthrew him and placed Nabu-naido on the throne. Belshazzar (who’s name was actually Bel-shar-utsur) was the son of Nabu-naido. He was NEVER king, but crown prince, and was no relation at all to Nebuchadnezzar.

Hosea 5:13 tells us the Assyrian King at that time was named Jareb. There was never an Assyrian king by that name, and the name of the king who did rule at that time was Tiglath-Pileser the third.

Esther 1:9 tells us Vashti was queen of Persia at the time the story occures, but the queen at this time was actually Amestris, and there never was a queen of Persia named Vashti. Vashti was the name of an Elamite goddess. Most probably that is the origin of the name in this story.

If Jesus even existed, he certainly wasn’t born in Nazareth as it didn’t exist at the time.

Sources, please?

I think he found it here:

or here:

www.mylifesucksandiblameGod.com

or here:

www.mommyneverlovedmesothereisnoGod.com

or possibly here:

www.imyoungandmuscularandiknowjustabouteverythingandimnoteven25yet.com

No seriously, don’t encourage this kook.

You base your life around a badly translated, badly cobbled together, contradictive set of books that were written 1,500 years ago to try to bring together various fables about totally unrelated people in order to control the masses in an area several thousand miles away from where you live and I am the kook?

I have a very happy life. I am happily married, I have a beautiful daughter, I have a succesful career and a group of close and supportive friends. I also have no need to ask someone else how to live my life. I don’t need a priest or a vicar to interpret a book for me and tell me what is right and wrong. I am also a tad older than 25.

Good for you, seems like you should be happy then, but not unlike forlife you seem to spew hate toward Christians. That’s not being happy is it? That’s internal turmoil. Now tell me why is it there?

[/quote]

Truth is preferable to falsehood.

People who believe falsehoods, and, based on their false beliefs, do things that are harmful to others, should be persuaded otherwise if possible.

It’s not “hatred towards Christians”, it’s abhorrence for the awful things done in the name of religion and those who deliberately spread it, especially to children who don’t know better.

430

Fair enough.
I don’t disregard infinity. Let’s take a look at time for a moment (hehe). My understanding of what time is a measure of movement and/or change. So if nothing was moving all the way down to the atomic level and beyond then there would be no time. Likewise, if “you” are moving at the same speed as movement/change then you cannot recognize time. Of course this means traveling at the speed of light. Now light travels through time yet is in itself infinite because it is not subject to time. The point of this mental gymnastics to illustrate that infinite fits comfortably in this causal world we know and love. Second, to illustrate that for time to exist matter must not only exist, but move and change relative to something else. Third, and most importantly, just because something is infinite, does not mean it was not caused. Light is infinite, yet it is caused, or it has a source. This is basically a lead into the cosmological argument from the point of contingency.

The uncaused-cause, solves a problem. The causal chain cannot exist infinitely because it ends up begging the question. We arenâ??t here, because we are here. We are here due to a long series of causes.
Now to take it further, the uncaused-cause is understood as God, because for something to be an uncaused-cause in necessarily takes on certain properties. Like it cannot be caused, and cannot be subject to the causal chain itself. Further, for “it” to have caused, it must had something like a will to put that “first effect” in motion.
That is how I look at it philosophically.

431

[quote]quidnunc wrote:

Truth is preferable to falsehood.

People who believe falsehoods, and, based on their false beliefs, do things that are harmful to others, should be persuaded otherwise if possible.

It’s not “hatred towards Christians”, it’s abhorrence for the awful things done in the name of religion and those who deliberately spread it, especially to children who don’t know better.

[/quote]

Atheists still hold the record for “awful things” done to people because of their particular belief system. If you are looking for a blameless group, you will not find one, and further athiests have been the worst of them by a long shot, so that’s a bad group to join.

432

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
forlife wrote:
Does it not make you a little suspicious that your belief system is, by definition, unconfirmable? You’ve set up the perfect crime for yourself.

Think about it.

You can claim whatever you want about your god, and how your life is blessed in material ways due to your faith and prayers.

However, the moment anyone actually attempts to assess the truthfulness of those claims, you respond that your god refuses to be measured in such a way.

Thus, it is impossible to actually confirm any of your claims.

Given that your claims literally cannot be substantiated, what differentiates them from any fairy tale that someone might concoct?

I have one question, how is our faith uncomfirmable? Which is not a word by the way, but I get your gist. You can very well see if you look at the earth that there has to be some creator.

No, the earth is amazing however everything on it can be explained without the need of recourse to a supreme being. It is lazy to use a supreme being to fill in the gaps in your personal understanding or education.

Statistically speaking it would be impossible for the earth and Universe to be as it is by chance. There has to be something that created it. Second, a cause and effect for you little “God doesn’t existites”, does cause and effect not explain that something one and of itself and separate have to be, to cause a line of effects and causes. Meaning that there has to be an Eternal Causer for all the effects in the world.

You clearly have no understanding of statistics. If there are infinite universes as some posit then our existence on this planet has a probability of 1.

You are also looking at things the wrong way round. Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space. Because it is so big and varied there are parts of it that are condusive to life of the type found on Earth. Now add in a very, very long time and surprise surprise in one of the tiny bits of the universe that is condusive to life we find life. The statistical probability of this is actually pretty high when you look at the universe and time as a whole.

The problem is that our minds have problems coping with quite how big the universe is and quite how much time we are talking about. This is no surprise because we are conditioned to think in terms of a couple of lifetimes at most and spaces not much larger than a small village.

I’m not talking about the probability that we are here on earth, I am not a philosopher who questions if this is reality. I am saying that if randomly the situation we are in was created by random causes, it would be impossible to be here. [/quote]

OK, try reading what I wrote again, take your time, ask questions, look up words that are unfamiliar.

I am not talking about the philosophical question of whether we are really here or not. I am saying that given that our being here is actually a statistical inevitability given a large enough universe and enough time.

433

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
pat wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Pat,

I wouldn’t waste too much time with those two, they each have a lifestyle agenda and God deosn’t exactly fit in. I wonder if they’d believe if the Bible encouraged homosexuality, and a host of other “fun” things that they like?

I bet we’d not be having this debate huh? Some people are easy to figure out, they want what they want and anything that tells them the can’t just can’t be real.

Anyone who has studied Christianity knows that the Bible is one of the most well researched ancient documents of all time. More accurate than all the works of Socrates, Plato and many other well respected ancient writers. One only has to use google, it’s not a hidden secret.

The Bible is true and It’s the word of God.

I’ve had many prayers answered in my life and I know many others who have as well. Some very amazing things have happened just from prayer alone. We don’t need a scientist to stand by measuring the perceived accuracy to know that prayers are indeed answered.

However, it is all about faith and you cannot argue science to confirm faith.

One last thing, many if not most of the “atheists” on this site are between the ages of about 21 and 30’s. When they grow up and stop playing “know it all” they just might come around. For those who don’t maybe a life changing event or two will bring them around, maybe not.

As my grandfather used to say " I never saw an atheist in a foxhole."

Take care Pat and God Bless!

So your grandfather was unoriginal as well?

You are more deluded than I thought if you really believe that the Bible is a historically accurate document. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just a short list of inacuracies.

The Jews were from Judea area originally, they didn’t come in from Egypt.

The Jews were never enslaved.

Herod never masacred any babies.

Solomon and David never existed as powerful kings.

Daniel 5:1-2 says Belshazzar was king of the Chaldean Empire (Babylon), and son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar. In reality, Nebuchadnezzar’s son and successor was Amel-Marduk. He was assassinated by his Brother-in-law Nergal-Ashur-Usur, who took the throne. His reign was followed by his son Labashi-Marduk, who was opposed by a faction that overthrew him and placed Nabu-naido on the throne. Belshazzar (who’s name was actually Bel-shar-utsur) was the son of Nabu-naido. He was NEVER king, but crown prince, and was no relation at all to Nebuchadnezzar.

Hosea 5:13 tells us the Assyrian King at that time was named Jareb. There was never an Assyrian king by that name, and the name of the king who did rule at that time was Tiglath-Pileser the third.

Esther 1:9 tells us Vashti was queen of Persia at the time the story occures, but the queen at this time was actually Amestris, and there never was a queen of Persia named Vashti. Vashti was the name of an Elamite goddess. Most probably that is the origin of the name in this story.

If Jesus even existed, he certainly wasn’t born in Nazareth as it didn’t exist at the time.

Sources, please?

I think he found it here:

or here:

www.mylifesucksandiblameGod.com

or here:

www.mommyneverlovedmesothereisnoGod.com

or possibly here:

www.imyoungandmuscularandiknowjustabouteverythingandimnoteven25yet.com

No seriously, don’t encourage this kook.

You base your life around a badly translated, badly cobbled together, contradictive set of books that were written 1,500 years ago to try to bring together various fables about totally unrelated people in order to control the masses in an area several thousand miles away from where you live and I am the kook?

I have a very happy life. I am happily married, I have a beautiful daughter, I have a succesful career and a group of close and supportive friends. I also have no need to ask someone else how to live my life. I don’t need a priest or a vicar to interpret a book for me and tell me what is right and wrong. I am also a tad older than 25.

Good for you, seems like you should be happy then, but not unlike forlife you seem to spew hate toward Christians. That’s not being happy is it? That’s internal turmoil. Now tell me why is it there?

[/quote]

More pity than hate. I have no inner turmoil about religion. I am pretty sure there is no God. And lacking any evidence to support a God hypothesis I see no reason to moderate my life or views towards a God.

My issue is not with God per se it is with organised religion which preys on the weak and guillible. I could sit back and say nothing, respecting people’s views on religion and just trying to ignore it however that is exactly what far too many intelligent people have done for far too long, this has allowed religions to pervade every facet of people’s lives. It has allowed the separation of state from religion in the US to become heavily erroded and it has allowed hate mongerers to wage war accross the globe.

434

[quote]pat wrote:

We may be getting tripped up on the terminology here. I’m just asserting that time could potentially extend infinitely both forwards and backwards (maybe even back through the big bang) and I’ve called it an infinite regress for lack of a better term. I’ll admit freely that I know of no evidence for this proposition. It just seems the lesser of two evils when compared to an uncaused cause

Fair enough.
I don’t disregard infinity. Let’s take a look at time for a moment (hehe). My understanding of what time is a measure of movement and/or change. So if nothing was moving all the way down to the atomic level and beyond then there would be no time. Likewise, if “you” are moving at the same speed as movement/change then you cannot recognize time. Of course this means traveling at the speed of light. Now light travels through time yet is in itself infinite because it is not subject to time. The point of this mental gymnastics to illustrate that infinite fits comfortably in this causal world we know and love. Second, to illustrate that for time to exist matter must not only exist, but move and change relative to something else. Third, and most importantly, just because something is infinite, does not mean it was not caused. Light is infinite, yet it is caused, or it has a source. This is basically a lead into the cosmological argument from the point of contingency.

The uncaused-cause, solves a problem. The causal chain cannot exist infinitely because it ends up begging the question. We aren�¢??t here, because we are here. We are here due to a long series of causes.
Now to take it further, the uncaused-cause is understood as God, because for something to be an uncaused-cause in necessarily takes on certain properties. Like it cannot be caused, and cannot be subject to the causal chain itself. Further, for “it” to have caused, it must had something like a will to put that “first effect” in motion.
That is how I look at it philosophically.
[/quote]

As I have repeatedly stated you don’t have to have an infinite chain, you can have a loop.

435

[quote]pat wrote:
quidnunc wrote:

Truth is preferable to falsehood.

People who believe falsehoods, and, based on their false beliefs, do things that are harmful to others, should be persuaded otherwise if possible.

It’s not “hatred towards Christians”, it’s abhorrence for the awful things done in the name of religion and those who deliberately spread it, especially to children who don’t know better.

Atheists still hold the record for “awful things” done to people because of their particular belief system. If you are looking for a blameless group, you will not find one, and further athiests have been the worst of them by a long shot, so that’s a bad group to join.[/quote]

I know we have covered this before however I don’t think that this is a valid comparison. Yes there are some pretty hateful people who have not espoused a recognised organised religion as their basis of thought. Most of them have actually created a religion of personality about themselves.

Yes some of these people have been spectacularly succesful at killing people in large numbers over short spaces of time. But when you stack the numbers against all people killed in the name of religion over history then it pales into insignificance.

The reason that Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin were so succesful was the technology available to them, it had nothing to do witht their lack of religion. Also, if the world were peopled with free thinkers not conditioned by religion it would have been far harder for them to carry out what they did.

436

I think it works for me at least. I might not get a pony, but I find calmness and peace by praying. I like knowing there is a bigger plan than mine and there is help out there for me.

I believe this, anyone else can believe what they want.

437

[quote]pat wrote:
quidnunc wrote:

Truth is preferable to falsehood.

People who believe falsehoods, and, based on their false beliefs, do things that are harmful to others, should be persuaded otherwise if possible.

It’s not “hatred towards Christians”, it’s abhorrence for the awful things done in the name of religion and those who deliberately spread it, especially to children who don’t know better.

Atheists still hold the record for “awful things” done to people because of their particular belief system. If you are looking for a blameless group, you will not find one, and further athiests have been the worst of them by a long shot, so that’s a bad group to join.[/quote]

Nope. I’m assuming you’re making a reference to the USSR, et cetera? They did what they did because of a quasi-religious belief in the need for revolution, and so forth, not out of atheism. Atheism is not a belief but the absence of one - it is compatible with any number of political systems, whether good or bad.

438

[quote]quidnunc wrote:
pat wrote:
quidnunc wrote:

Truth is preferable to falsehood.

People who believe falsehoods, and, based on their false beliefs, do things that are harmful to others, should be persuaded otherwise if possible.

It’s not “hatred towards Christians”, it’s abhorrence for the awful things done in the name of religion and those who deliberately spread it, especially to children who don’t know better.

Atheists still hold the record for “awful things” done to people because of their particular belief system. If you are looking for a blameless group, you will not find one, and further athiests have been the worst of them by a long shot, so that’s a bad group to join.

Nope. I’m assuming you’re making a reference to the USSR, et cetera? They did what they did because of a quasi-religious belief in the need for revolution, and so forth, not out of atheism. Atheism is not a belief but the absence of one - it is compatible with any number of political systems, whether good or bad.
[/quote]

BULLSHIT…Other than the fact that my family actually lived the religious persecution at the hands of the Soviets, the government practiced state atheism whose job was to rid all religions in favor of atheism.
This was not “revolution fever” this was the murdering of MILLIONS of religious people because they were religious, and rejected atheism. Don’t tell me this is some patriotic revolution run amok. This shit is well documented. China, Albania, USSR, Cambodia, etc. All practiced and spread, state sponsored atheism. Their actions were driven by the fervor of their non-belief.

439

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
pat wrote:

We may be getting tripped up on the terminology here. I’m just asserting that time could potentially extend infinitely both forwards and backwards (maybe even back through the big bang) and I’ve called it an infinite regress for lack of a better term. I’ll admit freely that I know of no evidence for this proposition. It just seems the lesser of two evils when compared to an uncaused cause

Fair enough.
I don’t disregard infinity. Let’s take a look at time for a moment (hehe). My understanding of what time is a measure of movement and/or change. So if nothing was moving all the way down to the atomic level and beyond then there would be no time. Likewise, if “you” are moving at the same speed as movement/change then you cannot recognize time. Of course this means traveling at the speed of light. Now light travels through time yet is in itself infinite because it is not subject to time. The point of this mental gymnastics to illustrate that infinite fits comfortably in this causal world we know and love. Second, to illustrate that for time to exist matter must not only exist, but move and change relative to something else. Third, and most importantly, just because something is infinite, does not mean it was not caused. Light is infinite, yet it is caused, or it has a source. This is basically a lead into the cosmological argument from the point of contingency.

The uncaused-cause, solves a problem. The causal chain cannot exist infinitely because it ends up begging the question. We aren�?�¢??t here, because we are here. We are here due to a long series of causes.
Now to take it further, the uncaused-cause is understood as God, because for something to be an uncaused-cause in necessarily takes on certain properties. Like it cannot be caused, and cannot be subject to the causal chain itself. Further, for “it” to have caused, it must had something like a will to put that “first effect” in motion.
That is how I look at it philosophically.

As I have repeatedly stated you don’t have to have an infinite chain, you can have a loop.[/quote]

By saying this you saying we are doomed to repeat everything? So we will all live again when the loop circles around?

440

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Brother Chris wrote:
forlife wrote:
Does it not make you a little suspicious that your belief system is, by definition, unconfirmable? You’ve set up the perfect crime for yourself.

Think about it.

You can claim whatever you want about your god, and how your life is blessed in material ways due to your faith and prayers.

However, the moment anyone actually attempts to assess the truthfulness of those claims, you respond that your god refuses to be measured in such a way.

Thus, it is impossible to actually confirm any of your claims.

Given that your claims literally cannot be substantiated, what differentiates them from any fairy tale that someone might concoct?

I have one question, how is our faith uncomfirmable? Which is not a word by the way, but I get your gist. You can very well see if you look at the earth that there has to be some creator.

No, the earth is amazing however everything on it can be explained without the need of recourse to a supreme being. It is lazy to use a supreme being to fill in the gaps in your personal understanding or education.

Statistically speaking it would be impossible for the earth and Universe to be as it is by chance. There has to be something that created it. Second, a cause and effect for you little “God doesn’t existites”, does cause and effect not explain that something one and of itself and separate have to be, to cause a line of effects and causes. Meaning that there has to be an Eternal Causer for all the effects in the world.

You clearly have no understanding of statistics. If there are infinite universes as some posit then our existence on this planet has a probability of 1.

You are also looking at things the wrong way round. Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space. Because it is so big and varied there are parts of it that are condusive to life of the type found on Earth. Now add in a very, very long time and surprise surprise in one of the tiny bits of the universe that is condusive to life we find life. The statistical probability of this is actually pretty high when you look at the universe and time as a whole.

The problem is that our minds have problems coping with quite how big the universe is and quite how much time we are talking about. This is no surprise because we are conditioned to think in terms of a couple of lifetimes at most and spaces not much larger than a small village.

I’m not talking about the probability that we are here on earth, I am not a philosopher who questions if this is reality. I am saying that if randomly the situation we are in was created by random causes, it would be impossible to be here.

OK, try reading what I wrote again, take your time, ask questions, look up words that are unfamiliar.

I am not talking about the philosophical question of whether we are really here or not. I am saying that given that our being here is actually a statistical inevitability given a large enough universe and enough time.[/quote]

Not so.

441

[quote]pat wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
pat wrote:
quidnunc wrote:

Truth is preferable to falsehood.

People who believe falsehoods, and, based on their false beliefs, do things that are harmful to others, should be persuaded otherwise if possible.

It’s not “hatred towards Christians”, it’s abhorrence for the awful things done in the name of religion and those who deliberately spread it, especially to children who don’t know better.

Atheists still hold the record for “awful things” done to people because of their particular belief system. If you are looking for a blameless group, you will not find one, and further athiests have been the worst of them by a long shot, so that’s a bad group to join.

Nope. I’m assuming you’re making a reference to the USSR, et cetera? They did what they did because of a quasi-religious belief in the need for revolution, and so forth, not out of atheism. Atheism is not a belief but the absence of one - it is compatible with any number of political systems, whether good or bad.

BULLSHIT…Other than the fact that my family actually lived the religious persecution at the hands of the Soviets, the government practiced state atheism whose job was to rid all religions in favor of atheism.
This was not “revolution fever” this was the murdering of MILLIONS of religious people because they were religious, and rejected atheism. Don’t tell me this is some patriotic revolution run amok. This shit is well documented. China, Albania, USSR, Cambodia, etc. All practiced and spread, state sponsored atheism. Their actions were driven by the fervor of their non-belief.[/quote]

It was more about destroying any rival power centres than killing people for being religious, looking at it dispassionately it is actually a clever way of tapping into religious fervour and using it for your own ends. Kind of like the Christian Church has done over the centruries, subvert the existing beliefs and structures absorbing parts of those beliefs and claiming them as your own original doctorines.