> Phssthpok wrote:

>Do understand that that does not apply to all atheists. There are plenty of atheists who are atheists without feeling non-believing is an accomplishment.

>Of course I've been an atheist since I was 9.

Why didn't you respond to my reply, where I said that you had the situation backwards:
"used my logic (not necessarily better than anyone elses) --> no god"
Not: "no god --> more logical than believers"... this is what you claimed, but is actually the wrong way around.

There

Frenzy
My President is black, infact hes half white so even in a racist mind hes half right

>> "Why did you put the words "Murder" and "exists" together??"

>typo. although it could work, because Murder is basically, when killing someone is wrong, so if whether killing somone might not be wrong, murder might not exist, but it was just a typo though. 

ok

>>"was talking about the slavery thing. A Christian man would presumably have better morals that a slave-driver/owner; yet he abandons those morals and provides instructions on how to keep slaves in order to popular with slave owners or prevent bad things happening to himself. Does that sound very Christain-like?"

>i had a hard time describing it. the writer doesnt necessarily think all slavery is wrong, whats important is that the message the of the writer was step towards a slavery is wrong mentality. also, the writer wasnt a christian, the old testament happened before Jesus, so all the Writers were Jews. just like, the person who wrote and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, might not of believed you should turn the other cheek when someone strikes, you, but its a step in that direction.

Thanks for pointing out that he was a Jew and not a Christian - however the title of the thread ultimately shows that the exact religion is not important to my overall theme.

Still, those Rev's said that the Bible only condones slavery - as this guy has by providing instructions on how to keep slaves (as have several authors in several books). Your interpretation is interesting, but it's rather tricky for me to agree considering what Rev's said, as well as things I've mentioned already.

I've tried to steer away from metaphors. But if I wanted to ban coal power stations, I wouldn't start with "oh well some coal power stations are ok, and here is how to run them...." or if I wanted to assit the church in banning pre-marital sex "Do not have sex before you are married, except under these circumstances and here is how you do it.... " haha. laughing at my own joke there.

>i'll try to be alittle more obvious. how do you know what you see exists? your eyes send signals to your brain that your brain interprets as something. so, everything that you have seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched, are really just your brain  or mind reacting to stimulus. there is no evidence that what your mind interprets is what actually exists, unless you want to define reality by what people's minds interpret from stimulus, inwhich case, theres are billions of realities, some where God exists and some where God doesnt exist; some where murder is wrong, some where killing a 6 year old for no real reason isnt wrong.

Enter the matrix.

> avogadro wrote:

> "Enter the matrix."

> not just the matrix. a matrix would be one, very unlikely scenario. it doesnt need to be some intentional thing. the point being is not to take for granted, that you only see the world through your senses; and your senses are simply things that stimulate your brain.

I don't doubt this. Because this is true, God could potentially exist in a 4th or 5th or 1024th dimension, right? So because there is potential for this, and because your family, friends, priest told you so (please see Frenzy's post for good examples of this), you choose to believe that he does exist, created the world and all that's in it, he is watching over you and he does love you. Interesting.

> >"Still, those Rev's said that the Bible only condones slavery "

>they were biased. it wasnt ignorance, like i know more about the bible. but they wanted slavery to exist, and looked for proof through the bible. are you gonna look at oil companies who proof of global warming or cigarette companies for proof that smoking causes cancer?

It's fair enough to say they may have liked slavery. Did they like slavery and find justification for it in the Bible, or do they like the Bible and then after reading passages such as these decide that slavery was ok? I guess without being able interrogate them it's just our own opinion (sometimes based on what others have told us) as to which it is.

>wrong. there is no reason to believe God doesn't exist in this dimension, the fact that there could be multiple dimensions doesnt change this. i am merely pointing out, that while there is no proof of God, there is no proof of anything other then your own mind existing and some form of stimulus.

okaaayyy... thanks for pointing out that I was 'wrong' about what you were saying. I miss your whole point then. Is it that God chooses to block our minds from stimulus so that we can't see him, but instead sends Jesus to tell us about him??...?

edit: No my mistake that's not your point. Your point is that there is no proof of anything. Nice. So there is no point in talking about anything or doing anything (on any level from us on IC forums up to the President) because there is no proof that there is anything. Cool.

edit2: I suppose my first paragrah here still remains valid though. Sending a man to tell us about yourself, instead of just having a booming voice from the sky that could reach the entire planet, seems pretty lame imho.

> no, i mean there is no absolute proof of anything, so dont seek proof of something.just because there is no proof of anything, doesnt make your life any more trivial.

hehehheh. This is pretty far out there man. At least it's a bit better than most responses I end up getting, which typically is "God works in mysterious ways".

if i rolled up to kick your ass from within an iron chariot, God help you

> its not far-fetched at all. its fact. there is no way to tell anything you sense to really exist, unless you define existing by what you sense. if you disagree with that, explain why please.

You could spend your whole life going around saying that Scientology (can't believe I haven't mentioned it before now) is the correct religion, we live in the matrix, or God's equivalent of the matrix, or in a test tube of a 13 yr old nerd on the planet kherg from the 23rd dimension.  Except what's the point? The scientific community has developed robust methods of determining what works in THIS world. The one in which we live, percieve, sense, observe etc.  Your airey-fairey comments that there could be something else sounds to me as a way of justifying one of the things you have been saying all along "there is no proof that God doesn't exist therefore I choose to believe he does."

You still haven't given a decent answer why you believe in him, and this other magical supernatural place that we can't sense. It is because your family, friends, priest and the place in you bought up told you he exists and it feels good and so you have no need to step outside this comfort zone.

If we go into the 4th or 5th or 23rd dimension and discover that the universe is in a test tube owned by a 13yr old nerd; is this the God that you are worshoping? I hardly think he sent Jesus (unless he is really good in his equivalent version of some kind of nano-people), knows about each of us individually and loves us all equally.

"At least it's a bit better than most responses I end up getting, which typically is "God works in mysterious ways""

> im saying, you put too much importance on requiring proof in the argument against Religion, when atheists believe in just as many things that are not proven.

Like what? If something is not proven; science is quite good at saying "we dont know if this works, but this is what we think, lets see if we can find a test". Religion is good at saying "I haven't got a message from God recently, but this is what my priest tells me OR, but this is what I choose to believe." Sounds like you put more weight behind what your preist tells you, or your own imagination, than what can be observed and measured in the real world.

>life is a personal journey, being christian, or jewish, or atheist is simply a reflection of what values you personally uphold in that journey, (none more valid then any other)  it has nothing to do with what a certain chapter of the bible says or whether Noah was real or fictional or a pagan. it doesnt even have anything to do with whether Jesus or God exists.

This is just 'blah'. Values have nothing to do with which religion you are. If I just happen to live by the values described in the commandments, that doesn't suddenly make me christain. I am really enjoying being told that you don't have to believe that noah was real or fictional - you can just choose whatever you want, as long as I keep Jesus. Maybe I'll choose to believe that Jesus was fictional and everything else was real. Making up my own religion again, fun.

> i have given a decent answer, you just choose to ignore it. i believe in the message, and ideals of Christianity, so i follow it.

You believe in the message and in the ideals, and so you choose to believe in the existence of God? You think that these ideals and morals would be non-existant if God was not there?

> like the earth orbits the sun.

It has been proven.  The Church would still be telling us it's the other way around if it wasn't.

> science isnt concerned with what really exists, science is concerned with testing their empiraclly.

Which, like I said in the previous post, is the world in which we live. There could be millions of possilibities for realms outside of which we live - and your priest and family telling you it's definately an all-powerful being who loves you, is quite far-fetched and like pulling one of those possibilities out of a hat.

>>"This is just 'blah'. Values have nothing to do with which religion you are"

>it has everything to do with it. maybe you should stop telling religious people what they beleive, and listen to them?

WTF!!!!! Sometimes you throw out the odd garbage statement! You took my comment out of context - look at the sentence immediately following the one you quoted... And what have I been doing this entire thread? I've been asking questions, asking what you believe and why you believe it. At the top of your last post you were replying to a question where I asked what you believe.

Furthermore, until now, you have not talked about values as a reason for believing that an invisble being existing (which is drawing a long bow with a short arrow, imho).

>> "You believe in the message and in the ideals, and so you choose to believe in the existence of God? You think that these ideals and morals would be non-existant if God was not there?"

>no, i think that the morals and the ideals are worth adhering to, so i adhere to them, which includes believing in a God.

ok, cool.  'Murder is bad', 'rape is bad' are values to me, but 'there is a God' I have not heard of as being defined as a 'value' or 'moral' as such. Quite interesting. I  live by a similar group of values and morals, except mine has no mention of God.

>>"It has been proven."

>what part of there is no evidence anything you sense is real dont you understand?

You are so cute! Just because you don't understand it, or haven't looked at it, does not mean that there is no proof. Google it.

Well I'm talking about physical proof through observations. Perhaps you are meaning there is no "proof" in so much as there is no "proof" that I am sitting at my desk as I type this.

>>"Which, like I said in the previous post, is the world in which we live."

>no evidence of that.... just what you sense.

Going in circles. By the world in which we live I mean the world which we sense. Yawn. Could you pls remind me how this line of conversation, ie we only know the world we can percieve, provides evidence that there is a God. I've provided a thought over the last couple of posts (ie because we can't sense the 23rd dimension, doesn't automatically mean there is a God who Loves you in it) but haven't really got a reply on that.

"By the world in which we live I mean the world which we sense"

there we go. ok, so if the world is defined by how our brains interpret the stimulus we receive from our senses, then every person's world is different and God must exist in a majority of them.

> Lizon wrote:

> When it comes to God and religion it's as simple as this.

>God exists.

>God doesn't exist.

>If he doesn't exist it won't matter if you believe if he exists or not. So I believe God exists. ^.^

>(how bout that logic? )

Poor form.

Do you wear a bright yellow day-glow vest every day  when you walk down the sidewalk so a bus doesn't hit you?

Do you think that God would agree with this as being a good reason to believe in him?