Night Ripper v. HeroicOvenmitt: Religion

Because he had a dream by night, and a tree branch blazing in fire spoke to him and said, I am your Lord, the living word and you shall obey me... and so he did...

I'm an atheist. But, based on Night Rippers argument behavior on a2k so far, I might jump sides.

No need to do that. God will smite him down .

Ragman, no need to test God.
And if you want a quick answer, skip to the bottom. The rest is an explanation.

To be quite frank, I was raised in a Christian household. That is why I originally deemed myself a Christian. I had often thought that if I had not been raised in a Christian household, I would never accept such beliefs.
However, recently, when I started attending UCF, my faith was challenged, as one would expect to have happen at a university.
Admittedly, I faltered. I had doubts, but any Christian who tells you they don't on occasion is most likely lying or insane.
I decided to set out to search for objective answers. Away from parental interference, away from the 'church' as a whole, I would conduct my own research into the subject.

I found a book at Books A Million called I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. That book turned nearly everything I knew upside-down. It made me laugh out loud at some of the falsehoods I had previously taken for granted or simply never considered(in religion, logic, science, philosophy, everything). Its basic premise is that faith fills in where knowledge cannot. Everyone has faith. We take it on faith that all people die, yet we have not observed all people to die. No person lacks a degree of faith in their life. The book simply says that it takes more faith to be an atheist than to accept much of what science is pointing to now, which is that there is a supernatural being(it even uses simple logic to point to being one of the three major theistic religions, that is Islam, Judaism, or Christianity.
In fact, that book is where I have gotten most of my arguments, and I think it's fairly evident how these have held up.

So to answer the question in short, originally, I was a Christian because my parents were. But more recently, I will say it is because I have begun my own search into philosophy and science to find answers and a theistic God is the most logical conclusion from the evidence that I have at my disposal.

Now, if I may ask, why are you an atheist?

Also, though this is unrelated, why is there a tag for 'newbie doobie doo' on this thread?
Are you implying that my reasoning is actually just a trouble-maker pretending to be a ghost to scare away new business from a zoo? And if so, who is scooby - or excuse me, newbie?

I'm a ??????? As I don't believe in believing in beliefs .... Believe me.

I'm a ??????? As I don't believe in believing in beliefs .... Believe me.

I think usage of the word faith is misleading. I would say that I don't have faith that all people die, but I do believe that all people die. Faith has more implications than mere belief. The reason why I believe all people die is because so many people have died and we are all pretty similar. It's simpler to believe we all die than to think that for some reason, some people are special.

As for why I'm an atheist, there's no evidence for the existence of a god. If a god did exist and did want me to believe then that god would know exactly what evidence I would need to believe it. I'm not talking about violating my free will. Just like you can provide evidence that you have a $20 bill by showing me it without violating my free will, a god could provide evidence to me that it existed. Yet, that evidence hasn't been found.

There's evidence that all people die, there's no evidence that a god exists.

Okay, I'll roll with this. What is that belief based on?
Knowing that people die on a regular basis, correct?
How many people do you observe dying on a regular basis?(that is rhetorical, we don't need to get all morbid)
Have you observed everyone to this point in history die?
Clearly not as I am still here and it would be impossible to observe everyone.

"The reason why I believe all people die is because so many people have died and we are all pretty similar. It's simpler to believe we all die than to think that for some reason, some people are special."

This is based on the Law of Uniformity, which is very important to Forensic science. This law is really more of an assumption that causes in the past are the same as causes now. I am not accusing it of being false, as there is a huge amount of science based on this Law. Point being, since you cannot EMPIRICALLY observe everyone die, it is - while largely based on knowledge and cleary rational - taken on faith. You know all people SHOULD die, but you have a belief based on faith that they all actually do. It's very logical of you to think that way, that's what makes the most sense. But it still requires at least a figurative ounce of faith.

"As for why I'm an atheist, there's no evidence for the existence of a god. If a god did exist and did want me to believe then that god would know exactly what evidence I would need to believe it. I'm not talking about violating my free will. Just like you can provide evidence that you have a $20 bill by showing me it without violating my free will, a god could provide evidence to me that it existed. Yet, that evidence hasn't been found."

Well, I've made this case many times now.

The Law of Causality says every effect needs a cause. If this is not clear to you, it is because you do not want it to be. It is really rather obvious - even David Hume agrees - that nothing arises without a cause.

The General Theory of Relativity says that the universe began with 'the Big Bang'.
The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics tell us the universe could not be infinite. There is no more energy being created, and all the energy in the universe is gradually becoming less usable. If the universe were infinite, that means that we'd be outta usable energy by now.

Additionally, the very idea of an infinite universe is impossible. Time is finite. It is impossible in the natural world to have an infinite amount of a finite thing. Therefore, it is impossible for time to be infinite. If it were, today would not happen. Because you'd have to go from infinity ago to today. That's basically saying 'infinity + 1'. You'll never get to the 1 because there's infinity before it.

Additionally, the presence of "great galaxy seeds" and Cosmic Background Radiation point to the Big Bang.

All of this tells us that the universe had a beginning. It was CAUSED by something to begin, otherwise it has no reason to begin.

Logic tells us that either
A) nothing caused the universe
or B) something caused the universe

Since nothing is not a cause(it is nothing), it has to be B.

Something caused the universe. Since time and matter are products of the natural world(the universe) and came into being at the big bang, it is logical to say that time and space do not apply as limitations to the cause of the universe, which is by its very nature, supernatural. Therefore, this supernatural force(which I will call "God") is infinite.
Since it is infinite, it does not need a cause and could not logically have one, nothing can come BEFORE infinity.

Additionally, as this supernatural force is infinite, there can only be 1 of it. You can't have 2 infinite things, otherwise they would not be infinite.

Therefore, I submit that the universe EXISTING is evidence that there is a God. Not only that there is A God, but that there can only be ONE God.

So, you define faith as belief without certainty? Well in that case, I have faith in lots of things. I have faith that when I sit down in this chair, I won't fall through it. I have faith that when I drink a glass of water it will quench my thirst instead of killing me. I pretty much have faith in everything because I am certain of very few things, other than I exist.

My question is now, what do you think this gives you? How do you go from believing in things with partial evidence to believing in things without any evidence at all?



You're committing a fallacy called reification.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29



In other words, A should be interpreted as "there is no thing that caused the universe". Instead, you interpret it as "nothingness caused the universe". It is a common mistake.

Yes! We're on the same page about faith now.

"My question is now, what do you think this gives you? How do you go from believing in things with partial evidence to believing in things without any evidence at all?"

I just provided my evidence. Which part of it was invalid?

"Logic tells us that either
A) nothing caused the universe
or B) something caused the universe

Since nothing is not a cause(it is nothing), it has to be B."

Okay, to avoid reification let me restate. Either A
There was no cause for the universe to begin.
or B
There was some cause for the universe to begin.

The point remains valid or is made more valid now that there is no reification.

The following...



It's A.

can I do the commercials for this epic bout...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5S0WXuJUw

hahaha
that's actually where I got the name from.
It was my first screen name on a computer game 8 years ago. It's original enough that nobody else ever has it so I never gave it up.

(sorry for the tangent)

You say there is no cause for the universe.
Then why do we - that is the universe as a whole - exist?

Why does there have to be a why? Why can't the universe just exist without a cause?

I covered that. Firstly, because of the Law of Causality. Also, if it just 'exists' then it must be infinite. This is impossible because of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and the evidence that it exploded into everything from nothing.

Forgive me for not addressing this earlier.
You confuse me for King David and Moses.
It's okay though, happens all the time.

Ah, like how skeptics are skeptical of everything except their own skepticism? Because being skeptical of skepticism would lead you to be more sure of something. =)