Are atheists being more illogical than agnostics?

It's agreed by many agnostics and deists that a god does not intervene to save us. Children are starved, beaten, murdered, with no rescuing magic hand. War ravages spots repeatedly, egged on with impunity by certain world powers. Evangelists put on trick shows to become wealthy and influential. Politicians often cannot stoop too low, creating chaos and death. The average person leads a mostly good life and still believes in the goodness of "God." They might pray for little Jenny to recover from cancer. If she does: "Glory to God." If not: "Well the Lord has his reasons. Now she is with the angels." A pandemic is indiscriminate who it takes. Drunk drivers kill indiscriminately when they got the wrong way on the freeway. Whole swaths of animals go extinct regularly. And yet we are supposed to be exceptional, created by a god on a less than speck ball in the vastness of the universe and the ball has a predicted life span after which no life will be possible here. The con's success is mind-boggling in light of that small incomplete list.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

It's agreed by many agnostics and deists that a god does not intervene to save us. Children are starved, beaten, murdered, with no rescuing magic hand. War ravages spots repeatedly, egged on with impunity by certain world powers. Evangelists put on trick shows to become wealthy and influential. Politicians often cannot stoop too low, creating chaos and death. The average person leads a mostly good life and still believes in the goodness of "God." They might pray for little Jenny to recover from cancer. If she does: "Glory to God." If not: "Well the Lord has his reasons. Now she is with the angels." A pandemic is indiscriminate who it takes. Drunk drivers kill indiscriminately when they got the wrong way on the freeway. Whole swaths of animals go extinct regularly. And yet we are supposed to be exceptional, created by a god on a less than speck ball in the vastness of the universe and the ball has a predicted life span after which no life will be possible here. The con's success is mind-boggling in light of that small incomplete list.

Agreed!

While I do not know if any gods (creators) exist...I do have opinions on some things...and one opinion I have is that if a god does exist...and if the Bible accurately describes that god...

...we are all screwed major league.

The god of the Bible is one of the least desirable gods ever proposed. The many gods of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Norse...all have qualities I find more commendable.

This is not to say that kind of god is impossible...but if one exists like that, I give it the one finger salute. Ain't nothin' gonna make me good with that kind of god.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

if the Bible accurately describes that god...

...we are all screwed major league.

I don't agree, but in the wider argument pro/con for 'God', it would be absurd to hold God hostage to ANY book, including the Bible.

It feels like it's being used as an excuse or maybe just intellectual laziness.

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If there is no personal god then we have the anthropomorphized universe or simply the universe. The universe is just the universe, just as we are just a peculiarity of chemistry.

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Is that like in, 'This computer is just a peculiarity of silicon.' ?

I wish you understood how comparable those statements are.

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@Leadfoot,

You are educated enough to know the difference between natural and manmade stuff. A rock naturally exists. A man can in some way transform the rock. If you want to say gods do not intervene but now they do intervene, there is a disconnect somewhere.

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@edgarblythe,

I didn't mention anything about intervention lately but that is a more complicated matter than 'does he or not'.

But yes, i am educated enough to recognize 'natural' from 'intelligently designed'.

Ignoring the cosmological fine tuning argument for the moment, 'natural' is anything that happens due to unguided interactions of matter ruled by the laws of physics or chemistry.

Biological life emerging cannot be explained or demonstrated by any known unguided interactions of those types. Anyone today who claims that it has been proven otherwise is simply lying to you. Biological life has an intelligent actor's fingerprints all over it.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

i am educated enough to recognize 'natural' from 'intelligently designed

I disagree. IDers have failed (beyond the fine tuned universe belief) to even develop a means by which you could employ the scientific method to underpin your view of "design"

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@Leadfoot,

If a god or what you call it would intervene millions of years ago to add that spark to begin evolution wouldn't it make sense it would feel a bit of proprietorship and guide its creation along instead of letting us go a path so destructive as to set us on a more and more probable road to extinction? Why bother at all if we are subsequently going to blast each other with more and more sophisticated means? That one child starves, is enslaved, or is murdered is proof enough for me no divine entity exists to give a crap about life or anything else.

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@farmerman,

This is a laugh.

Lemme guess. "University" degree?

Yet you fail to realize that everything in science cannot have arisen naturally.

The most basic law of science is cause and effect, that is, if I strike a match, I do not see not see no effect. Nor does a match spontaneously burst into flames. There are some substances that burst into flame with no (apparent) cause, yet again there is a cause. Such materials are pyrophoric, and it is not from reason that they burst into flames but a cause such as exposure to air. Cause and effect is a law, and unlike gravity which can be suspended under certain circumstances (airplanes and hang gliders using various principles of aerodynamics that I don't quite understand, magnets and superconductors, being outside the gravity of a planet, etc), I know of no exception to cause and effect. It is not only a law, but a universal law for everything but the behavior of human and animals. In other words, only the non-physical (spiritual) reality is immune to cause and effect.

So if you say that nothing caused the universe to be created (which is often what you mean by natural means), you have already taken leave of your logic.

I could go on, and talk about matter and energy not being able to created or destroyed, and the implications of how matter must either reshape itself or have an original creator. I could talk about how the laws of physics (magnetism, gravity, states of matter, etc) are such that each of them had to have been designed correctly to hold together planets, and further were themselves subject to cause and effect, that gravity had to have been governed by something/someone. I could talk about the very precise conditions behind life on earth, including turning subatomic particles into atoms, making DNA, etc.

But I know what you'd say. "You have no proof." All of this WAS proof.

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@edgarblythe,

That you are dead-set on killing yourself does not mean God doesn't exist.

If you decide tomorrow to do a dangerous motorcycle stunt, your mom will talk you out of it, your dad, your significant other. If you ignore all of these, and go ahead with jumping across a 400 ft gorge, you cannot say that nobody tried to help you. And no, before you ask, God probably won't try to protect you. Or if that does happen, you'll wind up in a hospital with broken everything.

So you think people should live their lives in a padded room? Would you be happy like that?

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@bulmabriefs144,

So you think it's a satisfactory state of affairs that your god allows children to be exploited, murdered, etc.?

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

If a god or what you call it would intervene millions of years ago to add that spark to begin evolution wouldn't it make sense it would feel a bit of proprietorship and guide its creation along instead of letting us go a path so destructive as to set us on a more and more probable road to extinction? Why bother at all if we are subsequently going to blast each other with more and more sophisticated means? That one child starves, is enslaved, or is murdered is proof enough for me no divine entity exists to give a crap about life or anything else.

Those are gratifying questions because i think they are among the ones that must be answered if one is inclined to honestly seek God. Here are my thoughts on them.

Yes, if there is a rational God, (I am a rational being, I could accept no other kind) he would take an active interest in his creation. But when I experimentally step into his shoes, I see that if my desired emotion toward these beings is love, then my interactions with them will have to be much deeper than Pavlov had with his dogs.

In the matter of 'The Problem of Pain', that probably will take more than a single conversation. But a necessary overarching perspective when contemplating a God, logically has to be that this life is not the end goal, and hence, NOTHING that happens here has ultimate significance in true reality, including our physical/biological death.

Do I know the particulars behind 'premature' deaths? I have had a lot of thoughts about that. But none of them would be persuasive on the topic.

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@Leadfoot,

So in other words a dead fetus or murdered child is part of the beneficence of the god's plan since blissful heaven awaits? I just don't get it and never will.

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@edgarblythe,

This will probably not satisfy you, but i am not sure i even existed before about age 7. It was as if i was dropped off on the planet knowing nothing. I knew how to read and do math but had no memory of learning.

I have met full grown adults in which i could sense no living soul. They may in fact be the mere animals that materialists say we all are. So from either their or my perspective, what significance was their 'death'.

I wish i could make that less Cold, but i hate sugar coating things.

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@Leadfoot,

People often try the emotional approach with me. "What about your mother," they say. "Do you want her to be dead and never be with her again?" Something like that. What I wish barely counts. In the vast scheme of it nothing I wish counts but in a personal sense. Sure I would like her to be with me. But, as the callous among us might say, "Wish in one hand . . . " Emotion is personal. When applied to the vastness it counts for nothing.

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@bulmabriefs144,

once again you need to unerstand that, in order to make a logical argument in something you claim is scientific, you need to have a way to present your evience. So far, all your arguments are vacuous ,and without any focus at all.

Quote:

Yet you fail to realize that everything in science cannot have arisen naturally

point ut to where Ive said that. We create with science we investigate and experiment. Those issues that are natural, I think Ive been quite opn and specific.

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@bulmabriefs144,

Quote:

But I know what you'd say. "You have no proof." All of this WAS proof.

What your sphiel was , was nothing more than stating the conclusions, not the hows and whens and whys. The evidence is wheb=n you can clarly state what the "cause" was and understaning how it works.
Youve faile to even com close.

Yes several university degrees all of which have helped me to look into causes and effects.

Its obvious that theres so much more out there than youre willing to admit . I dont deny my own ignorance. I just dont go around making these empty statements like many of you and hope that you are sufficiently bamboozling others.
but I see how youve turned your "flood BS" into something more plausible (Its a fable).

Using the principles of falsfication we could easily falsify your initial FLOOD FABLE into what it actually was, a legend used by teachers and elders .

Quote:

I know of no exception to cause and effect. It is not only a law, but a universal law for everything but the behavior of human and animals. In other words, only the non-physical (spiritual) reality is immune to cause and effect.

first off you have no idea what even constitutes a law or a theory, you and noints and leadfoot have been dead-ass wrong as much as youve been regarding a" Flood" Then to top it off you say that when cause and ffect are invalid, its supernatural. Do you spnd lots of time searching your rectal orific for this "wisdom"??.
Please dont present yourself as someone who is busy speaking evidence, cause you havent had a smidge of evidence yet. Im being deadly honest. Evidence isnt just your opinion its able to be factually backe up.

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@bulmabriefs144,

bulmabriefs144 wrote:

This is a laugh.

Lemme guess. "University" degree?

Yet you fail to realize that everything in science cannot have arisen naturally.

The most basic law of science is cause and effect, that is, if I strike a match, I do not see not see no effect. Nor does a match spontaneously burst into flames. There are some substances that burst into flame with no (apparent) cause, yet again there is a cause. Such materials are pyrophoric, and it is not from reason that they burst into flames but a cause such as exposure to air. Cause and effect is a law, and unlike gravity which can be suspended under certain circumstances (airplanes and hang gliders using various principles of aerodynamics that I don't quite understand, magnets and superconductors, being outside the gravity of a planet, etc), I know of no exception to cause and effect. It is not only a law, but a universal law for everything but the behavior of human and animals. In other words, only the non-physical (spiritual) reality is immune to cause and effect.

So if you say that nothing caused the universe to be created (which is often what you mean by natural means), you have already taken leave of your logic.

I could go on, and talk about matter and energy not being able to created or destroyed, and the implications of how matter must either reshape itself or have an original creator. I could talk about how the laws of physics (magnetism, gravity, states of matter, etc) are such that each of them had to have been designed correctly to hold together planets, and further were themselves subject to cause and effect, that gravity had to have been governed by something/someone. I could talk about the very precise conditions behind life on earth, including turning subatomic particles into atoms, making DNA, etc.

But I know what you'd say. "You have no proof." All of this WAS proof.

It really is quite difficult for some people to simply state the obvious. In this case, "the obvious" answer to the question, "Is there at least one god...or are there no gods?"...is...

...I do not know...and cannot make a reasonable guess.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

People often try the emotional approach with me. "What about your mother," they say.

Am I reading this correctly? Wasn't it you who invoked the 'emotional' into the discussion with 'dead babys and children'?

Did just my use of the word 'love' provoke this response or did you confuse something someone else said with me? Ive done that myself a time or two.

But to clarify my position, just as I would not accept a God who ignored my 'reason', nor would i accept one who ignored my emotions.

1 Reply

Are atheists being more illogical than agnostics?

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