God, Existence and the Human Condition

nonsense; there is no such thing as a "lack of" ____

all things lacking do not exist, unless demonstrated, with evidential backing, otherwise, in which case they are not 'lacking'!

[and romance exists in the absence of the presence of deities; because there is 'romance', and there are 'no' deities. - an arguement about as foolish as that which has them coincide!]

I am pulling something out of thin air; I admit to that. But what I pull out of thin air is comforting to me, and so long as I don't use it to justify violating anyone's rights or insist that I'm correct with no explanation or claim that it is the only possible source of morality, I don't see why it's a problem to pull things out of thin air.

exactly!

the air, Frank, is decidedly "thick'!

BoGoWo, it seems that the only thing we're disagreeing on now is whether or not Atheism counts as a metaphysical belief. You say it's not because it's the lack of something. I say it is because I say any idea that's put forth without claiming any evidence is a metaphysical belief.

Belief: (n) - Something believed or accepted as true.

You believe and accept that there is no god. That is your belief. I don't see what the problem is.

Absolutely nothing...and I would never suggest there is anything wrong with it.

But this is an Internet forum set up to discuss these things...and that is what I am doing.

Nah...it's actually thin.

How ya been, Bo?

First Snood...and now you. Wow! Some old faces that don't seem to show up much any more.

i am NOT an 'atheist'; i refuse to be defined by what i do not believe!

[the term itself, is a religious one.]

Atheism shows itself in two different forms, 52.

Some atheists express their atheism thusly:

I do not believe in God.

Some express it:

I believe there is no God and are no gods.

They are two entirely different orders.

As an agnostic, I can live with the former with no trouble at all.

I don't "believe" in God...no matter what you think the word "believe" means.

The latter is a belief system just as surely as Christianity is a belief system.

It expresses a belief about the unknown.


Atheism...at least the athei

fine thanks Frank, i see your 'fence' is well and 'comfy', and 'holding up'!

[hope your health and enjoyment of life are as 'reliable'!]

Ain't no fence anywhere in my view.

I am smack down on one side of this issue...namely, that we do not have enough information to make an informed guess about what the REALITY of existence is.

Sorry you still have not been able to make that evolutionary move...but I know for some people, the words "I do not know" are very, very hard to say.

that would be, of course the Webster definition - using the word itself to define it - [buy an Oxford, and learn!]

there is indeed no 'problem'; it simply makes no sense to invent deities to explain questions which are difficult to answer (even though the 'obvious' IS the answer!); and projecting the human preoccupations with 'romance', and 'idealism' onto them, makes even less sense!

[Start from first principles, and build your own world on logic, and investigation, and you will be better served.]

Frank, I'm sorry if I sounded confrontational. I agree with you. I'm actually only trying to argue with BoGoWo.

BoGoWo, it's actually an American Heritage definition, but that's besides the point.

I apologize for straying from the topic, but this has become more of a discussion of whether my belief is valid than of whether God is a creation of the human mind. In that regard, I concede that BoGoWo is correct; I should not have answered the poll. Because I have no information about God, I cannot know whether he/she/it is a creation of the human mind; to choose "no" was a mistake.

However, I maintain that it is valid for me to believe whatever I want as long as I have no information. I admit that I don't know, but if it pleases me to take a guess, is that a problem? As far as I can tell I'm not doing anything wrong.

Hey, Frank. I'm both safe and well, thank God (if some of you will excuse the use of the term).

I, for one, have no trouble with the term at all...even though I prefer not to use it.

Glad all is well with you.

Tough line of business you are in right now!

Keep your head down! :wink:

Yup - We just got word that they're scrubbing the ranks of AMEDD instructors - getting us down to "bare bones" numbers, so that the pool of deployable soldiers is larger. Before '05 is done, I might have a temporary ME address.

Frank, I wasn't trying to disprove God. Nobody was.

I will say it for a third time. Maybe this time somebody will udnerstand me...

We start with a question: where did we come from? Based on the current laws of physics, if there were a large blob of matter somewhere in an endless sea of nothingness (space), then it woudl eventually form galaxies, planets, elements, evolution, life. there are a few small details we're missing, but as a whole, we understand this. So the only question remaining is: where did matter come from?

Did matter exist for all time? I don't know. Some people have a hard time understanding this so they say, "God created matter." If such a God existed, who was capable of creating matter, then it would have needed to exist for all time (because something cannot
create itself out of nothign, no matter how powerful, or else we would have infinitely powerful Gods creating
themselves at infinitely large frequencies).

And if an all powerful God existed for all time...then we have come back to the same question we were trying
to answer: how did something exist for all time?

In addition, we also have introduced a new and more difficult question: how can this magical being which
defies all the laws of the universe exist?

So really, even if there were a God, it would not answer any of our questions...it would only make
things more confusing...

So I was not trying to prove that God doesn't exist, I was proving that there is no reason whatsoever to believe in a God (which is entirely different).



Because in all of the religious propositions I am aware of, the God was responsible for doing things that we have already
determined to be caused by other things, such as the creation of the Earth, the evolution of humans from apes, etc.
Every time something that used to be attributed to God becomes explained, some people always try to believe in both...saying that
well perhaps God didn't do THAT thing...but he did everything else. Well, there is nothign else for him to do.

A second reason is because if a God existed, we assume he would have some kind of magical powers, such as being
able to create or destroy matter, to teleport, to magically implant visions and thoughts into people's minds...
many of these magical powers defy the laws of physics, so believing in a God would require throwing out the laws
of physics which have been so carefully established.

Who is arrogant enough to think that their own personal doubts about something came to be, are strong enough to rationalize throwign out the
work of all the thousands of scientistis and who have dedicated their lives to the study of our world? It is
only those people who have very limited knowledge of science who can entertain the possibility of throwing it
all out.

stuh505

The problem is that even if you or I have no "reason" to believe in "God" a significant number of others do. These "reasons" rarely conform to the rigours of traditional logic, nor do they technically need to if we allow for "other logics" or "rationalizations". Suffice to say that theism seems to satisfy a cognitive need at the level of individual and group. However what may appear beneficial at one level may turn out to be pernicious at another (consider for example "holy wars").

As I have said elsewhere,the concept of "God" cannot be ignored even by atheists because it has significant social repercussions. It may simply be the price we have to pay for the material benefits cognition has brought to the species.

Good point, Fresco -- if one does not use logic, they can believe anything!