What Makes People NOT believe In God? (Atheists Come!)

Thalion, the only one here convinced of your argument is yourself - that's a pretty small party. If you neither acknowledge nor recognize that numerous factual errors and logical fallacies flawing your argument have been brought to your attention and explained, thats fine .... and wholly in keeping with a particular stereotype. I guess in one way, you are fortunate; if left alone, at least you have someone to play with. Enjoy yourself.

Contrarily, I showed my religion teacher from last year who has a PhD in Bible study, a masters in Philosophy, and taught History at college. He agreed with me.

Jeez, there are two of ya???

I showed him last night after I realized that no one agreed with what I am saying. He hasn't contributed to the argument.

We're surrounded, they're on all three sides of us. Square the wagons boys, the renaissance is treating.

This is probably my last post on this topic b\c it's evidently not going anywhere. If I define the sky to be blue b\c I call that color that the sky IS blue, how is that logically wrong? I am doing the same thing with God.

Apparently so:



That does add up to two, by my count, both of whom have made equal contribution to the argument.

I do feel better about one thing, though - at least Thalion needn't play alone.

Will you please make SPECIFIC arguments against what I said? I defined a God in an Idealist sense and said that he exists as the Idea. What is illogical about that? For a while now it has been me against a couple people who have only claimed that I have not put forward enough evidence. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE. It is a philosophical system that is yet to be attacked as a system. The evidence lies in the philosophy of the system.

Thalion

You can define God as iceberg lettuce...and thereby show that God exists.

That is a devise...not an argument.

If you do not see the absurdity of it without help...chances are, help will not help.

YES! That's right. If I define God as lettuce he exists AS LETTUCE. I am not arguing for the existence of God in the normal sense; that should be obvious by now. Use a word other than God if you don't like it. My philosophy does not change.

You are the one causing the problem, Thalion. You are the one causing the confusion.

You should be using some word other than "god."

If you were not talking about "defining god" in a way that shows "god exists"...none of this would be going on.


But...it sounds as though you have finally GOT IT!

Actually, we no longer accept (in philosophy) the validity of methods used by most of the philosophers of old you mentioned. While they are interesting, they are more historical than accepted. Modern philosophy takes a number of turns, but most of them don't relate to plato, aristotle, or even, to some extent, descartes. This is because they weren't using any particular logic method, it was more... Interesting ideas than solutions to logic problems.

And no, there isn't any mystical truth in beauty. It is inconsistent, and can be dissected logically the same ways that anything else can. Take an art history class. Take a biology class. Humans have certain standard preferences because we are biologically and culturally predisposidioned to liking certain visual traits.

Yes, and this is the religious training I was talking about. What was it you were saying about how limiting your sources of information can lead to false foundations? You can think of this argument as another potential source of information.

There are a lot of people in the world who are highly trained and accredited at doing nonsense. Not that there aren't good and interesting things in the bible, there are plenty. I particularly like Matthew. But that doesn't mean that they are true accounts of anything.

And, Thailion, if you are still here, why would you make an argument for everyone to believe in the existance of something whose evidence exists only in your imagination?

All hail lettuce of icebergia, great and terrible*.
*also cares about your social life.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you believing whatever you want to believe. But that doesn't make it truth. (Truth is more universal than individual belief.)

All this lettuce talk got me to thinkin'. Went and fried up some thick, real lean bacon, sliced some tomato, toasted some nice cracked wheat home-made bread, tore off a couple leaves of lettuce, and came up with a pretty satisfyin' sandwich. Plenty of mayo, and fresh, coarse-round black pepper, too. Thanks for the idea. That really hit the spot.

Now, lets see ... where were we? Oh, yeah. Lettuce Entertain You ... that's about right, ain't it?

I had to leave b\c I had classes to go to; I had been in the computer lab.

I don't remember ever saying anything about limiting my sources, not sure where that came from. I have had no formal "training"; the philosophy we did cover last year consisted of quotes and Plato's Allegory of the Cave, that's about it. A little on accidental vs. essential qualities. Some other stuff, nothing that extensive. The rest was history/sacraments. I have, since then, read a great deal on my own.

It has been obvious from the start that I was not talking about the ordinary meaing of God. I said that God exists as Truth as it is learned; that is not exactly what comes to mind when I think of the usual church-going definition. I believe I even did use Hegel's word Zeitgeist several times. That should have given it away; not sure how that possibly could have caused confusion. I spoke of erecting Christianity around the Idealist philosophy that I was describing. Again, I am not starting with Christianity. I said Christianity was a good MODEL, not that it was definitely true.

There is a difference between what exists in my "imagination" and a philosophical abstraction. What I have been proposing is the latter.

As I said when I spoke of determinism, I don't pay attention to pyschology b\c I cannot personally percieve the pyschological elements that affect my decisions as I make them.

This debate is done though. I will convince no one, and you will not convince me.

Convince you of what?

I was pointing out that your train of thought didn't make sense, it doesn't matter who you quote. That's different from my trying to convert you to or from... Lettucism.

If you are not wanting to know psycology because it is not readily apparent to you that it is happening, then you probably don't want to know anything. Most things that you learn you aren't aware of until you learn them. I'm sure whoever discovered air didn't do so because they were automatically consious of its existance. Your eye works a certain way and even though you aren't aware of it, knowing how it works has provided many people glasses and sight who wouldn't have it.

And as for further mind/body philosophy reading, you might want to check out:

Philosophy of Mind by Dale Jacquette (a very hard read, but good)
and
A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality by John Perry (an easy read, and good)

Thanks; I'll try to read them when I have time.... school is hectic now, but Christmas break is coming...

Well, I read through all the pages and I just wanted to add my opinion.

First, you have to look at the definition of "god" before you say you believe in it or not. Is there a judeo-christian form of "god"? How about a muslim or hindu "god"? Are you talking about some omnipotent being who created everything? Personally, I think all of it is BS, just as almost everyone thinks Zeus and Odin are BS now. especially if you are talking about the god in the physical form.

I think science is the ultimate religion, and it has been at constant battles with religious dogmas for thousands of years. Personally, I think when we unlock the aging devices, and grant ourselves eternal life, we will be de-void of god. I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news to the religious folk, but we aren't that far off (in scientific means) from granting eternal life. It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but I can envision it in my grandchildrens lifetime (I'm 33 BTW).

I foresee a time when we will be able to clone body parts for repairing our damaged organs (yep, stem cells). I also see a time when we can turn back the aging sequence in cells. There is a "clock" for lack of a better term, that slowly allows us to age. Our cells replicate and as we age, our DNA fails to repair itself. I think if we can find out how to unlock the DNA failures, we can start slowing down the aging process.

THere are so many new avenues we can head down in terms of aging, science and the genome.

Now, if we do find a way of eternal life, does that destroy the use of a god? I mean if you look right down to the baseline of all organized religions, they all promise some sort of afterlife. Well, if we could prolong our life for eternity, would that eliminate the "need" for a god? It's a question for a lot of the religious people on A2K.

Now, the reason I don't believe in ANY god is physics. Each religion I am familiar with deals with some sort of physical quirk which is impossible from a science aspect. They all deal with this thing called "faith" which is a clever use of the english language to cover up the failures in religion.

If people use religion to better themselves, and society, then it is actually a good thing, but all to often it's used for perverse means. Right now, in our country, we are trying to persecute all other non-christian religions through a clever propaganda release. Almost every single war was started because of religion.

Now, for all of you religious folks, if religion is supposed to promote peace, how come it has been used to kill so many people? Why have there been so much persecution and prejudices castigating a group just because they think their invisible guy is better then your invisible guy?

This may come across as blasphemy to many, it was not intended to, only to express my opinion. I have nothing against people who live by faith, but if you want to start quoting biblical passages, remember what else is in the bible. In other words, you don't get to pick and choose.

You had me until "Eternal Life"

That's up there with concepts like "World Peace."

It just isn't happening, and if it does it will cause all manner of problems.