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The Crack that Lets the Light In

 
 
ascribbler
 
  1  
Reply Tue 10 May, 2022 11:09 pm
@edgarblythe,
None taken.
0 Replies
 
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 May, 2022 03:21 am
@ascribbler,
ascribbler wrote:

Quote:
I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.


Quote:
As I have explained, I also do not find the notion of the existence of a god "believable or necessary"


Congratulations on being an agnostic atheist Frank.


I am NOT an atheist of any kind.
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 May, 2022 03:22 am
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:

People who quote Apisa get their post collapsed by me. No offence intended.


No one with a brain would be offended. Who cares if you collapse a post.
0 Replies
 
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 May, 2022 03:25 am
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:


If you already read this before, not a word of it has changed.

One
When you get up every morning you know what's going to happen all day long. That is, you don't expect people to walk on water, the sun to stand still in the sky, or to suddenly be able to move faster than a speeding bullet. No magic will happen and you don't expect it to. And yet if somebody asked, you are possibly conditioned to answer, "Yes, the magic could happen." Nevertheless, you don't expect to wrestle with an angel on the way to the bus stop. You know the sun will cross the sky, the result of two heavenly bodies in their respective positions relative to one another.

Reasonable people know that evolution is a fact. I refuse to grant credence to anyone who opposes the truth of the evolutionary theory. Some would posit that a creator is necessary to the process, but the same rule that You know when you wake up what will happen all day long is much more reasonable and there is no evidence contrariwise. From the Big Bang until now there is no measurable evidence of divine intervention.

Death seems a necessary component of evolution, allowing for adaptation to occur. Also, the fact that almost every single organism is food to other organisms. The human notoriously will eat almost anything that doesn't eat it first. What's intelligent about a system that depends on death for survival?

Early humans had no libraries or Einstein from which to draw information. By the time their minds developed so that they could question their circumstances they had to already believe much that entered into legends and myths. Emotionally they could not bear to let go of departed loved ones. They saw enough death they had to know of the inevitable in their own case and like Woody Allen would prefer not to be there when it happened. So all the mysteries became the myths and notions that became codified into religions. Whatever could toss that dislodged boulder onto your house has the power to alter other circumstances. The whatever being invisible like your dearly departed, therefore they all likely live together in invisibility. Anthropomorphism. If you don't know the word look it up.

Science has debunked the myths and fantasies of the religious doctrines, leaving raw faith to sustain the gods.

The evolution that gave the world humans delivers a blurred demarcation between animal and human intelligence the more we know. The same force that causes a human to love a dog can cause a cat to love a chicken. Animals can solve problems and manipulate the environment. The problem is, the human is an insatiable problem solver and a greedy manipulator. He is making the other species go extinct. He is currently like two species intermingled, in that a sizeable portion has essentially adopted the golden rule, while a great many others follow the eye for an eye principle. The greedy eye for an eye crowd appears to be in command because the golden rulers are too polite or too few in number to successfully resist. It is becoming more recognized by the minute that humanity will likely soon make itself extinct.

Those who hold onto notions of divine benevolence can make all the excuses they wish, but when on a daily basis toddler children and other humans get blown to smithereens simply because they are there when the totally unnecessary wars gravitate in that direction, I have to scoff.

Christians holding onto Jesus have virtually no evidence the physical man existed. Even if they could place him in history there is no evidence of his miracles. Another situation for You know what's going to happen all day long.

In conclusion, I don't have to prove there is no god to be right. All you need do is provide one scintilla of evidence to make me alter one word of what I have ever written on the topic. God is not dead, because he/she/it never existed.

TWO
Most discussions of atheism center on evolution. It is a fertile territory to explore. But we don't even need evolution. Atheists actually don't have to have a reason to be atheists. Most discussions and arguments are thrust on them by believers who feel an atheist's existence is a threat to their own, striking at the core of their very existence if religion can so easily be nullified. The human, being a territorial animal, will defend a territory with any means at its disposal in extreme cases. Hence, racism (territorial ethnicity hatred), wars (territorial aggression), gods (territory inside the imagination, the greatest territory of all to deists). It is a fear of personal annihilation driving the faithful to attack atheism with so much energy.

THREE
Some would seek to transcend the argument, saying the universe itself is god. Pure anthropomorphism. The instant you inject "god" into it you are seeking to inject human ego into the fundamental clockwork of all existence. Humans and Earth are not that important. We once had a potential for riding out the remaining lifespan of the universe until we willfully destroyed our habitat. There is no future in self destruction.



So...Edgar blindly guesses that there are no gods...and proclaims that the way people who blindly guess there is a GOD do.

Oh, well. If they (both sides) want to kid themselves...they are free to do so.
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 May, 2022 10:00 am
I have occasionally dropped in on sites begun by atheists for atheists and found them unappealing. For me, it's too personal a matter. Some educate themselves into lack of belief. Some like me are hardwired from the beginning. I prefer free-range to the codified long winded explanations. To each his own, however.
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 May, 2022 10:07 am
@edgarblythe,
I've never quite understood the appeal of those sites either. But I suppose for people who begin to question their religious beliefs later in life, the stories other people share about their own awakening might have more value.
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 11 May, 2022 10:11 am
@hightor,
I'm sure some are helped. If I were eighteen and only just discovered something like that I might feel differently.
0 Replies
 
ascribbler
 
  1  
Reply Thu 12 May, 2022 01:18 am
@Frank Apisa,
Quote:
I am NOT an atheist of any kind.


Frank, you are the kind of atheist who:

"do(es) not find ... the existence of a god "believable ..."
Frank Apisa
 
  1  
Reply Thu 12 May, 2022 02:36 am
@ascribbler,
ascribbler wrote:

Quote:
I am NOT an atheist of any kind.


Frank, you are the kind of atheist who:

"do(es) not find ... the existence of a god "believable ..."


I am not an atheist of any kind.

Do you really want to go to the dictionaries to argue this?
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Thu 12 May, 2022 02:40 am
@Frank Apisa,
Now you've got the discussion you wanted.

Bit too erudite for my tastes.
edgarblythe
 
  2  
Reply Thu 12 May, 2022 06:08 am
@izzythepush,
That **** fills the pages of dozens of threads. Like a rotting corpse, each one of those threads lies in ruins.
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Fri 13 May, 2022 01:59 pm
One of my daughters married an atheist. Although she used to attend church, she became noisy about also being an atheist. Around two years later, last year, we were eating in a Woodlands restaurant. I noticed her pause in what appeared silent prayer. As I have often said, if you are a believer, nothing can change your mind. I pretended to not notice. Whatever she is, it's strictly her business. Three of my children are believers and I have no idea what the fourth one thinks because we have never mentioned it in forty plus years. Shrug.
0 Replies
 
Yalow
 
  2  
Reply Sat 14 May, 2022 04:45 pm
My boyfriend has also rejected God and religion, so I have no problems on this side. As for the boyfriends I had before, we never ever discussed the subject.

I'm a little annoyed when people tell me that God is going to help me, or stuff like that. Feels like saying 'Yeah, and Santa Claus will bring you gifts if you're nice'.
Lash
 
  1  
Reply Sat 14 May, 2022 04:51 pm
@Yalow,
The implication is infuriating. If you pray long enough or well enough… you’ll be saved from your current issue. Of course, I think of innocent children, old people, cancer victims. What did they do to deserve God’s disdain? How do people reconcile these logical questions?

‘God works in mysterious ways,’ I guess satisfies them.
Of course, Christians are raised on the scriptures that make them feel guilty about thinking for themselves. ‘Do not rest upon your own understanding,’…

0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 15 May, 2022 09:40 am
https://www.boredpanda.com/atheists-from-religious-families-stories/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic

Someone Asks Atheists From Religious Families What Made Them Non-Believers, 30 Give Honest Answers
0 Replies
 
Yalow
 
  1  
Reply Sun 15 May, 2022 12:49 pm
I don't believe in Jesus's miracles, and I do not care about these anyway. I like it when Jesus is being a nice guy.
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Sun 15 May, 2022 01:31 pm
@Yalow,
The "miracles" are definitely the weakest link in the contemporary chain of belief. Interestingly, at one time they were one of Christianity's biggest selling points!
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  2  
Reply Sun 15 May, 2022 04:19 pm
As a child and teenager, I was hooked into Christianity and continued in belief due to the fact that the character of Jesus responded so perfectly in every situation than no man could have thought up the Jesus part of the story. I still like that guy whether he was a made-up character or if he was a real man.

The sticking point with me was — whether or not it was a true — the God described in the Bible wasn’t worthy of my worship. He killed entire families due to ‘sins’ of one person, vengeful, jealous, violent…

Then, I discovered that there were other civilization origin tales very similar to the Jesus / God one.

I think what causes me *so much* disdain for most Christians I know is that a *fear* of hell, deeply embedded by a lifetime of indoctrination, is the *only* incentive to be — or appear to be — a decent person.

Another thing that bothers me about Christians is that so few of them have read the Bible. How can you base your life on a book you’ve not read yourself? Most just take the word of some charlatan about what’s in it.

Whew. Rant over.

For now.
0 Replies
 
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 15 May, 2022 08:05 pm
What science is saying about how our world will end - long after humans are no longer here, I am sure - shows a universe that has no interest in life as we celebrate it.

https://www.slashgear.com/862971/neil-degrasse-tyson-has-a-scary-theory-on-how-the-world-will-end/
Tyson explains the "Big Rip" theory is based on cosmic expansion, which says the universe continues to expand after the "Big Bang," and all of the energy and matter within it has remained constant. As the universe expands, the density of all that energy and matter must become thinner.

Tyson says scientists don't really know why it's happening, but they know dark energy is causing it to happen, and it is measurable. The expansion rate will eventually outstrip the gravitational forces that hold things together, even overcoming the molecular bonds that hold our bodies together. Those forces will continue to gain strength as the universe expands because as it gets bigger, more vacuum is created. This dynamic will continue until it "rips" or separates our molecules and atoms apart, including the very fabric of space and time.

During the same interview, Tyson dips briefly into the wildly confusing topic of the multiverse and the fact that there might be layers of them stacked on top of each other. Because the existence of a single multiverse, let alone layers of them, isn't a maddening enough topic. 

Read More: https://www.slashgear.com/862971/neil-degrasse-tyson-has-a-scary-theory-on-how-the-world-will-end/?utm_campaign=clip
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 May, 2022 09:32 am
@edgarblythe,
We’ll all be long gone before all of that other doomsday crap happens. Man-made earthbound problems will make us extinct before the solar system blinks out. Doubtful that we have more than a few hundred years…maybe 500 or so before we collapse and die off.

I’m such a ray of sunshine, I know. Point is that it’s all a matter of dubious academic value as to how the universe blinks out as we’ll all be long gone…even if we transplant ourselves somehow or somewhere else.

All of these debates keep theoretical astrophysicists employed. He’ll, we can’t even agree on global warming and what to do about it, if anything could be done to delay or stop the inevitable.
 

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