The Claim That There Is No God Is An Escape From All Realities

[Vulcanl]

Atheists cannot prove that God does NOT exist.  So the chance that Atheists are correct is equal to the chance that God DOES exist.  It is a wash. 

Fundamentally, for us believers there is a basic order to nature and a harmony in all things that cannot be simply chalked up to random chance.  Something brought our Universe into being out of chaos and sustains it.

I am not a creationist, and am not one to take everything that is written in the bible (or other religious texts) literally.  These things (and religion in general) are man-made and as such are inherently flawed.  But on the whole throughout human history, the formalized study and application of morality that the religions of the World have brought forth have been a boon to mankind. 

[TheWrathOfGrapes]

It came to me in a vision - a Zschwog.  You need faith to know there is a zschwog who created all things and who is responsible for everything. Now, the a-zschwogists claim there is no Zschwog.  According to Vulcan's logic, it is a wash because both sides cannot prove the existence or otherwise of Zschwog. I would have thought the onus is on the one who claim existence to prove it, rather than for non believers to prove the non-existence.

Come all ye faithful, repent and believe in Zschwog.

[Vulcanl]

"...You need faith to know there is a zschwog who created all things and who is responsible for everything..."

Yes!

"...Now, the a-zschwogists claim there is no Zschwog.  According to Vulcan's logic, it is a wash because both sides cannot prove the existence or otherwise of Zschwog..."

The ARGUMENT is a wash (there can be no clear winner) because it cannot be proven or disproven in this existence

"...I would have thought the onus is on the one who claim existence to prove it, rather than for non believers to prove the non-existence..."

Why?!?

"...Come all ye faithful, repent and believe in Zschwog..."

My two cents on this is as follows:

Those who believe and live righteous lives will inherit the kingdom promised after we have passed from this World

Those who intentionally disavow the existence of God will just die at the same instant their human bodies have expired

To each his own

[Joseph27]

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry
vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group
labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic
religion gives strong sanction to both—and mixes explosively
with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now. "All is changed, changed utterly." —RICHARD DAWKINS

[Vulcanl]

"...Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today..."

This is a stretch.  And it fails to account for all of the good that has come to pass in the World as a direct result of organized religion

[Joseph27]

Some religious people can go in and do good things - usually however the aid is dependant upon certain moral doctrines...  So yes the catholic church can help a community by giving aid however it can also decimate villages by its teachings on contraception and deliberate fabrications....   It is hard to see it as a force for good.  Christian missionaries go in but rather than just help - they spread their poison on virgin births and every other evil facet of religious discourse...   I cannot see organised religious teaching as anything but a blight on humanity.... 

[Vulcanl]

"...usually however the aid is dependant upon certain moral doctrines...  So yes the catholic church can help a community by giving aid however it can also decimate villages by its teachings on contraception and deliberate fabrications..."

Granted already - the Catholic Church as a man-made institution is prone to failures.

"...It is hard to see it as a force for good..."

I disagree when one takes into account, in the grand totality of all that the Catholic Church has done and continues to do, on a net basis - it has indeed been a force for good

"...Christian missionaries go in but rather than just help - they spread their poison on virgin births and every other evil facet of religious discourse..."

This is slanted opinion (which I respect).  How do you know that the virgin birth did NOT really happen???!?

"...I cannot see organised religious teaching as anything but a blight on humanity..."

Monks/priests, rabbis, imams (and I mean the 'real' ones, those that have trained and devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of truth) help the layman get through life, especially during the difficult times when we grasp for answers.  We need people like this, just as we need policemen, doctors, and other professionals.  They are modern day philosophers - for which there will always be a need to the extent that science cannot provide all of the answers.

[working_mom]

Monks/priests, rabbis, imams (and I mean the 'real' ones, those that have trained and devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of truth) help the layman get through life, especially during the difficult times when we grasp for answers.  We need people like this, just as we need policemen, doctors, and other professionals.  They are modern day philosophers - for which there will always be a need to the extent that science cannot provide all of the answers.

No we dont need a mediator between us and god brcause no matter what each individual have their own agenda and the true essence of god's message (to me it is Gita) is lost in the translation. I dont agree with many of the practices in hinduism and these practices are perpetuated by the godmen and not by God himself.

[Joseph27]

"...usually however the aid is dependant upon certain moral doctrines...  So yes the catholic church can help a community by giving aid however it can also decimate villages by its teachings on contraception and deliberate fabrications..."

Granted already - the Catholic Church as a man-made institution is prone to failures.

"...It is hard to see it as a force for good..."

I disagree when one takes into account, in the grand totality of all that the Catholic Church has done and continues to do, on a net basis - it has indeed been a force for good

"...Christian missionaries go in but rather than just help - they spread their poison on virgin births and every other evil facet of religious discourse..."

This is slanted opinion (which I respect).  How do you know that the virgin birth did NOT really happen???!?

"...I cannot see organised religious teaching as anything but a blight on humanity..."

Monks/priests, rabbis, imams (and I mean the 'real' ones, those that have trained and devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of truth) help the layman get through life, especially during the difficult times when we grasp for answers.  We need people like this, just as we need policemen, doctors, and other professionals.  They are modern day philosophers - for which there will always be a need to the extent that science cannot provide all of the answers.

I cannot accept that the catholic church is a force for good - despite the individual generosity and kindness of some clergyman and woman.  Even if we account and disregard the rich history of political opportunism, the institutionalizing of child rape and subsequent protection of those  said paedophiles,  we only need look to the affects of church doctrine in 2009 to see that it is still a poisonous institution that perpetuates misery, suffering and death in the protection of its religious dogma.   

Imam's / monks / priest / rabbi's - they are all drug dealers selling hope instead of dope but the effects are the same on their junkies.... seeking hope in the wrong area.  We do need policemen and doctors and other professionals to help society function - religious people however don't serve a function today - they simply exist to defend a fraudulent past and offer false hope for a future based on nothing more than man made text written millenia ago. 

As for the virgin birth - that is one of Christianities biggest hang ups....  Ok so Mary got banged up and had a baby name Jesus...  Daddy couldnt be accounted for so one (YES ONLY ONE) disciple then deals with this issue...   the others avoid....  my issue is not that jesus was teh product of an illigitimate affair - but that this sect that then went on to define the terms of morality over the coming centuries - didnt concentrate on jesus's sermon on the mount but got hung up on the necessity of the mom being a virgin and pure...  At best mary being a virgin is a mistranslation from the hebrew word however the lesson has caused humanity to be blighted by a sanctomonious church that has internalized its fixation with sex.  The results are clear and the number of victims makes the church guilty of genocide.

[so what]

Joseph,

I see your post from 7 December, inviting people to get wise and become atheist and your subsequent anti-religion statements.
May I express my surprise, to hear all this coming from the guy who voluntarily converted to islam.

You had your wedding done by a fraudulent drug dealer. That must have been some event.
Guess the institutionalizing of child rape and subsequent protection of those said paedophiles must have come from somewhere...hmmm...maybe the by you embraced religion could shed some light on this?

[Joseph27]

Just as I got married in a catholic church to appease my family - I also got married in a mosque to appease hers.   The guy who married us in the catholic church was a lovely old priest who was nevertheless a very confused old man on a number of anti depressant pills which basically made him functional.   The guy in the mosque was similarly, a nice old man who simply liked to talk - and his wedding talk went on for 45 mins in a hot mosque.  The 'fraudulent drug dealers' in both cases were committed individuals who nonetheless didn't think through the religious dogma they both held as coming straight from god.  Whilst they were lovely people - there were both basically witch doctors propagating false dogma disguised as divine fact.

I did study islam because i wanted to know about the basis of the religion; about what they believed in.  I have read through bibles, the quran - i have searched and questioned but got to a point where the answers have simply become silly and the most i really get told is to have faith.   But what is faith?  Faith that some doctrine created by man is the word of god?   All religious text can contain nothing that couldn't have been written by a person living at the time of their origin.  Their are no insights - basically all three books provide little insight into the world - the old testament god is an evil jealous tribal creation.... the new testament is contradictory and though jesus was supposedly the one to bring the new message of love, the new testament also gives us an eternal hell and is far less enlightened than that given by buddha and other eastern predecessors.  The quran was finally put to print 120 years after mohammed died.., and the hadith took even longer to be collected...  Again there are many lovely muslims as there are many lovely religious people all over the world - but the basis of what they believe in is flawed. 

I just like stirring the pot and arguing - i love to engage in debates...  unfortunately again people simply say its faith and they don't want to engage in any dialoging on religion lest their belief system is put into question.   I understand that people love santa clause - and if a grown person still wants to believe - I am happy for them to do so - but when those same people want to go into schools and make sure that santa clause is taught - when they want to stop science in the name of protecting the name of santa clause and so disallow any scanning of the north pole - when they go into villages in africa and tell them to stop using condoms lest santa not visit and give presents - then i take issue.  (i like santa anology)  So whilst i have lots of people i love who are very religious i simply dont engage them so aggressively in such debate - but i will continue to ask questions to them.  A few at least are starting to see the logic and starting to ask their own questions...





 

[Vulcanl]

Joseph,

It appears that you have meditated on and thought your position through extensively and arrived at a firm conclusion.    I would say that you are in the minority in this regard.  For most of us the journey takes longer.  In my case I am nowhere along as far as you have come.

This being said, I find it difficult to imagine a day when I arrive at the conclusion that God does not exist, and this is based on certain events that have come to pass in my life that cannot be explained by things of this Earth alone.  Based on my personal experience, God lives and walks with me daily.

I am a Catholic and love my Church, even with all of its flaws and certain well-deserved criticisms.  It is an inflexible institution that makes important, badly needed changes at a glacial pace.  It is frustrating.  But on the whole I enjoy going to mass every week and I get a lot out of it.

I say that there is still a place for organized religion - not so much for people like you, but for the rest of us that still need help and guidance in our quest for the truth.

[Joseph27]

Joseph,

It appears that you have meditated on and thought your position through extensively and arrived at a firm conclusion.    I would say that you are in the minority in this regard.  For most of us the journey takes longer.  In my case I am nowhere along as far as you have come.

This being said, I find it difficult to imagine a day when I arrive at the conclusion that God does not exist, and this is based on certain events that have come to pass in my life that cannot be explained by things of this Earth alone.  Based on my personal experience, God lives and walks with me daily.

I am a Catholic and love my Church, even with all of its flaws and certain well-deserved criticisms.  It is an inflexible institution that makes important, badly needed changes at a glacial pace.  It is frustrating.  But on the whole I enjoy going to mass every week and I get a lot out of it.

I say that there is still a place for organized religion - not so much for people like you, but for the rest of us that still need help and guidance in our quest for the truth.

Vulcan - I wish you well on your journey. 

[so what]

So if priests, imams and the church pretend to be religious then they are "fraudulent drug dealers".

And when you pretend to be religious (I assume you repeated "Allah is God" 3 times when you converted) you are merely "stirring the pot"?

Tell me, in what does a lying muslim differ from a lying priest?

You may have appeased your and her family. Shows who is really wearing the pants in your relationship. Congratulations.
So what are you going to teach your children?
That they are muslim because daddy lied just to get what he wanted?

And what if you get a son, you are going to get him circumsised and baptised?
Imagine your family might not be appeased.....

I hope for you the people around you have more backbone, instead of becoming their own accusers.

See, its the liars who use religion to get what they want (people like you), who are doing harm to religion, church and mosk.
Not the people who are genuinly involved and interested.

Apparently you dont argue with your own family, and you dont argue with your wifes family as well, so why the eagerness to debate and dialogue with people on this board about religion?

Rather said, why would anyone argue with you about the futility of their religion, whilst you yourself don't dare to take a stand.

[Joseph27]

Wearing pants in a relationship?  dude she did it in a catholic church - I did it in a mosque...   we both appreciate our parents superstitions... though we both shun religion.  Yes we could have made a bold stand and complete disowned everyone and have nothing to do with religion - but why would want to hurt those we love?  only those who truly believe in their interpretation of god would do everything to stay committed to the cause.  We may not share their beliefs but we surely care about them.   To get married i had to say a statement in arabic nothing in english about allah being god - i dont know arabic so the sentence was meaningless to me...  i wouldnt consider it lying....  its an imaginary crime that people such as your good self would probably have killed someone for 100s of years ago in the west - and today in most of the muslim world. 

I naturally debate anyone but when people are profoundly brainwashed and unable to take it in - it doesnt make sense.  I see all religion as poison but when it comes down to individual practitioners thats a different thing.  So long as they don't use their moral judgement based on religious dogma to affect my life or those around me then I am happy to be friends with them and share my journey but the moment i encounter sanctimonious as*holes preaching about how precious life is and then spreading lies about condoms, condemning people for their life choices or whatever other absurdity then i will fight back.

Tell me would you saying red was your favorite color to get what you wanted despite knowing that you really didnt like the color?  Is it backbone and honor to forego to your life partner because your two families believe in a different sky god?   Come on......