The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: cut to the chase...

Re: cut to the chase...
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Friday, December 9 2011, 19:32:32 (UTC)
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Arrow wrote:
> This whole started out with a simple.."what evidence is there for the existence of a god?"
>
>There are no “evidences”. There are clues:

...clues are fine in the abstract...but with clues alone you can't burn people at the stake...you can't cut flesh from a baby's body...the harmful effects of religion demand more than clues as justification...if you're going to condemn people to hell, you need absolute proof, not clues...humans recognize this...how come god is so damn lax?

...belief in a god is a negative, not a positive. No one needs to be told that justice, love, mercy and kindness are good things...obviously no civilization could have endured or thrived had the people believed that killing is good, stealing is good, breaking your word is good, taking the best for yourself and robbing the rest is good....common sense and a sence of social survival dictate these things...just as our human laws, not tose of god, tell us that a bishop who covers for pedophile priests is a criminal and anyone covering up for him is also a criminal...apparently god didn't teach his bishops this simple rule...we humans had to do it..and without god's help..in fact we had to do in spite of god's people.

....if I go into hospital and cut off a piece of flesh from a baby, I will be prosecuted and tossed in jail...we all know such a thing is criminal beyond belief...but, if I am Jew, I have god's permission, no, I have his commandment that I do such a thing. Religion and the gods behind it have never made people kind where their self-interest or decency did not already tell them so...but, god and his religion HAVE instructed and ordered people to be cruel, to behave in ways we otherwise condemn and prosecute...and these things are tolerated, despite the harm they do, because god and religion demand them....religion sanctions cruelty in the name of god...human decency decries unkindness and it is humans who have tried to stop child abuse by the church, not god.
>
>1. Without a first cause, the chain of causes goes back to infinity.
>2. The universe came under nearly impossibly improbable circumstances (see Collin's lecture in previous post), unless if there are infinite number of parallel universes and we just happen to be in the one that succeeded.

...look. I didn't start out to debate Collins or Aquinas....these people only make sense to those already addled by religion, either as believers or as once-believers. I fit neither category...I NEVER believed...so to me these people are talking jibberish.....why do you keep referring to them? I wouldn't spend five minutes on anyone so foolish as to presume to KNOW there is a god..that there MUST be a god. People only began thinking there must be a god when they themselves began making things...only then did they look around them and ask,"who made me"?

....why don't you use your own words and thoughts?
>
> we can get to your question after you answer mine.
>
>Does the notion of a creator sounds more fantastical than the above alternative possibilities? Which one requires more faith?

....this is not a matter of faith...or rather it is a bastardization of the word. People have faith in improbable things...things that are difficult to achieve...things that may be achieved, because they have been, but only by hard work and luck....it is not "faith" when I believe pigs fly on Mars..that is plain stupidity...and to say to me that since I CAN'T prove they don't means they MIGHT...is stupider still.

...it is not "faith" when you "believe" you will live on a cloud when you die...or that Jesus woke up from the dead...these are not matters of faith...not unless you're cracked to begin with. Believing the ridiculous is not "faith". To believe that the laws of Nature can be suspended is not an article of "faith". It is silly...or, it demands proof!
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> Aquinas is speaking in circles...he already believes there is SOMETHING...there he and I agree
>
>Really? You agree? Good. That “something”, was it created by something else? Would you be willing to consider the possibility that there might be a something that was not created by something else?

...I am willing to admit that you and I and Aquinas don;t know...but only one of us is wise enough to leave it at that. If someone asks me to give an answer to a difficult calculus problem, I don't reply, "I don't know, but I THINK it is 12". To not know is to not know...period. I'm not "willing to admit" anything about the characteristics of what I already said I am ignorant.
>
>* * *
>
>Anyway, it's like running in a closed circle. I will stop here.

...it's like a closed circle because you and Aquinas are speaking in circles while trying hard to pretend you are on a mission of "discovery". You are not. You already BELIEVE...all you try to "discover" is which god it is you already believe it is. Aqunias believes it is Jesus, or his father...you believe it is more nebulous, more personal...a Jew believes it is yahwe...an old Swede believed it was Thor...or Odin...an ancient Assyrian believed it was Ashur. None of you had evidence...and yet all of you WANT to believe...you have "faith" that what you believe is more than just your belief, that it exists in time somewhere as a reality. Naturally, since it is a matter of "faith" you will NEVER accept any evidence, even if there could be any, that your beliefs are wrong...so there really is no discussing this thing...as centuries of church "fathers" finally found out...and in the end all reverted to "well, you just have to have FAITH"...and so we're back at the beginning again.

Okay...case closed. Now, how about that other question....the notion that belief in a god makes people better...or, the things people do BECAUSE the believe in a god...regardless of whether he does or not....that was the original question...why we danced down this other garden path I don't know.



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