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Whether or not some sort of being or beings that we might consider a god or gods exist is simply more than any human knows.
It may well be that in some corner of the universe or some dimension or other there are invisible supernatural beings that we'd view as god-like.
But it is fairly simple to see that any and all gods ever conceived of by humans (which are, of course, the only ones we "know" anything about) are merely mythical.
Myths aren't "lies"--they are a means of conveying truths...in many ways, truths that are greater than mere facts.
But there is no more reason whatsoever to believe, for example, that Yahweh, patron diety of some sects of ancient Hebrews, is "real" and "actually exists" and that you can read his biographical details in The Bible than there is to believe the same of Zeus or Apollo or the other gods of Greek mythology, or to believe the same of Odin and Thor from Norse mythology or to believe the same of any of the Hindu pantheon or the holy writings of Hinduism.
It doesn't mean gods absolutely positively don't exist; it means that human imagination and human hopes have created thousands upon thousands of gods throughout history and across cultures and none of them has more claim of being "real" than any other. It may well be that the very fact that gods seem to have always been believed in is a reflection of some kernel of "truth" to their existence.
I don't personally default to this belief, but I could be wrong, I admit.
One can actually read history and see how Yahweh came to be...as an accretion of myths from older, earlier cultures with which the Hebrews had close contact. You can literally see the "evolution" of the god named Yahweh. Similarly, there are precursors to the Judeo-Christian creation myths and to the story of a god-man or demigod who is born of a virgin, is capable of performing miracles, and is resurrected. These tales were common coin in the ancient world and predate these supernatural elements of the story of Jesus by millennia.
So, no. We can't necessarily PROVE that no gods exist, just as we can't prove there aren't fairies or leprechauns or that the cosmos was pooped out of the rear-end of a giant rainbow-colored galactic unicorn.
But I feel personally pretty confident that we can state that Yahweh, as conceived and written of by human beings, is not "real and true" any more than is Astarte, Baal, Kronos, Vishnu, etc.
Myths aren't "lies"--they are a means of conveying truths...in many ways, truths that are greater than mere facts.
+1 and good post. I agree myths are not lies per se, but they do become lies when they are espoused as truth™
There is no life after death and it is mere wishful thinking and a way humans deal with the finality of death of a loved one.
There is no reason to fear death, it is part of the life process and we all have to face it. Seems the younger you are the more death is a fearful thing.
It is odd that atheists in general have made peace with their mortality and theists just have to believe this is not it. Why is that?
All that theologians and religion do is sell you cosmic real estate for real money in tithes. They never have to live up to their promises as no one has come back to sue them.
The fear of death is the key motivator for theism. All the garbled wishful babble of "its a relationship" is twaddle as that relationship is with your own imagination. God only exists in the grey matter between your ears, that god, your mind has fabricated and when the brain dies, so too does your god.
The only thing they get right at a funeral is dust to dust and translated back to your cosmic dust origins. There is no soul, there is no spirit, these are ALL constructs of man.
Atheists.... prove me God does not exist and I will happily convert to your religion. Yes, your religion.
If not, I'll stick with my Judeo-Christian belief.
In theory, being an atheist is not a religion because it is simply a lack of a belief. However, there are some atheists who use atheism as a "spring-board" towards a non-belief in the following:
-angels
-demons
-spirits
-intelligent design
-after life
-ghosts
-psychic ability
Or anything else that their "God" (mainsteam science) hasn't yet given them the "OK" to believe in. IMO, atheism is the "truth", but it is a truth that is flawed by the human tendency to believe what one is told to believe (or not to believe). This is the same flaw that you will find within every major religion as well.
So to answer your question (yes, I am athiest); I have no proof that your God or any other God does not exist. However, I have little desire to convert you to my way of thinking either. That's because you have a belief; I don't believe. How can I convince you not to believe? Why would I want to convince you not to believe? All I want from Christians are the following:
-stop judging others based upon the morality of your dated Old English written Holy Book
-stop trying to shoe-horn your beliefs into our legal system
On the other hand, most Christians want the world to be Christian just like them. Well, if THAT happened; the entire world would go to "heaven" thus making the "end times" within the bible false (and no part of the bible can be false). In a round-about way, the Christian faith has built in the non-believers. And how does the faith speak about all non-believers? Oh yeah that's right, we're all going to "hell".
If you honestly can't see the arrogance of your own belief system, what more proof do you need from me? I mean really? If there is a benevolent God-man floating in the clouds who (by the way) created a multitude of life forms; why would such a being appear only 2,000 years ago (on a 4 billion year old planet) just to save the "souls" of those who believe he is the son of the universe's creator?
FWIW, one of the original ancient meanings for the popular Christian phrase "AMEN" is "let the truth be hidden". Amen...
If I took ONE of their experiences and claimed it as absolute proof of LAD, would you consider case closed? obviously not.
Indeed but you should note that what you DO do is almost just as bad. You cherry pick stories about NDE and try to make something of it. However if you stopped and compared the number of people reporting NDE to the number of people who are near death and do not report such experiences then you will find your result to be insignificant.
This however is how confirmation bias in humans works. If you have an idea you want to evidence then 10 anecdotes to 10,000 lack of anecdotes is enough to support you.
For example if there are 10 million people practicing meditation in the world and one of them comes back saying he "experienced god" during meditation then this is taken by some people to be enough evidence that god exists and can be reached through meditation. The fact the other 9,999,999 people report no such thing barely makes a ripple in the retrospectively confirmed faith of the one who chooses his answers first and fits the evidence to it later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigers84
Sorry, but I reject your unproven hypotheses.
And we yours. So now that we have rejected all the unPROVEN hypotheses let us ask which one of us is here espousing entirely unEVIDENCED hypotheses? That would appear to be you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigers84
We have all been knocked cold under anesthesia. But that ain't death either.
Nor is NDE. The clue is in the N. It means "near". The whole point of NDE is that you were not dead. You were NEAR to being dead. That tells much and none of it good for your fantasies that NDE supports the idea of an afterlife.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigers84
Our understanding of the universe is so limited there is no way anyone can definitively state what happens or doesn't happen after death.
Nor are many here doing that. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that despite being told it many times on many threads.
The point is not about evidencing that there is no life after death. The point is whether we can ask "Is there any reason to think there IS life after death?" and so far you have offered nothing at all to make the answer of that question "yes".
there are some atheists who use atheism as a "spring-board" towards a non-belief in the following
I think the cause and effect may be a little different. It is not that atheism is a spring board to the things you list. It is that the things that lead one to atheism also lead one to the things you list.
If there is no argument, evidence, data or reasons on offer to think a proposition is true, likely or credible then I fail to think the proposition is true or likely or credible. Simple as that.
Given there is no evidence, argument, data or reasons to suggest there is a god, angels, demons, spirits, ID, an after life, ghosts or psychic ability therefore I find none of them to be true, likely, credible or believable.
So no, atheism did not lead to X Y and Z. Rather the same thing leads one to atheism, X Y and Z.
If there is no argument, evidence, data or reasons on offer to think a proposition is true, likely or credible then I fail to think the proposition is true or likely or credible. Simple as that.
I've seen with my own eyes how quite a few atheists flatout reject evidence, data and/or reasons that challenges their limited world view. I've seen quite a few theists do the exact same thing. Let's be honest here.
The truth to the big question (is there really a God) won't be answered by either theists nor atheists. IMO, it will be those who are open to the fact that BOTH sides could be wrong and right.
I guess that's where I'm different. My non-belief in God has more to do with the "soft" evidence that I see all around me (very little to do with "non-evidence" like most atheists like to scream). Soft evidence are things such as Christians crying when a fellow Christian dies (why the tears if you truly believe that this person is with "the heavenly father"). Then there's the following:
-segregated church's (what would they do if Jesus returned as a race they didn't like)
-Holy Wars (let's destroy other products of creation in the name of the creator)
-gay bashing (we don't hate the gay people, we just hate their sinful act)
-tithing (man invented money and God needs it)
-religion and politics (all public leaders who are popular and don't do what we Christians want must be the anti-Christ)
Honestly, I could go on and on, but I won't. I will say this though. I belong to a race of Americans who were converted over to Christianity (and the English language) by their slave masters. Even today, atheists and/or non-Christian southern blacks are practically unheard of. I fail to believe that any benevolent-supernatural being would spread his "good news" to my ancestors through the means of slavery over a cash crop.
And I still can't figure out why some of my racist family members in South Carolina truly believes that their "personal lord and savior" is a supernatural white looking dude. Yet they think that I'm weird for being married to a white girl. BLOWS MY MIND!!!
In my personal life, I've seen enough evidence. If there really is a God, I'm fairly certain that it is not the Christian one. Then again, this is all "soft" evidence. I don't have hard evidence on this and that is what the OP is looking for.
+1 and good post. I agree myths are not lies per se, but they do become lies when they are espoused as truthâ„¢
There is no life after death and it is mere wishful thinking and a way humans deal with the finality of death of a loved one.
There is no reason to fear death, it is part of the life process and we all have to face it. Seems the younger you are the more death is a fearful thing.
It is odd that atheists in general have made peace with their mortality and theists just have to believe this is not it. Why is that?
All that theologians and religion do is sell you cosmic real estate for real money in tithes. They never have to live up to their promises as no one has come back to sue them.
The fear of death is the key motivator for theism. All the garbled wishful babble of "its a relationship" is twaddle as that relationship is with your own imagination. God only exists in the grey matter between your ears, that god, your mind has fabricated and when the brain dies, so too does your god.
The only thing they get right at a funeral is dust to dust and translated back to your cosmic dust origins. There is no soul, there is no spirit, these are ALL constructs of man.
its also because GOD is presented as an eternally angry despot , if santa claus was packaged this way , you might have eighty year olds believing that father christmas was going to visit them with wrath some day
I've seen with my own eyes how quite a few atheists flatout reject evidence, data and/or reasons that challenges their limited world view.
Then take it up with them, not me. Your personal anecdotes drawn from your own circle of friends however does not allow us to produce a vast generalisation of all atheists however.
The point again is that if a proposition comes before you without ANYTHING to support it then one should dismiss that proposition as unsubstantiated. Simple as that.
At this time the evidence for god, after lives, mental magic powers and ghosts is precisely zero. Therefore I dismiss those claims.
If you are aware of evidence for those things present it by all means. Until then however I am afraid we are stuck in a rut where you are talking about evidence I do not think exists, for things I do not think exist, which you presented to people I do not actually think you did, with a result I rather suspect you have made up.
Then again I have often seen people present something that is not evidence, but they think it is, and when it is rejected they just go around moaning "People simply ignored the evidence when I presented it! They are so close minded and biased!" when in fact the truth is their evidence was simply poor or not evidence at all. In other words maybe the people you speak of are not "Rejecting evidence for X" but are just realizing that what you thought was evidence for X actually was not. Not a subtle difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbancharlotte
The truth to the big question (is there really a God) won't be answered by either theists nor atheists.
I would not presume to know the future. I can only comment on what we have evidence for NOW. What people might, or might not, evidence or prove in the future is just guess work and fantasy.
All I can say, or agree with, at this time is that currently there simply is no evidence, argument, data or reasons on offer to even lend a modicum of credence to the claim there is a god.
More than that neither of us can validly claim I think.
The "soft evidence" you speak of does not seem evidence that there is no god so much as it seems evidence for the idea that many people who claim to think there is one actually don't. The evidence for THAT idea however is abound in both "soft" and "hard" forms.
The last posts between Charlotte and Nozz. point up the real meat of the case against 'god' and the lower case in quotes is appropriate as we are talking about 'First cause' here not any one of the personal man- made gods.
The disbelief is a logical position based on (to use Mystic Phd's term) a syllogism (1). Or at least a logical construct.
There is really no way of knowing what caused the origins of matter or even if there has to be one.
What we don't know cannot be the subject of any belief.
Non - belief in a god or indeed any of the non- god materialistic theories is logical mandatory.
I can see that for those whose whole life, pretty much, is based on their belief in a god (name your own) a logical position based on what seems to them no more than word - games based on a human -invented convention is seen by them as no more than a rhetorical trick designed to disprove God by deceit.
It really does require us to understand how fundamentally and holistically important it is to recognize that the weight of validated evidence (2) considered using logically sound reasoning is the only really sound basis for believing anything. And yet that assessment of the weight of evidence is consistently - I might almost say universally - disregarded as unimportant and even invalid by theists who repeatedly claim that one has either to believe -or not. That Faith in one view is just as valid as 'faith' in another.
(1) A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός – syllogismos – "conclusion," "inference") is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two or more others (the premises) of a certain form.(Wiki)
(2) and that includes negative evidence such as the lack of any sound evidence of god in evolution or the failure to mention spear -jabs in the synoptics
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 05-02-2012 at 05:03 AM..
Reason: yeahhh...let's have another footnote.
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BLOWS MY MIND!!!
