TedM

It blows my mind that with all we don't know there are still people out there that think we know it all, and actually proclaim that God doesn't exist, as though they have become privy to the mysteries of the universe.

It's insulting to those of us who have open minds.

spin

You keep telling yourself what you want to believe.

It doesn't take a stretch of your imagination to see that you are flogging "an ideology that is grounded in unproven and unprovable speculations" with your rehearsals of christian-based dogma, so it doesn't take much more to see you, the pot looking for the kettle. Hence the irony of your statement.

You started objecting to speculation by turning it into assumption. You were perverting what I said to fit your reconstruction. And you continue to assert your assumptions when you are clueless as to their worth. If I don't know that a god exists, I don't know anything about that entity's intelligence and I have no way of measuring it. Sadly you are mainly in the same boat, unless you actually have a way to confirm your nonsense. You've merely gulled yourself in to believing claptrap that you cannot evaluate.

Deep response.

Again making an assumption where you have no grounds to do so...

Different circumstances give different opportunities, TedM. I can't be the butterfly that waved its wing and changed the cosmos as it did. I'm sorry you can't understand the notion of agnosticism, which is all about evidence. You incessantly want to assume conclusions with far too little (if any) evidence and turn alternative scenarios into exclusive beliefs, whereas the ones you are reacting to have been given to show that the assumptions you state here (both explicit and implicit) are without foundation or otherwise simply irrelevant.

You tenaciously concentrate on a metaphor and miss out on the communication. You certainly demonstrate the taboo of understanding outside your world view.

You just refused to read what I said again. Your edit removed the contextualization of the statement allowing you to totally misconstrue what I said. Get a bit of backbone and read the whole sentence:

And let's face it, our lives have no greater purpose other than what we give them, be that in the acceptance of the tenets and desires of your hypothetical god, or whether you accept your status as a thinking human being with duties towards your fellows, or if you go for alienation.

Let us assume that your hypothetical god exists (which I did for the statement): it doesn't change the claim "our lives have no greater purpose other than what we give them". If you choose to accept all your religious baggage then you are given the purpose to your life entailed in that baggage (and you can assume that the baggage is god-given). It doesn't change the fact that you are giving your life that purpose.

You need to understand the alienation I talked about previously. Your reaction is pure alienation. Alienation from your peers is normative in our societies that are more attuned to the value of making us useful citizens than of allowing us to be healthy human beings. Even the most alienated can find themselves doing indiscriminate acts of altruism. You need to deal with your alienation.

Says TedM, putting on his dunce cap.

So you won't take the Nash test. Who'da guessed?

You are happy not knowing whether you are in la-la-land or not. You don't know if your notion of greater purpose has any meaning or not. You were only exercising your lips.

Jaybees

You've just gotta be kidding.

spin

Just a small grammatical elucidation: the "those" in "those of us" doesn't need include the speaker, though the "us" does.

TedM

Later you make a number of comments which tie me to the Christian God, but really I'm just talking about the Creator, when I refer to 'God'. And when I talk about innate beliefs and the idea that atheism is not innate, I am not making a distinction between one or several gods, or deities. I agree that they are 'imagined' in order to explain the unexplainable. I have no problem with that. But I don't equate imagination with 'falsehood'. Everything we discover and observe can be imagined, and can be imagined before it is known. So, the 'imagining' of a God in our minds has no bearing on whether there really is one or not.

I don't see a strong 'evolution' of belief from several deities to one God, and might go as far as saying that the idea of religious evolution in this context is mostly a myth. You yourself say that the forest dwellers almost without exception worship a primary deity, though they may be more focused on his attributes as the pertain to their own survival circumstances.

You may already know this, but according to this site which collects the various creation myths from cultures around the world, belief in a creator God is nearly universal:

http://www.read-legends-and-myths.co...ion-myths.html

This appears to support my claim that theism is innate. Earl says that it is too, but for evolutionary reasons. If you still disagree, and believe atheism is innate and theism is learned, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.


Regarding your reply to my statement that in atheism no one owes a duty to anybody else, which you disagreed with, I'll say this:

I know that there are smart atheists and smart theists. I know that atheists have done good in the world also. Neither has anything to do with the idea that atheists need not answer to God, and if they choose to answer to their fellow man or 'mother nature' that is simply a choice. It isn't mandated. There is no standard they are supposed to adhere to. Just like the universe they believe in, there is no purpose to behavior which they must follow as a guide. The atheist universe is amoral, and some would say immoral if one is honest and follows their base evolutionary instincts.

It's just a statement of fact. The lack of absolute standards by definition means that standards are all relative to the situation and to each person. They only are standardized when people make them standard. But when it comes to the individual he is perfectly justified in taking whatever action he/she wishes to further his own existence. Sorry if you don't like this, but it is the way it is in the atheist worldview.

Many atheists will of course reject this view for a more 'pleasant' living experience, thank goodness.

TedM

I don't think we are making progress spin. I know that my belief in God in not testable, and cannot be supported by evidence. Do you really think I am not aware of this?

I"m ok with true agnosticism, if that is what you honestly resonate with. If I take your statements at face value, what is the good of your original speculation? You have no evidence that God gets bored and wouldn't want to create this word. You have no evidence that God could be much stupider than man and create this world. Yet, you like to parade out those concepts. Is it for shock value? Are you really an agnostic or not? Are you bored, and just want something to talk about? Do you really believe you'll learn something about God by dealing with unprovable concepts that have no evidence to support them?

spin

When at Qumran we find in Deut 32:8-9

[T2]8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
  when he divided all mankind,
  he set up boundaries for the peoples
  according to the number of the sons of god
9 For the Lord’s portion is his people,
  Jacob his allotted inheritance[/T2]

You wouldn't accept that we are dealing with a pre-monotheistic religion. The Lord who receives a portion is not just one of those who receive portions from the Most High. What about Ps 82:1

[T2]Elohim takes his position in the council of El. Among the gods [elohim] he judges.[/T2]
Is this not a trace of Jewish polytheism that has survived?

There is an inscription from 8th century Kuntillat Ajrud in Israel that talks of Yahweh and his Asherah. Her symbol is the tree, featured in the sanctuary of Joshua in Josh 24:26 (while Yahweh's symbol is a pillar of stone). Why is the book of Jeremiah so concerned about the queen of heaven (eg 7:18) when he is so focused on the king of heaven, Yahweh? Why is the writer trying to denigrate those who still worshiping her "under every green tree" (eg 3:13)?

Aren't you just in denial?

aa5874

What contradictions!!! You admit you have NO supporting evidence for your belief but spend your time ridiculing others who do EXACTLY like you.

Can't you accept that people can ASSUME your God is an IDIOT??

You may believe without evidence that your God is intelligent but others can ASSUME the opposite.

Let us ASSUME the God you believe in without Evidence is an IDIOT.

Do you ASSUME God caused a world wide FLOOD to kill innocent babies??

I will assume that such a God is an IDIOT.

outhouse

because your ignorant to how the abrahamic deity was made.


this is factual, it is a FACT early Israelites were polytheistic, and that at a point before monotheism started, Yahweh was given all Els traits including his wife, by some tribes. Not all.

Some people remained loyal to El for quite some time, and its evident in scripture.



yes many people are ignorant and want to believe in fairy tales that make them feel good inside.

BUT most of these l;ehends date back to a time when we didnt KNOW what we do now!!!





either your evolving foward, or backwards

and what were trying the hardest is, to figure out with all this knowledge we have here, why you want to go backwards, in light of all the evidence that flat states creation is mythology and nothing more.


BS

its no different then yours

the only difference is I dont place a deity in the gaps of my knowledge, keeping my mind open where yours possibly is closed .

spin

So you are ready to admit you have no way of showing yourself that you are not deluded, that you could be just as off the wall as Nash was. This is the issue: are you unrepentantly looney-tuned? Is everything that you say presupposing your untestable god not just a waste of breath?

To put forward a notion to analyze.

Quite true. If I had evidence, I wouldn't need to speculate.

Can I quote the only memorable words that issued from the mouth of Bush senior?

I don't see how anyone can learn anything about gods. If a concept is untestable, it has little meaning outside the realm of intellectual exercise--exercise which you have attempted to criticize me for.