emotional

In 1997 Nike produced shoes with a stylized AIR logo. The problem was that the style made it too much similar to the Arabic word "Allah" (Gawd) in Arabic script. It raised an outrage among Muslims and prompted Nike to apologize and withdraw the product.

The spokesman of the <a href="http://www.cair-net.org" target="_blank">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a> said: "Many ... may not understand how offensive it is to have the name of God on a shoe. The shoe gets dirty. It gets muddy. It gets sweaty. We believe this is disrespectful to the name of God." (source <a href="http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/islam1.htm" target="_blank">here</a>)

But... for heaven's sake! Why can't God Himself say it's offensive?! If God doesn't like it, can't He say so, loud and clear, that everyone may know?

The pious of both Islam and Christianity said, after the Twin Towers Attack, that it is a punishment from God/Allah on the USA for its corruption. I ask you - is Osama ben Laden God? Are the suicide pilots God? Because they all were the ones who did the thing! Why bring that useless theory of God into the fray?! When it starts raining, it's because of a meteorological chain of events which science has adequately explained, and the theory of "God made it happen" adds nothing, except for serving a tool for self-appointed spokesmen for Him.

The saving grace of religious leaders everywhere, through all history, is that God does not exist. If He did, He'd line them all up and smack them hard. The non-existence (or silence, which amounts to the same thing practically) of God means that I can say anything I want about God and no-one can falsify it. Thus spake God, "whoever jumps every Thursday morning three times after getting out of bed will be rewarded in the afterlife, and whoever sings in the shower on Monday 7 AM will burn in hell for eternity", the word of God, forsoothe, amen. Please disprove! Your whole future destiny, your whole eternity, rests upon knowing the truth of His word. To quote Matt Slick of CARM.Org: "eternity is a long time to be wrong".

jdawg2

that's something I've always wondered about...whenever there's a joke or something about God, or if there's a movie that's "against God" or whatever, the only people that get offended are just that...people. You never hear the Voice of God come out and say anything about it. It's always:

"How dare you say that about MY God!"

If he's so mad about it, he's welcome to come chat with me. Never mind the fact that "MY God" varies from person to person...

ac5621

Devnet, how does the silence of God amonut to his non-existence?

lpetrich

I can't speak for Devnet, but try this thought experiment. Imagine, ac5621, that you are omnipotent. And that everybody starts calling you a retard. There is nothing that stands in the way of you telling everybody not to call you a retard, or even forcibly shutting them up, because you are omnipotent, yet you do not. So all those people may legitimately conclude that you are not bothered by their calling you a retard.

And that would be so even if you had once told a friend long ago that you don't like to be called a retard -- a friend who had misremembered what you had said.

Kassiana

Easy. I can give you five reasons.

1. He's taken a vow of silence.

2. God hasn't said it is offensive, so it isn't, to God, anyhow.

3. God has said it's offensive, but since you're a dirty little infidel who probably doesn't think anything's offensive because you have no moral standards (deep breath before continuing), you can't hear him.

4. God only speaks through mindless fundamentalists and other brainwashed idiots because they do a much better job at representing him than he could do for himself. Just witness all the infidels on here who became irreligious because of them...oh, wait...

5. God went bowling after he saw what a bunch of geeks most people are and decided after a few thousand years of bowling to concentrate on aliens, which are more intelligent, compassionate, and rational than humans.

emotional

The keyword is "practically". All the philosophical arguments for the existence of God (Fine Tuning, First Cause, Design etc) wouldn't matter a bit, even if they were sound and convincing, because our observable state in present is one of practical atheism.

You can't write a history of England without referring to kings; you can write a history of the universe without referring to God. As I say: "God - how needless a theory!"

Bill Snedden

Or, as Laplace said, "Sire, je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothese."

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Technos

It does seem rather odd that Christians and Muslims often feel the need to act as go-betweens for their deity doesn't it? If a god has something to say, it should speak for itself should it not? Of course many say that a god is speaking to me and that I just don't hear or understand it, but if they feel that their god doesn't speak loud and clear should't they blame their god for Atheism?

[ March 05, 2002: Message edited by: Technos ]</p>

Echo

I don't really think Dev was making an argument for the non-existence of God. I think he is just puzzled over the fact that God, if he exists, remains conspicuously silent, while so many of his followers seem confident that they know exactly what the deity in question thinks or feels.

HelenM

That bothers me a lot too, actually, when people feel the need to take offense on God's behalf and tell others how offended He is at them...

I think a lot of that ought to be left between Him and them, myself...

It was because of that that I made my signature on ILJ "My God can defend Himself". I mean, can't He?

A couple of times lately I've heard Christians say [of what others are doing] "That's a slap in the face to God" and - well, maybe it is but again can't that be up to Him to tell them, if it really is?

Christians seem rather apt to be too controlling and 'parental' towards other adults, imo...

love
Helen