Jamie_L

This could be a whole thread of its own. In fact, I've made it one, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=001209" target="_blank">here</a>.

P.S. GeoTheo - I think you're wrong, but I'll save lengthier discussions for the other thread, if you care to pop over there.

Jamie

K

GeoTheo:

It really floors me that you believe that. I have absolutely no reason to be angry at God. I enjoyed my life immensely as a believer. I enjoy my life immensely as an atheist. I have no bone to pick with God. I simply don't believe in Him. What has been said that would possibly make you think atheists are trying to punish God? Do you think I'm trying to punish Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer when I deny his existence?

Now if you want to talk about pushy theists - I do harbor some resentment for them. It's the same I (and probably you too) feel towards pushy believers in psychics and astrology. I think it's the frustration one feels when seeing someone refuse to use their brain and instead hold onto superstitious beliefs. I have no problem with people holding theistic beliefs - I just feel outraged when they try to cram their fairy tales down other people's throats.

That being said, I have few problems with most of the theists on these message boards. There are a couple that just come to stir things up. But that's the exception rather than the rule. I certainly don't mind debating these topics. I wouldn't go to a Christian board to debate issues (I don't think I would be welcome), but I think the theists that come here generally have a lot to contribute. I just don't want anyone to think I was encouraging the theists to leave. I wouldn't want that to happen.

Anyway, GeoTheo, I have no reason to punish the God I don't believe in. And denying His existence (whether He did exist or not) would hardly be punishment. I just find the idea of God absolutely absurd.

ManM

K,
I cannot say who will experience the next life in heaven. If a secular humanist is humble and loving, he may very well experience the next life as heavenly. Are a great number of secular humanists humble and loving?

Vanderzyden

No, I do not see or hear God, either. However, from that I am not justified in declaring that he doesn't exist. You are not setting up a fair comparison. Indeed, we do have an equivalent to your example of "words on the monitor." That would be the visible, purposeful universe. You cannot justfiably infer that he doesn't exist (and that he doesn't care) because you are unable to detect him directly and empirically.

It would seem that another analogy is more appropriate: footprints on a dirt path. If I see on the ground the distinct outline of a Technica boot sole, I can directly infer that a human has recently been walking the trail. Similarly, I may directly and quite reasonably infer the existence of a Creator from the Creation.

Instead of nothing, Something does exist, Philo. That Something has all the marks of design for a purpose. Sure, you may suspect that my subjective views entail the desire for a designer, whether I realize it or not. However, you cannot conclusively eliminate the role of a designer. In fact, the burden of demonstration is upon the atheist, who must necessarily go to great lengths to argue that no Creator can be responsible for what is empirically detectable. Here are some examples that come readily to mind:

1. You--a human with a mind--exist.
2. You breate a medium balanced well at two parts nitrogen, one part oxygen.
3. Our parent star is a bachelor, located a sufficient radiation-safe distance from the center of our galaxy.
4. The earth is a precise distance from its parent star.
5. The earth-moon system, which is astronomically classified as a double-planet, is in just the right balance for the necessary amount of tidal activity.
6. Similarly, we may consider the specificity of the composition and volume of the earth's atmosphere, the age of the earth, the presence and immense variety of extras (gold, diamonds, spices), etc.

Paul put it so well in his letter to the Romans:

Vanderzyden

Mageth

In fact, the burden of demonstration is upon the atheist, who must necessarily go to great lengths to argue that no Creator can be responsible for what is empirically detectable.

Um, I've never heard an atheist make that argument.

Further, the onus is on you to provide evidence of a Creator. The stuff in your last post is woefully inadequate as such.

Your "footprint" argument (including all the ridiculous fine tuning stuff) is totally unconvining to me. From what I've observed, I've seen nothing of the universe that I'd interpret as the mark of a designer, nothing that requires a designer, including your six supposed examples. As someone else pointed out, posing a designer as the necessary source to what you interpret as observed "design" only moves the problem back one step - what designed the (even more complicated) designer?

K

ManM:

I don't know about humble, but humanists have a deep love and respect for humanity - that's what makes them humanists.

Vanderzyden

But you are not demonstrating the "impossibility".

Furthermore, you do not allow for distortion of God's attributes, both by theists, "Christians", and atheists.

Vanderzyden

Mageth

19...what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
-- Romans 1:19-20

Spoken by a man from a superstitious tribe in a backwards corner of the mideast, just a few generations removed from nomadism, and several hundred years before the dawn of modern science, which has provided (and continues to provide) satisfactory, testable answers to the supposed mysteries of "what has been made."

Put shortly, we now know better (some of us, anyway), so you might say we have an excuse.

K

Vanderzyden:

Mageth is 100 percent correct. God, if He existed, clearly would have a purpose. That would be more apparent than any supposed purpose of this universe. By your purpose argument, because God would have a purpose, He would also have to have had a designer.

Asha'man

Unless you have a seriously different definition of 'directly' than I do, your statement is clearly incorrect.

For example, I can directly and quite reasonably infer the existance of a creator of your Creator, and that is Man.

Besides, if the existance of a Creator was so clear, we wouldn't be here debating this, would we? Maybe those footprints in the dirt path are nothing more than shallow puddles that have collected water, and you are reading more into them than is appropriate?