Selsaral

That's right. When someone claims that a huge, intelligent bunny rabbit delivers candy to children in April, if they actually intend for me to take that claim seriously, I'd like some evidence. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sorry, your rant about 'the force' simply proves that Jedi is the only true religion. It has no actual merit as an argument or assertation. You might as well just assert that the real god is the Stay Puf Marshmellow man, and claim it's foolish for anyone to deny his existence.

The 'proof' you have just posted can be used to 'prove' the evidence for ANY diety. 'The Proof is existence. The Proof is life. The Proof is your life.' You have just 'proved' Zeus is the creator of the universe. Thank goodness, he doesn't have any silly rules about 'belief', he just gets right to work on how you live your life.

I believe that most christian's arguments for the existence of god are similar to your absurd 'proof' above. It is after-the-fact apologetics to help convince yourself you are right, but it has no actual logical or argumentative merit and means nothing to someone who hasn't been indoctrinated.

braces_for_impact

Atheists require proof that there is a God. God is defined differently by many different religions. Where is the proof? "Show the proof," atheists keep saying.

The Proof is existence. The Proof is life. The Proof is your life.

It is proof that there is a force behind the Universe and existence. Humans may disagree with the nature of the force but who can deny that there is a force? God is the common name for the force. I don't believe any human being on the planet can claim to know enough about the Universe and existence to deny that such a force (however it is defined) exists.


I believe most of the atheists argument against the existence of God has to do with the Christian definition of what "God" is.

Hmmmm...interesting. Sounds like equivocation to me. 'Force' is not acceptable. I can most certainly deny this force exists. I can most certainly request you to clarify what this mysterious 'force' is. In any case it sounds like your searching for a first cause. What if a first cause doesn't exist? What if the first cause is a natural phenomena, unintelligent, unconcious, etc? What then?

For the record, you will notice there is a forum marked as 'Non-Abrahamic'. Here is where you will notice other expressions of god not related to christianity of which atheists require evidence.

It is true that specific christian references to the nature of the chrisitian god come under close scrutiny by atheists because of their contradictory nature. I think it is important to note that most atheists would require evidence of a god regardless of what religious tradition expresses this gods' characteristics.

As for the beginning post, welcome! So far this sounds as to me a common christian apology. 'Those aren't real christians.' or 'You're turned off by religion, not god'. These are common concepts among theists. To this I offer one piece of advice: stick around here and learn, and let go of your preconceptions.

Uni-Universe

Selsaral,


Although your reply to my previous post was amusing and cute, I must write that I think you misunderstood what I was getting at.

"God" is a mystery and cannot be accurately defined by any human being because of our limited scientific knowledge of the Universe. I also believe that any religious definition of "God" would then also have to be inaccurate.

My personal view is that the force (no, not the Jedi force) is more related to the Universe and not some outside human-like being peering down on us. We do not know enough about the Universe but forces within the Universe created (developed, etc.)life and the world we see around us.

I believe "God" is not an entity or a being. I don't even believe "God" is an object or a thing. I believe this "God" is actually the Universe and to deny that it exists seems rather absurd to me. The proof of the Universe exists all around us. The only thing that has no proof is Christianity's and other religious definition of "God." I like to call my definition of "God", a scientific definition of "God."

Selsaral

Now I understand. Sorry. Well, my confusion should be obvious, this WAS a thread about christianity after all, and you were throwing around the word 'god' quite a bit (tho to your credit, you did put it in parenthesis, which should have clued me in I guess). ;-) I guess we could now argue about this whole mystical 'force' you are talking about, but that would certainly be off topic. Like what Braces said, there is a forum for non-abrahamic religions, is sounds like your subject is better suited there. I'd still argue your 'religion' is just as absurd as any other, as you constantly assert that the universe is identical to 'god', and since the universe exists 'god' must exist, and this is a logical fallacy. If I am again misinterpreting your stance, then I suppose you are incorrectly using the word 'god'. I guess I could get out a dictionary, but the common usage for the word 'god' connotates a mystical being. You seem to be implying no such thing. If that's the case, you might as well say 'the universe is the universe, and since the universe exists, the universe exists'.

Uni-Universe

braces_for_impact,

For lack of a better word, I used the word "force" instead of "energy." The whole point is the "force" cannot be defined because of our limited knowledge of the Universe. It will always remain somewhat of a mystery but through science we are discovering more about it.

I don't believe in a first cause. The only thing I say is that the Universe is not chaotic.

"..... the Universe is governed by a set of rational laws that we can discover and understand." - Stephen Hawking

Now with that in mind, I believe that the natural processes within the Universe "created" the natural world. These processes (the force, energy whatever you want to call it) is natural. That is my point. The natural laws of the Universe are miraculous and wonderful enough.

The problem I have is that Christians and some other groups want to believe "God" is some sort of magician waving a magic wand and poof! here we are. I don't believe that. The religious definition of what "God" is ...is flawed. I have seen that atheists mostly have a problem with Christianity's definition of God.

I call my "God," the Universe.


PS: By the way, I am not a new comer. I have been posting for two years.

Selsaral

Uni-Universe:

Now I understand much better. You were right, it's all about the usage of the word 'god'. However I'd dispute that religion's definition of the word god is 'flawed', simply because that is the traditional use of the word. It is what it is. You seem to be wanting to redefine the word 'god'. You should probably just choose a whole new word, cause i don't think the word 'god' will ever loose its mystical, religious, guy-on-cloud-passing-judgment meanings.

Eudaimonist

I agree that the Universe exists. I don't see any point in calling it "God" though. "God" seems like a superfluous concept for a natural universe.

brighid

Joe,

Thank you for your thoughtful post here. I think your post speaks of some general misconceptions about atheists, at least in the context of the United States. Most of us did not have the benefit of being raised non-theist or atheist. The vast majority of us have been raised in various Christian denominations, in a country dominated by Christian culture. Nearly every city we come across has at least one Church, but only a few have synagogues and even fewer have Mosques, Hindu Temples and you will be hard pressed to find a specific atheist gathering place outside of the few Unitarian Universalist Churches we are actually welcomed in. Our politicians pledge allegiance to a distinctly Protestant, Christian version of a God and make their oath of office upon a Christian Bible. And the list goes on and on and on …

We, as atheists are wholly and intimately familiar with Christianity, the programming you speak of and often times much more familiar with the historical, linguistically, liturgical and theological aspects of the Holy Bible then the vast majority of Bible believing Christians, true of otherwise. Many of us here have attending seminary and divinity schools, other were preachers, some of us were brought up in strictly fundamentalist homes that were oft very abusive, some of us have taken decades of careful thought, research and agonizing to come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no credible evidence for the existence of the Judaic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Pagan Gods. We have dutifully walked the path with Christ, we have prayed until our knees bled and wept until our tears ran dry searching for the elusive relationship with Christ. We have been pillars in our former Churches, led youth groups, read the Bible from back to front (and done so many times), studied earnestly, we did all the things a good Christian should and yet … we were left wanting, empty and with a gapping hole in our being. Some theists say we simply didn’t pray hard enough, or desire a relationship with Christ with the proper spirit. They would be wrong and nothing could be farther from the truth.

As atheists we simply disbelieve in ONE more God then you do. The evidence that has been left, the Holy Bible that is, cannot be from the perfectly good, merciful, loving, just Creator of all things. The evidence provided by the Holy Bible demonstrates it is no more inspired and no more divine then any other text, and in some cases far less inspired and divine then texts making no such claim. Personally, I find the life, actions and examples of the current Dalai Lama to be far more productive, ethical, kind, merciful and compassionate then anything Christ ever did.

I have come to the conclusion of that atheism is the best choice I have given the evidence. You have no more proof of the existence of your God, then you have evidence that it isn’t in fact Satan inspiring you through deception. You “believe” because indeed, you have been programmed. If by chance you were born and raised with no God belief and you were given ALL of the evidence for every religion to ever exist, and through this evidence you were able to conclude and or prove that what you “believe” actually comes from this Christ … maybe you would have an argument against being programmed. There is a reason why the Catholic Church (at least) believes that if children are not brought to them before the age of 8, these children are lost to them. It is much more difficult to instill these beliefs in a human child once they have formed basic reasoning skills. Why do you think that is?

The evidence seems to be that your religion is greatly influenced by the culture you are raised in. If you were born in India you would more then likely be a Hindu. If you were born in present day Egypt you would likely be a Muslim and if you were born in Egypt during the time of the Pharaohs you would worship any number of deities such as Ra, Horus, Osiris and Isis and your thoughts about the place of men and women in society, as well as the existence of other Gods would be entirely different. If you were born during the birth of Judaism you would start off worshipping El, and see Asherah as the Queen of Heaven and it wouldn’t be until later that El became a God with no female equal as seen in Yaweh and morphed further into the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as you know it today.

Atheism is one thing and one thing only – a lack of belief in Gods. We don’t believe in your God anymore then you believe in the existence of Zeus, Freya, Odin or Brighid. Why it is so difficult for you to understand that we apply the same standards to your God as you do to all others and yet come to a similar conclusion about your God … well it baffles me, even if I understand how the emotional conditioning and mental programming makes it nearly impossible for you to conclude otherwise.

The difference between the atheist and the theist is that we have gone one step further and have the courage to admit that the Gods we were raised to know, love and worship are not more true then the Gods we were told were false, non-existent and/or demonic.

Brighid

Uni-Universe

Salsaral,


You are probably right that the word "God" will never loose its religious, God-as-magician-in-the-clouds definition. I feel I need to still use the word because I really believe that people have a flawed thinking of what "God" is. "God" is only a name. For awhile, the name I used was Universe-God but I think that confused people further.

People have different words to describe a rock. People can even look at the rock and believe that the rock is looking back at them. They can even believe that the rock is magical. But the rock is just a rock despite people's beliefs of what it is and what is can do.

The Christian definition of "God" is just an anthropomorphic view of the Universe. "God" is supposed to be a supreme being, I translate that to mean: The Universe is a macrocosm.

Why does "God" or the Universe need to be lowered to religious, human criteria? Religious people claim to look up to "God" and they think "God" is all powerful and yet they attach human emotions and human characteristics to it. It doesn't make sense to me. It never has.

When atheists say that God does not exist, what they should be saying is: The human-religious definition of "God" does not exist.

Biff the unclean

Uni, since the word "God" has a perfectly good definition and the word "universe" also has a perfectly good--but different--definition; which one are you discarding? Or are you throwing out both definitions?
If you start ascribing your own meaning to ordinary English words nobody is going to know what the Hell you are talking about. The fault with people being confused lies not with them but with poor communication skills on your part.
Why does "God" or the Universe need to be lowered to religious, human criteria?
Lowered? Lowered from what? Why do you consider something being human to mean that it is worse than anything else?