VonEvilstein

SOTC

Sources?

SignOfTheCross

There is adequate evidence of God's existence, a beginning, a universe with multiple galaxies, life itself, a perfectly ordered universe, in fact, just about everything we see and do is evidence of God's existence. Of course you'd reject this sentiment, and choose to believe these things came through purely natural/scientific means, but 86% of the world would disagree with you. Now I don't intend to argue this 'adequate evidence' is objective proof of God's existence, but it is "adequate" none the less, and the statistics are proof of this.

No, in fact it is true. Australian brick layers for example, have a higher average IQ than New Zealanders. My best mate came over (to Australia) from New Zealand because his family thought education system over there was too poor.

It's in our nature to blame anyone but ourselves.



Peace,
SOTC

SignOfTheCross

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html

8/10 (if you discount the non-religious), however, only .4% profess to be atheist.

An atheists signature once said "1/3 of New Zealand is atheist, and rising".

Peace,
SOTC

Inconnu

I think if we can define what a baby is, its essential human condition, we can see ourselves in the purest natural unpolluted, uncorrupted human state. Better termed as "the norm". Babies dont believe in god, for whatever reason. They also dont believe in cars, work, communism, science, modesty etc, but we dont consider these "non beliefs" worthy of a word, or even to be considered as discussable, as they are accepted as "default" for a baby. There would be no other practical way of dealing with it. "Obviously it is this way you idiot" is all we come up with.

The reason this is important is that it strengthens the argument that god is not part of the natural default state of a human and is discardable as such. It is introduced, added, forced. Wether it is good or bad, if it has merits or not, if it helps or hinders, is irrelevant, the fact is that the nature of belief in a god is contrived.
God cannot be within you.

It is sad evidence of how religion has pervaded our lives at all levels, that we have a word that describes a person who does not subscribe to a doctrine, and may have never subscibed and may never have even a concept of the doctrine, that is used as a weapon against them. We have lots of them actually. Look them up in the dictionary. Heretic, infidel, blasphemer, gentile, heathen, godless. All descriptions that the self righteous like to label those who they wish to condemn simply for being in the default, natural, "born as a baby", state. What evidence do you need for the rejectability of god and the cults that surround it?

SignOfTheCross

I think it's in the human instinct to believe in a deity, or something more than nothing. All the millions of religions in different continents and cultures over thousands of years prove my point.

One thing is for sure, babies aren't born atheists.

Peace,
SOTC

contracycle

I would be VERY surprised to find that this was true. Appeals to bricklayers IQ are hardly convincing; IQ is not rigorous science and shifts with age. So pplease provide a source for thre claim that New Zealand has a lower education standard than America.

Back to the topic. A baby is atheist by the preferred definition of atheism as held by atheists. The baby does not know god (otherwise they would not be in need of releigios indoctrination... sorry education). Thus the baby is definitely NOT a believer and meets the definition.

The second definition, that atheism means "opposed", I don;t think holds. Sure, the Antarctic is opposite the Arctic (same structure) but this does not imply that the Antarctic is an "anti-arctic"; it is not the diametrical opposite of "arctic".

contracycle

No, they don't. Most of the people in history had no serious access to science. Again, this is just an argument to numbers and conservatism, not observation, rationality or logic. Please explain WHY you think this is human instinct.

So you say, but you cannot provide the slightest reason.

Inconnu

This proves only that we have a capacity to believe. Belief is a mechanism that allows us to function without having irrefutable confirmation of every aspect of our experiences.
Do you have to check your still breathing every second, or that food does indeed sustain your life? Do you need to examine the hardness of the road every day to be sure that your car wont sink into the tarmac? We live on belief and take certain aspects as plain old facts or we would not get anywhere.
Until these facts become evident through whatever medium, we believe, often erroneously, so we can function.

If you where told that you where delivered to your parents by a stork as a baby and you had no access to other information, you would have a belief, and it would be wrong. If you grew up and somebody told you the "real" way you came to be, would you immediately abandon your belief? You would probably want proof.

If you where never told anything about where you came from and had no available information about it, you would probably, via instinct, ask. Depending on who you asked and your capacity for believing, you could end up with all kinds of belief options, as you have proven by your statement: " All the millions of religions in different continents and cultures over thousands of years prove my point."

Jack the Bodiless

Earlier, you claimed that those people believed WITHOUT evidence.

No, there is not "adequate" evidence for the existence of God. It is pure "God of the gaps". Human ignorance doesn't make God actually exist.

Llyricist

contracycle,

Antarctic is derived from the prefix anti- which quite obviously means "in opposition" or "against. Atheism is derived from a- , which I have shown ONLY means "without" or "not"