Synaesthesia

David,
Theists cannot enjoy love. There is always a lingering doubt that it's God rather than a genuine feeling on the part of the individual.

Listen David, the most important thing that I discovered when I gave up religion is that God does not matter. I can be every bit as loving, hateful, vicious and sensitive as any theist. I stimply don't attribute it to God. A change which, to be very frank, effects me less than the realization that there is no change.

An equally loving and arrogant human being,
Synaethesia

madmax2976

Hello David,

Everything here is relevant only to believers, but here are some of my comments anyhow..

Except other believers could accuse you of not complying with the great commission, which of course cannot be done until you convince others that the biblical God exists. They could accuse your of willful disobediance in the face of difficulty.

<strong> They could accuse you of having little faith in God that he couldn't and/or didn't keep his word to mankind completely free from corruption.

<strong> They could accuse you of denying Gods sovereignty. Christians [according to many of them] do have absolute truth regarding morality and other issues as well.

<strong> They would admonish you into remembering there are no errors as far as God is concerned. God is perfect and his word is perfect. Your failure to recognize this is akin to blasphemy.

<strong> According to many of them, it is your duty to convert agnotics and atheists. You're being disobdedient to God.

<strong> Most have no problem tolerating and loving others. You should hate the sin and love the sinner as they saying goes. You also need to bring them to the one true word so they can avoid eternal damnation. Your being neglectful of the obligation God has placed on you.

<strong> Confessing sins is a admonishment found in scripture so I doubt any Christian would disagree with this. They would admonish you to admit your sin of apathy towards Gods clear commandments.

The point being for all of this is that there really is no "right or wrong" answer to these things. David's accusation that they would have little faith is a truthful as their accusations against him would be. Its all a matter of interpretation and personal opinion.

[ July 06, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

Theli

David...

First of all, I call your god fictional. Because that's all he is. Prove me wrong!
It's more than an opinion as I have shown it's logical conclution, and it has yet gone uncontested by you.
All you have done as of yet is trying to dodge my questions by putting labels on them. Building strawmen, and refusing to challenge my claims as they are "just my opinion".
Opinions like that have a way of becoming truth.
And the idea that you are completely incapable of refuting it strengthen it's truthvalue.

What really bugs you, is that you might even agree with me. Is this why you are so reluctant to defend your statements? Is this why you can't make up your mind half the time?

I agree, I am not just a cluster of atoms.

I do to, but I don't think we are on the same frequency here.

"Faith is magical", here it comes again...

I have never heard anyone hate evidence as much as you do. But, I guess it's the next inevidable (damn word!) step. If evidence speaks against your wish - attack the evidence.

And faith is?
Let's compare how many statements have been proven by logic, and how many have been proven by cultmentality/faith.

1st off, is the world flat, David?
We don't need to know anything, and we don't need to think. Let all the unfaithfull keep society running and we can dance in our blissfull ignorance in neverneverland.

So, this "soul" is telling you that all naturalistic claims are true?
Aren't you listening to your friend, the soul?

Yes, as a fictional abstract character in our heads. Very much like your god, I might add.

If that's not worth a nobelprice, I don't know what is.

That's what I've been doing all along, while you seem to be dancing around in the sky eating candy. But who needs logic and reason when you can dance around among the clouds? Until you get hit by a car, that is.

No, you must beat yourself in the head with a bible until your mind fails on you in order to be "aware of god".

No. You, David cannot comprehend/perceive god, therefore your god doesn't exist.

That's right! Be closedminded! Only the most closedminded have "real" faith.

I agree. Why need knowledge, when you can imagine everything?

I think this one reffers to atheists to. Absolute truth is hard to find. (not the faithpart, though)

Excacly, the really faithfull don't let things like "contradictions", "opposing evidence", "missing evidence" or "no god" break his connection with the cult.

We are all imperfect.

Does this apply to defending your beliefs against atheists to? How's your faith, david?

This one is good. I'll leave this one alone.

Why do you have to confess your doubts?
Are doubts really that bad?
I would say that doubts are a sign that you are openminded, that's all.

nyx

DM

Have you been paying attention? You are posting on a website that is by its very nature a home for athiests and agnostics(among others).

Are you hearing us tell you that we find meaning in this life without mortality, or your god? Are you not willing to hear from us that we are happy, share love and find a purpose in our existence?

If not, then you are not here to exchange information, as you have said.

Nyx

David Mathews

Hello Splashing,

Here is my response to your post on page 15.

David: I have not changed my mind.

David: When you say that this universe is "consistent with a purely naturalistic scenario as far as can be dicerned empirically" I really do not know what you are talking about. The empirical observations of the Universe do not resolve the questions of the Universe's origin, how and why it originated and how and why it should be self-aware in the form of conscious intelligent life such as us.

David: I don't consider Brain-in-a-labratoryism a serious alternative to theism, pantheism, naturalism, humanism, atheism, buddhism, taoism, hinduism or any other religious or philosophical speculation about the origin of the Universe.

From the standpoint of profundity, the Hindu creation hymn (Rig Veda 10.129) is a more legitimate alternative to the creation account (Genesis 1-2), though I am inclined to consider both true in some sense. That hymn, as contained in the Penguin translation of the Rig Veda:

David: The Hindus had thought about this question for thousands of years before these words were initially composed. Atheists might want to criticize and reject all theistic scenarios but they still face the same sort of mysteries.

You think your alternative to theism is right, though in actual fact you really don't have a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the Universe. If you had such a naturalistic scenario, you could never empirically verify its truth or objectively demonstrate that its' advantage over theistic alternatives.

David: A theistic universe is indistinguishable from an atheistic universe because, and only because, theists and atheists live in the same universe.

There are no tools or methods for predicting what form a universe created by God would take and what form a universe created naturalistically would take. We only have access to one Universe and within that Universe there are theists and atheists, therefore the Universe of the theists is identical in all respects with the Universe of the atheists.

David: I have very little confidence in the ability of computers to model the origin of universes, and I have less confidence in the results of such studies if they are ever undertaken by scientific researchers. There are simply too many unknowns to accurately model the origin of a universe.

David: I don't specifically consider human consciousness a proof of God, though consciousness is such an astonishing property of matter that it seems doubtful that matter alone could invent it. I don't consider atoms, molecules, cells or even the organ of the brain instrinsically conscious. Perhaps I am mistaken, but at the present there seems little reason to consider consciousness a strictly physical phenomena.

David: There are undoubtedly thousands of millions of things we have overlooked. Within ourselves and within the Universe there are a myriad of things which occur, all outside the perception and notice of the conscious mind.

I think it also worthy of note that essential life-support organs (the heart and the lungs being the most important of these) are not governed by the conscious mind. The brain locks out these functions from the conscious mind's control. The mind can tell the hand to grasp or release, can tell the muscles of the leg to contract and expand, but it can't say anything at all -- no command, no request or no suggestion -- to the heart.

David: I don't deny the role of psychological and social factors in my religion. I believe that those same factions are present in atheism to the same degree as it is in theism.

David: Brain-in-a-labratoryism is no competitor to religious thought whatsoever. Millions of profound intellects have invested tens of millions of years into the meaning of theism, brain-in-a-labratoryism has no such treasure of thought or wisdom to recommend it to anyone.

David: Accepting a viewpoint contrary to the majority does serve emotional and psychological purposes. You are not aware of these because you take them for granted. They are subconscious realities in your own mind which you either do not notice or you ignore.

David: Perhaps these are the reasons why you are an atheist, or perhaps they are just the self-generated mythology which sanctifies and justifies your theological views.

David: If you have faith in naturalism's success, you really do have faith and nothing else. Naturalism's ultimate success is by no means guaranteed. Secondarily, Naturalism's ability to explain natural phenomena does not contradict nor refute theism as the ultimate cause of all of these natural phenomena.

David: Unknown qualities and mysterious qualities do not function as evidences of God. They merely serve as reasons for humans to approach ultimate questions with humility rather than dogmatism.

David: Brain-in-labratoryism is really not an explanation for anything in an ultimate sense. That is why it serves little purpose for me to refute it.

What you should do is present a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the Universe which is more likely than theism. At the present moment I am not aware of any.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

nyx

Waitaminute. I missed the part where David said many athiests see death as an enemy to defeat. Really? I accept it as a part of life. I'm not trying to defeat it.

Atlanticcityslave
Well said.

David Mathews

Hello Splashing,

David: I hope that I have responded to the correct post. If not, please post it again and I will respond.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Synaesthesia

First:The universe is not self-aware, that's the fallacy of composition.

Second: There is no solution to the question of 'why there is something rather than nothing'. God's existence can't "explain" why he exists any more than the universe can. We are left with only, the tentative realization that it's the wrong question to ask, even if the answer is 42.

David Mathews

Hello Helen,

David; I take it as an inescapable fact that all people are forgotten, their identities and all of their accomplishments are lost forever in the passage of time. For a small number of individuals, the name is preserved for years, centuries and for a lucky minority perpetually. Yet in the passage of time the name itself (such as "George Washington" and "Alexander the Great") becomes merely a sound, the person who possessed that name has essentially been forgotten as all that is preserves are imperfect memories of who the person was and what that person did.

I don't imagine that dead people really care about whether they are remembered or not. While in this life we might delude ourselves with the hope that someone will remember us, in reality we know that we devote only a small amount of our own time thinking about people who have died, and less time thinking about dead people who died before we were born.

People who make geneaologies are not acting on behalf of the dead. They make genealogies for their own self, the dead people's information serving only to provide a context for the life of the living. Once the name is discovered and the initial pleasure of discovery has passed, the name becomes just a name, and a life of many decades is condensed into several words and numbers.

David: I hope that you are describing atheists accurately. I would hate to think that atheists approached life as if it were meaningless, purposeless and valueless.

David: I do care about these people. What I don't care about is the opinion of me that these people might have. I don't care about what people might say about my faith, or the criticisms they may have of my reasons for believing what I have chosen to believe.

I care about people as they are, I have no investment in myself to protect, preserve or promote. People can think whatever they want about me, I have granted all people that freedom.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Pompous,

David: In that case you do enjoy love. That is great, I like to hear that.

David: If that definition is satisfactory to you, it is satisfactory for me. You are the only accurate representative of your own thoughts and emotions, I would never presume to disagree with you about your perception of love.

David: If that is what you do, that is all that I would want for you to do.

Sincerely,

David Mathews