Does God exist?

[Gman]

Atheism, A RELIGION? You've got to be kidding be.

No.. I'm not kidding you.. Atheism is a religion... Directed by all-powerful natural selection, chance and time becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshiped as truth.

Religion: (Merriam Webster) 1)the state of a religious. No.
2) the service and worship of God or the supernatural. No.
3)commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance. No.
4)a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices. No, atheism is one opinion on one topic. Atheism has no practices, or attitudes in relation to anything else. Yes, some atheists have their attitudes towards other, and their personal routines, but neither are based on their atheism. And it specifically says religious... soo...
5)a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. Debatable. A cause (of beliefs).. ehhh, I don't know, I don't really know what it means. A principle belief... Yah I guess so, under this definition, yes atheism is a religion. But so is republicanism, liberalism, and anything else that has a core foundational belief.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion

This is from another one of my posts..

We are religious animals that cannot help but think that something is divine. If you deny the authority of God, that He created all things, you haven’t denied the concept of authority, you simply transfer it to something else like nature or mother nature, or your science...

What people are doing with nature is applying personal attributes to it. It’s a personification of nature. We hear in our culture today about nature doing this or nature doing that, acting in some way like mother nature caused a storm today, or an earthquake, etc.. Nature by itself doesn’t do anything.. Nature is impersonal, but humans try to apply their personal attributes to it. It doesn’t mean that that person is not religious, it just means they have a different set of religious presumptions.. Even Darwin himself referred to "my deity, Natural Selection." We simply cannot escape it..

Everyone is religious..

So, what is your definition of a religion?

I think you properly defined it..

You know what, give up, no one is obviously going to answer my question.

As PL stated, we don't know what answers you want to your questions.. AND, you have not properly answered our questions either..

I am done with this forum... All I did was ask a question, and I have to deal with so much crap than I intended, and not that I can't handle it. It's just SO STUPID. I'm done here. Have a nice life living your lie. Oh and all you guys have done is just reinforce the idea that God is illogical.

If you claim to have a logical argument, you certainly haven't revealed that to us either...

[MarcusOfLycia]

I actually didn't think CopaceticMan was going to leave that quickly, but with the tone and the discussion going the way it was, I didn't think he'd last too much longer either. I read over all the posts, and just generally don't know what some of the problem was.

I feel some of us might have come across differently than we intended (I know I did, and admitted it), but I felt like he was here to fight and not to learn or discuss. I'm not just basing that on my interaction or even his interactions with everyone else... but because I used to do that too (though it was politics...). Did anyone else feel that, or was it just me?

[Gman]

I actually didn't think CopaceticMan was going to leave that quickly, but with the tone and the discussion going the way it was, I didn't think he'd last too much longer either. I read over all the posts, and just generally don't know what some of the problem was.

I feel some of us might have come across differently than we intended (I know I did, and admitted it), but I felt like he was here to fight and not to learn or discuss. I'm not just basing that on my interaction or even his interactions with everyone else... but because I used to do that too (though it was politics...). Did anyone else feel that, or was it just me?

Well.. I think it is apparent he came in with his own presuppositions.

[joejmz]

I actually didn't think CopaceticMan was going to leave that quickly, but with the tone and the discussion going the way it was, I didn't think he'd last too much longer either. I read over all the posts, and just generally don't know what some of the problem was.

I feel some of us might have come across differently than we intended (I know I did, and admitted it), but I felt like he was here to fight and not to learn or discuss. I'm not just basing that on my interaction or even his interactions with everyone else... but because I used to do that too (though it was politics...). Did anyone else feel that, or was it just me?

No, it seemed quite obvious that CopaseticMan was here to fight and to ridicule. He made a point of being insulting by using words like "religitard" and by implying believers are less intelligent than those who do not believe in anything they can't process through science and took it further by acting as if he didn't see that as insulting.

I think the reason he left so quickly was because he wasn't getting the reaction he wanted which was a fight. People were challenging his points logically and calmly and he really was not able to defend his views except through platitudes.

[puritan lad]

Now you have another hole, step three. Why can't knowledge be justified in a godless universe?

No holes here. This is Rock Solid. However, since you have already told us that...

There appears to be a natural explanation for everything.

...I'll await your naturalistic justification for knowledge. Until I get it, the premises remain true, and by your own admission, God has been proven.

If you can show premise one to be valid, then, logically, you would have proven God to be correct.

First I never claimed it. I clarified myself above. Second, I require evidence. You wont convince any scientist without evidence (as in, it won't ever become a scientific fact/theory).

I'll ask yet again. What kind of evidence do you require? You have yet to answer that question, because it would expose your naturalistic presuppositions.

[DannyM]

I actually didn't think CopaceticMan was going to leave that quickly, but with the tone and the discussion going the way it was, I didn't think he'd last too much longer either. I read over all the posts, and just generally don't know what some of the problem was.

I feel some of us might have come across differently than we intended (I know I did, and admitted it), but I felt like he was here to fight and not to learn or discuss. I'm not just basing that on my interaction or even his interactions with everyone else... but because I used to do that too (though it was politics...). Did anyone else feel that, or was it just me?

Why are you apologising when the guy was nothing but insulting? Don't feel bad for the guy getting a roasting when he clearly came to fight. When you live by the sword and all that. He lorded it over us all, and has been made to look second-rate by one or two of you...Particularly Puritan Lad. If somebody comes here genuinely willing to discuss and not ridicule, then we should open our arms and talk away; otherwise let's not worry too much about another so-called combative atheist who bites the dust.

[Byblos]

I actually didn't think CopaceticMan was going to leave that quickly, but with the tone and the discussion going the way it was, I didn't think he'd last too much longer either. I read over all the posts, and just generally don't know what some of the problem was.

I feel some of us might have come across differently than we intended (I know I did, and admitted it), but I felt like he was here to fight and not to learn or discuss. I'm not just basing that on my interaction or even his interactions with everyone else... but because I used to do that too (though it was politics...). Did anyone else feel that, or was it just me?

Although it was heated at times it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the other threads we've had with atheists in the past. He wants to come here and the only thing he brings is multi-verse, the argument of evil and a rock too big? He was running out of steam and he knows it; better to retreat now than embarrass himself some more.

[DannyM]

You know what, give up, no one is obviously going to answer my question.

I am done with this forum... All I did was ask a question, and I have to deal with so much crap than I intended, and not that I can't handle it. It's just SO STUPID. I'm done here. Have a nice life living your lie. Oh and all you guys have done is just reinforce the idea that God is illogical.

Lol. Ya see? Came in with a few early blows, got counter-punched so heavily (by content not numbers), and trots off claiming...wait for it...that we are all stupid and living a lie. A complete failure to address the questions - and tries to flip it by saying no-one is answering his question. Oh so predictable.

[jlay]

Listen, there were a lot of good points made. Ultimately this thread boiled down to how does one support their worldview. PL, myself, and few others were trying to show this person that you simply can't hold to laws or logic, reason, science, uniformity, etc. and yet just take for granted that they are. It's not logical.

Thre result. A predjudicial emotional outburst.

I am done with this forum... All I did was ask a question, and I have to deal with so much crap than I intended, and not that I can't handle it. It's just SO STUPID. I'm done here. Have a nice life living your lie. Oh and all you guys have done is just reinforce the idea that God is illogical.

This is the equivelant of saying, "I'm taking my ball and going home."
When one sees that they can only defend their worldview by trespassing on Christian Theism, (Which PL demonstrated) you either abandon that worldview or you twist reason to try and maintain it. This is going to result in epithets, etc.

I admit that I could be ignorant, no where did I say that I wasn't. And yes you could put me in a position of bias, I will continue striving for a natural explanation, before supernatural. But if you can show that there is a reason that the supernatural should be considered, then albeit, give it to the physicists. Give it to the biologists. They are the ones answering the unknowns. But natural is all anyone has a reason to look for, in the lack of evidence for the supernatural. When you get evidence for the supernatural, then you will be justified (scientifically, and logically) in believing in the super natural. So yes, in the lack of evidence, I am in the neutral,if you can show supernatural exists, I will agree with you.

That is a self-defeating standard. First, is it reasonable to prove supernatural things with natural methods? And this really just keeps moving the target. Are we trying to prove Christ, or creation? (I know both) But, how can one even accept Christ if they have already ruled out a creator? It's not reasonable. It's predjudiced, and illogical. What is our universe afterall? Space, time, matter. Is it reasonable to conclude it had a beginning? If it had a beginning then would it be logical to conclude that it was non existant at some point? So, if the universe wasn't, and then it was, it had a cause. Are we still within logic and reason? What kind of cause? There was no nature, so you can't have natural laws. So, if there were no natural laws, what caused it? So it would reason that the cause was timesless, immaterial, and transcendent, and supernatural. Would be reasonable to suppose intelligence? These things all reasonably point to a timeless, immaterial, transcendent, intelligent cause of our universe. And this framework also provides a purpose for the laws of science, logic, reason, uniformity, morality, etc.
Why there is something rather than nothing. And why we can hold to immaterial abstract laws of logic to understand our material universe.

[Echoside]

But if knowledge is simply a manipulation of matter, how do we discover the truth of a matter? After all, this was a response to your statement "Just because there are no right or wrong opinions does not mean one should dismiss it". How do we find truth?

I think we have a misunderstanding by what exactly I meant by that statement.

"knowledge is worthless in a naturalistic universe". By that statement, yes knowledge is neutral in worth to every other occurence, lacking "meaning". I agree, but dismissing the statement as illogical by using it to appeal to the negative effects is clearly fallacious. My statement could maybe be modified to just because there are no right or wrong opinions does not mean one should dismiss it for that reason alone". I have no problems with arguing against the logical progression a naturalist might take to describe knowledge or truth, but the statement "knowledge is worthless in a naturalistic universe" itself is not a problem.

But exactly how is this done? We need some foundation for knowledge, so how do we manipulate our gray matter? What exactly is the process of "learning", and how does it work?

I have demonstrated how a computer appears to forget/learn data via installing or uninstalling a program. In a naturalistic universe, humans are on an "equal" level with computers in the sense that we are just advanced robots. It isn't clear to me that it requires a very large leap of faith at all that the way humans are put together and access information could be a similar process with a computer. More complex, maybe different, I don't know, and the mind is obviously one of the "scientific mysteries" still so I'm not going to attempt to make up how it might work.

[Gman]

I think what we are saying here if truth is clearly Darwinistic, if there are no absolutes, if consciousness evolved, our ideas evolved, our definition of what’s real, your truth is different from mine, there is no good, there is no real right, it’s just whatever idea has survived to most and out reproduced the other ideas. So then the definition of survivability becomes the definition of what’s true.

[jlay]

I have demonstrated how a computer appears to forget/learn data via installing or uninstalling a program. In a naturalistic universe, humans are on an "equal" level with computers in the sense that we are just advanced robots. It isn't clear to me that it requires a very large leap of faith at all that the way humans are put together and access information could be a similar process with a computer. More complex, maybe different, I don't know, and the mind is obviously one of the "scientific mysteries" still so I'm not going to attempt to make up how it might work.

Ultimately it comes down to atomic particles assembling and programming into hardware and software with the caveat being, 'just give it enough time.'

[puritan lad]

GMan is correct. The problem with the computer analogy is that computers need to be assembled and programmed. Computers don't exist in "nature" so to speak, nor do they obtain any real "knowledge". C.S.Lewis exhibits the problem with the epistemology of "Realism" (which is what you are heading for) is a secular world.

“If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry, and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. . . .” .(C.S. Lewis, They Asked for a Paper - London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962, 164–165.)

One of the many problems with presupposing a naturalistic worldview is that all of their epistemologies fail.

See The Knowledge Of God Part II

Thus, it can be proven by modus tollens that God is the precondition of knowledge. In this case, God can be proven to exist, and atheism cannor get off the ground.

[jlay]

I have a more crude example you are welcome to use.

The love a parent feels for their child. The sadness at that death of a loved one. The bravery of a soldier in war. The courage of a fireman risking his life to save another. Biologically, are no more significant than an elephant fart.

[puritan lad]

It gets even worse. I haven't even addressed ethics yet, but from a pure, naturalistic point of view, there is no difference between a genocidal dictator and a person who sprays weed killer on his lawn.