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Does God exist? Part 2 (1 Viewer)

HazzRat

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I’m assuming many of you are atheist/agnostic cause it’s 2023 and not many of us go to church anymore. However some of you may believe in a higher power so I just wondered what your stance is on God?

For me, there are a few major pitfalls that make religion a non-starter for me.

1) There is no proof. This is a relatively simple one. The only proof of God’s existence is found in a religious text or a church. If humanity was to turn back to the Stone Age, much of modern science would emerge again come a few thousand years. However completely different religions would form as none of the world’s religions would flow intuitively from the scientific method.

2) Circular reasoning. The Bible says that God exists so God exists because the Bible does. There is a reason every major religion thinks their God is divine but can not even comprehend the existence of another one.

3) Errors in the Bible - it’s almost like the writers of the Bible were human just like the rest of us 😉. Thank you Wikipedia

4) Religious people tend to pick and chose their ethics anyway. Back in the day, Moses gifted the Abrahamic religions with the sacrosanct ‘Ten Commandments’, written directly from the word of God. And even atheists alike can agree that God did a good job of writing these Commandments as they are universal in almost every religion/worldview/philosophy. However, what is pernicious about the ‘Ten Commandments’ is that they have all been corrupted to benefit whatever God wants whatever day of the week. Even the most straightforward one: ‘Thou shall not kill’ has diverged into the Frankensteinian cross-stitch of ‘Thou shall not kill unless God says so’. Somehow the Christians were able to justify the crusades and WW1 and (albeit controversial) Muslims were able to justify the Islamic conquest. (I won’t delve into whether 9/11 was religiously or politically justified as that is a topic for another day). The same applies to the modern day where even in America - an exemplar of the personal sanctity in the international stage - the more religious a state is, the more likely it is to glorify the death penalty. See for yourself:

View attachment 37883
US states by religiosity - Wikipedia

View attachment 37885
US states by legality of the death penalty - Independent


(Please California get rid of death penalty because I want to move there one day. For now a moratorium will do.)

But this principle of ‘picking and choosing’ ethics applies to all major religions. The Catholic Church is the biggest pedophile ring in history, both sides of the Civil War found reasons to support their side, Islam has been fucking brutal throughout world history, and all abrahamic religions have found reasons to support their antisemitism (it wasn’t until 1968 that the Catholic Church ended their minor superstition that Jewish people were to blame for Jesus’ death - unfortunately they couldn’t pit anything on the Romans).

However, there is a reason I’m not completely heterodox to doing SOR II (although I do wish I was given an option). And that is because most of these stories aren’t that bad. Jesus and Moses were all good guys and it would be honourable to model your behaviour off of these two figures (Mohammed is controversial but I won’t go there). I don’t see why we can’t just see Jesus as a good Bronze Age thinker and not the divine son of literal God. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ remains truthful whatever culture you’re apart of and the Good Samaritan remains a bulwark of radical acceptance over whatever race/religion/gender/sexual orientation/culture. There is a reason that religiously motivated people assist the vulnerable and donate to good organisations in droves. That is not to say us atheists don’t have a conscience at all as evident my the multitude of secular organisations. But religion does work and there is an appeal to Jesus’ teachings.

I wrote all this on my phone in the car so I can probably finish this another day. I didn’t really get into the juicy stuff. Just because the world’s major religions don’t perceive God in the ‘correct’ way doesn’t mean there isn’t a God. Albert Einstein believed in ‘Spinoza’s God’ - basically a God which created the known universe without being concerned in the fates of human beings.

Imo, the chance of arriving in Hell tomorrow only to discover I’ve been worshipping the wrong faith, and that Norse mythology was the ‘correct’ one would be unlikely at best. However, I would arrive in Heaven the day we start debating whether there is any truth to ‘Spinoza’s God’.

Anyway, I’m out. What is your opinion?
Plz don’t read the original post. I sounded so cunty back then and used too many big words that didn’t even fit the sentence.

Now my philosophy is spread ❤ on the BoS not 🔥
 
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carrotsss

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I wonder how many people in this site are atheist

this one has a poll but a lot of the votes are from like 2008
 

C_master

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this one has a poll but a lot of the votes are from like 2008
but that was like 15 years ago
 

Atheist/agnostic slayer

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I’m assuming many of you are atheist/agnostic cause it’s 2023 and not many of us go to church anymore. However some of you may believe in a higher power so I just wondered what your stance is on God?
I answer this. Refuting falsehoods and nonsense. :)

For me, there are a few major pitfalls that make religion a non-starter for me.
Perhaps it's time for neurogenesis?

1) There is no proof. This is a relatively simple one. The only proof of God’s existence is found in a religious text or a church. If humanity was to turn back to the Stone Age, much of modern science would emerge again come a few thousand years. However completely different religions would form as none of the world’s religions would flow intuitively from the scientific method.
I answer this. To say there is not tangible or empirical evidence to prove the existence of God can be a positive claim, however, there is no such negation to prove that there can not be a God. If you observe this persons slippery slope, you will identify the fundamental flaw in their first precept. "The only proof of God’s existence is found in a religious text or a church." I'm glad hazzrat has discredited thousands of years of scholastics and philosophy which argue for the existence or at least ascertain to a positive claim of a greater likelihood of their position being a truthful proposition. I could list a multiplicity of arguments that 'prove' the existence of God, yet, we all know what this person is asking for is a convolution of our contemporary understanding of what it would mean to 'prove' for a positive proposition. By the same criteria that you apply to the existence of God claiming the only prerequisite to make you believe would be empirical evidence of God, I will challenge you here today. Provide me proof and demonstrate the existence of abstracts and things that are axiomatic in our universe. I'll await your shocking new discovery to prove universals and abstracts, I've been stimulated by such an incredible idea. The scientific method is mostly indifferent to religion because not only does belief require a degree of uncertainty, in which science still does but less to an extent, one pertains to describing the nature and mechanisms of what is created whereas the other pertains to a deeper metaphysical philosophy and ethical frameworks.

2) Circular reasoning. The Bible says that God exists so God exists because the Bible does. There is a reason every major religion thinks their God is divine but can not even comprehend the existence of another one.
This is not how theistic worldviews operate and I'm so glad you brought up logical fallacies. I'll give you a simple dichotomy.

1. You either concede to the idea that you were strawmanning the majority of theists positions or for that matter christians worldview whereby I'm accusing you of having not digressed from inherent biases and prejudices and instead assumed the position of theists.

2. If you reject the first option then I will be accusing you of an anecdotal fallacy and an argument from silence due to your conceiving your own heuristic by your own personal experience and generalised it as a worldview for most Christians.

On the premise of conceding to intellectual dishonesty, all theists have the same first objective precept to at least provide arguments for a deistic worldview such that a God, a deity, a creator exists. This does not occur from your irrational statements above. This can occur from a multiplicity of arguments such as Leibniz contingency argument, St Thomas Aquinas' argument from motion etc. It seems you have some intrinsic bias against Christianity in which you keep trying to prove against Christianity, not theism which entails the belief in a God, exclusive to a religion. Once this has been achieved, to prove FOR a theistic worldview you provide your case for your religion. This can include historical precedence, comparative archaeological evidence, Patristics, Scholasticism, scholarly observance. It seems in addition you just discredited hermeneutics, which all christians use to interpret the bible. I suggest you research into hermeneutics to observe how theists provide a multiplicity of connotations for their respective literature.

3) Errors in the Bible - it’s almost like the writers of the Bible were human just like the rest of us 😉.
Just critically evaluating this persons case, you can see they have no intention of actually addressing the merits of their argument against theism and instead want to scrutinise Christianity because of some profound hatred for it. Even if I were to grant you that the bible does contain errors, Catholics and most Christians don't hold to the idea that the bible is the literal word of God, an attribute of God. They affirm Absolute Divine Simplicity in addition to the authors of the bible being divinely inspired and guided yet not infallible because they are still men and women, unlike Islam which claims the quran is the literal word of God and cannot contain errors. I do not affirm that there are certain errors in the bible, yet, I do not deny the possibility that there can be errors made throughout history such as a scribal error which would have virtually no effect on the bible and its message. It seems like you do not even know this most basic belief, once again constructing an argument from silence.

4) Religious people tend to pick and chose their ethics anyway. Back in the day, Moses gifted the Abrahamic religions with the sacrosanct ‘Ten Commandments’, written directly from the word of God. And even atheists alike can agree that God did a good job of writing these Commandments as they are universal in almost every religion/worldview/philosophy. However, what is pernicious about the ‘Ten Commandments’ is that they have all been corrupted to benefit whatever God wants whatever day of the week. Even the most straightforward one: ‘Thou shall not kill’ has diverged into the Frankensteinian cross-stitch of ‘Thou shall not kill unless God says so’. Somehow the Christians were able to justify the crusades and WW1 and (albeit controversial) Muslims were able to justify the Islamic conquest. (I won’t delve into whether 9/11 was religiously or politically justified as that is a topic for another day). The same applies to the modern day where even in America - an exemplar of the personal sanctity in the international stage - the more religious a state is, the more likely it is to glorify the death penalty. See for yourself:
I decided to leave out all of this evidence of the horrible 'atrocities' of religion because I quite frankly feel it's irrelevant when I can answer this very easily. The actions of fallible individuals have no bearing upon what the doctrine of Christianity preaches. You don't project hate onto the religion, you detest the perpetrators of such heinous actions. I mean seriously, how can you criticise a religion that preaches not to kill because individuals who never were even considered to be real christians killed people. Should I make a hasty generalisation and say since an atheist shot someone and killed them unjustifiably all atheists are therefore murderers. Why do you decide to bring up such an argument that doesn't even pertain to the existence of God to criticise a certain religion? This pertains to the influence of religion and its necessity in society not to the existence of God. I'll repeat this again, someone who does not practice Christianity is not a Christian. To practice Christianity means to believe and to follow what the bible teaches. If it does teach not to kill people and another persons murders someone, they are not Christian.
 

Cathode_RT

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I answer this. Refuting falsehoods and nonsense. :)



Perhaps it's time for neurogenesis?



I answer this. To say there is not tangible or empirical evidence to prove the existence of God can be a positive claim, however, there is no such negation to prove that there can not be a God. If you observe this persons slippery slope, you will identify the fundamental flaw in their first precept. "The only proof of God’s existence is found in a religious text or a church." I'm glad hazzrat has discredited thousands of years of scholastics and philosophy which argue for the existence or at least ascertain to a positive claim of a greater likelihood of their position being a truthful proposition. I could list a multiplicity of arguments that 'prove' the existence of God, yet, we all know what this person is asking for is a convolution of our contemporary understanding of what it would mean to 'prove' for a positive proposition. By the same criteria that you apply to the existence of God claiming the only prerequisite to make you believe would be empirical evidence of God, I will challenge you here today. Provide me proof and demonstrate the existence of abstracts and things that are axiomatic in our universe. I'll await your shocking new discovery to prove universals and abstracts, I've been stimulated by such an incredible idea. The scientific method is mostly indifferent to religion because not only does belief require a degree of uncertainty, in which science still does but less to an extent, one pertains to describing the nature and mechanisms of what is created whereas the other pertains to a deeper metaphysical philosophy and ethical frameworks.



This is not how theistic worldviews operate and I'm so glad you brought up logical fallacies. I'll give you a simple dichotomy.

1. You either concede to the idea that you were strawmanning the majority of theists positions or for that matter christians worldview whereby I'm accusing you of having not digressed from inherent biases and prejudices and instead assumed the position of theists.

2. If you reject the first option then I will be accusing you of an anecdotal fallacy and an argument from silence due to your conceiving your own heuristic by your own personal experience and generalised it as a worldview for most Christians.

On the premise of conceding to intellectual dishonesty, all theists have the same first objective precept to at least provide arguments for a deistic worldview such that a God, a deity, a creator exists. This does not occur from your irrational statements above. This can occur from a multiplicity of arguments such as Leibniz contingency argument, St Thomas Aquinas' argument from motion etc. It seems you have some intrinsic bias against Christianity in which you keep trying to prove against Christianity, not theism which entails the belief in a God, exclusive to a religion. Once this has been achieved, to prove FOR a theistic worldview you provide your case for your religion. This can include historical precedence, comparative archaeological evidence, Patristics, Scholasticism, scholarly observance. It seems in addition you just discredited hermeneutics, which all christians use to interpret the bible. I suggest you research into hermeneutics to observe how theists provide a multiplicity of connotations for their respective literature.



Just critically evaluating this persons case, you can see they have no intention of actually addressing the merits of their argument against theism and instead want to scrutinise Christianity because of some profound hatred for it. Even if I were to grant you that the bible does contain errors, Catholics and most Christians don't hold to the idea that the bible is the literal word of God, an attribute of God. They affirm Absolute Divine Simplicity in addition to the authors of the bible being divinely inspired and guided yet not infallible because they are still men and women, unlike Islam which claims the quran is the literal word of God and cannot contain errors. I do not affirm that there are certain errors in the bible, yet, I do not deny the possibility that there can be errors made throughout history such as a scribal error which would have virtually no effect on the bible and its message. It seems like you do not even know this most basic belief, once again constructing an argument from silence.



I decided to leave out all of this evidence of the horrible 'atrocities' of religion because I quite frankly feel it's irrelevant when I can answer this very easily. The actions of fallible individuals have no bearing upon what the doctrine of Christianity preaches. You don't project hate onto the religion, you detest the perpetrators of such heinous actions. I mean seriously, how can you criticise a religion that preaches not to kill because individuals who never were even considered to be real christians killed people. Should I make a hasty generalisation and say since an atheist shot someone and killed them unjustifiably all atheists are therefore murderers. Why do you decide to bring up such an argument that doesn't even pertain to the existence of God to criticise a certain religion? This pertains to the influence of religion and its necessity in society not to the existence of God. I'll repeat this again, someone who does not practice Christianity is not a Christian. To practice Christianity means to believe and to follow what the bible teaches. If it does teach not to kill people and another persons murders someone, they are not Christian.
Your wrong, look at this sick picture of me and this naked dude

1707479907496.png
 

Atheist/agnostic slayer

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