Does God Exist?

I am not a fan of the persecution card, and neither am I fan of harming anyone. Are there certain religions that do not tolerate other religions and their beliefs? Without doubt. Muslims are torturing and killing Christians as well as non-believers in their own country. Just as Christians in the past would torture and kill anyone who was a non-Christian, a witch, what-have-you. Christians today still kill in the name of their god.

I guarantee, however, that you cannot and will not find a story of historical basis whereby a proclaimed atheists killed anyone in the name of atheism.

Humanism has many crimes for which to apologize. But it can apologize for them, and also corrects them, in its own terms and without having to shake or challenge the basis of any unalterable system of belief. ~ Hitchens

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-_LJYBvEDg"]Mad Dog III - My God - YouTube


Theists, make your god or goddess flesh and blood, and then don't kill them! You'll have my undying support despite my atheism! :-D

Go on, I dare you!

 

Science fiction novels whereby future societies not burdened by the apparent problems in existence due to religion have clearly shown through humanity's ability to reason past progressive hindrances that a better future is possible and governable if unnecessary mythologies were merely viewed as such. Such science fiction novels have received humanitarian rewards due to their progressive perspectives. Religion is a burden that needs to be recognized as such.

 

Only because they didn't call it like that. Many religious people have suffered and been killed by people who were tricked into believing that was the right thing to do. In the sovjet union for example.
But I don't really understand why you can play the off topic card but yourself are posting in this thread about the atrocities of believers. This thread was supposed to be about the existence of God(s)

What do you mean with that? Are you implying every theist has been doing the opposite?

 

Very well.

There is no verifiable proof that any deity exists. There is merely fallible faith, which is not verifiable proof, and the bible, which is a fictional mythology as any other religion is that was created by man as a primitive means for controlling the illiterate masses.

End of thread.

 

truth can never be overstated.
All Praise Bacon.:groupwave:

 

you offering that as "evidence" ?
LOL

and the opposite proposition applies just as firmly and with as much validity;
There is no verifiable proof that a deity doesn't exist.


why is it always so hard for people to be honest and say;

"I don't fucking know, I have my opinions, but I really do not know with certainty."

If any of you ask me, that is my response right there;
"I don't fucking know, and neither do you." :mickey:

 

It ends with your opinion? That makes me doubt how much you are in touch with reality :biggrin:
Thanks for sharing your on topic opinion of course (although it was already known to me). But although I understand why you would call it 'merely faith' and go into the proof thing right away again (we've been over that in other threads) faith is not only a sign of ignorance. It seems to me people who don't have any spiritual faith themselves and have a problem with it dismiss the use of it for others (just like hope, faith is not nearly always a fallible thing or means it is followed or acted upon blindly).
Same with the proof thing. We all seem to acknowledge it can't be proven (except ginalee so it seems) but to an openminded undogmatic person that doesn't mean there can't be a god.

 

Clearly you are not familiar with science fiction novels, especially of the award-winning kind to which I am alluding. Science fiction novels are more than mere fiction for entertainment. They show us what a better future we could have for ourselves if only we would apply the necessary approaches toward society.

Science fiction, unlike primitive mythologies of the past, are about the future.

By all means, believe in everything for which there is no proof for their existences and then realize how silly you are being.

It is not difficult. It is precisely what science does. However, science is not going to place itself in an intellectually dishonest position of claiming that God does exist when there is no proof of the deity's existence. Science is not even in the business of proving or disproving God. If, somewhere along the line, science does prove or disprove God, then by all means a definite answer will be available. In the meantime, I reiterate that it is irrational to believe in something when there is a veritable lack of evidence to prove its existence.

 

If we can't grant each other our faith and hope I don't see how we can enter a better future at all. We should at least be able to live with the fact that there are people in the world who think and believe the opposite of what you do. Insisting those opposite views ALWAYS lead to disaster and your confronting and agitating doesn't (while you are actually doing the same of which you accuse the other side of, although only a minority is actually causing such disaster) makes you as fallible as the people you are convicting simply because they have a belief in a higher power.

 

False. The veritable definition of faith is a testament to a belief that is not based on proof or reason.

In the face of the clearly underwhelming evidence for the deity's existence, it does in fact mean that it would be more rational to believe that the god does not exist.

 

Faith and hope is possible without a belief in anything religious. It is a common misconception that those who are non-religious are hopeless individuals fraught with depression.

 

You are putting it as if a person who has faith has nothing else. This is rarely so.

Where are you getting that from? Did anybody said something like that?

 

I reiterate, an individual does not need a religious belief in order to be comfortable and content with life, because as you have stated above there is clearly more to each individual than merely religious faith.

 

You don't need it. Does that mean you can speak for everybody else?

What I find curious is you make a division between a non-theist having faith and hope and a theist. So a non theist can be sane and function really well with their faith and hope but a theist must be insane if their faith happens to be linked to a religion or belief in a diety (there is a difference between believing in a diety and following a religion by the way, it sometimes seem you equate the 2 as being the same)?

 

No one needs it, and that does mean I can speak for everyone else. Whether they want to listen to reason, however, or continue as they are is their choice.

 

Naive' concerning the "validity" of science fiction as an accurate projection of the future, grow up.

Naive' concerning ancient writings

Naive' concerning science and what constitutes a scientific "fact".

Naive' concerning "faith" and what Biblical faith actually is.


if what you postulate;
"it is irrational to believe in something when there is a veritable lack of evidence to prove its existence."

is true then what does that say about Black Holes, String Theory, Multi-verse theories and a whole shit ton of other scientific theories that are based on little more than a fanciful idea and some creative number crunching?

Shit, they built one of the largest scientific projects ever searching for a particle that "might" exist, and you don't think that is acting on faith.

Seems to me like there are areas of science operating on faith as much as religion.


Naive', naive', naive'
:afro:

 

I disagree, you are far too convicting and full of subjective and personal agitation to speak for everyone else. You simply do not seem to understand that a person with religious or spiritual faith in a deity can be just as rational, constructive and adding to a better society as someone who doesn't.

 

Hardly. Science places its reason in verifiable facts, repeated experiments that can support hypothesis from arriving at the same conclusions each time, by understanding that scientific theories ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory ) are substantiated by studying the natural world. Science does not rely upon faith to make unsubstantiated claims.

 

I would not expect anything less.

The fact that religious faith has left its mark on every aspect of our civilization is not an argument in its favor, nor can any particular faith be exonerated simply because certain of its adherents made fundamental contributions to human culture. ~ Harris

In the best case, faith leaves otherwise well-intentioned people incapable of thinking rationally about many of their deepest concerns; at worst, it is a continuous source of human violence. ~ Harris