If God Is A Contradiction Then He Does Not Exist

Dream on.

In case you haven't noticed, earth is DOMINATED by forces of NATURE; survival of the fittest, not kindest, relentless attacks from land air and sea, setbacks, extinctions, droughts, near extinction level events, diseases, parasites... Gilbert Gottfried!

God is love,



and babies are being born with their skin falling off destined for a life of unspeakable torturous pain and suffering.

because we exist due to imperfect unconscious unloving natural mechanisms.

Not love,

not even close.

 

Uwww... I could looked something like that for falling from a tree when I was eight years old. Except that by divine intervention my hands got a hold of a lower branch of the tree, and I didn't hit the lacerating barb wire below. And I'm hanging for nobody's consternation. Enjoy life for all it's worth, because it's a gift for lots of good hope and chance.

 

Nope, it was by chance. Nothing divine about it.

 

a language of iffiness dominates . we need the Doctrine of Rational Purity
as we are the wayward and lost hippies . is it properly peace and love or
love and peace ? the facts require stern authority .

Grandpa Woodstock
says it's peace and love and he really does care.

iffiness is really much abused . as it may either imply a question or (obversely)
state a direct unquestioned relationship , it is a favored tool of the perverse
confounder as well the virtuous torturer .

 

In case you haven't been following, I don't believe in an omnipotent, omniscient deity who is supposed to protect us all from pain and suffering. We can rule that god out. Much suffering in the world, though, is induced by humans. That's the kind that could be alleviated by belief systems based on peace, love and understanding. With that in play, we might even be able to devote more resources to helping infants like the one shown above.

You present that gruesome picture as though it were somehow what existence is really all about. Where does that get you in terms of your outlook on life? Suffering is an aspect of our existence, but not necessarily the central aspect, unless we make it so. We can let it overwhelm us, defeat us, make us callous, or rise above it to make us stronger and more determined to fight. I saw my brother reduced from a handsome, athletic young man to a living skeleton by excruciatingly painful kidney cancer, but he found meaning in it. Like me, he had no faith in an afterlife, so he found no comfort there. He was told by the doctors that there was no hope for him and he accepted that. "It is what it is", he liked to say, and he dealt with it. He soaked up the beauty of nature while he could, and then worked on modeling the dying process for the benefit of those around him. A reductionist might say it was all irrelevant--the outcome was inevitable, regardless of the attitude. But those around him got a new appreciation of what humans can rise to. If you were in a similar situation, how would you handle it? There's lots of beauty in the world also, and goodness as well as evil in humans. Why accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive?

 

Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims? They didn't believe in God. The atrocities by Christians you talk about were mostly done centuries ago. The ones by the atheists are more recent. Christianity has matured. I'll admit that religious fundamentalism of every stripe is a serious danger, but I think it's more effectively combated within the framework of religion than outside it. Fundamentalism today is a reaction against secularism, and quite a formidable one. About thirty percent of the American population form the religious right--a core that roughly corresponds to the Republican base. Less than 20% of the U.S. population is unaffiliated, and only 2.4 % is atheist. Seems to me it would be easier for atheists to work with broader coalitions of progressive religious groups than to drive them into the arms of the fundies by telling them they are evil and must be done away with.

Since I think human nature rather than religion is the source of these problems, I'd imagine none.

Doing a benefit-cost analysis on religion would be a bear, since it would be a matter of quantifying lots of intangibles. My estimation would be radically different from yours, we're both guessing, and we're both biased. You'd have to factor in the benefits of the Church holding western Europe together and preserving a modicum of civilization during the Dark Ages, the hope and meaning that religion gives to billions of lives, the salvage of twelve steppers from the gutter,etc. To say that it could have been done by other means is purely speculative. A web discussion once posted on this forum featured the "Four Horsemen" of atheism talking about life without religion. One problem they were grappling with was how to provide for the numinous, which they acknowledged to be important, in their brave new world without religion. Religion already provides for the numinous--something to consider before throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Not necessary for everyone, maybe, but for some of us it's helpful.

If everyone agreed on any belief or non-belief, conflict would probably diminish. But we don't. If we could all agree to disagree, conflict would diminish. But if atheists can't live with that, and challenge the right of religions to exist, you could expect some real fireworks!

 

He thinks religion is not human nature.

 

I didn't ask you to look at the look on your face! Thought is physical, and you are in denial.

Get it straight. Every expression is physical. Realization is its process. It takes form to imagine things that don't. Everything is physical, and you are in denial. Do you love the body thedope?

Faith? You're forgetting who you're talking to? I'm talking about how you don't want god to be a person, you envious little soul! Your argument for non-physicality isn't one, but it is the attempt at one, and you suffer for it. That you don't have the heart to be an atheist doesn't mean you don't have one, only that your looking for "agreement in terms" is redundant.

You're ashamed of yourself?

 

Good God, I'm intrigued. Is science human nature? Is science the human nature about nurture or nature? Thus is Religion about humans believing in nurture or nature, if it is (thus improperly) understood part of human nature?:willy_nilly:

 

Hear ye. Religion is responsible for the human reality of peace. But maybe war was responsible for Religion in the first place. Did Spinoza say that?

 

Hear me. Beauty is responsible for harmony. Musical nature lays peace and all its warring prospects to rest.

The clamour that god alone is good confuses our co-existence.

 

Anyone who believes that will clearly ensure the perpetuation of the religious problem for the rest of human history, so long as there are people who would still willingly choose the comforting lie of the fantasy over the harsh truth of reality.

 

:2thumbsup:

 

I changed 'kills' to 'confuses', but the non-physicalists should wonder at their own hope, and examine how intact it is! ;-D

 

Oh silly me, it was an abstraction after all. Do you think if you somehow didn't contain your thoughts they would somehow escape you? We share our thoughts, your body is your share of common currency.

I show up. A good day is when I pay attention. Are you concerned that I may not have the right god? What am I in denial about Dejavu?

No, I haven't forgotten you. I wonder why you want god to be soulless wonder.

My argument for abstraction is an argument for abstraction. Your argument for non-physicality isn't mine

What is the evidence?

 

Hear me. Nature is tastefully arranged. Acceptance is responsible for the appearance of harmony.

 

Ha, ha, ha... and the ugly babes of the sixties were the best. Some kind of God's grace tells me that.

 

The recognition that the good we invoke is the only good there is absolves us of questioning whether or not there is good in the world. Don't confuse yourself that good is at arms length. It is closer than your hand and only as near as your own heart.