Todays religions

[Saturn]

Dorth is right, you can't disprove god like this. For all we know you can't disprove him/her/it/them ontologically at all. (God as an abstract concept is a fact though)

Question is: Do we need to. Imho we don't because it suffices to remark that there is no evidence for any gods' existence. There is just no reason to assume the actual existence of a god. Why turn the question upside down? A priori there is no god. Someone proposing its existence should thus be required to justify this hypothesis.

Personal experiences, like reported by catron, are no evidence really. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that his statement is sincere and also that his dad made a strong experience like stated. No doubt about it. But this doesn't mean that any god has to be involved. Experiences get transfigured by our brain with the time. Strongly so. They get mixed with other experiences, expectations, etc. They are diffuse to begin with and mix with what has been transmitted over other ways.

Catron, in no way am I now implying anything regarding your Dad, but I have to name it because it is something one has to take into account.

Dena Schlosser cut her baby's arms off, because God commanded her to do so. There are many other people who justified an atrocity with an commandment by God himself. I do believe that they (at least some of them) actually believed this, but like most Christians I don't think this is true. But how do we distinguish the "supposed" God experiences with the "actual" ones. Malicious -> Not God, beneficial -> God? With what justification? Just because we assume God to be righteous and good we associate all unbeknown experiences with Him? But only because we have this image setup already. If we didn't have an image of the Christian God, if we maybe still did ancestor worship, we'd probably accredit it to our grand-grand-father.

With personal experience more or less ruled out, there is not much left, only gaps in our knowledge about the world that are by some defaultwise filled with godly essence, a very dishonest thing to do.
Framing it this way, the discussion (the general one, not necessarily the one in this thread ) makes sense again. As long as no convincing evidence is presented I refrain from believing in any deity.

[BlindSide]

This reminds me of a discussion I was having with a friend the other day.

- You can prove something exists by providing conclusive evidence that it exists.

- You can't prove something doesn't exist by providing evidence that it doesn't exist.

That is because, something not existing usually relys on lack of evidence, and lack of evidence simply means that you have not looked everywhere in the universe. We don't know the full size of the universe because we cannot see further than 13.7 billion light years in any one direction, this would simply lead us to look at something that existed before the beginning of the universe. (Who knows, maybe something is there?!)

Oh what the hell this is all stupid theory. But the thing I mentioned at the start is still valid, it is impossible to disaprove that something exists in this world.

[uninvolved]

Wow, never saw someone misunderstand both physics and metaphysics concepts so bad, uninvolved.

Before going further, let's just clean this up. A being that would be metaphysical would be outside of at least one aspect of Physics, most likely a rule. Could be more than one too. Second, while E=MC^2 is a very nice tool that has stood up to now, it is nothing but a theory unless absolute knowledge is attained and thus all possible exceptions are disproved (which btw, would make you omniscient). A bit why Einstein had so much trouble with the quantic field, it annoyed him the idea of randomness. Many theory includes way in which the conservation theory can be bent, if not broken. You have wormhole, pocket Universes, the quite unpopular string theory, the ever popular though likely ridiculous theory of perpetual motion or gain of momentum by use of radio wave and magnetic field, the current theory of the Universe stating multiple dimensions for this verse (13 in the last count if I'm not mistaking, which I might), etc. Any or all of those would be PHYSICAL ways of bending/breaking the "rule". That and the tearing of the Universe itself if it was to take too much expansion and actually had a stretch limit.

But anyway, by concept, God as seen by Christians, Jews and Muslims is a metaphysical being, as I said, as a soul would be, angels, and the like. That would mean they do not abide by the same rule that govern the Universe (pre-dating it, manipulating it, parallel existence and such). Thus no amount of physics can prove or disprove God. They are basically 2 spheres and while metaphysic could in theory open all doors of physics, the physic can only at best point it's own limitation and hint toward something more. Which might be either a more complete understanding and thus more physics or something that cannot be put into a rule, thus metaphysic. Don't try and discuss this unless you've spent years in theology, science and philosophy, you'd just be under par with all those that have tried before you. I doubt there is a key, but if there is one, either way, it'll not be found like this.

It is easy to disprove God with what we know as absolutes. Or at least, the omnipotent idea of a God, or attributes thereof. So don't tell me I misrepresented physics because I didn't. Metaphysics, maybe, but it's one giant presupposition anyways.


You're wrong. We already know that if God has any attributes of omnipotence, he cannot exist in this universe, according to certain natural laws that cannot be broken. If it exist outside of this universe, he/she/it is irrelevant because we can never know about it anyways. So why worship, why pray, why worry?

[Saturn]

It is easy to disprove God with what we know as absolutes.

You want to disprove God with nothing? For that's exactly what we know as absolutes. Nothing. We only know what we perceive and deduct from it. We can't know what we don't know yet. So we don't know if some observation in the future doesn't contradict what you believe to be "absolute" knowledge.
Inductive reasoning is problematic in that it is logically inadmissible as shown by David Hume.
I highly recommend reading Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery. It will make you more humble with those big words like "absolute".

[BlindSide]

A whole bunch of crap.

I hope someone sets you straight...

May I refer everyone here who is fully convinced to some ridiculous theory to this comic: http://xkcd.com/258/

[hybrid]

If anyone keeps posting such unproven, pseudo-scientific, and simply abusive nonsense I will immediately delete this complete thread.

Here's a quote from the referenced wikipedia page

Spencer’s book has one and only one effect. It doesn’t illuminate. It doesn’t explain. But it does enthusiastically endorse the interpretation of Islam offered by al-Qaeda. Robert Spencer is a one-man recruiting machine for Radical Political Islam.

Also note that you cannot reduce fundamentalism in one group by raising the fundamentalism in another one. Well, maybe you can, but you won't get rid of the ones you raised, i.e. out of the frying pan into the fire.
So just a simple question to JRowe: Are you a good christian, do you disbelieve Darwin's theories? A ridiculous consequence of a fundamental misunderstanding of many religions. Fortunately, my religion's theories were developed (or improved) during the Reformation some hundred years ago. I really cannot believe how a somewhat educated person can fall for any kind of fundamentalism.

[uninvolved]

It is easy to disprove God with what we know as absolutes.

You want to disprove God with nothing? For that's exactly what we know as absolutes. Nothing. We only know what we perceive and deduct from it. We can't know what we don't know yet. So we don't know if some observation in the future doesn't contradict what you believe to be "absolute" knowledge.
Inductive reasoning is problematic in that it is logically inadmissible as shown by David Hume.
I highly recommend reading Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery. It will make you more humble with those big words like "absolute".

And I would point you to the laws of thermodynamics.

They're not absolute? You couldn't exist.

[catron]

THESE ARE MY OPINIONS:

how can you say that we only exist because of thermodynamics! The day you can tell my how the universe started, then tell me how that was started, then tell me what started that, then tell me what started that, and so on and so forth, you have got me. Until that day though (which there will probably never be) MY BELIEF IS : god, the heavens, and my religion.

EDIT: I would like this thread to be removed because my Islamic friend found it very offensive, and now that it is protruding on all of the other religions i think it would be best.

[uninvolved]

how can you say that we only exist because of thermodynamics! The day you can tell my how the universe started, then tell me how that was started, then tell me what started that, then tell me what started that, and so on and so forth, you have got me. Until that day though (which there will probably never be) i believe in god, the heavens, and my religion.

EDIT: I would like this thread to be removed because my Islamic friend found it very offensive, and now that it is protruding on all of the other religions i think it would be best.

The day you can tell me what created God, then tell me how that was started, then tell me what started that, then tell me what started that, and so on and so forth, you have got me. Until that day though (which there will probably never be) i believe in science, the scientific method, and evidence.

There, fixed it for you...

Also, your friend. He really doesn't need to read this thread if he's offended.

Why is he offended? Is he afraid reason and logic might sneak up on him.


How can I say humans can only exist because of the laws of thermodynamics? Uhm... Because without them, we could not exist.

I wasn't really stating it that context though. Just to show, that what we know now about the laws of thermodynamics seem absolute. Even if we discover new things about them we cannot ever break them.

[rooly]

okey, okey, my turn! my turn!

uninvolved, stop being a dick.
science is not absolute. it never will be. Sure, it gives pretty good explenations, using logical thought, and exact processes. But didn't you know that the earth was flat and natural motion is the only motion? science is a way for a HUMAN to better understand the universe in terms that a HUMAN can understand. religion is not about understanding the universe, religion is about understanding the personal "why am i here" question.

seeing as there is no true proof or disproof of the existence of a god, you are free to believe what you believe. however, mocking people and shoving your beliefs as fact, truth, and nothing otherwise is NOT okay. that goes for you as well, catron.

hybrid, i think its probably a good idea to delete this thread. its so very hard for people to take a moderate, balanced, critical and open-minded stance when it comes to religion. some of the worlds best minds have been preists, and some of the world's kindest people have been aetheist.

religion should never define a person. unfortunately, for many people, it does. its these kind of people that you should feel sorry for, and try to help by teaching them that what a single book says is NOT the end-all, say-all.

basically, every last word of this has been hullaballo, blow-hard, and hot air. jrowe, stfu, everyone: stfu. delete the thread and never let yourself be defined by the religion your parents gave you.

[BlindSide]

I don't really care much about this thread anymore, but I just wanted to add that I won't ever percieve anything that happend over 1000 (or 100 even) years ago as fact, especially when its based purely on witnesses and word of mouth. If you do, then you must be terribly naive.

[uninvolved]

okey, okey, my turn! my turn!

uninvolved, stop being a dick.
science is not absolute. it never will be. Sure, it gives pretty good explenations, using logical thought, and exact processes. But didn't you know that the earth was flat and natural motion is the only motion? science is a way for a HUMAN to better understand the universe in terms that a HUMAN can understand. religion is not about understanding the universe, religion is about understanding the personal "why am i here" question.

I never said science was absolute. I said certain laws can be.

Of course science is for humans to understand the universe in terms that a human can understand. Why would we understand it in terms we cannot understand? Wait.. Isn't that what religion does? Doesn't that sound like making poop up?

"Why am i here?" No, that's some sort of weird, arrogant question. I think you ment "Why are we here?"

Which is for philosophy, not religion. Religion is about fear and control.

seeing as there is no true proof or disproof of the existence of a god, you are free to believe what you believe. however, mocking people and shoving your beliefs as fact, truth, and nothing otherwise is NOT okay. that goes for you as well, catron.

I don't shove my beliefs down anyones throats. I just give my opinions when invited to. If people get offended it must be their own insecurity and doubts in their beliefs. Of course you are free to believe whatever you want, but if you tell me you believe in some invisible man, then yeah, I'm going to ask for evidence. You don't got any? Sound like a crock to me.

[catron]

okay uninvolved, you just dont know when to stop! rooly should have made that clear. Everyone is entitled to there beliefs and thats it! no more posts, no more witty remarks (hint hint uninvolved), nothing! case closed lets move on with our lifes. uninvolved im not sure about why you are so witty with your remarks saying 'i know everything' and i dont want to know! remove it, lock it, or dont post. plz!

[uninvolved]

okay

[zeno60]

Well that was entertaining...