Losing The Faith

[Israslovakahzerbajan]

Like Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru...do you also need a job in eternity?

Never really specify.

A joke...regarding a fictional character who becomes temporarily Brain-Dead after an accident. Anubis is about to weigh her heart with a feather and she fears eternal damnation and asks for a heavier object...but is saved by a Japanese bureaucrat saying that she should go to "Japanese Heaven"...which is actually a bureaucratic office in a copy of the Real World where she has to get a job to sustain herself. She goes back to her own body and wakes up later on.

It'd be heaven if heaven was like that.

[Yammata]

Never really specify.

A joke...regarding a fictional character who becomes temporarily Brain-Dead after an accident. Anubis is about to weigh her heart with a feather and she fears eternal damnation and asks for a heavier object...but is saved by a Japanese bureaucrat saying that she should go to "Japanese Heaven"...which is actually a bureaucratic office in a copy of the Real World where she has to get a job to sustain herself. She goes back to her own body and wakes up later on.

It'd be heaven if heaven was like that.

Hah

[Znatsnaz]

[*]There's no burden of proof because nobody knows the nature of that proof, you can't say nothing about lack of evidence when you don't ever know what, when and where search. Ausence of evidence isn't evidence of ausence. If someone, in that circunstancies claim "the burden of the proof is of the other part" you know, by logical means, that is a inversion of the burden fallacie, because every part sustain a claim, and that claim should be proof. I said that based in philosophy principles and experience as lawyer...

[*]There's no such thing like "because nobody knows, ie, A or B is right" and I said that to theists and atheists too. Argument of the ignorance is constantly used by the two groups. When You read things like "If the science don't explain that, God may exist" or "If the science don't knows that, God may not exist" you must know that this isn't a rational argument, but a appeal to the ignorance. If science don't know you can presume nothing, there's no rule of "in the lack of information said B".

So, what I can said about God? Ok, the best argument for the existente of God is the Kalam Argument. By years this is the only argument that I peformed in universities and colleges. I don't really defend nothing today, but If you really want give a chance to your faith you will read about that with atention. What you must know is that, believe and unblieve in God is a question of Will, a famous atheist someday said "the world is only a extention of our will" this man was Schopenhauer.

[CVT Temp]

The question of whether or not a god exists is, on some level, too confused to be answered.

God hypotheses are either wrong, trivial, or not even wrong.

They are wrong if they propose a god whose attributes and/or actions contradict known facts, such as the creationist god, for example.

They are trivial if they propose a god which is pretty much just a relabeling of something that already exists, like how some define god as "the laws of nature."

They are not even wrong if they propose something which is incoherent, such as "the ground of all being" or a god which exists outside of the universe and never intervenes in any way whatsoever, even in principle. These ideas are "not even wrong" because they are essentially to lacking in specificity for us to even say what it would mean for them to be true or false.

[Khadgar]

Here's my thought on the god thing. It's irrelevant. If god exists as an omnipotent omniscient being, then we don't exist. We cannot exist any more than a character in a book can exist. There's no way for omnipotence and free will to coexist. If I'm writing a book, I'm effectively, for the characters in the book, a god. I can completely and arbitrarily change anything I want about their world, their thoughts, their actions. I'm omnipotent. They have no will, no thoughts, nothing unless I make them. Now, if instead of a book I write a computer program with AIs, let's say insanely advanced AIs in a simulated world. I'm still omnipotent from their point of view, and omniscient. They still have no free will. Their entire lives and personalities are nothing but lines of code I can change at will. They still can't do jack unless I let them do it. The only way for free will to exist, is if I give up control. If I wrote the program, built the world, and then never interfered again they could have some semblance of will, until it struck my fancy to screw with them again. Of course during this time I would cease to be a god in any meaningful way, if I interfere they're not willful creations anymore. I could watch, but I couldn't change things without removing that will.

Now, someone feel free to poke holes in my logic.

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

Here's my thought on the god thing. It's irrelevant. If god exists as an omnipotent omniscient being, then we don't exist. We cannot exist any more than a character in a book can exist. There's no way for omnipotence and free will to coexist. If I'm writing a book, I'm effectively, for the characters in the book, a god. I can completely and arbitrarily change anything I want about their world, their thoughts, their actions. I'm omnipotent. They have no will, no thoughts, nothing unless I make them. Now, if instead of a book I write a computer program with AIs, let's say insanely advanced AIs in a simulated world. I'm still omnipotent from their point of view, and omniscient. They still have no free will. Their entire lives and personalities are nothing but lines of code I can change at will. They still can't do jack unless I let them do it. The only way for free will to exist, is if I give up control. If I wrote the program, built the world, and then never interfered again they could have some semblance of will, until it struck my fancy to screw with them again. Of course during this time I would cease to be a god in any meaningful way, if I interfere they're not willful creations anymore. I could watch, but I couldn't change things without removing that will.

Now, someone feel free to poke holes in my logic.

1) There was never a way for free will to exist. If it does, it is literally beyond human comprehension.

2) God or not, number 1 applies.

3) Not using power =/= Not having it, or every peacetime president wouldn't count as commander in chief.

[Khadgar]

Here's my thought on the god thing. It's irrelevant. If god exists as an omnipotent omniscient being, then we don't exist. We cannot exist any more than a character in a book can exist. There's no way for omnipotence and free will to coexist. If I'm writing a book, I'm effectively, for the characters in the book, a god. I can completely and arbitrarily change anything I want about their world, their thoughts, their actions. I'm omnipotent. They have no will, no thoughts, nothing unless I make them. Now, if instead of a book I write a computer program with AIs, let's say insanely advanced AIs in a simulated world. I'm still omnipotent from their point of view, and omniscient. They still have no free will. Their entire lives and personalities are nothing but lines of code I can change at will. They still can't do jack unless I let them do it. The only way for free will to exist, is if I give up control. If I wrote the program, built the world, and then never interfered again they could have some semblance of will, until it struck my fancy to screw with them again. Of course during this time I would cease to be a god in any meaningful way, if I interfere they're not willful creations anymore. I could watch, but I couldn't change things without removing that will.

Now, someone feel free to poke holes in my logic.

1) There was never a way for free will to exist. If it does, it is literally beyond human comprehension.

2) God or not, number 1 applies.

3) Not using power =/= Not having it, or every peacetime president wouldn't count as commander in chief.

3, if you're not using the power, the creations have no way of proving your existence. If you do use it, then how could they have free will? I guess you could program them to be faithful, but that would go against free will.

[Seskany]

stuff

This sort of goes back to the idea of "a rock that God cannot break." It would get boring, being omnipotent! You'd eventually need a game to play, a show to watch. An intelligent species would be ideal for this, and if they weren't independent, it wouldn't be interesting anymore! So, it isn't so much a rock that God cannot break, but it's a rock that God chooses not to break, because, I mean, it's a pretty cool rock.

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

1) There was never a way for free will to exist. If it does, it is literally beyond human comprehension.

2) God or not, number 1 applies.

3) Not using power =/= Not having it, or every peacetime president wouldn't count as commander in chief.

3, if you're not using the power, the creations have no way of proving your existence. If you do use it, then how could they have free will? I guess you could program them to be faithful, but that would go against free will.

So what if they don't have a way of proving it? What does that have to do with having it at all?

They never had free will, the notion is either beyond comprehension or outright false. Occams Razor says the latter.

Once again, they never had it.

[Finaora]

Well, until very recently I was 100% Atheist but now I'm not too sure. My reasons being that my family has had a really bad year (I wont go into it) and I've been wondering if I should try praying. I hear so many arguments for and against religion it's really difficult to pick.

And another question is who should I pray to? Dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas ^.^

So basically I'm gonna class myself as an Agnostic-Atheist

[Khadgar]

Well, until very recently I was 100% Atheist but now I'm not too sure. My reasons being that my family has had a really bad year (I wont go into it) and I've been wondering if I should try praying. I hear so many arguments for and against religion it's really difficult to pick.

And another question is who should I pray to? Dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas ^.^

So basically I'm gonna class myself as an Agnostic-Atheist

You should pray to Joe Pesci, he seems like a guy who can get things done.

[Norsklow]

Seen too many miracles not to believe in God.

[Khadgar]

Seen too many miracles not to believe in God. :)

Such as?

[Seskany]

Seen too many miracles not to believe in God.

Like which? Legitimately curious, not being a dick.

[Norsklow]

Seen too many miracles not to believe in God.

Such as?

Winning against impossible odds. And the SOP ( yrs truly ) had no better ideas than 'last stand and make Death wait for us'.

[CVT Temp]

Such as?

The fact that Chris Christie hasn't died of every obesity related disease at the same time yet?

[Risottia]

Hello Nation States. I am a 15 year old african american baptist. I use to be very faithful but recently i have began losing my faith. I ask if anyone can help me by posting some proof that God Almight is Real or Fake. This challange goes out to every religion.Athiest to. Give some proof that your religion is Real or Fake.
I hope to get a lot of infomation.

Will people ever
a) learn to spell "Atheist", and
b) understand that "Atheism" isn't a religion?

Let's not even touch the idea of a proof for the existance of a "deity"... whatever "deity" might be understood to mean.

[Tlaceceyaya]

Such as?

Winning against impossible odds. And the SOP ( yrs truly ) had no better ideas than 'last stand and make Death wait for us'.

>Rare thing happens

>Therefore,

[Khadgar]

Such as?

Winning against impossible odds. And the SOP ( yrs truly ) had no better ideas than 'last stand and make Death wait for us'.

If the odds were impossible, you wouldn't have won. Winning against truly improbable odds okay. I don't see how that equals "God" though. Benign force, maybe, but it goes a long way from say benevolent spirit helping and universe spawning deity.

[Tubbsalot]

Such as?

Winning against impossible odds.

Unless those odds were literally 0, I'm not sure you've quite grasped the concept of probability.

[CVT Temp]

Winning against impossible odds.

I don't really care about this debate much anymore. However:

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&scl ... 80&bih=709

[Norsklow]

Winning against impossible odds. And the SOP ( yrs truly ) had no better ideas than 'last stand and make Death wait for us'.

If the odds were impossible, you wouldn't have won. Winning against truly improbable odds okay. I don't see how that equals "God" though. Benign force, maybe, but it goes a long way from say benevolent spirit helping and universe spawning deity.

Of course, of course. But then again - you weren't there. I was.

[Maudlnya]

Buddhist. Karma and reincarnation seem quite real. There is no 'God' 'heaven' or 'hell' but we as humans can achieve nirvana which is kinda like heaven. Or become evil spirits in neraka (state of mindless pain and suffering). As a lot more people say Buddhism is a philosophy and Buddhism doesn't have much of the base like other religions.

So you could say Buddhists are moralistic spiritual atheists/agnostics

[Mavorpen]

Buddhist. Karma and reincarnation seem quite real, and that. There is no 'God' 'heaven' or 'hell' but we as humans can achieve nirvana which is kinda like heaven. Or become evil spirits in neraka. As a lot more people say Buddhism is a philosophy and I agree, Buddhism doesn't have much of the base like other religions. It is more like a philosophy.

So you could say Buddhists are moralistic spiritual atheists/agnostics

...How?

[Polonia and Litvania]

Hello Nation States. I am a 15 year old african american baptist. I use to be very faithful but recently i have began losing my faith. I ask if anyone can help me by posting some proof that God Almight is Real or Fake. This challange goes out to every religion.Athiest to. Give some proof that your religion is Real or Fake.

I hope to get a lot of infomation.

I'm a 16 year old Methodist in a predominantly athiest community, so here's my two cents.

There is no proof of a deity's existance, or proof of a deity not existing.
That is why religion is called faith.

There are allot of anti-thiests around here who will practically try to convert you to being an athiest, all you have to remember is that, unless you're a biblical literalist, they really have no high point were they can say "There is no God" with scientific facts to back them up. They act on faith just as much as theists do.

^This.
The way I see it there's no way to prove there's only one true religion. I myself follow a weird Zoroastrian-Buddhist-Muslim-Christian-Shinto-Everything hybrid. Cover all the bases, you know?

But whatever you choose, make sure it fits to you. I don't think you need to be of a religion to get into whatever Afterlife there is- just be a good person. That's faith enough, really.

In my belief, God exists, in a pantheistic sense that he is "All that is, was, or will be." So yeah, my 25 cents there.