Does God Exist?

[Distruzio]

1: "Truth" is not literalism.
2: True. But it is not a challenge to our libertarian will. It's more like looking through a bubble. When you do so, you see everything on this side of the bubble, everything inside it, and everything on the otherside of it.
3: We don't.

If we no longer have original sin why haven't we been allowed back into the Garden of Eden?

We were never prohibited. The Garden is an allegory for the perfect relationship between Man and Creation. A gift from God. Things are not perfect. But things are more perfected through Mankinds continued evolution with respect to the environment. We make a more Garden-like world with each passing day. Every time an individual's life is made a bit more pleasant, they move ever closer to that perfect relationship. It's a never ending process.

That is the purpose of the Garden. It gives us a vision to strive for.

[MERIZoC]

Probably not.

Yes, and he is American.

Oh, hey, Mike's back.

[United Cell Empire]

The thing we named God exists in ourselfs just like the things we named soul.In my life i has been face some proof that some higher power exist. I dont like religions at all but i think that everyone need faith even if its come after clear mind is going out even after you find God after you lost any other hope.

[Jute]

The comfort and solace religion gives some people comes at a terrible price. And they don't even need to believe all that god crap to be comforted and find solace. So the trade off of live and let live is way to risky. My atheism does not negatively affect the world in the slightest, however the belief in that which cannot be seen is too risky

I almost forgot:
Spanish Inquisition The inquisition actually had some good points, namely a reform of the medieval legal system that paved the way towards modern ones, and a kind of inquisition existed in Soviet Russia, too: League of Militant Atheists
Italian inquisition See above
Persecution of atheists Not inherent or limited to religion, was done mostly for secular reasons (High priests and monarchs not wanting anyone to question their power), and persecution of religious by atheists has existed too, see again the part about Soviet Russia above.
Discrimination against atheists and rival religious followers See above
Abortion clinic bombings Bombings aren't an sole effect of religion taken too extreme, they have often been out of political reasons as well, so not something that religion should be blamed for
Killing of abortion doctors Same reason as above, assassinations aren't exclusively because of any religion, most of the time they have political reasons, what about JFK for example?
Moral superiority complex Happens to non-believers, too
Making people think they have all the answers when they don't Same, happens to some scientists and atheists as well
Destruction of the Pagans by emperor Constantine Source please, most likely done for secular reasons (securing power and borders)
Not letting Muslim girls into school Limited to some terrorists, most Muslims girls are allowed education
Oppressive theocracies. Oppressive fascist regimes would be the atheist counterpart here.

[Zottistan]

The thing we named God exists in ourselfs just like the things we named soul.In my life i has been face some proof that some higher power exist. I dont like religions at all but i think that everyone need faith even if its come after clear mind is going out even after you find God after you lost any other hope.

What is this proof?

[Jute]

Have any of the pro-"god exists" people posted any actual evidence or is this an entire thread of baseless opinion?

Nature of the universe clearly attests existence of Eris. *nods*
Or not.
Perhaps it's Blue berry-applepie.

Maybe. I'm fond of the classical Greek chaos goddess as well.

[Jute]

The thing we named God exists in ourselfs just like the things we named soul.In my life i has been face some proof that some higher power exist. I dont like religions at all but i think that everyone need faith even if its come after clear mind is going out even after you find God after you lost any other hope.

What is this proof?

It's more proof that God or belief in God / a god can provide you with hope and a bit of faith in a good tomorrow (optimism) can go a long way in helping a person.

[Jute]

The universe is pretty big, though, and something may lie behind the universe. And there might be an invisible hovering elephant somewhere, existing, but not being seen or perceived by us.

If that's the case than you wouldn't know either way. But you damn we'll know what I meant.
Gods of religions are almost always supposed to be directly responsible for things we can test, like miracles.
The reason personal gods can be disproven is because their properties are known to us.
If they were unknown it would be unfalsifiable and the religion would not exist

A lot religions have unfalsifiable gods, though. Properties that can't be scientifically tested.

[Zottistan]

What is this proof?

It's more proof that God or belief in God / a god can provide you with hope and a bit of faith in a good tomorrow (optimism) can go a long way in helping a person.

"In my life i has been face some proof that some higher power exist"

[Immoren]

The thing we named God exists in ourselfs just like the things we named soul.In my life i has been face some proof that some higher power exist. I dont like religions at all but i think that everyone need faith even if its come after clear mind is going out even after you find God after you lost any other hope.

What is this proof?

[Zottistan]

What is this proof?

I'm afraid I don't speak Greek.

[Immoren]

I'm afraid I don't speak Greek.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof][/url]

[Jute]

Historical methods can work because what if a claim in the bible concerning god directly contradicts history?
Science can work because phenomenon previously explained by saying "god did it" is now explained to be perfectly natural things. If god contradicts science, that is evidence against it.
Logical arguments work because the descriptions of god in the bible are logistical nightmares.
Omnipotence paradox
Omniscience paradox
Omnibenevolence paradox
Omnipresence paradox and so on

The Christian god makes no logical sense, it contradicts science and the bible is historically inaccurate
Not to mention the bible is self contradictory in many ways.

Christians would probably be able to easily explain the perceived paradoxes. God doesn't necessarily contradict science and which part of the Bible is inaccurate? Genesis? That one is, according to the pope, too, not meant to be taken literally. In fact the Bible is often used, with care and source-criticism as a historical source for some events and periods of history.
And the Bible appears self contradictory because the Word of God was written down by many different people, maybe they all understood and interpreted his word differently?

[Jute]

I'm afraid I don't speak Greek.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof]:p[/url]

Interesting, thanks for sharing

[Jute]

You neglect to acknowledge that some people willingly convert to another religion when they're adults, out of their own free will, when there's no one persuading them. And the rest sounds like the argument communists bring up. Religion has been with humans since the dawn of history and will continue to do so in the future, maybe less popular than today, maybe more popular, but it is unlikely that it will ever completely vanish.
And religious beliefs include values like compassion, equality and the like, so I don't agree that they're all wrong, except if you think these values are somehow wrong, too.

No, I think that those certain values of compassion or whatever come with an extremely risky trade off. With those things comes bigotry, hatred, misery, war and suffering, or according to what you think, just ways to justify such things.
The overwhelming majority of religious people have made no choice in the matter, they are brought into it, with out their own choice. And although there are a few converts in adulthood here and there, the overwhelming majority believe that stuff without any good reason other than they don't know any better

Most of the time, they are content with their religion, too. And if they aren't, they are free to become atheists. No need to force it upon them, let them make their own choice. And religion is obviously not the only way to justify misery, war and evil on the world. Without religion, people would still have plenty of ways, like fascism, imperialism, other political view for example. There are unfortunately enough ways to justify discrimination and violence.

[The Scientific States]

I doubt that a deity exists, given the fact that it makes little sense to me, and because such a position contradicts many scientific theories.

Regardless, I'm agnostic, since I don't claim to know as to whether or not there is a God.

[Zottistan]

I'm afraid I don't speak Greek.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof]:p[/url]

Ah, that one. Defining things into existence is easy.

[Jute]

9/11 was supported by many Islamic extremists The keyword being extremists here - the overwhelming majority didn't support, but condemned it

Holocaust was overseen by hitler, who was Christian, and led a persecution of the Jews as a "mission given to him by god" as his autobiography states He might have done that to have an additional layer of justification and to get more people on his side, whether or not he was actually Christian is up to debate, there are enough quotes to support both sides here.

Witch burnings- there was no secular conspiracy, and it was scapegoating that was justified by religious beliefs of Christians. It wasn't started by the Church, though, as far as I know and isn't really something inherent to every religion

What Stalin did was not an atheist crusade, his killing of people had nothing to do with atheism and had everything to do with securing his own power and promoting a states religion that established him as something close to a god Same for a lot of the not-so-many religious wars in the Middle Ages, and the League of Militant Atheists did it precisely in the name of Atheism
The crusades was orchestrated by Christian zealots who killed over a million Muslims. Only Christian zealots, though, how does that apply to other religions? And they had secular motives for that, too.

Jihad literally translates to holy war. It translates to "struggle", look it up. Struggle with yourself about morality and religion, and struggle to defend your faith against aggressors. Mohammed intended to give the early Muslims the permission to defend themselves against invaders, otherwise Islam is literally the religion of peace.

These things are not found in ALL RELIGION however in different religions at different times. I never said it was religion in general that did all this, I said that things like this were justified or related to religious beliefs.In all religions you can find something like that? Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Shintoism etc.? There are more religions aside from Christianity and Islam.

[Creepoc Infinite]

If we no longer have original sin why haven't we been allowed back into the Garden of Eden?

We were never prohibited. The Garden is an allegory for the perfect relationship between Man and Creation. A gift from God. Things are not perfect. But things are more perfected through Mankinds continued evolution with respect to the environment. We make a more Garden-like world with each passing day. Every time an individual's life is made a bit more pleasant, they move ever closer to that perfect relationship. It's a never ending process.

That is the purpose of the Garden. It gives us a vision to strive for.

Perhaps it is, but what reason do you have to think it is?
Not everyone accepts the bible as pure allegory and I can be pretty sure not ALL of it is allegory. Even the tower a Babel is not complete allegory.

[Ifreann]

Sure, he's just playing a big game of Hide And Seek with us. And he's super good at hiding.

[Zottistan]

Sure, he's just playing a big game of Hide And Seek with us. And he's super good at hiding.

Well he is God.

You should see him seeking, it's almost like he's everywhere at once or something.

[Creepoc Infinite]

Sure, he's just playing a big game of Hide And Seek with us. And he's super good at hiding.

That's a good way to put It but who cares?
He is trying really hard to hide his existence if he does exist.

If any of these religions are true, I don't think he'd be playing hide and seek.
Christianity is not true either way anyway.

[Mavorpen]

Which is a straw man because theories cannot be proven and a red herring because this does not in any way mean that there is a competing theory to it, like you originally claimed.

No, it isn't. The theory of evolution is not proven. You don't, nor can you, prove theories.

What I mean is that not all scientists agree with this materialist view of things and say it's not sufficient to explain consciousness, not even all atheists. Here's an article about an atheist who doesn't do that, on the magazine New Republic.

And again, that doesn't say a single thing about a valid alternating scientific theory existing.

This is a criticism of a materialist explanation of consciousness, and here's a scientific paper arguing against this Zombie hypothesis.

That's nice. Again, you've failed to provide an alternating theory, nor have you given me a single peer reviewed scientific paper disproving evolution producing consciousness. Do you just not know what a theory is?

[Creepoc Infinite]

No, I think that those certain values of compassion or whatever come with an extremely risky trade off. With those things comes bigotry, hatred, misery, war and suffering, or according to what you think, just ways to justify such things.
The overwhelming majority of religious people have made no choice in the matter, they are brought into it, with out their own choice. And although there are a few converts in adulthood here and there, the overwhelming majority believe that stuff without any good reason other than they don't know any better

Most of the time, they are content with their religion, too. And if they aren't, they are free to become atheists. No need to force it upon them, let them make their own choice. And religion is obviously not the only way to justify misery, war and evil on the world. Without religion, people would still have plenty of ways, like fascism, imperialism, other political view for example. There are unfortunately enough ways to justify discrimination and violence.

I never said it was the only way to justify that stuff, however, it is the most popular.
Imperialism is usually justified by nationalism, however, many justify it with religion. Like the Muslims feel entitled to the desert and sand that is the holy land.

Fascism is not a justification, it is a form of government. A theocracy can be fascist, so can a capitalist country. There are plenty of way of justifying anything, religion just happens to be open of the more popular ones, if the THE.most popular

[Jute]

We were never prohibited. The Garden is an allegory for the perfect relationship between Man and Creation. A gift from God. Things are not perfect. But things are more perfected through Mankinds continued evolution with respect to the environment. We make a more Garden-like world with each passing day. Every time an individual's life is made a bit more pleasant, they move ever closer to that perfect relationship. It's a never ending process.

That is the purpose of the Garden. It gives us a vision to strive for.

Perhaps it is, but what reason do you have to think it is?
Not everyone accepts the bible as pure allegory and I can be pretty sure not ALL of it is allegory. Even the tower a Babel is not complete allegory.

The pope accepts it as allegory, though, and he represents everyone who is Catholic. Most other denominations accept is allegory as well, the one taking it literally is a young minority, which didn't even exist before modern times.