THE SHOWDOWN: Does God exist?

[uBeR]

forgot this.

[YomMamasHouse]

What profound meaning does faith have exactly? I have been trying to understand what was going on when I argue a point and then someone is like "it is all about faith, you just don't get it". Those people can be found in abundance at my school. They were right though, I don't by any means understand it. They make it seem like they should be taken seriously because the basis of their beliefs is faith, something completely insubstantial and baseless.

I have been trying to figure out what was going on but have failed for the most part.

[unf]

How about, who gives a fuck.

[YomMamasHouse]

I really want to know where they are going with it though, it is easier to communicate with people you understand.

[Innoc]

Perhaps you will find that the difference between having faith and not having it has to do with which hemisphere of that persons brain is dominant. Perhaps it is something that can be sensed by those who are right brain dominant and something that cannot be sensed by those who are left brain dominant.

[allisvoid]

Originally Posted by uBeR

forgot this.

it is your choice or decision to have faith in your beliefs. faith has a lot to do with it but it has absolutely nothing to do with proving that god is fact.

i was trying to say religion is a belief which is an opinion therefore not fact or real. god is a real belief though so in a sense... he's real.

bed time.

EDIT: unf wins.

[Bubbles]

Fingaru Pantsu!

[grg]

You shouldn't debate if God exists or not, unless you want to change some people's ideas (which I don't think it's happening). This discussion leads to nowhere, so it's kinda.. pointless.

I mean more like: Who gives a fuck to what this or that people think? Each person is happy on his/her own way. You're not gonna change people's mind by saying a couple of reasons of how you're happy YOUR way. It's way more complex than that. There's a lot of convivence/ambient factors involved in that.

Myself, for example, was a "catholic" (kinda fake one, only used to pray a couple of times on the month or so) till 15 or 16 years old. Then I got this strong feeling for being free (I wanted to get out of my home town more than everything), so I kinda started not believing in God anymore. It's not like I wanted to be cool and stuff, such as HEY LOOK AT ME, I DON'T BELIVE IN GOD, BOO HOO I'M COOLEST PERSON ON EARTH. It was a feeling that grew up really strong inside me, so yeah.

But what if one day, in all of a sudden, my entire family dies. And I feel like it'll be better for me if I start praying everyday, get a lot into churches and all the things that religious people do. I'll be doing it because it'll make me feel better on that moment. And it's not a bunch of internet guys that will teach me what's correct or not.

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by unf

How about, who gives a fuck.

Truer words never spoken. Exit Stage Left.

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by accrede

????????????????????????????????????

What kind of atheism is this???

You are probably finding him annoying because I believe he said that atheists have no compassion and base all of their decisions on their own interests.

If you want an evolutionary explanation of compassion try this: We are a social primate/ pack animal we have to create and nuture realationships in the same way as other social/ pack animals. We are also self-aware, we are aware of our own behaviour. We can feel pain, and with our awareness, we can appreciate (quite well) how others must be feeling when they are in pain, we can even share their distress, this is known as empathy. We can appreciate the situation of others with our empathy and we can then attempt to alleviate their situation too, this is compassion.

To state that atheists do not have compassion or that compassion can only come from religion is quite wrong.

One, I did not say that Atheists do not have compassion, you're making broad assumtions about the definition of Atheism that I'm discussing. However, everything you have said above fits within the definition: You share the distress of others, you feel their pain, you comfort them because you want to feel better about yourself and make them feel better so you don't feel their pain anymore. It benefits YOU, it increases your self-esteem, it makes you feel good to comfort others. That's the motivation behind it, in an atheistic point of view. No matter how you look at it, a true die-hard atheist should only perform tasks that internally or externally benefit themselves, anything else is a waste of energy, isn't it?

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by unf

How about, who gives a fuck.

Originally Posted by Ihmhi

Truer words never spoken. Exit Stage Left.

Again kids, if you have nothing constructive to add to the thread, post the melodramatic commentary somewhere else please. I politely and thoughtfully responded to your message ihmhi, if you don't want to continue that's fine, but the one liners are really unnecessary. There are obviously several people in this thread who are having a decent conversation, so we do give a fuck unf, if you don't like the conversation then just move on.

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by YomMamasHouse

What profound meaning does faith have exactly? I have been trying to understand what was going on when I argue a point and then someone is like "it is all about faith, you just don't get it". Those people can be found in abundance at my school. They were right though, I don't by any means understand it. They make it seem like they should be taken seriously because the basis of their beliefs is faith, something completely insubstantial and baseless.

I have been trying to figure out what was going on but have failed for the most part.

It bothers me when people say things like "it is all about faith, you just don't get it" because that's a very condescending attitude. It is not a way to speak to someone about faith, it's an exclusionists attitude that turns people away.

I can not speak for all religions, or even Christiantiy as a whole, but I can give you my thoughts on the subject. I can say that faith is a personal experience that each person has differently. Faith is knowing with your heart that which you can not know with your mind. Faith is like love, you know "it is" but you don't know "why it is". In my personal opinion if you have a desire to understand faith you're feeling the Holy Spirit calling, and eventually you will understand faith, whether you want to or not.

[allisvoid]

Originally Posted by grg

You shouldn't debate if God exists or not, unless you want to change some people's ideas (which I don't think it's happening). This discussion leads to nowhere, so it's kinda.. pointless.

I mean more like: Who gives a fuck to what this or that people think? Each person is happy on his/her own way. You're not gonna change people's mind by saying a couple of reasons of how you're happy YOUR way. It's way more complex than that. There's a lot of convivence/ambient factors involved in that.

Myself, for example, was a "catholic" (kinda fake one, only used to pray a couple of times on the month or so) till 15 or 16 years old. Then I got this strong feeling for being free (I wanted to get out of my home town more than everything), so I kinda started not believing in God anymore. It's not like I wanted to be cool and stuff, such as HEY LOOK AT ME, I DON'T BELIVE IN GOD, BOO HOO I'M COOLEST PERSON ON EARTH. It was a feeling that grew up really strong inside me, so yeah.

But what if one day, in all of a sudden, my entire family dies. And I feel like it'll be better for me if I start praying everyday, get a lot into churches and all the things that religious people do. I'll be doing it because it'll make me feel better on that moment. And it's not a bunch of internet guys that will teach me what's correct or not.

im just putting ideas out there... im not on here trying to change someones way of thinking. though my comments may affect someone else's thoughts... that was not my intention and i hold nothing against people who believe different than me.

and i am not trying to disprove god, im trying to prove that god is not fact. god may exist but he may not, no one knows.

and you're right, these discussions are usually pointless. however, if you don't give a fuck then don't post.

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by allisvoid

and i am not trying to disprove god, im trying to prove that god is not fact. god may exist but he may not, no one knows.

Facts are Knowledge or information based on real occurrences. This leaves open to wide interpretation what a Fact is. I experience God's work every day, therefore, to me, he's fact. The "truth" of fact depends on a persons point of view, wouldn't you agree?

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by grg

You shouldn't debate if God exists or not, unless you want to change some people's ideas (which I don't think it's happening). This discussion leads to nowhere, so it's kinda.. pointless.

I'm not debating that... not sure who you believe is doing that in this thread, we're mainly talking about the definition of atheism.

Originally Posted by grg

I mean more like: Who gives a fuck to what this or that people think? Each person is happy on his/her own way. You're not gonna change people's mind by saying a couple of reasons of how you're happy YOUR way. It's way more complex than that. There's a lot of convivence/ambient factors involved in that.

Again, I don't see anyone converting anyone else, or trying to convince anyone else of their way of believe in this thread... we're discussing the finer points of Atheism.

Originally Posted by grg

But what if one day, in all of a sudden, my entire family dies. And I feel like it'll be better for me if I start praying everyday, get a lot into churches and all the things that religious people do. I'll be doing it because it'll make me feel better on that moment. And it's not a bunch of internet guys that will teach me what's correct or not.

Well, since you've taken a lot from this thread that wasn't here it would appear that we've inadvertently gotten you to upset over your lack of faith. I'm not sure if you're trying to convince me that your an atheist or yourself, but I'm going to let you work that out on your own.

Scuzzy

My two cents in this whole issue lie in this painting I did under the noodly influence of his noodliness!

[Innoc]

Scuzzy, as time goes on I am beginning to think that you can find biological factors that determine how well someone can sense that which you're describing. As you look at some of the higher IQ groups, and those who believe in God ,one of the things I find is that the actions of how they carry out "their faith" are different but there are basic commonalities to that which caused them to have that faith.

[RiEmuKUpl@]

Originally Posted by Scuzzy

One, I did not say that Atheists do not have compassion, you're making broad assumtions about the definition of Atheism that I'm discussing. However, everything you have said above fits within the definition: You share the distress of others, you feel their pain, you comfort them because you want to feel better about yourself and make them feel better so you don't feel their pain anymore. It benefits YOU, it increases your self-esteem, it makes you feel good to comfort others. That's the motivation behind it, in an atheistic point of view. No matter how you look at it, a true die-hard atheist should only perform tasks that internally or externally benefit themselves, anything else is a waste of energy, isn't it?

I agree, but isn't this just as true with believers? There's a selfish motivation behind everything, and everybody, when you really look into it. For believers compassion and empathy are vehicles for getting inside the gates of Heaven when the bells toll. Is this not selfish? They live their lives following Jesus (Ideally, it hardly ever happens though. Tolstoy has good stuff about this...) so they don't have to go swimming in a lake of fire for all eternity. I'd work pretty hard to keep my good ass from getting that treatment, if I believed that's what's coming.

Besides, I don't see anything wrong with selfishness. The old ladies get escorted across the street, groceries get carried, worries are listened to and everybody has a jolly good time. Do the ultimate motivations behind these acts really matter, when no one is getting hurt?

The difference between religious people and atheists is that atheists don't have the backing of some honcho in the clouds. It's just the atheist himself, just like you said, working for himself. Atheists can't go around saying: "I'll fucking kill you in the name of ME you infidel bitch", if you see what I mean.

The religious folk, be they Muslim, Christian or Jew (or whatever), who advocate violence, oppose gay rights or stem cell research, they believe they're doing what God wants them to. They believe they're advancing on the stairway to Heaven by spreading their version of the word. Now, there are the nutbags on both sides of the fence, people who are really insane (Stalin, G.W. Bush :P ), but that's a different deal entirely. I'm talking about ordinary people who've been subjected to these ideologies from a young age up. I'm not saying religion is the cause of all things wrong in our world, but it sure is responsible for a lot. I agree with Steven Weinberg when he said: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." The "insult to human dignity" bit is a bit coarse, but I suppose physicists can be like that.

When atheists make a decision, they base it solely on the realities of this world, on how the decision affects it. Believers have that out-of-this-world motive, which induces them in some cases to work against life on this Earth in hope they're allowed backstage passes to the concerts of the Angelical Choir. [Insert Muslim suicide bombers and 40 virgins here]

The atheist just wants to get through life the best he can, 'cos it's the only one he's gonna get. As selfish as it may be, is there something wrong with that?

I suppose I should say something on topic as well after rambling on for this long: debating whether god exists or not is moot. No one is going to change their minds unless they want to, like someone already said.

Instead of fighting these perennial battles, we should just concentrate on living with each other, loving your neighbour and all that shit some smart bloke once said.

I'll leave you with this quote from my favourite believer of all time, I think it's a good guideline for everyone:
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi

Peace out.

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by RiEmuKUpl@

I agree, but isn't this just as true with believers? There's a selfish motivation behind everything, and everybody, when you really look into it. For believers compassion and empathy are vehicles for getting inside the gates of Heaven when the bells toll.
...
Besides, I don't see anything wrong with selfishness. The old ladies get escorted across the street, groceries get carried, worries are listened to and everybody has a jolly good time. Do the ultimate motivations behind these acts really matter, when no one is getting hurt?

The difference between religious people and atheists is that atheists don't have the backing of some honcho in the clouds.
...
The religious folk, be they Muslim, Christian or Jew (or whatever), who advocate violence, oppose gay rights or stem cell research, they believe they're doing what God wants them to. They believe they're advancing on the stairway to Heaven by spreading their version of the word.
....

That was a well articulated complete and coherent thought, an excellent post. It's a good change from "your an ass and I have nothing to back up my beliefs with" or "who gives a fuck" replies.

There are points I agree with and disagree with. I agree that some Christians/Muslims do believe their acts get them into the pearly gates, I think they are wrong on that, but that is neither here nor there.

There are, however, acts that Christians/Muslims/etc do or do not do based soley on the instruction of their God that have no basis in nature. These are the points I was stating that Atheists live a free life in, ie rape, incest, killing. It's only a matter of getting caught, or how it would make them feel (good or bad) if they did it. For Christians there are forces of good and evil in this world, beyond nature. Not so for Atheists, they describe people as "good" or "evil" as you have, but without the spirtual plane Hitler, Bill Clinton, and yourself are equals for all intents and purposes. (not insulting anyone, just making a naturistic point comparison there) It's strictly the point I'm trying to make, and I'm not trying to elevate believers above non-believers, that's comparing apples to oranges. You can't compare the "goodness" of one belief when the other belief can by it's definition not hav the same definition of "good".

Again, GREAT post.

Scuzzy

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by Innoc

Scuzzy, as time goes on I am beginning to think that you can find biological factors that determine how well someone can sense that which you're describing. As you look at some of the higher IQ groups, and those who believe in God ,one of the things I find is that the actions of how they carry out "their faith" are different but there are basic commonalities to that which caused them to have that faith.

Are you saying higher IQs can feel the holy spirit better then others?

A non believer asked me once why the bible lists people living for hundreds of years when we live for such a short period yet have such incredible medicine. My response was that sin has been poisoning the human genome for millenia, that much exposure to evil takes it's toll. I wonder if people "felt" the holy spirit differently then they do today, as described in the bible.... it's an interesting though Innoc.