Is there any proof God exists?

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You would think. How is it God has survived all this time? History hasn't always been kind to Christians and Jews.

And then there's ISIS. Either believe or we'll believe FOR you. Brute force. I'm not saying Christians have always been pure as driven snow when it comes to politics and foreign policy. It's just you'd think by now people would have figured it out and would stop trying to blow ourselves up back to the Stone Age.

Even if we were to decide God is non-existent or irrelevant, "faith" (emphasis on scare quotes) remains a formidable force in our world. I wish I were optimistic enough to say I could see that changing, at least for the better, but things aren't looking good at the moment.

OH GOD, Seriously, GOD doesn't care how folks describe GOD in metaphors.

GOD IS GOD.

And god is no words at all.

The greaTEST ideal and IDOL OF ALL IS WORDS, PERIOD.

GOD EXISTS WITHOUT WORDS.

FAITH IS NOT A WORD.

FAITH IS AN EMOTION.

AN EMPOWERING EMOTION IS FAITH.

THE EMOTION OF FAITH IS A GIFT OF THE GOD OF NATURE THAT YES
CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS, AT LEAST A HALF A TON, IN MY CASE.

NO MATTER WHAT SILLY LITTLE HUMAN WORD(S) ARE AND IS USE(D) AS SYMBOL(S) TO EDIFICE THE
ESSENCE OF FAITH WITH OR WITHOUT A THREE LETTER WORD, FAITH REMAINS AS AN EMPOWERING
HUMAN EMOTION.

THE best way to see god, IS to LOSE ALL THE ABSTRACT ILLUSIONS IN SKELETONS OF LIFELESS WORDS.

MEDITATION, TRANCE DANCE, YOGA, MARTIAL ARTS; WHATEVER GETS PEOPLE OUT OF THE PRISON OF WORDS AND back as one with GOD aka Mother Nature TRUE like my frigging cat IS; WHATEVER CAN WORK to do JUST that.

Meanwhile, 'GOD' just sits back and 'giggles like a school girl', at this entire frigging thread and says oh well, humans did this to themselves, they can enjoy the bed they make for themselves 24-7, with their smaller or greater levels of relative human free will.

I would rather work with GOD, instead, of doing nothing, really nothing but make symbols of words all day long.

But yeah, the story, and all of that......

the never ending story and all of that......



Imagination and creativity IS THE greatest 'GOD GIVEN' GIFT OF HUMAN BEINGS.

Nihilism and Reason, RELATIVELY SPEAKING, IS EMPTINESS, IN SKELETONS OF WORDS.

LIFE AIN'T BLACK AND WHITE, UNTIL SOMEONE DIES IN LIFE.

AND that's the saddest part of this thread of all, and I'm sure 'GOD' sheds a tear FOR that IS to stray away

from the GREATest gift of now; the heart, the soul, the spirit of humankind, in all the ARTFUL CREATIVE WAYS
FROM THE TAO, TO THE BIBLE, TO FRIGGING STAR WARS; THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH IS IN IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY ALWAYS, UNLESS HUMANKIND BECOMES a robot, in singular way of mechanical cognition DEATH.

BE AFRAID or not, it's not up to GOD, it's up to 'YOU', live or die in life ALIve that's 'your' choice, in RELATIVE HUMAN FREE WILL.

LIFE CAN BE AN OCEAN OF HEAVEN IN NOW..

OR PIT OF HELL IN SYMBOLIC WORDS OF YESTERDAY OR TOMORROW.

THE NEVER ENDING STORY, AS ALWAYS, IS
NOW.

TO make the best of now is smart.

To do anything else, is dum or dumber...

Rho, I don't believe in God because there is no evidence for god and I do not accept the writings of people ignorant to the natural laws as evidence. I most certainly do not reject God, to reject God suggests that I accept its existence, rather I reject the notion of god in the same way I reject the notion of santa, the tooth fairy, and the monster in my wardrobe. None of them were real although some of them I once had faith in (especially the monster). Maybe faith is not the word to use for children believing in Santa and the Tooth fairy. After all faith is the ability to believe in something with no evidence, yet these two did provide evidence, young kids for whatever reason trust that their parents will tell them the truth so you no have two bits of evidence IE the presents and verification from the parents. As we grow older and are able to better evaluate we realise that it is far more reasonable to assume both Santa and Fairy are in fact a ruse played upon us by our parents. I see god in the same way, once we had no idea how things worked, no idea of illness, climatic events, cosmological events etc. Superstitions were rampant before large scale common knowledge of the natural laws, all these unexplained events seemd to be evidence of higher powers. We know different now.

Now it is possible (even though the evidence points to our parents) that santa and the fairy do actually exist. And this is what you are asking me to do, accept that God exists in spite of all rationality, before you ask, I find it irrational to have a belief in something that has no evidence, or cannot be falsified.

Lastly, you bring up a version of pascal's wager. This is often presented as the ultimate "get out of gaol free card" it has no cost and the rewards are great. Except it does have a cost, it has a cost to every person who does not fit the model of a particular religion. I wont go to far into subjects you have been gagged on, but suffice to say many hold your views on sexuality etc. So believing in the Christian God as an insurance policy affects many many people in a negative way.

No, you're making a huge jump here. Leaving aside that there is evidence for uncaused events.

If there was an "uncaused cause", why assume that it is a sentient, omnibenevolent, omniscient deity? There's no way we can assume any characteristics about it at all.


Empiricism being a good idea can be derived logically.

If the world behaves in a (somewhat) consistent manner, according to laws, then repeatedly doing something and checking the results should tell you what "doing something" does.

If, however, the world is total unpredictable chaos, then empiricism doesn't work and we're all idiots for practising it every day.

Now, which is a bigger assumption: that all the empirical observations made in the past few billion years were solely due to chance, or that a deity exists despite there being no good evidence for it?

Labels are a double-edged sword. On one hand we use them as short-hand, so people catch on quickly, but on the other hand a label means people will make wrong assumptions.

Labels are static, individuals are usually dynamic.

Sure. Let's make it my fault that you can't keep up.



That's The Invisible Pink Unicorn. It's an allegory representing, among other things, the method by which gods are invented. Just like The Invisible Pink Unicorn, the "God" of Christianity is a specific idea - as are the majority of gods.



Your reasoning may have something to do with your lack of comprehension. For clarity, I asked about the traditional punishment for blasphemy, not the Christian punishment for blasphemy. The question was posited in response to your rather puerile response to the following.

"Thousands of years of doctrine and dogma, enforced with pointy sticks and blunt objects galore, have led to a society that is permeated with superstition and fairy tales."

Which you chose to misrepresent as "a few a***holes" conquering a world of atheists. This is arguably the most obvious and clumsy example of a strawman in the history of this board.



That's how conversations work outside echo chambers. New ideas are introduced, often as a means to cause the other party to consider their position. If it's making you uncomfortable, you're under no obligation to respond.



Sources? Unless you have access to a time machine, the above is no more than speculation.



An oversimplification, but yes, religion has effectively been a multi-millennial game of Chinese Whispers.



Explain precisely how I'm "reinventing world history".

I have no particular beef with Christianity - I hold all beliefs in supreme beings in equal contempt. Christianity has been used as an example, primarily because it's an obvious example to use on a board frequented primarily by people who live in Christian nations. Perhaps you're guilty of a touch of projection here. It was you, after all, who inserted Christianity into my question about blasphemy. Let's try to stay on point shall we?

If we're "haggling" over anything, it's over the validity of the Invisible Pink Unicorn as a metaphor for supreme beings. It seems a bizarre subject as a focus for such a sticking point, but rather than answering a simple question I put to you - regarding three staples of Greek Mythology - you've led a merry prolixious dance to a fictional past, replete with 50 million human beings alive on pre-civilisation Earth to the present, and another strawman representation of my position.



What a delightfully patronising waste of words.

You do realise that the whole point of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is that you can replace "God" in the above with "Invisible Pink Unicorn" without changing the meaning, right?



I am unsurprised at the revelation that bafflement is your response to an idea. Your idiotic assertion of my knowledge of "the subject" is based entirely on a narrative you spun out of whole cloth, largely due to an error of comprehension on your part.

There is no "evidence for uncaused events" anywhere, ever. Your assertion is entirely gratuitous.

There's no reason to "assume" anything about an uncaused First Cause. It's a logical necessity according with all reason and observation.

I've got GOD on the 'line'..
and am arranging for an 'interview'.

If iam successful i will be back with that
interview soon...

Unfortunately.. GOD does not speak in 'English'..
the 'Angel Man' Language.. even..

so I'll do the best I can to translate in
English 'Angel Man' Metaphor..

Like everyone else has through the ages.. of time and now..
as same as now..

But hey.. 'Angel Man' ways of speech..
cannot be all 'bad' can they..
to speak with words of GOD..

in 'Angel Man' ways...

Metaphors.. a Universe where tRuly the Universe can be decoded
in all numbers and letters.. alone..for those who have 'eyes' deep enough
to 'see'...skEYes of GOD where letters and numbers are allONe.

Actually, there is...


Yeah…see, this is the interesting part. You are automatically assuming that people didn't actually see what they saw. This is dangerous territory because you're dismissing something on the basis that you don't have a DeLorean time machine and are unable to witness the event for yourself. Either that, or something to the effect of being annoyed that God isn't the kind of being you can manipulate into a form you can fit in a Petri dish or a microscope slide. It's interesting because it takes a lot of WORK to be that dismissive.

There's also the human experience. Why would people reject the other notions you mentioned but still maintain faith in God? How is santa and the tooth fairy a blatant ruse while even mom and dad still believe in God as though He really is real? And not that the entire population of the earth can't be wrong about something, but what is it about the human experience, in spite of technological advances, scientific advances, and so on that render God "unnecessary" that people still somehow just can't deny that there is SOMETHING beyond the here-and-now? Again, appeals to majority don't magically make something true. What is it about God or "the Divine" that people find compelling? I think it's because people continue to experience the Divine on some level. This has happened to me in extreme ways. Not many people have my story, and that's ok. But most everyone who does believe HAS some kind of story as to why it is difficult or impossible to NOT believe.

To put it another way, if you look out at the night sky on most clear nights throughout the year, at some point you'll see the moon. You may not have evidence of what it actually IS, but its presence is undeniable. I think most people have an innate sense of the Divine. And while it's no trouble to handwave it as chemicals in the brain, we already know that chemicals are produced in the brain in response to stimulation. If someone actually does sense the presence of a spiritual being, it's just as much a stimulus as light. I realize this isn't very scientific, but you have repeated claims of perceiving something, SOMETHING is causing it. Could be drug abuse. Could be hallucinations, schizophrenia, or seizures. Could be any number of things. Why automatically dismiss the Divine as a possibility?


I don't think that's necessary. But I do suspect that you are working hard to "not accept."


True. Logic can't be falsified. The scientific method cannot be falsified. Hard empiricism can't be falsified, but it's dead wrong, anyway, and that is something that can be proven. Your faith in logic, empiricism, the scientific method, and so on is clearly irrational. We seem to be in agreement on this point.


Thanks. It's hard to address this point without getting into some of the more difficult topics.

A tremendous part of it really is situational, and a lot of people overlook that. Christians have always struggled with what applies, how, and to what degree. If you look at the OT laws and take them one-by-one, what you find is that the OT laws all had specific purposes. Ceremonial laws, particularly those dealing with sacrifice and holiness, are impossible to reenact because there's no chance in the foreseeable future that temple worship will ever be reinstated. Further, those laws and customs were intended only for the Israelites and bear no relevance to Gentiles. Some laws merely establish law and order appropriate to the time, and it is implied in the books of the prophets that those laws were never intended to be permanent. Still other laws only functioned to establish the cultural identity of the Chosen. Again, those laws would be inappropriate for Gentiles. Laws that would apply universally would be those that emphasize worship of God alone. Sorcery is man's attempt to manipulate the spirit world into fulfilling man's whim. It effectively puts man above God and challenges God's authority. I think it would be obvious why something like that in a YHWHist theocracy would be punishable by death. We don't like to think about genocide, but if a culture is so entrenched in institutionalized evil that it cannot function without it, exactly how is a nation to deal with something that is that great a threat to them? I don't know what your feelings regarding ISIS are, but the continued existence of those who believe something they don't or worship God in ways besides their way is intolerable. Should we simply be tolerant of ISIS and allow them to go on their merry destructive way, or are we compelled to respond in kind to make those atrocities stop? What's interesting about the conquest of Canaan is that God never said the Canaanites had to end their practices. God merely indicated they couldn't do that THERE. God promised to "drive them out" ahead of the Israelites. So even before Israel started making forbidden deals, there was nothing stopping those people from simply relocating. There's no need to assume that genocide was intended nor that genocide was actually carried out. In fact, the Bible explicitly states that genocide did NOT happen, though to the detriment of the Israelite people.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say that genocide was what was INTENDED, and let's say that some people groups actually were completely wiped out in the earliest campaigns. If that is what the Bible is telling us, is our disagreement with Biblical genocide based on present-day societal preferences an objective or subjective indictment of scripture? Unless you can make an irreligious case for objective morality, you have to admit that it's subjective. We FEEEEEEL that our way is superior to God's way. If God is understood to be all-knowing and all-powerful, then assuming that one's feeeeeelings regarding God's actions are superior to God's decision is pure arrogance. A more worthwhile debate would be why God would instruct a nation to do something like that and yet we feel that such a program of conquest and possible annihilation would be inappropriate for us. Even more relevant for us in the present day is whether there is such a thing as a "just war" and exactly what our justification for it is. ISIS believes they are waging a holy war. Some world leaders are working tremendously hard to say this has nothing to do with religion. I don't think that Christianity can make a case for holy war, at least not one that is scripturally based. Jesus taught that there was a time and place for taking up arms, and He encouraged friends to help each other. A war predicated on defending the defenseless would be consistent with Jesus' teachings. War and conquest for the purpose of spreading religion and forcing conversions would NOT be consistent.

I mean, you really do have to look at it from a vast number of angles. The impression I get is people don't like the Bible because there are things in the Bible that offends them. How one gets offended is going to depend on one's personal biases. It's one of those irrational things we've been talking about.

Irrelevant. First Cause arguments aren't concerned with the exact nature of said First Cause. That's a completely different argument, although if we first agree that everything that begins to exist has a cause and we can arrive at the conclusion that there was an uncaused cause to begin with, the nature of that deity can be inferred from the universe and even human nature.


Being a "good idea"? I dunno about that. Can you objectively, consistently define what a "good idea" is? Beside the point, anyway. The point I was making wrt empiricism is it cannot itself be derived logically. It can't hold up under external verification.


OK. So how do you externally verify that? It's not that empiricism doesn't work, or that laws don't work, or that nothing is predictable. It's about how you draw that conclusion without circular reasoning. Empiricism is FALSE. As in WRONG. It can't possibly be right. Why? Faulty reasoning. Which is why more reasonable scientists don't actually practice it. The scientific method begins with certain ASSUMPTIONS, including that there even is a world to observe to begin with, and that the senses can be trusted to yield reliable information about the observable world. Those assumptions are impossible to verify with the scientific method because it means using the method to verify itself. Circular reasoning, assuming what must be proven. It's a fatal flaw. Most people leave just enough room for that. Empiricism doesn't allow for assumptions or presuppositions, which is why it's demonstrably WRONG.


Loaded question, false dichotomy. The biggest assumption here is that there is no good evidence for a deity. What even IS "good" evidence, anyway? Is that something we can agree on?

Just because people find offense in some things in the Bible doesn't mean that their rejection of it lacks intellectual integrity. And finding offense is not the only reason for disbelief. Personally I don't find anything in the Bible offensive, especially in the context of when it was written. I still find it wonderful literature and a fascinating anthropological record.

On the flip side, many people like myself struggled with reverse bias. During my last few years of faith, I was attached to the Bible and to the faith in ways that my rationality struggled to justify. It took me many years to let go of the emotional investment and the irrationality of clinging to that which made less and less sense.

Agreed. But it doesn't mean that they ARE being intellectually honest, either.

I don't actually think Dent is being intellectually dishonest. Even if I did think that, I wouldn't assume that this is intentional. I wouldn't act on what I perceive to be an emotional crisis if Dent hadn't made SOME indication that this was at least partly the case. There are a good many people for whom this really is the case, though, and I expect/respect that this doesn't apply universally.

Dent and I have been round after round with this many times before. What makes me sad is I seem to be the only one really giving it a serious go…and I'll openly admit I'm terrible at this kind of thing. I've really enjoyed sophisticated's posts, though. I'll typically withdraw when I've become either too tired or too busy to keep up with all the talking points. I just happen to be too wound up to sleep tonight, not to mention I'm out of my creative groove that's been working well for me as of late. However, this new project is demanding my attention, so I'll likely be absent from WP again within the next day or two.

(cut out some of the bombast)

So hundreds of thousands of pink unicorns, at that rate they're hardly sounding like an endangered species.


What 'tradition' are we talking about?


That works great for large societies and codified religions. We're getting to the animistic tribes somewhere below...


That might be our split - my concern in the debate is whether we're absolutely considering all possibilities 'pink unicorns' that aren't reductive materialism, seemed you were suggesting that AngelRho's offer of plausibility for something sentient being behind the universe was as absurd as an imaginary landed animal; my reply was suggesting - politely - that you were substituting bigotry for critical thinking.

That's really the core of what I'm debating with you - religion has its roots as an experience-driven phenomena. I'd add a lot of that experience based phenomena is still alive and well today. Political expediency capitalized on all of this later.


I'm still calling that a 20th century value projection. You're not saying 'sometimes' - rather you're implying 'always' - and if you meant always you're being specious not historical.


This is more what I would have expected from people who don't like evolution asking me to go back in a time machine and find the crossover species. I just described animistic tribes alive today and the similarities among them. What they have is the prototype to religion; it was practical magic and mysticism rather than a control structure. It's whole point was to bring down heavenly aid in their endeavors - whether getting food or getting rain - and their shamans posed more as technicians than politicians and courtiers as in later development.


Your angulation seemed to suggest that all of this was the 'need to control' - if you meant to specify later religions rather than the source ideas you didn't clarify that particularly well.


Whose blasphemy laws are you talking about? If you meant Islam from the start you didn't specify that, and if you mean something else you're reaching pretty far back and you'll have to specify.


It's a reducto ad absurdeum as it seems to suggest a landed specificity to something that's far more general, in its size and scope but also what you notice that your Chinese Whispers seems to be in effect across all the systems. When someone says "I believe in a sentient mastermind behind the universe" it's a very different suggestion - qualitatively - than "I believe in the Great Pumpkin".


If you believe you're using some well-worn slang in good taste it might not be your fault, albeit I really have doubts on whoever coined that for you in that case. Again - it's an oversimplification of a more abstract phenomena. To believe that The Deity is a Pink Unicorn or all the deities of history are thousands of them gives me the impression that you're hearkening back to your high school history text books where they have enough time to give you a slew of particulars without the connecting dynamics.

QUOTED FOR WISDOM AND TRUTH AKA LIGHT; FINALLY, someone who has both the verbal ability and true connecting ability OF experience TO CONNECT THE MATERIAL REDUCTIONIST MINDS MIRED IN DETAILS HERE.

BUT they will not likely still have a clue, as it is a mind not fully experienced that is the issue of confusion, for those of us who see with fuller minds and bodies in balance, human beings ARE BEST innately and instinctually driven in intuition.

Human Intuition allows TRULY 'QUANTUM' LEAPS IN MIND AND BODY BALANCE, WHERE CONVERSELY, A TEXT BOOK BECOMES THE BALL AND CHAIN, AND THE SO-CALLED PRIMITIVES ARE THE TRULY SMART ONES WHEN AND WHERE IT COMES TO TRULY EMPIRICAL FLESH AND BLOOD BALANCED BLISSFUL EXISTENCE.

WORDS, alone, are just buildings that house nothing but emptiness without the essence of truth experienced with all potential senses and emotions fully unleashed and released to THE human mastery of relative free will.

I rarely see any essence of truth on this site, at core of what it means to be human, except for folks like TECH here who explores truth and wisdom that is light without the darkness of cynicism of light and FRIGGING FEAR OF THE DARK.

THE LIGHT IS TRUTH OF UNDERSTANDING THAT WISDOM IS WITHIN, A GIFT WAITING TO BE EXPLORED.

THE DARKNESS OF LIES, IS, 'IT' ALL COMES FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S MIND, OR A FRIGGING LITTLE BLACK AND WHITE OR OTHER COLORED TEXTBOOK, OR LECTURE FROM SCHOOL, OR COMPUTER SCREEN.

BUT ANYWAY, Pink Floyd forecasts what is More than obvious and prevalent on this Internet site from long ago, AS JUST another GROUP OF 'TRUE PROPHETS' KNOWING TRULY WHAT THE HUMAN CONDITION MEANS, BOTH IMPRISONED AND FREE!..

And most of it cannot be seen in a brain scan but the environmental affect and EFFECT HERE, IS AS CLEAR AS AN EAGLE WHO NEVER FLIES, FREE, IN THIS HUMAN CONDITION, AS IS, free or
NOT.



Yeah, there are some 'bricks' around here, and a 'wall' that refuses to come down, ironically enough, as that is what true human freedom is, BREAKING FREE FROM cultural illusions of what 'we' 'ILLuDE', AS EDUCATION in bricks OF WALL OF MIND AND BODY NEVER CLOSE TO FULLY REALIZED IN MIND AND BODY BALANCE.

IF THERE ARE any pink Unicorns they live in the words of material reductionism.

It would be funny and I could laugh at everyone here, except I realize they are living in hell, and I've been there done that already, so I care. That's what real human beings do, and they RARELY TO NEVER intentionally attempt to bring people down, just to bring 'em down in the biggest illusion OF ALL THAT THAT BRINGS THEIR OWN SELF UP. TRULY IT DOES NOT, IN THE EYES of THOSE folks WHO SEE wRite THROUGH IT.

But yeah, as history shows..

THE TRUTH CAN HURT, BEFORE IT FEELS THE BEST, BEYOND WHAT CAN BE IMAGINED NOW.

AND THAT'S WHERE I LIVE ALWAYS NOW, BABY!.. THE BEST pArt of ALL IN TOTaLLY Human FREEdom..

Yeah, IT IS the KINGdom of FREEdom, aka THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN NOW.

Why are you under the misapprehension that turning this into an appeal to popularity somehow strengthens your position? It doesn't matter if there are 50 gods or 50 million, they are all allegorical devices to explain things that were not understood by those who invented them.



I have no idea what "tradition" you're talking about. I said "traditional" - as in "habitually done".



The same standard applies no matter the size of the society or religion.



Thus demonstrating that you understand neither the point of allegory nor the definition of the word "bigotry". I shall do my very best to break it down. The rest is up to you.

The first cause hypothesis, as posited by creationists, is specifically used in an attempt to prove that:

- A sentient being created the universe
- That sentient being is the one that the creationist believes in.
- Everything that exists was created by something else apart from the sentient being the creationist believes in.

There are numerous holes in this argument - some obvious ones being that a sentient being is an unnecessary component, and that there is no logical reason to assume that the law of causality is bound to our universe.

Equally obvious is that there is just as much evidence that the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a super-evolved millipede or a giant sack of horse manure caused the Universe to come into existence, either by chance or design, as there is for any other human invention (e.g. God).

My position, and that of other atheists, is that suspension of critical thinking is necessary to any positive claim that an omnipotent creator exists.



All human inventions have their roots as an "experience-driven phenomena".



Which I shall define as informed hindsight during the age of enlightenment.



Shamans were revered among their tribes, had the power of life and death over other members of their tribe. The same is true of holy men and women in almost every religion we have records of. If you deny this while presenting a more pleasant alternate narrative, you are the one who is being specious.



What you "just" did was make the assumption that modern animistic tribes are representative of ancient cultures we have no record of. What you "just" did, was pulled arbitrary population figures out of your backside and assigned them to an unspecified period of time and region of the planet. Speculation is a useful tool, but what you're presenting is fantasy fiction.



My understanding of animism is that it sprang from the empathy of hunters whose tools for killing were rarely efficient. More often than not, the hunter would have to finish off his prey with a rudimentary cutting or stabbing tool. These intimate executions were psychologically traumatic to the hunters, who created myths and fables around the animals they killed, which was extended to other beasts and inanimate objects. That's the take-home lesson of the study of modern animistic tribes - that superstition usually has its roots in death, not creation. In guilt, rather than love.



No, it's common to all religious beliefs - and many non religious beliefs too. I assume you're familiar with at least the basics of human psychology.



I didn't mention laws - though it is specifically written into law in many modern religions. Blasphemy and apostasy were not invented with the advent of Judaism.



Your argument might have merit if it were commonplace for people to claim "I believe in a sentient mastermind behind the Universe". However, they are more inclined to state "I believe in God" exactly the same suggestion - qualitatively - as "I believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn". This can easily be demonstrated by using the example you provided as part of a dialogue.

"I believe in a sentient mastermind behind the universe."
"Tell me more"
"His name is God"

The conversation remains the same when you replace God with any thing or being - e.g. The Invisible Pink Unicorn.



Considering how clumsy a strawman you've had to construct in order to write the patronising pile of fallacious nonsense you've provided here, it's evident that you're confused about atheism.

It's especially ironic, considering your puerile "high school history book" comment, that you have made such a schoolboy error as to suggest that I believe in gods. I do not believe that any deity exists. I do not believe that there is a single Invisible Pink Unicorn, let alone thousands. I've explained, at length, the purpose of the allegory of the Invisible Pink Unicorn - it's analogous to the FSM.

Seriously, as a moderator, I would expect a better standard of argument than an ad hominem disparaging of my credentials. Shame on you.

When it comes to non-faith alternatives, we're still virtual infants. The rapid growth of technology and scientific discovery makes it look like secularism has been big for a long time. But in the past, secular living was anything but mainstream. There were many pertinent individuals along the way, but our current generations are arguably the first to embrace it en masse. Perhaps the results of science have finally pulled back the curtain on the wizard, whereas in the past science seemed more theoretical.

When I think of IS and faith based power struggles, I compare it to secular activities. Could a group like IS ever hope to reach the moon, or discover a cure for AIDS, or create flat-screen technology, or view distant galaxies via Hubble, or do any of the amazing things that progressive humans do?

And after seeing what IS did to ancient relics, it reminds me of my earlier days as a Christian in the 70's and 80's when we were told to destroy half of our music albums because they had satanic messages.