The atheist crusades must stop!

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People with a logical turn of mind who base their sense of reality on things they observe as they live and what they can deduce directly from those observations cannot justify the massive fantasies involved in religion and the existence of a super being on those bases and if they are honest with themselves they don’t.
But being honest in that way requires a price. It demands an acknowledgment that death is final and the constituents of our bodies and our minds will return to the rather disorganized chaos from which we arose. This is an extremely unpleasant thing for most of us to accept. At best we can exist for approximately a century and the bulk of humanity cannot even live for that rather short time. A good many people do not have an easy time in life so it is comforting to fantasize that there will be an unlimited time after death when all the joys of living will continue indefinitely. One amusing thing about this odd dream is that the joys of life mostly consist of satisfying the necessities of staying alive such as eating and developing combat and competition skills and reproducing, all vital processes of living creatures. If these joys were to be maximized and continued in an afterlife they would serve no sensible purpose. Harp playing and flying around like a pigeon might be fun for a month or so but eternity is a long time and common views of an afterlife are initially comical and in the end, terribly boring.

Although it may be frightening to face and live with the fact of ultimate oblivion there are rewards of value. Once it is accepted that life is very limited it becomes much more valued. Killing people becomes much less acceptable and the joys of living from minute to minute, never being sure you or your loved ones will be around tomorrow makes every second of life with its problems and sounds and tastes and understandings hugely precious. When someone you love dies, the huge understanding of that vital loss makes what you had of the life of that person very, very precious and the nonsense that the person continues elsewhere cannot diminish the value of the terrible sense of loss.

People who will not accept that there is no afterlife are unfortunate frightened cowards and they spend their lives fleeing reality and the huge anger that is generated when they catch a glimpse of the nonsense of unfullfilable religious promises is why they react with such violence.

Excellent post as usual but I agree with the above most.

You prove nonexistence by providing concrete evidence that something is there instead of something else. For instance, I can prove that my computer is not a pink elephant. First of all, no known elephants are pink. Second of all, there is nothing in an elephant's anatomy that can gain access to the internet. Third, an elephant is a life form, while the thing I seem to be using is a nonliving tool. We can induce that a pink elephant IS NOT EXISTING in my room, but rather an iMac where the elephant would be. Atheists try to disprove religion by saying that there is a void (which is a thing in itself) where God would otherwise be, and that scientific principles can successfully replace religious ethics. Proving the nonexistence of an individual thing is possible, but it requires a substitution.

Just a little logical coping mechanism installed to circumscribe the unsettling concept of absolute nothingness.

Well, my response was for someone who was asking for evidence for God's existence, and a sort of defense from the delusional label, I actually see a similar thing from believers and atheists, that being, their certainty about God, from opossing point of views, I am aware that this would apply mostly to strong atheists though.

And yeah, you have a point, I do agree that something that cannot be proven or disproven are sometimes taken as faith, so atheists and skeptics must realise that, that all people have some sort of Faith in something, sometimes out of necessity, if not faith, at least assumptions, which would certainly lack of physical evidence.

I actually made a point before, about how many things we take for granted and we believe in them, without having proved them ourselves, and instead, we believe what others have tought us without questioning them, one example: Christopher Colombus, Leonardo DaVinci, we (people in general, no scientists or professionals in the field) would tend to believe what we heard or read about those two guys, their lives, their work and their existence for that matter, but never have had physical evidence examined by us, or being us who participated in it, no, we just believe what we have been told, I would say Faith regarding these small details. We could say, if not Faith in Religion, perhaps Faith in Science, Faith in History, Faith in Humanity, etc. It is something interesting to make an observation about.

Last edited by greenblue on 24 Aug 2008, 2:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There is a major difference between the "faith" of scientists and that of religious people. Scientists assume that the universe is ordered and there are laws which control the dynamics. Some laws, like those of Newton, acquire over time a consistency and uniformity that seems to be unshakable. But Einstein showed that there were circumstances under which those laws were violated. When these violations were demonstrated to everybody's satisfaction they replaced Newton's laws. No amount of demonstration of the invalidity of religious beliefs, on average, can persuade someone of a religious faith to change their viewpoint because there are deep psychological needs that over rule logic and reason in religious people.

So, if I argue that instead of god, there exists a giant, metaphysical pie, will that work?

How could I prove the existence of a metaphysical pie? Would I need a logical proof that pie = awesomeness? So many questions brought to light with MissPickywicky's view of metaphysics and philosophy of religion.

But what kind of pie would God be? Perhaps an aspie?

God is not a logical concept. You have to prove that something like a god could exist first.

You have a point here. When experts are under constant pressure to prove absolutely everything that has ever been accepted as fact, you get weird s--- like Holocaust denial and anti-vaccine nuttery. Now, the existence of a historical event and the safety of a preventative medicine are a leeeeetle easier to establish than the majesty of an enormous metaphysical concept, but there is a little faith in all of us. The faith of the logical is called induction. Induction is not proof, per se, but we can use induction to show that Nazis probably slaughtered a few million people at some point.

Okay, here comes the twist: can someone induce the existence of God for me? Or at least the possibility of the existence of a supreme being?

Last edited by MissPickwickian on 24 Aug 2008, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

gets out the popcorn and soda and gets comfy

I can try, hopefully I understand what you are asking for.

1) If God exists, then he can be defined as a maximally awesome being
2) If a maximally awesome being exists, then he/she can be called God
3) I exist and am maximally awesome
4) Therefore, I am God
5) Therefore, God exists

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 24 Aug 2008, 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's important to note, though, that not all leaps of faith are of the long-jump variety. Assuming the non-existence of something for which there is no evidence is a far smaller step than assuming the existence of something for which there is no evidence.



Not pie! Spaghetti!

Pie is tastier than spaghetti, and if pie is better in any way than spaghetti, then the ontological proof for spaghetti fails, while the one for pie does not necessarily do so.

Why God is not a logical concept?
well, I think first, we would have to define what God is, and who he is or what it is, there are different approaches of God depending on which religion and philosophy field, I suppose.

You could argue that, socially speaking, some aspects from religion, like Christianity and Islam would sound ilogical or logical, depending on your point of view.
When it comes to fundamentalism issues regarding moral and social aspects, who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, and stuff like that. That is to be ilogical according to our standards, perhaps liberal, if not, moderate standards?

But, a part from that, is the mere existence of God necessarily an ilogical concept?
Is logic necessarily linked to things that have been already proven?

:P

Spaghetti worship is an old and established practice. You pieists are just a silly cult.