Should leading figures in religion on God

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What do you think of what these men had to say, not not say ?

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/s ... 407834&c=1

Terrific arguments for why I am a Buddhist...

It doesn't break the ice aroung my heart toward religion. I have a very hard time beliving in a god that would sit back and watch the horrifing things we do to each other. There might be a god or gods or something, but he or she might ethier just not care or not be as all powerful as we'd like to think. Like a kid with a ant farm, but I migth not be the right person to answer this.

Just read a review of an interesting sounding book...
"The Third Man Factor" by John Geiger
about the long history of the sense of a companionable presence in extreme situations... climbing Everest, trekking the Antarctic, shipwreck survivors... and considers several possible explanations, including scientific basis for such experience, as well as evolutionary survival advantage of such.

Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of gods, but considers them capricious and untrustworthy... that'd certainly be my take-away from the religions of the Book.

Two priests, a rabbi and an imam walking into a bar.....

ruveyn

They had no proof because there is no proof that an atheist will accept. If God isn't under the microscope, then He's imaginary. To the atheist, God died when science was born. But the believer, the theist, isn't someone who just closes their eyes denies the facts of biology and physics. I believe in God not because I have solid evidence of His existence, but because I don't need it. I feel God inside of me. I know He's there. I can't explain it to you, you'll never understand, and you'll never convince me otherwise. So I won't try and convert you, and you don't call me stupid for my faith. Deal?

You got it sacrip .

CRD wrote:

Maybe that's the price we pay for Free Will.

Nice try, but you don't get away with it that easily. No deal!



So your entire argument is that you 'feel' it. What about all the people who are delusional due to various mental disorders. If your 'feeling' is valid and immune to question and rationale, then surely their feelings must be too? Why should you get special treatment? Ergo the man who believes he can fly unaided is in fact entirely sane and rational and everyone who denies his great power simply don't 'feel' it and are axiomatically incorrect despite overwhelming evidence that the lunatic can not indeed fly. Luckily he may swiftly be disproved as he jumps off a ten story building and falls to his death. Sadly he challenged the laws of gravity whereas you challenge something which won't plunge you headfirst into a pavement at 200 miles per hour. Still, one can dream.



I'd accept proof, you know the kind of proof that ACTUALLY proves something? I'd accept that, but I've yet to see it and nor have you. Besides, how do you know what I will and will not except? Hmm? Are you adding mind reading to your list of make-believe skills? So that's mind reading, feeling the presence of god inside you...excuse me for going of course here, but where exactly do you feel him? In the mind I assume? Or the soul? I suppose you believe in that too?



He never lived, so I fail to see how something that never existed could have the capacity to die, expire, kick the bucket or otherwise...No wonder you believe in god. All rationality has long since departed from you. And you sound like you are implying that atheists existed before science... So what did atheists do BEFORE science was born? Did they believe in god and play ping pong?



You may not deny facts of biology and physics, but you render them irrelevant by pasting over them with a fairytale that cannot be disproved due to its vague nature. I expect everything becomes a matter of "god intended it to be that way" with you. Why can I not see god? Oh that's right, i've closed my eyes to him and in his infinite power he doesn't want to open my eyes. Of course he MUST be able to, he is omnipotent right? So what's the deal? He chose not to let me see the 'truth' because...you can explain that to me. Go ahead.



If we start believing in things without evidence where does it end? You still believe in santa don't you? Come on, admit it! There will be coals in your stocking, little boy.



He's there is he? Well I know that a small elephant by the name of Gerald is there, and if you were to ever be there with him, he'd entertain you with a rendition of La Cucaracha on the spoons. I FEEL Gerald the elephant's presence. I KNOW he's there. I can't explain it to you, you'll never understand, and you'll never convince me otherwise. And when you die and go before Gerald's cosmic jury he'll pass judgement on you and sentence you to a eternity of opening stubborn jars with stuck lids because you didn't believe in him. Then you'll be sorry!

Oh wait, I just realised that saying "I know" doesn't equate to being right. Silly me. What's that, you still haven't realised?



What a cop out. I'll NEVER understand? Once again, I ask, how are you privy to the events of the future? Your presumptions illuminate your foolishness like a neon sign. If there was anything TO understand, and if god was at all FAIR, surely I would have at least some chance of understanding?

So you believe in an unfair mean spirited god, do you? Must be motivated by fear. Figures. Perhaps you'll talk to god and get him to send me down a doughnut. He can parachute it down to me. Might as well put his infinite power to good use, after all I'm hungry and I'd certainly believe in him then! Make sure you ask for those little multicoloured sprinkles too. If it's not the best doughnut I've ever tasted I will be most displeased. Smell ya later, quaint little deluded fellow.

Wait, your post isn't meant to be sarcastic is it? I can't tell...

Yes the free will excuse . Belive what you like and I'll do the same.

CRD wrote:

That's not what I'm saying. The truth is we have a choice in how we treat each other. Free will is a gift and it's our fault not God's if we abuse it. Imagine a world without free will. I imagine everything would work like clockwork-but what would be the point? Maybe we are here to learn to overcome our baser instincts. Attention all atheists- You are every bit as smug, self-righteous and close-minded as the garden variety religious fanatic. We need a emoticon blowing a rasberry because I am feeling it! Arg.

Do we have free will? Prove it. If you cannot prove free will exists, then your point is rather moot, for I am not sure that it does exist.



I may be smug, self-righteous and close-minded. But I'm logically much more likely to be correct than you are. And way to generalize by saying "ALL ATHEISTS". You aren't even attempting to appeal to reason here.

For my part, I feel like the truth simply IS. Someone is likely right somewhere along the line of faiths, scientists, and individual ponderers, but the fact is that there is only one right answer and what we think, feel, or believe about it changes nothing.

Of course, I have no frakking idea what that "truth" is, but it can only be one thing and there is no proof enough to be sure what it is. The dead know. They've either gone somewhere or nowhere. But they ain't talkin'. Lousy dead people.

If there is no free will, then was there any choice in whether to believe in it or not: is a person's belief set when they are conceived or is it a choice of their will?
Or, some partial blending of the two?

On the other hand, how would one prove that free will does not exist?

Is a given person making a decision to try to prove or to try to disprove free will in and of itself an act of free will?

It is probably one of those things that can be neither proven nor disproven since efforts either way must be undertaken with some manner of basic supposition on which to base those efforts.

And, what, exactly, does free will look like under a microscope anyway?
What, also, would it's absence look like?

What is the standard against which to measure it's presence or its absence?

If there is a standard, what suppositions were instrumental in its founding?

I am not interested in proving anything to anybody. I am an agnostic. What I would like to see is some civil discourse. I have found it to be true if you want to change someone's mind, putting them on the defensive is ultimately counter-productive. There is a lot we could all learn from each other but the way arguments usually go everyone is too busy defending their own position to actually listen to each other. Frankly, I have quite a bit of anger at the church. Still church and religion were invented by man. Does that fact prove "God" doesn't exist? Not necessarily-apples and oranges. I am not trying to argue for god's existence. People have been arguing about it for millenniums. How about we just take care of what's right in front of us?

In the brain labs they can electrically stimulate the nerves that cause an experience of 'god'. So when someone says they 'feel' the presence of god, I just figure their 'god' neurons are firing for some reason, probably survival related.

And yeah, just because you feel it, doesn't make it true.