Religion

[1984Echoes]

Catch-22.

[MIguy]

9 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then why are there billions of dead species?

Obviously, he's a brainless jagoff who has absolutely no clue what he's doing. Whatsoever.

I believe the default answer here is "it's God's will".

[gehringer_2]

21 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then why are there billions of dead species?

Obviously, he's a brainless jagoff who has absolutely no clue what he's doing. Whatsoever.

Spinoza decided that even God has to work within some kind of fundamental constraints and thus things were no better because this is "The Best of Of All Possible Worlds."  Voltaire had a pretty good time with that one.

[Jim Cowan]

I'm a non-believer but I don't insult other people for their beliefs.  We have a couple of people here who can't separate the evils of organized religion from the desire for spirituality that many people have as individuals.

[gehringer_2]

I find the degree to which the American Biblicist wing of Christianity gets hung up on both creation and eschatology myths is curious from a theological standpoint. Obviously from a more earthly standpoint,  to posit divine inerrancy for a very complex collection of documents and then claim the exclusive right to the interpretation of said documents is a clear winner for the promulgation and preservation of temporal power and wealth. 

OTOH, what is about equally silly is to hold that the scientific illiteracy of Genesis in and of itself stands as some kind of refutation of possibility of God, one simply asks: For the sake of argument assume God does exist, then try to come up with a recommendation for just exactly what he should have tried to tell a band of semi-literate bronze age nomads about how to create a world of quarks, relativity and quantum mechanics? Seen from that perspective, Genesis 1-4 works as well as anything else would have. 

Edited December 2, 2023 by gehringer_2

[1984Echoes]

51 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I'm a non-believer but I don't insult other people for their beliefs.  We have a couple of people here who can't separate the evils of organized religion from the desire for spirituality that many people have as individuals.

If you're talking about my post... my post was not insulting.

It was a factual Paradox.

A god cannot be omniscient and omnipotent but also a major screw-up. And you cannot claim, after "god" has gone through multiple extinction events (90-95% of all species exterminated in a meteoric collision or volcanic winter or... whatever the cause), millions of years of gradual evolutionary, and significant, changes from a walking chimpanzee (basically) to a walking/ talking Homo Sapiens, and then claim "god" is omnipotent and omniscient after all those (lucky for us) screw-ups. That is the paradox.

Another paradox:

If "god" is a screw-up and is not omnipotent or omniscient (as based upon the above), then he (or she) can NOT create the Universe out of nothing, and can NOT guide evolution (for 3.7 billion years, after the first cellular organisms generated), in order to create the "perfect" human. And with the multiple evolutionary disasters the past 3.7 billion years, there is no possible way to claim anyone's "god" is omnipotent or omniscient and has the power to create the Universe or guide evolution. Anther paradox.

Those two are closely related but not exactly the same.

No omnipotency means a lack of power to create the universe, and no omnisciency means a lack of foresight to have any idea where evolution will go.

Those are not insults. They are simple paradoxical facts. Or... Catch-22.

As for "the desire for spirituality that many people have:... go for it. Believe in whatever you wish to. I won't steal anyone's beliefs... but in a discussion of facts, I stick only to facts, not to any extraneous belief systems which rely NOT on any facts, but on simple story-telling.

But I have a much simpler belief system for myself: Facts is facts.

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

... For the sake of argument assume God does exist, then try to come up with a recommendation for just exactly what he should have tried to tell a band of semi-literate bronze age nomads about how to create a world of quarks, relativity and quantum mechanics? Seen from that perspective, Genesis 1-4 works as well as anything else would have. 

For the sake of argument, assume God does NOT exist, then try to come up with just exactly WHY a band of semi-literate bronze age nomads (or even nomadic hunter-gatherers from 50K years ago) would create a pagan world of horse spirits, wind spirits, etc. And WHY did paganism evolve into Polytheism in which "spirits" or "Titans" evolved into "Gods" that had more "control" over the population (from a clergical or monarchal perspective. IE: Egyptian "God-Kings" ruling over their population with complete control), and HOW did that evolve into a belief in one "God".

Genesis 1-4 works 2,000 years ago. It no longer works. (Certainly not in secular Europe, who are more advanced thinkers than puritanical Americans).

BTW: I have answers to all of the above questions I posed.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, 1984Echoes said:

Genesis 1-4 works 2,000 years ago. It no longer works.

One would hope that in 5000 yrs we would have learned enough about the natural world we inhabit to tell better stories than bronze agers. But every creation story, as well as every scientific extrapolation to origins, still collides the at the same paradox - which is that any origin of the Universe must be outside the Universe in either space or time, yet nothing that is can be outside the Universe. This is a fundamental paradox of existence that the human mind is just stuck with. The brain cannot process any further than that.

[Jim Cowan]

2 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

If you're talking about my post... my post was not insulting.

It was a factual Paradox.

A god cannot be omniscient and omnipotent but also a major screw-up. And you cannot claim, after "god" has gone through multiple extinction events (90-95% of all species exterminated in a meteoric collision or volcanic winter or... whatever the cause), millions of years of gradual evolutionary, and significant, changes from a walking chimpanzee (basically) to a walking/ talking Homo Sapiens, and then claim "god" is omnipotent and omniscient after all those (lucky for us) screw-ups. That is the paradox.

Another paradox:

If "god" is a screw-up and is not omnipotent or omniscient (as based upon the above), then he (or she) can NOT create the Universe out of nothing, and can NOT guide evolution (for 3.7 billion years, after the first cellular organisms generated), in order to create the "perfect" human. And with the multiple evolutionary disasters the past 3.7 billion years, there is no possible way to claim anyone's "god" is omnipotent or omniscient and has the power to create the Universe or guide evolution. Anther paradox.

Those two are closely related but not exactly the same.

No omnipotency means a lack of power to create the universe, and no omnisciency means a lack of foresight to have any idea where evolution will go.

Those are not insults. They are simple paradoxical facts. Or... Catch-22.

As for "the desire for spirituality that many people have:... go for it. Believe in whatever you wish to. I won't steal anyone's beliefs... but in a discussion of facts, I stick only to facts, not to any extraneous belief systems which rely NOT on any facts, but on simple story-telling.

But I have a much simpler belief system for myself: Facts is facts.

I didn't read that post, it was far far too long.  In your previous posts you are just repeating every question that every 8 year old has ever asked after Sunday school.  You should know that, there is no genius insight involved in your comments in this thread.  The nasty snarl in your comments on this topic disqualifies you as someone who should be taken seriously.  I might have taken your thoughts seriously if they were not packaged in such unnecessarily hateful rhetoric. 

[1984Echoes]

7 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

....  The nasty snarl in your comments on this topic .... if they were not packaged in such unnecessarily hateful rhetoric. 

Nothing I've said deserves this comment.

No.. it appears to me that you are WAY, WAY too thin-skinned to hear anything that you don't agree with. I've offered no nasty snarls or hateful rhetoric. Show examples.

[MIguy]

 

[Jim Cowan]

3 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

Nothing I've said deserves this comment.

No.. it appears to me that you are WAY, WAY too thin-skinned to hear anything that you don't agree with. I've offered no nasty snarls or hateful rhetoric. Show examples.

Like I said, I'm a non-believer.  So you haven't said anything that I disagree with.  I just don't think you should call people "asinine" who disagree with you, the way that Donald Trump would. 

[oblong]

16 hours ago, MIguy said:

There are plenty of Catholics who reject evolution. 

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/10/30/5-facts-about-evolution-and-religion/

 

There’s plenty of Catholics who also have no issue with birth control and contraception but that’s not the official line. 

[casimir]

43 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

Like I said, I'm a non-believer.  So you haven't said anything that I disagree with.  I just don't think you should call people "asinine" who disagree with you, the way that Donald Trump would. 

This is it.  Regardless of where one is on the deity spectrum, don’t live life like… well, you probably put it better than I did a page or two back.

[casimir]

16 minutes ago, oblong said:

There’s plenty of Catholics who also have no issue with birth control and contraception but that’s not the official line. 

I think you could scroll through other issues and find disagreements with the official line.  Female priests for another.

[casimir]

4 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

Nothing I've said deserves this comment.

No.. it appears to me that you are WAY, WAY too thin-skinned to hear anything that you don't agree with. I've offered no nasty snarls or hateful rhetoric. Show examples.

Jim is right.  And it’s not just in his thread.  Maybe not necessarily the hatred, but certainly one sidedly dismissive and unwaveringly ignorant.

[MIguy]

39 minutes ago, oblong said:

There’s plenty of Catholics who also have no issue with birth control and contraception but that’s not the official line. 

The official stance is every bit as ridiculous as anything found in the bible.  It's basically, "we're okay with anything regarding evolution but just remember, whatever turns out the be true, God did it"

[oblong]

1 hour ago, MIguy said:

The official stance is every bit as ridiculous as anything found in the bible.  It's basically, "we're okay with anything regarding evolution but just remember, whatever turns out the be true, God did it"

What else would you reasonably a religion to say?  
 

you are the reason people hate atheists. 

[MIguy]

10 minutes ago, oblong said:

What else would you reasonably a religion to say?  
 

you are the reason people hate atheists. 

I expect everyone to live in reality and call things as they are and to provide facts and evidence to back up their views.  While we're on the topic, can we please get a ruling as to whether the bible is to be taken literally or if it's a book of fairy tales?  

I know though, atheists are just big meanies and intolerant for not keeping our mouths shut and just rolling along with the absolutely absurd beliefs of other people.

 

[chasfh]

On 11/30/2023 at 6:03 PM, Tiger337 said:

I believe that all things are possible and that some things are unknowable.  I am an agnostic.  

More or less what I have also ... ahem ... evolved to.

I think the nature of what's beyond this world is completely unknowable. I am open to there being a god, and I am open to there being no god, but in the end none of that matters because it is so unknowable. And despite the countless numbers of people lining up to convince people like me of one or the other, no one will be able to prove either side of the question.

That's why I tend toward agnosticism and not at all toward atheism, which I think proceeds from the same conceit as belief: that they definitely know there is no god in the same way the more ardent believers definitely know there is a god. But neither side really knows, nor can they ever know as long as they're alive.

I believe only one side is actually provable, and that would require whatever god or gods there are to reveal themselves, or to be objectively discovered. Absent that, no way to know or prove either way.

[chasfh]

On 12/1/2023 at 12:10 PM, casimir said:

Fairy tales.  Sky wizard.  You're intentionally being an asshole.  I'll type slower for you this time.  Don’t live life like an asshole. 

CTRL+V is practically the opposite of typing slowly. 😉

[MIguy]

The religious right are some of the most hate filled people on the planet so I honestly don't give the least bit of a **** if they get offended by someone calling their beliefs silly fairy tales.  Don't like it?  Too damn bad!

[casimir]

11 minutes ago, chasfh said:

CTRL+V is practically the opposite of typing slowly. 😉

That isn’t the issue.  The CTRL+C is what slows it down.  

[oblong]

26 minutes ago, MIguy said:

I expect everyone to live in reality and call things as they are and to provide facts and evidence to back up their views.  While we're on the topic, can we please get a ruling as to whether the bible is to be taken literally or if it's a book of fairy tales?  

I know though, atheists are just big meanies and intolerant for not keeping our mouths shut and just rolling along with the absolutely absurd beliefs of other people.

 

Then you don’t understand religion so I would advise not to try to mock something you dont understand because the only result is you look foolish. 
 

[oblong]

7 minutes ago, MIguy said:

The religious right are some of the most hate filled people on the planet so I honestly don't give the least bit of a **** if they get offended by someone calling their beliefs silly fairy tales.  Don't like it?  Too damn bad!

Who are you addressing with this comment?