Religion or Atheism? An open forum.

[Thorne]

So ... this thread is a religiously-themed free-for-all, is it? May I join in?

Please do! You know I always look forward to having discussions with you.

Thorne and I have often disagreed about the truth of atheism, even though we both claim to be atheists. I maintain I simply believe there is no god: Thorne appears to me to insist that the fact that there is no god is the only possible truth.

No, that's not what I claim. My stand is that, since there is no evidence for gods, there is no reason to think that they exist, therefore I do not believe in any gods. (I suppose, if you really want to stretch it, you could say that I believe that I'm right in this, but the only claim I can truthfully make is that there is no evidence for gods.)

atheists say, If you claim that God exists, you must prove it; but you can't.

Rather than saying "you can't", I would say, "you haven't." Once again, we cannot make the definitive statement "you can't" because we don't know for certain whether someday someone just might!

There may be no proof, but the existence of the universe and of life is evidence that God exists/does not exist
I don't believe this is accurate, either. The existence of the universe, or of life, is not evidence for either argument. IF you could prove a god exists you would then still have to prove that he created the universe and was not, himself, a creation of it!

To my mind, it is just as much a matter of faith that there is no God as it is that there is one (or more), and neither body of opinion can be said to be truer than the other.

I don't see how you can place both positions at the same level. Claiming that there something exists, without evidence, is vastly different than claiming that something probably doesn't exist because there is no evidence for it. You are claiming that believing in Leprechauns is just as valid and rational as NOT believing in Leprechauns.

Maybe science will one day be able to demonstrate that everything happened by itself, without any external cause.

They've come pretty close to that already. Not quite there, certainly, but they can certainly explain the existence of just about everything in the universe from the first tiny fraction of a second after the big bang on up to the present. Granted, we don't know what happened in that first tiny fraction of a second, or what happened before that, and we may never know. But saying, "We can't know, therefore God!" is silly.

Maybe God will one day reveal himself.

If He does, He'll have a lot to answer for!

Until then, a spontaneous creation of the universe by itself out of nothing seems as preposterous an idea as supernatural creation, if not more so.

Personally, I find the spontaneous creation far more rational than the supernatural creation. For then you have to explain the existence of the supernatural agent. Where did God come from? How was HE created?

Unless, as a current line of enquiry seems to suggest, we are all just an illusion: http://www.gizmag.com/fermilab-holom...acetime/16829/ (I hasten to add, I do not understand what that article describes, or if it is even half credible. I am simply headline-grabbing to illustrate my point).

Yeah, I don't understand it either. I didn't see anything in the article which explains how we could all be an illusion.

If God exists and is benevolent, he would not interfere in the world, whatever befalls it, except to rescue it entirely.
I don't see benevolence in this stance. I see indifference.

If God exists and influences events in the world, he cannot be other than evil because no benevolent entity would allow so many bad things to happen to the innocent, yet shower so much wealth and privilege on the undeserving.

This I can go along with. In fact, this claim is a very good argument against the existence of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, Yahweh.

If God is perfect, and He created us, He would never "test" us, because that would be pointless

Agreed. He would already know the outcome of any test.

If we have free will, only an evil God would punish us for exercising it
... even if we committed mass genocide. If He is perfect and punishes us, he purposely created the fault for which we are being punished.

Also true, as far as it goes. Of course, you would still have to prove that God does indeed punish, or reward, anyone.

atheism is not a certain fact, and for an atheist to decry religion is as bad as the religions denouncing unbelief. Zealotry among the faithless is as bad as the zealots of religion.

I agree, atheism is not a certain fact. It's simply a statement of position. As an atheist, I do not believe that gods exist! What I denounce about religion is not the fact that they believe, but the fact that they seem to want to FORCE everyone else to believe, just as they do. They want to brainwash MY children and grandchildren, not just their own. They want to STOP the science which disproves so much of their beliefs, claiming that the only necessary answer is God.

I don't claim to know everything, either. I don't want to destroy faith. I think a little faith can be good for people. But religion is not about faith. It's about control. Let religious people keep their faith, and their religion, in their churches and out of the real world and I'll be quite content.

[MMI]

My stand is that, since there is no evidence for gods, there is no reason to think that they exist, therefore I do not believe in any gods.

You reject blind faith and/or revelation, although all religious faith is based on either or both of those.

Rather than saying "you can't", I would say, "you haven't." Once again, we cannot make the definitive statement "you can't" because we don't know for certain whether someday someone just might!

My point exactly

The existence of the universe, or of life, is not evidence for either argument. IF you could prove a god exists you would then still have to prove that he created the universe and was not, himself, a creation of it!

A god who is not supernatural is not what we are debating, although I agree that a supernatural god might not be the Creator. But existence implies a creator to our feeble intellects and the only possible candidates are a supernatural creator or spontaneous creation. As I've said before, an eternal creator who is not bound by the laws of science seems more plausible (!) than an inconceivably large amount of energy and mass erupting out of nothing at all at some point in the past, for no evident reason, when that flies in the face of all laws of science as we know them. If an atheist claims rational analysis as the bedrock of his position, how does he explain spontaneous creation?

Of course, he could fall back on the Steady State theory, but that's fantastic too!

Claiming that there something exists, without evidence, is vastly different than claiming that something probably doesn't exist because there is no evidence for it.

We're back to the faith/revelation v evidence argument again.

They've come pretty close to that already. Not quite there, certainly, but they can certainly explain the existence of just about everything in the universe from the first tiny fraction of a second after the big bang on up to the present. Granted, we don't know what happened in that first tiny fraction of a second, or what happened before that, and we may never know. But saying, "We can't know, therefore God!" is silly.

Theories! Thought experiments and maths only. What is more, the religions have a complete answer!

Personally, I find the spontaneous creation far more rational than the supernatural creation. For then you have to explain the existence of the supernatural agent. Where did God come from? How was HE created?

God is eternal - came from nowhere we can comprehend, and not created. If an atheist can accept an uncaused cause leading to the creation of the universe, why can not a god also be uncaused?

Yeah, I don't understand it either. I didn't see anything in the article which explains how we could all be an illusion.

Maybe it was a nod in the direction of Plato's Cave

If God exists and is benevolent, he would not interfere in the world, whatever befalls it, except to rescue it entirely.

I don't see benevolence in this stance. I see indifference.

Yes, indifference. Otherwise he would be unjustly favouring individuals, and we all know, God is just.

What I denounce about religion is not the fact that they believe, but the fact that they seem to want to FORCE everyone else to believe, just as they do. They want to brainwash MY children and grandchildren, not just their own. They want to STOP the science which disproves so much of their beliefs, claiming that the only necessary answer is God.

That view, which I see as a mixture of paranoia and exaggeration worthy of a tipsy Orangeman on 12th July can be turned on its head; if you stop religions proselytising, you cut of their life blood and will kill them all off.

Only the extreme religions deny the value and validity of science. Most religions embrace science, knowing it is limited to describing the natural world. Proof of god goes beyond science.

But religion is not about faith. It's about control.

In a different discussion, I'd be inclined to agree, but, in fact, religion is about explaining life and giving it meaning. Cynical individuals have bent religion to their own agendas, and they cannot be regarded as religious at all. They do not deny god, as we do, but they clearly have no fear of him.

[Thorne]

You reject blind faith and/or revelation, although all religious faith is based on either or both of those.

Yes, I do. Without evidence, neither of them is worth the paper they are printed on.

an eternal creator who is not bound by the laws of science seems more plausible (!) than an inconceivably large amount of energy and mass erupting out of nothing at all at some point in the past, for no evident reason, when that flies in the face of all laws of science as we know them.

Just HOW is it more plausible? If you cannot imagine an infinite universe, which obeys all the laws of nature, how can postulating an infinite being, who does NOT obey all the laws of nature, seem more plausible? And just because we don't know how the universe began doesn't mean that some supernatural being did it.

If an atheist claims rational analysis as the bedrock of his position, how does he explain spontaneous creation?

I don't explain it. I leave that to the scientists who study the universe. They are constantly coming up with new theories, and testing them, seeking data to support, or deny, them. How much testing can we do on a god? Where is the data to support that hypothesis? Again, a lack of knowledge or understanding does not automatically mean god.

We're back to the faith/revelation v evidence argument again.

It's the only real argument, after all. Science has evidence. Faith does not.

Theories! Thought experiments and maths only. What is more, the religions have a complete answer!

No! Theories are more than just thought experiments. Sure, you can hypothesize just about anything, and claim it to be true. But without data to support it, without evidence to show it explains the universe as we know it, it's nothing more than ... religion. Any answer that religion can provide is only imaginary. They have no evidence for an afterlife, they have no evidence for their gods, they have no evidence for heavens or hells. Anyone can make claims, for anything at all. They can answer all the questions in the world if they wish. Without proof, without evidence, it's no better than fiction. Hell, it IS fiction.

God is eternal - came from nowhere we can comprehend, and not created. If an atheist can accept an uncaused cause leading to the creation of the universe, why can not a god also be uncaused?

I do not accept an uncaused cause, but an unknown cause. We know the universe exists, though. We can see it, measure it, feel it around us. Not so gods.

And if a theist can accept an eternal god, why can't he accept an eternal universe? Why do you assume the universe had a beginning? Yes, our minds are more comfortable thinking that there is a beginning and an end, and it's quite probable that the universe as we know it had a beginning and will have an end. Perhaps, some umpteen quadrillion eons from now all of the universe as we know it will be dark and dead, slowly mixing, gradually coming together, until it ultimately collapses back into a singularity and explodes once again. After all, as far as we know energy cannot be destroyed, so all of the energy being dispersed throughout the universe will exist forever, as near as we can tell. Who can say that this energy won't eventually combine back to form matter once again? All without gods.

Yes, indifference. Otherwise he would be unjustly favouring individuals, and we all know, God is just.

And yet God, as defined in the holy books of the theists, always seems to favor a particular group. The Hebrew God favored the Jews. The Islamic God favors the Muslims. The Christian God(s) favors (a particular brand of) Christians.

That view, which I see as a mixture of paranoia and exaggeration worthy of a tipsy Orangeman on 12th July can be turned on its head;

I suggest you look into what's currently happening in American politics, thanks to religious fanatics. Abortion laws being gutted (because women really aren't smart enough to control their own bodies, don't you know), creationism being touted as a science, and one superior to evolution. Elected officials openly promoting Christianity over any other religion! ("On the day of his swearing-in, Alabama Republican Gov. Robert J. Bentley raised concern among the state's non-Christians by declaring that people who had not accepted Jesus Christ were not his brothers and sisters.") Does that sound like paranoia or exaggeration to you?

if you stop religions proselytising, you cut of their life blood and will kill them all off.

That works for me! But I didn't SAY stop them from proselytizing. But it has no place in schools, no place in the science class, and no place in politics.

Only the extreme religions deny the value and validity of science. Most religions embrace science, knowing it is limited to describing the natural world. Proof of god goes beyond science.

Granted. I agree that it is currently the extremists who are the major offenders. But it's taken the Catholic Church nearly 2000 years to admit that. It took them 600 years before they finally admitted that Galileo was right. The Church has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the real world, but don't for one minute think that they wouldn't gladly return us to the dark ages when the Church was paramount, ruling over kings and peasants alike. And Islam is right there with them. The only science they will ever truly accept is that science which doesn't contradict their dogma and holy books.

in fact, religion is about explaining life and giving it meaning.

I disagree. Religion is about explaining the unknown and making people feel better about it. If the priest tells you that throwing your virgin daughter into the volcano will keep it from erupting and destroying the village's crops, you'll tend to feel better when the volcano doesn't erupt. Until it finally does, of course. And when you are staggering away from the devastation, clinging to the few meager possessions you have saved, would you mourn the wasted life you tossed down the hole? Or will you listen to that priest as he "explains" that some promiscuous slut is a witch and has to be burned at the stake to appease the god?

And this is why religion and science cannot mix. Because science helps to remove the mystery. The erupting volcano is no longer a sign of an angry god, but a simple, natural event that happens for no reason at all. But the priests will manage to come up with some new reason to keep donating your money, to keep sacrificing those virgins, to keep your wives barefoot and pregnant, because they're only women and they deserve it.

Cynical individuals have bent religion to their own agendas, and they cannot be regarded as religious at all.

What is religion if not the teachings of those self-same individuals? I hear that excuse all the time: "It's not religion that's wrong, it's the people who pervert it." But a religion does not exist independent of people. When the last human disappears from the planet, there will not be some great, ugly lump of religion left behind, moldering, waiting for someone to come along and kick it back to life.

The people who make up a religious organization, from the top man down to the lowest parishioner, ARE that religion. It's the top men (it almost always seems to be men, after all) who espouse the dogma, who send down their pronouncements, revealed to them by God. And it's the little men and women who accept these pronouncements, believing that some posturing con artist is really in communication with God. THAT is religion.

So yes, it can be, and has been, twisted and broken by selfish, greedy men. But the parishioner goes right on believing those men! Oh, some will call bullshit and leave that Church. Most will likely latch onto another Church, one which is more in line with their own beliefs. Some may, like me, realize that they are all alike down deep, promising everything but delivering nothing but lies and fables.

Look into the horrific damage done by the Catholic Church in Africa with it's stand against condoms. They even lied, claiming that condoms do NOT protect against AIDS. Look at the devastation being wrought on gays in Nigeria(?), supported by homophobic preachers in the US. Are the followers of these men walking away and taking their money with them? Not hardly! They go right on donating to the collection plates, while shaking their heads at those poor misguided souls in Africa.

So don't tell me it's not religion that is bad. Religion is only what its people make it.