religious debate thread

[Incredirobotwars]

Yay!

[GoldenFox93]

For I too was touched by his Noodly Appendage.

[Meganerdbomb]

Find one that suits our tastes? OK...Atheism!

Sweet, I just you to admit that Athiesm is a religion! My work here is done.

[Noodle]

Find one that suits our tastes? OK...Atheism!

Sweet, I just you to admit that Athiesm is a religion! My work here is done.

If that's your best counterargument, then religion really is doomed to be wiped off the face of the earth.

[Meganerdbomb]

Not really, since Athiesm is a religion, the most that will happen is the takeover of a new religion, just like Christianity in Europe during the first and second century A.D. Also, this is now just an argument about who's religion is better, which is one of the things you Athiests seem to dislike about religion. Therefore, there is no point in continuing this discussion. Therefore, my work is done.

Me: 1
Athiests: 0

[Noodle]

Not really, since Athiesm is a religion, the most that will happen is the takeover of a new religion, just like Christianity in Europe during the first and second century A.D. Also, this is now just an argument about who's religion is better, which is one of the things you Athiests seem to dislike about religion. Therefore, there is no point in continuing this discussion. Therefore, my work is done.

Me: 1
Athiests: 0

There is plenty of reasons to continue this discussion.  Firstly because you haven't ended the argument like you think you have.  Secondly because atheism is NOT a religion, its the state NOT BELIEVING all your crackpot beliefs.  Thirdly this isn't a discussion only of who's religion is better, but an argument about whether or not religion is a good thing to begin with.

I know you'd very much like to get atheists out of the formula, but declaring that you've won the debate and that it's over before the fact isn't the way to do that.  You still haven't provided a valid argument.

[Meganerdbomb]

Alright, I'll admit I was using troll logic, but you gotta admit, incredirobotwars was asking for it with a post like that.
 Still other than the lack of a god, Atheism is still very much like a religion, albeit a loosely organized one. You still have your own beliefs that you hold to with great faith. Sure, you claim to follow only reason and logic, but really, a lot what you believe makes no more sense than anything any other religion believes. And really your reason for not believing in God boils down to wanting to claim independence. You don't like the idea of being beholden to something greater than you, so you deny its existence. You'll deny anything that conflicts with your view and you in fact, want religion, as you said "wiped off the face of the earth". So, who sounds extremist now?

You can accuse me of continuing to use troll logic, but it's still mostly true.

[Noodle]

Alright, I'll admit I was using troll logic, but you gotta admit, incredirobotwars was asking for it with a post like that.
 Still other than the lack of a god, Atheism is still very much like a religion, albeit a loosely organized one. You still have your own beliefs that you hold to with great faith. Sure, you claim to follow only reason and logic, but really, a lot what you believe makes no more sense than anything any other religion believes.

And what would some of those "beliefs" be?

And really your reason for not believing in God boils down to wanting to claim independence. You don't like the idea of being beholden to something greater than you, so you deny its existence. You'll deny anything that conflicts with your view and you in fact, want religion, as you said "wiped off the face of the earth". So, who sounds extremist now?

Now thats pretty ignorant, I gotta be honest.  Saying that atheists are basically "unable to deal with the facts" is a pretty hypocritical statement.

It's highly unlikely that any god exists.  It's impossible for the god of the religious to exist, simply because it makes no sense.  There are so many contradictions with your god.

Also, extremist comments warrant extremist answers.  But think about it, "wiped off the face of the earth" isn't that much of an extremist answer to begin with.  For example, many a species has been "wiped off the face of the earth" through a slow, natural process of extinction.  This is hardly an extreme process.  Likewise, wiping religion off the face of the earth is probably a process which will happen slowly by convincing each person one by one that it's a load a baloney.

[Serge]

You still have your own beliefs that you hold to with great faith.

No. We follow common sense.

[123savethewhales]

New studies are revealing predictors of subjective well-being,   often assessed as self-reported happiness and life satisfaction.   Worldwide, most people report being at least moderately happy,   regardless of age and gender. As part of their scientific pursuit of   happiness, researchers have examined possible associations between   happiness and (a) economic growth and personal income, (b) close   relationships, and (c) religious faith.

Surprise surprise.  A "self reported" scale of happiness with obviously rigged in favorite of certain "religion" that tells their believer to be contempt with the little that they have, or be burn in eternal hell.  Being happy and reporting moderately happy are two different things.

Plus a survey that ask both a person's religion and happiness is totally rigged.  Asking an Atheist "What 'religion' are you" is like asking the Tea Party "which democrat candidate do you support", or a black person "which white supremacist would you support".  To add insult to injury, "None" is probably placed as the last choice.  No wonder Atheist answer more negatively in the rest of the survey.

The opiate of the masses.

Intelligent beings, like me, don't need such nonsense to be happy (Image removed from quote.).

No. We follow common sense.

THIS IS HYPOCRISY!!!!!!!  What is this common sense non sense you are talking about?

[Serge]

What I meant, is from my point of view, I can either:
a) Try to convince myself that there is a superior being (even though there is no proof of it), then make my life miserable by following an old book written by crazy people, live in fear, blame everything on an arch enemy, learn to accept things because an old man dressed funny tells me to, yell at people because they don't think my superior being is the best, interfere in others' life and morality, saying that if they don't accept my higher being then they are the followers of my arch enemy, see everything in two colors, with no intermediaries, like a child, know that there are superior people here on earth, and they require special rights (especially when they want to rape little boys in the mouth), and refrain from doing anything that might piss my higher being off because I don't want to burn for eternity.

b) Live as I lived before, have my own system of values, think by myself, learn from scientific research and lead a happy life without fearing anything, since I know I'll die some day anyway. Be able to have my own opinion on important matters, do not be dependent of what others say. Think critically and rationally. Live like a normal human not bound by the membership in an organization that to me looks like something out of a horror flick.

[Enigm@]

I'm agostic but you're post is comeplete bullsh**
Not ALL people who are religious live by the Torah/Bible/Koran/Whatever.
And people only live in fear if they are Jewish or Baptist.

[123savethewhales]

What I meant, is from my point of view, I can either:
a) Try to convince myself that there is a superior being (even though there is no proof of it), then make my life miserable by following an old book written by crazy people, live in fear, blame everything on an arch enemy, learn to accept things because an old man dressed funny tells me to, yell at people because they don't think my superior being is the best, interfere in others' life and morality, saying that if they don't accept my higher being then they are the followers of my arch enemy, see everything in two colors, with no intermediaries, like a child, know that there are superior people here on earth, and they require special rights (especially when they want to rape little boys in the mouth), and refrain from doing anything that might piss my higher being off because I don't want to burn for eternity.

That only rules out a few religions.  You still got a whole bunch of religions to discredit.

b) Live as I lived before, have my own system of values, think by myself, learn from scientific research and lead a happy life without fearing anything, since I know I'll die some day anyway. Be able to have my own opinion on important matters, do not be dependent of what others say. Think critically and rationally. Live like a normal human not bound by the membership in an organization that to me looks like something out of a horror flick.

Surely you are not only left with option B just because you rule out A.

I choose option C, indifferent to other people's imaginary friends.  I recognize that I cannot refute every version of tooth fairies or invisible pink unicorn that people made up.  An Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent God just happens to be the more ridiculous of them.  To be consistent with believing any of those nonsense, I would need to check under my bed every morning to see if a million dollars magically spawn when I was asleep.  After all, in the world of magic where the inability to disprove == grounds to believe, money spawning under my bed is a very believable concept.

[Serge]

I'm agostic but you're post is comeplete bullsh**
Not ALL people who are religious live by the Torah/Bible/Koran/Whatever.
And people only live in fear if they are Jewish or Baptist.

The ","s were meant to be interpreted as an OR logic connection and not AND.

[Meganerdbomb]

New studies are revealing predictors of subjective well-being,   often assessed as self-reported happiness and life satisfaction.   Worldwide, most people report being at least moderately happy,   regardless of age and gender. As part of their scientific pursuit of   happiness, researchers have examined possible associations between   happiness and (a) economic growth and personal income, (b) close   relationships, and (c) religious faith.

Surprise surprise.  A "self reported" scale of happiness with obviously rigged in favorite of certain "religion" that tells their believer to be contempt with the little that they have, or be burn in eternal hell.  Being happy and reporting moderately happy are two different things.

Plus a survey that ask both a person's religion and happiness is totally rigged.  Asking an Atheist "What 'religion' are you" is like asking the Tea Party "which democrat candidate do you support", or a black person "which white supremacist would you support".  To add insult to injury, "None" is probably placed as the last choice.  No wonder Atheist answer more negatively in the rest of the survey.

You are an idiot. The study had the people rate their overall "happiness" than asked them some basic questions such as their financial situation and how important religion was to them etc. This was a scientific study that was published in a psychological journal, not some bullsh** survey conducted by a religious institution.This could simply mean, as Noodle said, that ignorance is bliss, but the information is valid.

I   choose option C, indifferent to other people's imaginary friends.  I   recognize that I cannot refute every version of tooth fairies or   invisible pink unicorn that people made up.  An Omnipotent, Omniscient,   and Omnipresent God just happens to be the more ridiculous of them.  To   be consistent with believing any of those nonsense, I would need to   check under my bed every morning to see if a million dollars magically   spawn when I was asleep.  After all, in the world of magic where the   inability to disprove == grounds to believe, money spawning under my bed   is a very believable concept.

I simply believe an Omnipotent,   Omniscient, and Omnipresent God makes a lot more sense than, "a ball of matter existed for eternity before it randomly exploded and made the universe then life started somehow." Now, I respect your free choice to believe differently, but if I don't expect to see puddles of mud spring to life. The Unmoved Mover argument applies here.

[Noodle]

You are an idiot. The study had the people rate their overall "happiness" than asked them some basic questions such as their financial situation and how important religion was to them etc. This was a scientific study that was published in a psychological journal, not some bullsh** survey conducted by a religious institution.This could simply mean, as Noodle said, that ignorance is bliss, but the information is valid.

I did a little research into the validity of that study.  Here's what I found from the very link you provided.

The study was published by a man named DG Myers.  Right below his name is contact information.  It cites Hope College as where hes working.  Now if I'm reading this wrong, there still is only two reasons why Hope College would be put there - 1) because that's where the study took place or 2) because that's where hes working now.

Either way, I looked up Hope College on Wikipedia and sure enough...

...it retains a Christian atmosphere...
Hope's motto is taken from Psalm 42:5: "Spera in Deo" ("Hope in God").

Obviously that college has some Christian attitudes.  Now let's put that aside assuming it had nothing to do with the study.  I also did a little research on the publisher, DG Myers.

I happened to find this - a little excerpt from one of his books, published on his own website.

Let no one be smug. Cruelty and compassion, mischief and morality, are exhibited by people of all faiths and none. Many are good without God and many believers go to sleep each night behind bars. Yet the accumulating evidence indicates that faith often tethers self-interest and nurtures character. Godliness and goodliness are more than typographically linked.

Not to mention this bombshell.

I think I've found reasonable evidence that Mr. Myers is biased, and the study study was biased as well.

I simply believe an Omnipotent,   Omniscient, and Omnipresent God makes a lot more sense than, "a ball of matter existed for eternity before it randomly exploded and made the universe then life started somehow." The Unmoved Mover argument applies here.

A few posts ago you made an ignorant statement that more or less said "atheists are atheists because they can't deal with the fact that there is a god."

With similar logic regarding this statement, I can say that believers are believers simply because they cannot deal with not knowing.

[123savethewhales]

New studies are revealing predictors of subjective well-being,   often assessed as self-reported happiness and life satisfaction.   Worldwide, most people report being at least moderately happy,   regardless of age and gender. As part of their scientific pursuit of   happiness, researchers have examined possible associations between   happiness and (a) economic growth and personal income, (b) close   relationships, and (c) religious faith.

Surprise surprise.  A "self reported" scale of happiness with obviously rigged in favorite of certain "religion" that tells their believer to be contempt with the little that they have, or be burn in eternal hell.  Being happy and reporting moderately happy are two different things.

Plus a survey that ask both a person's religion and happiness is totally rigged.  Asking an Atheist "What 'religion' are you" is like asking the Tea Party "which democrat candidate do you support", or a black person "which white supremacist would you support".  To add insult to injury, "None" is probably placed as the last choice.  No wonder Atheist answer more negatively in the rest of the survey.

You are an idiot. The study had the people rate their overall "happiness" than asked them some basic questions such as their financial situation and how important religion was to them etc. This was a scientific study that was published in a psychological journal, not some bullsh** survey conducted by a religious institution.This could simply mean, as Noodle said, that ignorance is bliss, but the information is valid.

So it's pseudo science, big deal.  Self report automatically means it's survey, and to get both someone's religion and "happiness" they need to ask both.  And those are the natural limitation with any survey, that early question affects future outcomes.

Ask me how important my religion is just makes me more unhappy than I already am, you already prove my point.  Why am I ask such nonsense question reminding me of all the garbage about other people's imaginary friends?  But you won't notice that since you are religious and ever one of those rigged question feeds your ego and makes you feel good.

Using name calling just show your argument lacks substance.  I don't need to use name calling to show my point.

I   choose option C, indifferent to other people's imaginary friends.  I   recognize that I cannot refute every version of tooth fairies or   invisible pink unicorn that people made up.  An Omnipotent, Omniscient,   and Omnipresent God just happens to be the more ridiculous of them.  To   be consistent with believing any of those nonsense, I would need to   check under my bed every morning to see if a million dollars magically   spawn when I was asleep.  After all, in the world of magic where the   inability to disprove == grounds to believe, money spawning under my bed   is a very believable concept.

I simply believe an Omnipotent,   Omniscient, and Omnipresent God makes a lot more sense than, "a ball of matter existed for eternity before it randomly exploded and made the universe then life started somehow." Now, I respect your free choice to believe differently, but if I don't expect to see puddles of mud spring to life. The Unmoved Mover argument applies here.

Your feeling does not justify rationality.

I don't believe in either.  Omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent contradicts itself in so many ways it's not even funny.  I rather believe in imaginary pink unicorn because at least it's philosophically consistent.  No entity can be omniscient and have a will at the same time, because no choice or changes can be made.  No entity can be omnipotent and omniscient at the same time, because this entity cannot make any changes without violating his all knowing.  And omnipotent is inconsistent with omnipresent because such entity is limited to all space of all time and nothing more.  The closest thing that fits all 3 will be an inactive body that is the same rather you call it natural forces or God.

Big bang is not even consistent with modern science anyway.  They are both trash.

[Noodle]

Big bang is not even consistent with modern science anyway.

Explain.

[GoldenFox93]

Big bang is not even consistent with modern science anyway.

Explain.

To quote some troll-
 

"GOD MAED US ALL, THE ONLY EVIDENCE YOU HAVE IS THE STUPID BIG BANG. AND GOD IS GOING TO HELP ME DESTROY 4CHAN AND MAEK THAT HORRIBLE RACIST NAZZY SITE ABHOR"

[NFX]

I simply believe an Omnipotent,   Omniscient, and Omnipresent God makes a lot more sense than, "a ball of matter existed for eternity before it randomly exploded and made the universe then life started somehow." The Unmoved Mover argument applies here.

I don't think it does. Granted, there's still a few loose ends with the Big Bang Theory, I've got ideas on that myself, but the idea of a being that is everywhere at once, knows everything in the universe there is to know, and has absolute power and control over every single force in nature seems, to me, a bit ludicrous. To start with, in order to be everywhere in the universe at once, a being would have to travel at, or faster than, the speed of light, which is impossible for anything that has mass. So God must either be some bizzare massless particle humans haven't discovered yet, or a photon.
 

A few posts ago you made an ignorant statement that more or less said "atheists are atheists because they can't deal with the fact that there is a god."
With similar logic regarding this statement, I can say that believers are believers simply because they cannot deal with not knowing.

But then you can apply that statement to almost anything.
 
The reason I'm more or less Aetheist is because there has been no conclusive and absolute proof of the existence of a god. And before people jump on me saying "Try and prove that there ISN'T a god", it is not possible to prove the absence of something. For instance, videogame testers try and find as many bugs in the game as they can, and the games are made as clean and airtight as they can. But one or two glitches always make their way through. In my view, the only reason religious people use the argument "Prove that there is not a god" is because they know that they can't logically prove that there is.