The Atheist Thread (Long Time Coming)

Quote: Gandler

You either actively beleive in a God or you do not, so I would argue it is a binary choice. .

I don't know how people who believe
in a god balance that with the world
we live in. There is obviously no god
here, anywhere. The more we clarify
things with science, the more debunked
the supernatural gets. We can not possibly
imagine how much the supernatural was
credited with almost everything hundreds
of years ago. It would drive us crazy to
go back there. What were seeing today
is the final dying dregs of it in organized
religion.

Quote: Evenbob

I don't know how people who believe
in a god balance that with the world
we live in. There is obviously no god
here, anywhere. The more we clarify
things with science, the more debunked
the supernatural gets. We can not possibly
imagine how much the supernatural was
credited with almost everything hundreds
of years ago. It would drive us crazy to
go back there. What were seeing today
is the final dying dregs of it in organized
religion.

I agree.

But, that was not my point. I was merely responding about Athiesm being binary. It is, you either actively beleive in a God or you don't.

a great deal was attributed to the supernatural because it was convenient to do so.

a teenage girl who came home without her panties could claim she was enticed by the incubus, nowadays stuff like that is considered nonsense.

it doesn't mean anyone believed n the incubus, just that the priest and church were there and would say that they believed in the incubus.

Actual belief was not binary but the options were binary.


.

Quote: Gandler

I was merely responding about Athiesm being binary. It is, you either actively beleive in a God or you don't.

I thought that was a given
in the definition of atheism.
Atheism is not believing in
a god or gods. Isn't further
calling it binary unneeded?

Quote: Gandler

If you beleive in a God regardless of the details, you are by definition not an atheist (you are a theist).

This is an *acceptable* version of a binary choice for this, in other words, one either is, or is not, an atheist.

However, in my view an unacceptable way to make this binary is to say you can't be an agnostic because you are 'just someone who is not an atheist'. I mean, come on!

In politics a person either is a Republican, or is not a Republican, that's binary and true.

An unacceptable binary formulation though would be: a person is either a Republican, or a Democrat.

In the history of religion, all people
were atheists before gods were
invented. Gods were necessary
for us to deal with all the confusion
in the world. We had nothing but
questions and few answers, so
putting it all on some unseen
supernatural force made logical
sense.

Depending on gods today makes
no sense. Look at countries like
Japan and places like N Europe.
100 years ago Japan was 100%
religious. Today less than 4% claim
a religious affiliation. In N EUR
it's under 20%. God has outlived
his usefulness, and just like kids
grow up and kick Santa to the curb,
so has society grown up and doesn't
need a god anymore.

Linda Evans Shepard just proved that god (the g is always lower case for atheists) exists
God actually gave her the winning lottery numbers
Of course she did not play the numbers

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/10/21/christian-writer-god-gave-me-the-winning-lottery-numbers-but-i-didnt-play-them/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

So here is something that is supposed to be an argument that Atheists find hard to dispute [prepare yourself for the guffaws]. 


The merit I see in it is that it addresses the notion that the universe "just is", that it 'always was and always will be' while coming from nothing. This of course is not superior to the notion that God always existed, and will always exist, while Theism does allow a Higher Being to be responsible for Creation, a superior notion in that matter itself dopily and slavishly follows a set of rules, showing no ability to deviate . 

That God might have been created Himself, which I mentioned earlier, is not important to me, it just means there are gods instead of just God.

Quote: wikipedia page, I substituted a colon for some dashes

Duns Scotus, the influential Medieval Christian theologian, created a metaphysical argument for the existence of God. Though it was inspired by Aquinas' argument from motion, he, like other philosophers and theologians, believed that his statement for God's existence could be considered separate to Aquinas'. His explanation for God's existence is long, and can be summarised as follows:


Metaphysical argument for the existence of God


1. Something can be produced.
2. It is produced by itself, something or another.
3. Not by nothing, because nothing causes nothing.
4. Not by itself, because an effect never causes itself.
5. Therefore, by another: A.
6. If A is first then we have reached the conclusion.
7. If A is not first, then we return to 2).
8. From 3) and 4), we produce another: B. The ascending series is either infinite or finite.
9. An infinite series is not possible.
10. Therefore, God exists.

Quote: see link and note that Scotus has responded to weak points before you respond

Scotus deals immediately with two objections he can see: first, that there cannot be a first, and second, that the argument falls apart when 1) is questioned. He states that infinite regress is impossible, because it provokes unanswerable questions, like, in modern English, "What is infinity minus infinity?" The second he states can be answered if the question is rephrased using modal logic, meaning that the first statement is instead "It is possible that something can be produced."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

Quote: odiousgambit

So here is something that is supposed to be an argument that Atheists find hard to dispute

1. Something can be produced.
2. It is produced by itself, something or another.

What's hard to dispute about it. Two
unproven assumptions to build an
argument on? Are you kidding me?
Prove either of those statements.

People think they see a creation, so
they invent a creator. It's maddening.

Quote: Evenbob

1. Something can be produced.
2. It is produced by itself, something or another.

What's hard to dispute about it. Two
unproven assumptions to build an
argument on? Are you kidding me?
Prove either of those statements.

People think they see a creation, so
they invent a creator. It's maddening.

indeed you are reacting by providing "unanswerable questions", here by questioning banal truth, whether [1] something can be produced. It's avoiding the question 'can something come from nothing?'

If you want to say that the Universe was not 'produced' or created but 'just always is and was and will be' is to echo what is said about God. Therefore, I'd say it is not a better scenario than imagining a Creator, you're just positing something similar, but less satisfactory to logic and sense, since there are hard and fast rules by which the Universe works [like gravity] to which these inanimate objects constituting the Universe slavishly adhere. Who made these rules?

You're finding where I stand, which as something close to a Deist or some other form of Agnostic, does still not line up well as an Atheist, finding Scotus* type arguments appealing. For me, the question of the nature of this Creator is what is not revealed, save what can be accepted by Faith.

*of course that this stands for supreme court of the united states in other contexts is ironic