Godless Apostate

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by terminator

Man, you guys sure are trying hard though.

Again you, as all atheists I have met, have defaulted to the abrahamic definition of god. God does not exist to fill holes in many non-western religions, the concept of god in many religions trancsends earth.

For example, there are plenty of religions out there that do not think Earth is the centre of the universe, or that we are the only capable life forms. As a Sikh we are taught the concept of the big bang not only as a physical phenomena that created our universe but also one that spread the soul. All things are elastic in nature (gravity), hence the Universe expanding and then contracting similarly all metaphysical life was spread and must return to singularity.

I am in no way trying to prove to you god exists, except that you need to realize there are many more gods then the western excepted god that has a beard and physical form.

Pretty sure we're just going with the default God here, given our location.
Let's argue the validity of ISIS's God and see if the default xtians here, will put up a good argument of why he doesn't exist.

[terminator]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Pretty sure we're just going with the default God here, given our location.
Let's argue the validity of ISIS's God and see if the default xtians here, will put up a good argument of why he doesn't exist.

ISIS's god = Islamic God = Christian God = Jewish God in defintion, they're Abrahamic or rooted in the old testament. Otherwise known of religions of the cloth.

But no, its not a matter of location, its the Athiests higher then tho' that brings to light the arguement that there is more then what you know and if you don't know much how can you argue against it?

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Pretty sure we're just going with the default God here, given our location.
Let's argue the validity of ISIS's God and see if the default xtians here, will put up a good argument of why he doesn't exist.

There is no default God.
There are multiple understandings of God, and different views of the attribute of said God, but there is no such thing as "default God," so if you plan on speaking about God, then you're biting more than you can chew.

Again, if you're taking on a religion, you'll have a much easier time, but I've rarely seen an atheist argue against God itself with any sense of clarity or proper understanding.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by terminator

Another thing mate , more then often religions don't claim the I'm right your wrong mentality another Abrahamic institution.

Its very common to think your ideas are the correct ones, but yes not all think this way, I grew up with some Sikh friends and its always been a fascinating religion to me, certainly one of the ones that does not worry me since they have pretty welcoming and respectful beliefs.

My point here is widen the scope of your arguement, in my limited knowledge your arguement conveys ignorance to something you claim to be well versed on.

Not sure what you mean here, referring to the concept of religions claiming they have the one true word of God? That is pretty much one of the safest claims anyone can make of the vast majority of religions, the divisions within religions (not all) are very subtle and are yet cause such large conflict over different ways of viewing the same thing, examples like Sunni/Shia, Protestants/Catholics, there are a lot of Hindu sects as well.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by terminator

Man, you guys sure are trying hard though.

No we're not. I'm an atheist. I've never tried to disprove the existence of supernatural god(s) because such an endeavour is impossible. I merely reject the claim that any kind of supernatural force exists, Abrahamic or otherwise, in the absence of compelling scientific evidence. Most atheists I know (warning: anecdotal!) feel the same way.

Again you, as all atheists I have met, have defaulted to the abrahamic definition of god. God does not exist to fill holes in many non-western religions, the concept of god in many religions trancsends earth.

For example, there are plenty of religions out there that do not think Earth is the centre of the universe, or that we are the only capable life forms. As a Sikh we are taught the concept of the big bang not only as a physical phenomena that created our universe but also one that spread the soul. All things are elastic in nature (gravity), hence the Universe expanding and then contracting similarly all metaphysical life was spread and must return to singularity.

I am in no way trying to prove to you god exists, except that you need to realize there are many more gods then the western excepted god that has a beard and physical form.

And I reject that notion for the same reason I reject the Abrahamic God, Odin, Hephaestus, Jupiter, Osiris, Vishnu, Chang'e, the entire concept of the Buddhist reincarnation cycle, and every other supernatural, non-observable force that has ever been claimed to exist by any religion. There is no scientific evidence for a "soul", so why should I accept your claim that the Big Bang spreads the soul?

Also, all things are not elastic in nature. The most widely accepted theory in cosmology based on our current understanding of astrophysics is that the universe will continue expanding forever until its eventual heat death, aka the "Big Freeze". The theory that gravity will eventually force a collapse of the universe into a singularity ("the Big Crunch") has fallen out of favour with scientists.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Chill Cosby

Again, if you're taking on a religion, you'll have a much easier time, but I've rarely seen an atheist argue against God itself with any sense of clarity or proper understanding.

What clarity and understanding are these atheist's missing?

[terminator]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

No we're not. I'm an atheist. I've never tried to disprove the existence of supernatural god(s) because such an endeavour is impossible. I merely reject the claim that any kind of supernatural force exists, Abrahamic or otherwise, in the absence of compelling scientific evidence. Most atheists I know (warning: anecdotal!) feel the same way.



And I reject that notion for the same reason I reject the Abrahamic God, Odin, Hephaestus, Jupiter, Osiris, Vishnu, Chang'e, the entire concept of the Buddhist reincarnation cycle, and every other supernatural, non-observable force that has ever been claimed to exist by any religion. There is no scientific evidence for a "soul", so why should I accept your claim that the Big Bang spreads the soul?

Also, all things are not elastic in nature. The most widely accepted theory in cosmology based on our current understanding of astrophysics is that the universe will continue expanding forever until its eventual heat death, aka the "Big Freeze". The theory that gravity will eventually force a collapse of the universe into a singularity ("the Big Crunch") has fallen out of favour with scientists.

Thats the challenge, I don't expect you to change. However, I do love your line about rejecting the different gods all the while claiming them to be identical. Its very important for an athiest to study what he rejects, especially since you base your beleif, wait system of law, on science. This alone proves that you have studied all you reject.

- Source, I'm a scientist.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by terminator

Thats the challenge, I don't expect you to change. However, I do love your line about rejecting the different gods all the while claiming them to be identical. Its very important for an athiest to study what he rejects, especially since you base your beleif, wait system of law, on science. This alone proves that you have studied all you reject.

- Source, I'm a scientist.

Where in my post did I claim that all the supernatural sources I reject are identical?

[terminator]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Where in my post did I claim that all the supernatural sources I reject are identical?

Really?

Meh, the one major thing that caught me in this thread was the failure to use scientific method. I always thought it was gospel for athiests.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by terminator

Thats the challenge, I don't expect you to change. However, I do love your line about rejecting the different gods all the while claiming them to be identical. Its very important for an athiest to study what he rejects, especially since you base your beleif, wait system of law, on science. This alone proves that you have studied all you reject.

- Source, I'm a scientist.

In my line of atheism, we realize any and all Gods are just in peoples heads, so how they interpret and identify with them is up to them. I reject any and all instances of any God, however they are interpretted in peoples minds.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by terminator

Really?

Meh, the one major thing that caught me in this thread was the failure to use scientific method. I always thought it was gospel for athiests.

Yes really. Go back to my post and quote the passage that you feel implies that I stated all supernatural forces claimed to exist by the world's various religions are the same.

[Shnabdabber]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Also, all things are not elastic in nature. The most widely accepted theory in cosmology based on our current understanding of astrophysics is that the universe will continue expanding forever until its eventual heat death, aka the "Big Freeze". The theory that gravity will eventually force a collapse of the universe into a singularity ("the Big Crunch") has fallen out of favour with scientists.

Ok, quick sidetracked question here.

If space itself is defined as nothing-ness, and it is growing...

What the hell is it growing into?

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Chill Cosby

There is no default God.
There are multiple understandings of God, and different views of the attribute of said God, but there is no such thing as "default God," so if you plan on speaking about God, then you're biting more than you can chew.

Again, if you're taking on a religion, you'll have a much easier time, but I've rarely seen an atheist argue against God itself with any sense of clarity or proper understanding.

Like I said above, I reject any God. The default God I referred to would be the most common one here in the West, where we currently are talking about this. You know, beard, sandals, robe, white, magic tricks, hates gays, nailed to cross, rose from dead, turned water into wine etc.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Shnabdabber

Ok, quick sidetracked question here.

If space itself is defined as nothing-ness, and it is growing...

What the hell is it growing into?

Excellent question!

This site has a pretty good explanation: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=274

[DuffMan]

I have faith God doesn't exist.

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by Thor

What clarity and understanding are these atheist's missing?

To touch on just what's been mentioned in the last page or so, they mostly argue God-as-written based on particular religion, vs. God the concept.

For instance, the "strong" argument atheists have against the belief of god based on the the rejection of Norse Mythology: It's no argument at all. It may be an argument against Christianity, but not god. The version of what God is, it's attributes or whatever, vary from text to text. These attributes go towards creating an understanding and give rule and structure to whatever community abides by that text. Concerning the concept of God: the Christian God, Thor/Odin/Zeus, Buddha, Vishnu/Brahma, Mother Nature, it's all human understandings of the exact same thing. So to say "Well you're an atheist because you don't believe in Odin" shows a lack of understanding that there is no difference between Odin and the Christian God. Regardless of religion, belief in any God is belief in "God".

Plus you have a couple guys making specific reference to Christianity and treating that like "God", while inferring that the Christian God or Islamic God are different, when in fact those two understandings are quite literally the exact same.

[Muta]

I think God is a metaphor for the sun. The sun continually gives life, it's in the sky, and watches over us... and, the best part, there's evidence it actually exists.

[Shnabdabber]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Excellent question!

This site has a pretty good explanation: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=274

Interdasting. I always thought it was expanding into a Salvador Dali esque world paired with black and white mickey mouse cartoons.

That was a excellent read, thank you kindly.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Shnabdabber

Interdasting. I always thought it was expanding into a Salvador Dali esque world paired with black and white mickey mouse cartoons.

That was a excellent read, thank you kindly.

I know it's a very unsatisfactory answer, and it's a really difficult concept for most people to wrap their heads around. I still don't really get it even though I've taken several university-level courses in astronomy and astrophysics. An analogy a former prof mine used is to imagine the entire universe as a balloon. When you inflate the balloon, the "universe" expands, but it's not expanding into anything; it's just the balloon itself growing larger.

[Shnabdabber]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I know it's a very unsatisfactory answer, and it's a really difficult concept for most people to wrap their heads around. I still don't really get it even though I've taken several university-level courses in astronomy and astrophysics. An analogy a former prof mine used is to imagine the entire universe as a balloon. When you inflate the balloon, the "universe" expands, but it's not expanding into anything; it's just the balloon itself growing larger.

I think it did a pretty good job of answering my question. That always bugged me (not enough to use the google machine) but then I was scatterbrained with the sciences growing up, not so much with english ect.

Whats funny about the analogy you just used, is there was one lecture I watched by a physicist where he had to give a masters lecture on the universe. He asked everyone to open up some old texts to a diagram explaining exactly what you just described; the balloon being inflated by a guy. The other profs looked around as if to ask "Is this guy for real? This is basic stuff here." Then the physicist pointed at the guy blowing up the balloon and asked "Who is this guy?" Basically saying to expand one part of space you must contract another, which would tie in to the answer your link had stating that the universe is stretching. This guy (I'll try and find him) is all about studying available energy in the space all around us that can neither be seen nor felt. Very interesting.

Anyways I'm going OT and my head is about to explode. I love thinking/talking about these sort of things but honestly am so far out of my league when it comes to this stuff. Much easier for me to imagine Steamboat Mickey cruising around in space.