Some practicing atheists just love building strawmen by simplifying things to the point where they sound ridiculous.
i think atheism is better than religion because religion is so old-fashioned. it's silly to follow a 5000 year old book. humanity has changed and advanced a lot since then. i don't mind people who believe in religion though... because religion will not survive long against science anymore. but the "problem" with religion is that they're right about some things, like the souls and afterlife, so science will probably prove their existence in the future, which will give more credibility for religions again.
most religious people cool and nice people. there are just a few extremists (like fred phelps), and they give a bad name for christianity and islam, because atheists mostly only see the "bad" things in religion.
Warp wrote:
Or maybe people behave badly because they choose to behave badly? Is it God's doing if people choose to do the bad thing?
if god wouldn't have created anybody, then nobody would behave badly. humans can't be responsible for anything, and they can't be blamed for anything. if we create a child, we can't be blamed for what the child does, or if we create robots who can choose, we can't blame for what they choose, because we didn't choose to exist. god created us.
but the funny thing is that even god can't be blamed, and he can't be responsible for anything either, because he didn't choose to exist either. since nobody is truly responsible for anything, anybody can take responsibility.
There is no free choice under a god. When you die, in religion, you go to a Good Place or Bad Place depending on your actions. I cannot choose to go to Heaven. I have to relinquish my free will and do what the god wants.
That's where you are wrong: It is a choice. If your choice is that you don't want it, then nobody is forcing you. It's your choice.
Or let's do something else. God is all-loving, and unconditionally loves everyone. He is all powerful. If he is all loving, he wants everyone to be happy. If he is all powerful, everyone can be happy. Therefore, everyone should be happy.
Wanting something and forcing it are two completely different things. Some people don't want to be happy. It's their choice. God's not going to force it on anybody.
I've always demonstrated you really can't have free will under a god
You didn't demonstrate anything. You just made an uncorroborated claim.
but even if you could, what point then is there in a god who loves everyone, can fix everything, but does not?
because religion will not survive long against science anymore.
The 3 major world religions have survived against the fall of geocentrism, heliocentrism, and are lasting against the rise of acceptance of evolution.
Religions will do, ironically, as they have always done. Adapt, change, and evolve into something that will not need geocentrism, heliocentrism, or creationism. As scientific progression continues to answer the questions that religion was created to answer, religion will continue to change and adapt to the new knowledge.
Funny, religions is able to do this because generations born in the near future will accept both evolution and religious beliefs as perfectly co-existing, just as our generations accept that the earth is not the center of the universe.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
You have a different meaning of free will than I do. Your argument, as applied to free speech, would be "I can say whatever I want to say, and not have to worry about the repercussions of that speech." But the actual meaning of free speech in the USA is that you can say almost anything you want to say, but you still have to suffer the consequences of that speech. "Controlled" speech is things like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, or defamation -- those things are illegal, and the government will punish you for them. You can shout insults at someone until you're blue in the face, though -- just don't be surprised when they take it into their own hands to punish you for it.
Similarly, "free will", to me, means having the ability to make decisions, and then to suffer the consequences of those decisions, good or bad. If we accept as a premise that most religions attempt to encourage certain kinds of behavior, then of course they're going to set up reward/punishment systems for those behaviors, whether it be the cycle of death and reincarnation in Hinduism and other Indian religions, heaven and hell in the various religions of the Book, lawsuits in Scientology, et cetera. That doesn't mean you lack free will.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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I would suggest the second chapter of 2nd Nephi in the Book of Mormon for that. In short: all things have their opposites, so in order to know happiness, one must know misery as well. That is at least one reason why God would permit suffering.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Bisqwit wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
You're surprised at yourself for not moderating your own thread? This thread hasn't had anything of value for several months, and when I last checked, you still had the ability to lock or otherwise modify it.
In case you haven't followed the news, I haven't exactly been active at the site administration lately ― that also applies to moderator stuff.
Yeah even I remember that... silly mmbossman
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Bisqwit wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
You're surprised at yourself for not moderating your own thread? This thread hasn't had anything of value for several months, and when I last checked, you still had the ability to lock or otherwise modify it.
In case you haven't followed the news, I haven't exactly been active at the site administration lately ― that also applies to moderator stuff.
I find it surprising that you would rather critcize others for not doing a job you're just as able to do yourself. And if you really want to be as inactive as you say, then just lock this thread and let others start a new inane religion topic in it's place.
Yes it is. God made everything exactly the way it is. If anything behaves badly, it is God's fault for making it that way.
Or maybe people behave badly because they choose to behave badly? Is it God's doing if people choose to do the bad thing?
Why did God make them want to behave badly?
If they didn't want it, the question of choice would be irrelevant. And people don't have control over what they want. So they are born into a world where they can choose to behave badly in order to obtain satisfaction, or behave well and have their wants going unmet.
If God created the situation, God is to blame, for making bad behavior desirable. If God did not make bad behavior desirable, and the devil did, God is to blame for creating the devil and bestowing the devil with power. If God did not make bad behavior desirable, but it is desirable as a logical consequence of the state of the universe, God is to blame for creating the universe in its current form, and not one where only good behavior would be desirable. Unless God did not create the universe at all.
Either all evil is God's fault, or God did not create the universe.
Bisqwit wrote:
I'm surprised at the lack of moderation in this thread.
Perhaps other people have different views about what requires moderation than you. And perhaps you should the people to whom you have left the site are administrating it in the manner they see most fit, providing moderation against genuinely harmful forum activities, and allowing harmless and interesting discussions to continue without interference.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
GTFO of the cave, dudes
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
I find it surprising that you would rather critcize others for not doing a job you're just as able to do yourself. And if you really want to be as inactive as you say, then just lock this thread and let others start a new inane religion topic in it's place.
Mind you, by its defined topic, this is not a religion thread, it's an "ask Bisqwit" thread. I would expect moderation to move posts not-concerning-questions-asked-from-me out from this thread into a separate thread, keeping both with their respective topics. So seeing it not happening, I'm surprised. Not disgruntled, but surprised. As for the topic's actual purpose, I have no intention of having it locked, since I'm not gone from answering questions :)
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
I'd also like to know why the bible says:
1- God gave men free will. (that is, He does not give a shit about nothing, just observes patiently)
2- Men ask for God's help and God promptly helps, even when the guy asks for help in killing his enemies.
He doesn't even obey His own rules.
I'd say that it's because beliefs, truth, justice, scepticism, etc (that is, "artistical interpretation of political ideas") are nothing but shadows cast on the wall and are meant to be believed in and never to be contested?
Cry emo kid but that's not the real world.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Assuming this is a question addressed to me, I will reply.
> Premise: By loving someone, you want to see them happy.
> Premise: An all-powerful being can do anything it wants.
> Premise: God is all-loving and all-powerful.
> Conclusion: God could and wants to make everyone perfectly happy.
Agreed. At least approximately; I'm not sure what you mean by "all-loving".
> Premise: God created the universe, for humans to reside in.
Agreed.
> Premise: Earth is not perfect for human life, and could be improved.
Earth is not in the same state it was when it was created. Nor in the same state when humans described by the Bible first lived in it. It was literally a paradise, but not so anymore.
The Bible tells us that mankind's falling into sin changed also the Earth; the Earth was cursed. And had the great flood (Noah's days) not happened, it would have been even significantly more horrible than it is now.
> Premise: Humans could be happier if the world around them was improved.
Only marginally. The cause of human unhappiness is not the world around them; it is the sin. When sin is in the picture, humans continuously change the world into a way that makes them, collectively, progressively, more and more unhappy.
Sin, by definition, is the action and the state of not obeying YHWH.
Correction to the premise: Humans could be happier if they obeyed YHWH as they were meant to.
> Conclusion: Humans aren't as happy as they could be.
I downgrade this into a premise, for it was a conclusion made on mistaken premises.
> Contradiction: God created the Earth, and wants us as happy as possible, yet the Earth not perfect for us, therefore we are not as happy as possible.
Correction: YHWH created the human, and wants us to be as happy as possible, and is always willing to teach us to fulfill that goal, yet we aren't listening to Him, and consequently, we are not as happy as possible.
Now the discussion could continue from here, but it may grow long, so I'll just summarize a possible followup in a few words: free will; long term plans; greater wisdom.
But I'll throw in some philosophy: Why did God make us so that we depend on His will? Why not make us so wise, that we can stay out of sin without having to depend on Him? Remember, he wants us to be perfectly happy. God, YHWH, is perfect in all aspects, including wisdom. The only way we could be perfectly happy without Him is if we also had perfect wisdom; if we also were gods. I have hard time understanding how there could be multiple perfect gods; perfection represents infinity, and from mathematics we know that infinity plus one or infinity times two equals infinity. There can be no multiple gods; just one. So how about a close approximation? He already tried something like that once; we know the result of that experiment by various names… So the opposite is better: The more dependent we are on him, the more likely we are to stay with him. This world is to teach us that fact.
bisqwit, i've been trying to do an astral projection (going out of your body). what's your opinion about astral projection? those who have experienced it often say that their body and soul is connected by a silver cord (kinda like the spiritual equivalence of the umbilical cord) and if this cord is severed, you die. the bible seems to mention the silver cord in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7.
i've heard that it's possible that a hacker might get into your body and possess you while you are away from your body. some say that astral projection isn't even real, that it's just some kind of dream. the experiences that i've had so far are much like lucid dreams, except that it starts from my bed and i experience leaving my body, so i don't think i've had a real projection yet. i tried to test if it was a dream by looking how much the clock was, but the clock didn't match the time in reality so it was probably a dream.
GMan wrote:
2 times infinity is not infinity, but a larger infinity, if multiplying the original infinity by 2 is defined at all.
sounds like nonsense to me. infinity by definition is... infinite... so it can't become larger.
bisqwit, i've been trying to do an astral projection (going out of your body). what's your opinion about astral projection? those who have experienced it often say that their body and soul is connected by a silver cord (kinda like the spiritual equivalence of the umbilical cord) and if this cord is severed, you die. the bible seems to mention the silver cord in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7.
i've heard that it's possible that a hacker might get into your body and possess you while you are away from your body. some say that astral projection isn't even real, that it's just some kind of dream. the experiences that i've had so far are much like lucid dreams, except that it starts from my bed and i experience leaving my body, so i don't think i've had a real projection yet. i tried to test if it was a dream by looking how much the clock was, but the clock didn't match the time in reality so it was probably a dream.
I think it's sad that you don't realize that anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all. At most it can be incentive for further study, but in no way a proof of anything.
sounds like nonsense to me. infinity by definition is... infinite... so it can't become larger.
on the contrary, there are several classes of infinity.
Set theory compares the cardinality of infinite sets and observes, that not all infinite sets have the same cardinality!
For example, consider the set of all positive integers and the set of all negative integers. You can easily pair up each positive integer with a negative integer: 1 -> -1, 2 -> -2, and you'll see: both sets contain the same amount of numbers.
But when you try to compare the positive integers to the real numbers, you cannot find such a pairing. No matter how you pair them up, you can always find another real number that doesn't have a corresponding integer. As such, there have to be more real numbers than integers, right?
but it doesn't end there. No matter what infinite set you define, there'll always be another infinite set with a higher cardinality. There's an infinite number of classes of infinite! *head explodes*
I think it's sad that you don't realize that anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all. At most it can be incentive for further study, but in no way a proof of anything.
um... where did i say that anecdotal evidence is evidence? read what i wrote more carefully. i didn't say anything about evidence in the entire post. i don't even know if astral projection is real because i haven't had one yet. it's just something i believe in.
edit: not to say there isn't evidence for it. there is. but i usually don't care so much about evidence, because evidence doesn't usually prove anything. for example, people say there is evidence for the theory of evolution, but what does it prove? nothing. because they don't actually have evidence, they just say they have, so it's anecdotal evidence.
Cry emo kid but that's not the real world.
