Atheism vs Theism Alright, well I am a born Jew. But both my family and I are so reformed I never consider myself one. The only Jewish customs we practice are Hannukkah (for the presents of course), Rosh Hashanah (for the big family dinner), Passover (again, big dinner, and teh Matzah) and I went for a few months to Hebrew school, just so I could have a Bar-mitzvah. We don't practice Sabbath, we don't go to temple regularly, and I honestly don't give a **** about anything written in the Torah. However, I completely disagree at the same time with all things the bible and other theistic/polytheistic religions believe in. So lately, I have been leaning more towards the beliefs of Atheism, which I realize I agree much more with than any theistic religion. I don't believe any god exists. I feel it is reasonably improbable and impossible some super diety is out there, constantly watching over all people and punishing for sins and such. For one thing, all religions are just made up by people at one point in time who simply wanted to be able to have an easier way of understanding the hardest topic of all; Life. The meaning of it, how it came to be and why it is here. I respect that and all, but I feel in the end, there is no direct proofs most of the events in the Torah, Bible, etc, ever actually happened. At least, not in the way they are described. For example, I don't doubt the Jews were freed from Egypt and its Pharaoh by Moses. However, I don't believe, besides the physical impossibilities, that... 1. Moses ever talked to a bush that was on fire but wouldn't burn... unless he was seriously trippin. 2. That most of the plagues happened. The 10 plagues have been scientifically explained, but not all. For instance, the 10th plague. It is probable disease might have overcome the Egyptians and all, but ONLY their 1st borns coincidentally and by the hand of god seems somewhat impossible. 3. And third, that as they escaped, Moses raised his staff, and god split the sea so the Jews could escape. Most improbable of all. If anything, there might have been a shift in tides that could have enabled the jews to cross in shallower than normal water, and by the time the Egyptians got there, the high tide swept in, drowning their cavalries and chariots and such. Also, some other things I believe aren't true. The existence of a Heaven or Hell. Seeing as if I don't believe a god exists, there certainly isn't a horned, blood red evil Devil that burns souls that have sinned for all eternity. And the eternity after that. Plus, if Heaven and Hell do exist, it might as well be only Hell, because no one in the history of history, HASN'T sinned even once. Alright well for those who want to know more, check here: Atheism for more info on Atheism. And check here: Theism for more info on the beliefs of Theism. To conclude my opening argument, I feel, and know I will be attacked on this by extreme Christians, that the existence of one (or many) dieties controlling all aspects of life, or at least guiding people, punishing sins and so and so forth, is an exteme, improbable impossibility. It sort of goes into the idea of Free will. That if there are such dieties, then what really is free will, do we have free will, and is fate predecided? (By the way those last few questions are NOT what I am asking to be debated, just things that relate.) Anyway, Go...
Well...this is very touchy, it is hard to believe in Theism when you dont see intervention from a god or gods everyday, or even if your lifetime. But then if their is no god, how did we get here? Where did everything on earth come from? Most of that can be explained using science, however some cannot. So this brings the question which is right? There are facts supporting both sides. If there is a god or gods where are they? In the heavens? Then why cant we see the heavens? But then if there aren't gods, how did everything get created?! Its a very hard subject to be right or wrong about, especially with so many religions and beliefs, so that means either one is right, or none of them. I do believe in a god, but i dont believe that he is involved in our daily lives as some think. There are certain times when there could, in fact, be religious intervention.
Exactly. God doesn't always have to be there physically for him to exist. And as Whitestain said, where would everything start out to begin with? The most plausible explanation for existence is that a god created everything. (Or at least set things in motion that led us here today.) I would be careful Zstrike. I hear Zeus has been throwing more lighting bolts down recently...
If your going to be an atheist spell it correctly Edit: Just going to throw it out there. If you are a theist and you say, "How could the universe just exist" but then turn around and say "God just exists" then how are you solving the arguement? If anything you substituted the universe with an even more complex explanation for how we got here. Existence is a bizarre absurdity.
lol wow I just noticed the typing mistake... sorry. Ill fix that. And I agree with what Nitrous is saying. How does God exist then? @Whitestain... you failed to specify exactly which things aren't explained by science. Science CAN explain the existence of life. In that cells developed from previously existing matter and evolved into living organism, which continued to develope up until today. Or more easily, those cells evolved into primapes. However a certain species of primapes slowly began to adapt to a different environment, and slowly but surely evolved into modern day ****-sapiens. Now if you say, "Well where's the cells come from?" well that's getting more complex and difficult. They came from smaller subdivisions of matter like atoms, subatomic particles, quarks... Believing in a god is just making up an easy excuse for anything not explained by science, which is very little, and we still discover new things each day. So while we may not know EXACTLY everything we'd like to know now, someday, there is a great chance we will discover those things. Whereas the chance we discover full proof in a God or supreme diety anytime soon, or far away, is quite slim. EDIT: btw, I'd just like to say, I don't want this to be a debate about my wrongdoing in being an Atheist. So please from now on don't direct this at me, but the general idea of Atheists v. Theists. Also, has anyone here ever seem a diagram like this one: do you not see the easy to spot resemblence of man and ape, and still believe we just were out of nowhere spontaneously made in a mythical garden and there was a talking snake? I do not see how that story makes more sense. No offense to any theists. dammit... won't let me change teh title.... fail.
Im agnostic, but i do see how evolution could have created man and i don't disagree, however if men evolved from apes, and apes evolved from lesser organisms, and so on, what started the cycle? When and how was the universe created? I believe that there is a greater diety that began everything that leads up until now, i don't believe that the said diety has a role in daily lives, or even with anything in the far past. Only that the diety began things and let them progress on there own.
yes exactly. However as for the second paragraph there, that is truly impossible to prove, unless we invent the time machine soon and travel to those times. However that is where the Big Bang Theory comes in, to say it all started from this explosion of incredibly, highly compressed matter in something the size of one cell, which exploded, letting out space, and as time went on all of space continued to exapand, and so on so forth. Now of course anyone can go say, "Well where did that cell come from" It's like asking "The chicken or the egg?" Both answers are as equally likely as they are unlikely to have come first. It's a paradox, and is impossible to ever answer. However I believe the cell was a gathered amount of matter compressed by gravity force of a black hole, and when the black hole dispersed, the energy released blew up the cell and released the creation of the universe. Again, no way to prove anything though...
It seems like the only way anyone will know the answer to this question is in death, so when a person dies then and only then will they know the truth. Thats a sad reality. Who is right? Who knows? Im just throwing what i believe out there.
The afterlife. Good topic. I do believe in an afterlife. But as stated in the OP, not one that includes Heaven and Hell. I sort of believe in a way, what the anicent egyptians believed about the afterlife. (No not the mummification and preservation aspects.) But the parts about the soul. I believe the soul does not die with the mind and body, but leaves the body and begins another life. Aka, the reincarnation of a soul. So that you are basically a hand-me down. A soul used over and over, travelling from one body to the next. (not truly what the Egyptians believed, but somewhat...) This sort of act helps explain in part, strange phenomenon, like Deja Vu and other types of premonitions. Deja Vu is explained here as it is possibly something done or seen in a past life, and the soul remembered the memory as you see it now. That doesn't explain the whole concept of Deja vu, but it explains a good part of it.
Your just substituting a complex existence with an even more complex one. Abiogenisis explains the origin of life. Nebulae theory (I believe) solves planetary formation and stellar formation (I could be wrong though). Galactic formation explains the origins of the galaxies. The big bang explains the origin of the universe. String Theory explains the origin of the big bang. M Theory is said to be prime for being the Theory of Everything. Meaning it will finally explain our origins (though I think string theory does well enough). However, science has been stonewalled before. It may very well happen again.
It's a pretty popular compromise, the stance "I believe in evolution and all but there must have been a god to start everything in motion". It's a solid foothold in an otherwise slippery slope. But I think it's the exact same mistake as any other proof of god. The only way, as I see it, to keep faith is to let go of any idea that god can be proven. He transcends empirical proof. That does not mean he doesn't exist. I feel that atheists commit exact same blunder they are so willing to point out in theists: "being sure". If you follow this line of thinking, you have to let go of believing that god intervenes with the world in any way, or ever has. I also particularly like that you have to take away the authoritarian properties that people are so insistent on attributing to god. The key word for me is "possibilities". I'm transfixed on all the possibilities of the universe that are beyond human senses and scientific detection. I also have fascinating ideas of what the afterlife could be about. One other side note is that it hurts me to see such malicious attacks on religion in general from various parties. Even organized religion. It does help people get through life. Whatever gets you through the night, ya know? Who cares if they're wrong? It's so popular to site all the damage done by misguided religious groups. But that's to deny the millions of peaceful people who really don't want to be associated with the bad and are actually quite charitable. The teachings of Jesus and most other religious figures are very admirable, but then again, religion doesn't hold a monopoly on morality.
AHH! All these debate topics are skewing my beliefs! It's like a cubist painting now. =P But yeah. I guess religion is just taking the easy way out of explaining everything. What Zstrike said had me thinking though... What if the Big Bang was just an "egg" and the universe is the "chicken"? And it's just a never-ending cycle? An interesting thought... *head explodes*
Again, Nitrous, I'm going to have to disagree with you based on logical flaws. You say that the Big Bang started everything, and that it in itself was started by super-condensed matter. Regardless of how small or how intensely packed that matter may be, you haven't answered the question...where did it come from? I has to have come from something. Logic demands that. "Matter cannot be created or destroyed." But here's the kicker: matter cannot be created or destroyed...according to laws created by men. And, yes, those laws are LAWS, in that they work everytime. Unless...you are outside of those laws, which is the exact definition of the supernatural (or, "God," in this case). So you see, you simply cannot explain the universe's creation without first accepting some sort of supernatural forced began it. It is utterly and completely logically flawed to believe otherwise.
Even if what I said before about the universe being a never-ending cycle of "chickens" and "eggs" was true, someone would have had to create that sort of scenario. The Big-Bang lead to the universes' creation, which lead to the creation of life (including the chickens and their eggs). So the question is: "Who made the chicken/egg to begin with?" Answer: debated (but I think that the answer is a god).
You know nothing of what a law or theory is. A law is a generally observed phenomena not a fact. And as they say, laws were meant to be broken and they have been several times in the universe's existence. You claim that the universe couldn't have possibly just existed, but then turn around and claim that god just exists. Please, do tell, why the universe couldn't have always existed and why god can. The universe (for any physics buffs I'm not talking of our dimension) must have always existed, because we are in it and it would have to have always existed for us to be here. God couldn't have always existed because he is the conception of mortal man, a product of the universe.
You are contradicting yourself as well. You are saying God couldn't have always existed, so the universe must have always been there. That is where the beliefs of theists and atheists divide. Pro-God people say that God has always existed, and made the universe. Anti-God people say that the universe has always existed (or something like that), and there is no God.
A definition for "scientific law": "A scientific law is a statement that describes the behavior of some particular thing or set of things within the natural world, with an adequately thorough history of successful scientific replication." The key there is "natural world." For, as you see, I've already pointed out that God exists outside of a natural world. And as for me claiming that God has always existed, and concerning your views on the necessity of man's eternal existence in the universe, let me again reiterate something you carefully ignored earlier: God must have a beginning, you say. And I reply, "By natural rules, yes. But the key facet of God is that He exists outside of your natural rules, because He created them. He is not bound by your law of physics, He set physics into motion. Please try to respond to that the next time you reply, as you have yet to. As for God being a conception of mankind, that is ludicrous. How exactly do you propose that a human being came up with something that, by definition, cannot be understood? To say that something completely natural dreamed up something completely supernatural is to mix up the order; a supernatural thing can understand a natural thing. A natural thing cannot understand a supernatural thing, because being unfathomable is the very nature of a supernatural thing. The prefix "super-" means above, beyond, more than, etc. However, if the supernatural chose to reveal itself to the natural, then the natural could understand whatever the supernatural revealed, because the supernatural has the ability to change things, being supernatural.
Not necessarily. What I'm saying is, we live in the universe, multiverse, omniverse, what have you. We know it exists because we live in it. Just like we know America or the UK exists because we live there. What theology has done, it has said there is something that can never be proven (until you die of course) that created everything and existed before the universe. How do we know the universe exists? - We live there. How do we know god exists? - Faith, otherwise all people would believe in one god. For me to say the universe always existed can be proven. It must have or we wouldn't be here. To say that god has always existed and that he created the universe can not be proven because god is not directly felt - though he is claimed to be. I'm not questioning that laws are only relevant to the natural world. What I'm saying is, don't think that laws happen every time - like you stated, because they don't. Plain and simple. I don't carefully ignore anything, you bastards reply to fast for me to keep up. You'll have to define nature for me to continue. This is a shaky bridge. It started off simple enough, a creator that looked just like us made us and here we are. Then thinkers got a hold of it and god had to become omniscient and unstoppable, outside logic and incomprehensible (to all those but the enlightened believers), which completely voids all religion if that is so. I know what supernatural means and while you may criticize me for not understanding god you make the bold claim that he has all these inalienable properties that you yourself can't prove being natural. So the supernatural reveals itself in a way the natural can understand. Does that mean we only understood him when he was in natural form and not supernatural form? It seems if he revealed himself he would be extremely dumbed down (like a burning bush) for us to understand, then once he wooshes up to the supernatural world he is out our grasp again. So all we can really understand is the revalation and not the supernatural itself.
But it has been theorized (quite credibly) that the universe started with the Big Bang. You have brought up the Big Bang yourself in several points. (Or at least in another thread, right?) How did that Big Bang originate? The answer a theist would give, is God.