Debate God

I want to share some terminology that I learned recently. A theist is someone who believes in a supernatural creator god that watches what we do on Earth, punishes or rewards us appropriately, answers prayers, performs miracles, etc. A deist is someone who believes in a supernatural creator god or force that, after the act of creation, stopped influencing and watching the universe. The deist's god just set the laws of the universe into motion and then stepped out of the picture to let his creation go on its own.

Sad, but true. Children are not born with religious beliefs. They are indoctrinated into a religion. One of the things Richard Dawkins hopes to change with his book that I mentioned earlier is that he wants people to stop saying "Christian child" or "Muslim child" or "Jewish child". Instead, he wants people to say "child of Christian parents" or "child of Muslim parents" or "child of Jewish parents." It's a small difference, but it can create a shift in the social consciousness.

 

I forget his name but a saint in the pre-modern world wrote a thesis on logic and god. He used logic to help prove god's existence. The argument that made the most sense to me was this:

In the world there are the laws of cause and effect. One cannot exists without the other and if one exists so must the other. Imagine that miracles are the effect. Without miracles there can be no cause but since there are miracles there must be a cause. That cause would be the only thing that can create a miracle which is God. Therefore it proves logically that God exists.

I don't know if what he said proves or doesn't prove God's existence. However I have one question. Why do people question God's existence. If he doesn't exist all hopes of living on in spirit and seeing ones you've lost again... all fade. My sole existence is based on this hope and without it... I just don't know what to do.

 

There have been no miracles ever proven through thorough examination. The only miracles are the ones claimed by the Church or by anecdotal accounts. Prove a miracle and you have come much closer to proving that supernatural events actually take place, but until then miracles have yet to be proven let alone God.

You have to understand that refusing to believe in God or Christianity is not something I want to do, or something I sought out to do. Of course it is more comforting to think that every one you've ever loved is together somewhere good and that you will someday see them all again in paradise. It's not a choice for me, though. Even if I went to church everyday and went through all of the motions, I could never fool myself into believing something so far fetched just because it is comforting. Why not just make up my own version of reality then, if I start believing things just because I want to rather than because they make sense.

You've identified why you believe............because you want or need to. There's nothing wrong with that. Many people need to believe in order to deal with the human predicament. The way my mind works though, it would prohibit me from believing even if I found myself at a place in my life where I wanted to.

 

This is what I mean by ignorant. I don't even know what you are referring to by fabulous prizes. You could have put this to rest but instead ruined it for selfish reasons.

You obviously don't really want me out of this thread. You and your friends just think its fun to say "get out" or "debate or go **** yourself". You guys are so contradictory. So this is my debate. Are you guys really willed against me or do you just think it is fun to use false arguments against me. Just because I am outnumbered clearly on this thread doesn't mean I am the only one that "doesn't debate". It is only that I oppose of your beliefs in general that you say that I don't debate. And immitating me is not debating. Is this not a debate right now? Is what you said a debate? Even makisupa said it himself: that I am debating in some form or fashion. So who here is more ignorant, Nemi or Zombiecow? This can all end if you let it. Until then, I think I will stick around.

 

Ignorance is the basis of faith. Faith is confident belief that something is true, without incontrovertible facts to prove that that something is true. My argument is backed by cold logic and laws of the universe that have been pounded on by the tests of time over thousands of years. Your argument is based off of the fear and blind trust you hold in leaders who belie their agendas for the power they wield over their rabble. Any logic that may have been tested against religion was pushed away by the very stanzas of which religion stands for. In effect, a religious 'debate' is an oxymoron.

Debates need facts to argue over. This topic has no facts for the side which you claim is true. I can prove, point-by-point, how energy, matter, and other universal forces gave you this place on Earth that which you cry that some being with infinite power and infinite wisdom placed you on with limited power and limited wisdom.




Do I really want you out of this debate thread? I don't think you'd leave in the first place. If you did, then we could finally end this stupidass thread succinctly. Like I said: this isn't a debate.


"Quote me and I will be back. Leave it alone and I will wash out of here because I have nothing to talk about."

As in, NO ****ING ****. Dumbass. It's not like any of us are in here to civilly discuss this.


So why won't you let it go? Why do I have to be the one to initiate it? It's not like you're exactly leaving the topic at a neutral disposition.

 

You know, I have two Atheist parents and had an Atheist brother, I'm the only christian in my house. I was born an Atheist, this was the foundation my parents gave me. My parents kept me away from religion, I knew nothing of Christianity let alone any other religion. But there was one event that you might all call "luck" or a "fortunate" event.

When I was ten I got lost in a park in Colombia, Bogota. When I got lost a man kidnapped me, took me to his house and was trying to rape me. I only escaped because of one almost insignificant event. The ceiling lamp directly above his head, fell on his head. On his face. I then ran outside and into a christian Church where I was told that God had protected me.

I don't like to describe much about my past to random people, but now you know that I believe in God because he saved me, and one day you will believe in God once he saves you.

EDIT: This is the whole story on why we moved to the U.S.A. I still have Atheist parents but my brother is also religious as well thanks to me, and we walk to Church every Sunday.

 

So you decided to believe in God because the people at the Church told you it was God?
Sounds like brainwashing to me, and it is kind of sad that you need an explanation on why that light fell. You know, it is possible that things just happen. And that you are lucky.

What about that thousands of others who get raped and don't get saved by "God"?

 

okay i'll say this, you're admitting personal things in a debate thread. People are going to try to debate what you've said, it isn't taboo.

Are you saying lamps can't fall without a God's help? And how do you know it was the Christian god? because that's what you were told?

So if you would have been told something else protected you after it happened you'd believe that?

 

I'm sorry you had to experience that. Humans are a cruel species.

I had a friend who was relatively secular until a tree fell upon his house and crushed his bedroom. He had gotten up to go to the bathroom literally seconds before. He interpreted the event as an act of god.

Not to belittle your trauma, but there is a logical, completely un-godly explanation for your ceiling lamp savior. It's gravity and the more-than-likely shoddy craftsmanship of the building. As unlikely the event may have been, it wasn't impossible, merely improbable.

 

Yes, it's ironically going to fall on his head and give me time to escape ironically when he is trying to rape me right above it and not fall at any other given time. I believe a mystical or supernatural force had something to do with it, that's uncanny and you should know that.

Perhaps, but chances of running into a Christian Church are small after you run for your life because a lamp fall on someones head.

I call it God's way of telling me there is religion. It's also sad that most Atheists will only believe when they have something as traumatizing as what I had. I don't cry or care about it any more, but I did for a long time.

And I was an Atheist for the first ten years of my life.

 

Exactly right. And just because something is improbable, doesn't mean it cannot happen without some outside force acting upon it.

 

I have a deist mind setting, but I believe in Jesus being the messiah which is why I'm Christian. Everything has a cause and effect on this planet, obviously the lamp would have fallen at that time regardless of what? But I find it a miracle because it was predetermined to fall at the exact time that I was about to get raped.

Everything is going to happen, that's why it's called Cause and Effect. But if it's something that is improbable at the right time of your life, then it's uncanny.

If you are about to be mugged by a thug in an alley but a brick from the top of a building just falls on his head, then we can assume that something supernatural saved your life. Because the chances are more then a million to one.

 

don't you think that if there was a god, those events wouldn't have occurred in the first place?

which actually makes it quite probable considering billions of events are occurring in the world at any given moment. Nothing supernatural about it if you look at the numbers of things going on around the world. With your ratio, that "miracle" occurred nearly 6 thousand other times at that moment.

 

So you're saying that everything is predetermined. That would mean that God almost let you be raped so that you would believe in him. I don't care if he didn't let it happen in the end, that's sick.

That is not what cause and effect is.

Bullshit. I could have easily time traveled from the future after inventing a time machine to throw a brick down because i knew that a brick prevented me from being mugged. Your logic is flawed and your probability has absolutely no basis.

 

Question. My friend, an Israel exchange student, very devoted to religion, died because of an accident in Israel during Christmas break. Of course I don't know the exact details because the school didn't disclose the information, but what I heard from his family was that was hit by a car that had run a red light. The thing is...why is this not an act of God? It was nearly on the same level of improbability as any other 'miracle', and yet why was it that my friend had to be the victim of it? If it was God, who I was raised to believe to be a benevolent, caring creator who knew all that would happen and had judged us accordingly, then why was it my friend, who was the most religious person I knew, died from such a freak accident?

 

Wait, just a second ago I was told debate. Now I am being told that there is no debate. Bummer. Actually ignorance is pure stupidity. You may call someone ignorant but they have as you said "confident belief that something is true, without incontrovertible facts to prove that that something is true" of a certain knowledge- but they are still ignorant.
Or someone could be called non-ignorant and have religion as you say. Your theory just doesn't mesh. You just made up a rambling sentence to try to state why you are not ignorant and reflect my attack of your ignorance. Don't try to make yourself bigger than you are. My offer still stands no doubt. And to think I wouldn't leave when the argument is dropped is just solid ignorance. Why would I stay when there is nothing to respond to? Why would I risk getting attacked for not keeping a promise.

 

Zombie, I'll get back to you. Rain, I was wondering: your parents are athiest, so what did they say about you almost getting raped/ceiling lamp miracle? And how are they about you and your brother being religious?

 

My parents continued to tell me there is no God, but since I was a ten year old I considered moving towards a religion, towards the end they never bothered me, but at first it was a huge problem in the house.

Then my parents never cared when my brother became religious and said it's nice for us to have some form of hope.