ONE question to all the atheists out there....

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: I do not need the fear of eternal punishment to lead a moral and ethical life.

Hate to be a noodge here but...Moral and ethical as judged by what measure? If you don't use God then you use some other subjective and or arbitrary measures. So I am just curious whos measure are you using to judge your reletive morality and ethicalness? [/QUOTE]Well having grown up in judeo-christain society a great deal of them come from that source. To boil it down to its most basic "do unto others has you would have them do unto you".

[Vaskez]

Hehe, everyone's got single reasons for being an atheist. Ok but they are all defeated by one pro argument or another. If you look at all the pro arguments together, they seem very convincing to me [img]smile.gif[/img] In the end neither side wins ever but there are far more reasons to believe than not to. This thread has been a good learning experience, cheers everyone [img]smile.gif[/img]

Attempt at summary:

Reasons not to believe in a god:
- You have thought about it and no arguments convince you, you accept the possibility though.
- You are too arrogant to admit that anything can be greater than you.
- You are happy as you are and don't need anything more and don't care where we came from. This seems a bit naive to me.
- You believe that the universe has always existed so there is no reason for a creator and in an infinite universe everything happens so life just happpened. This is probably the most convincing atheist argument and this is where faith and personal feeling come into and no amount of arguing can convey that so when you get to this stage you stop debating [img]smile.gif[/img] Personally, I still can't accept that everything became so perfect (I mean the working of nature) by chance. Then I take all the other indications/arguments etc into account. The case for just defeats the case against in my case.
- You don't want there to be a God so you shut out such thoughts.

or any combination of the above

Reasons to believe in a god:
- Arguments mentioned here
- personal logic to convince yourself
- faith based on no evidence or argument just feeling
- gambler's explanation given in the first post
- many millions of people have thought about and feel and know they believe including many genuises like Einstein. Just makes you think whether they may have a point

or any combination of the above
- of course none of these are enough in themselves, except maybe the faith one and many people have argued against one or the other of these but taken all together I think there is a strong case for a god's existance



Also Magick I think like that too [img]smile.gif[/img] God helps those who help themselves. So true, you can't sit around expecting things to happen, you do it and ask for help/a nudge if you need it [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 01-22-2003, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[johnny]

Originally posted by Masklinn: God is Love and every Men are his children. Therefor...everyone one should have access to heaven. Can you imagin God refusing someone, knowing that He is Love ? There are so much flaws

I'm NOT one of god's children. He didn't put me on this planet, my parents did that, and THEY gave me love. It's very simple.

Originally posted by Rokenn: Well having grown up in judeo-christain society a great deal of them come from that source. To boil it down to its most basic "do unto others has you would have them do unto you".

Ahh well that is a pretty good approach if you ask me, but of course that is just my opinion. So while you reject the idea of a God, it is not a bad thing to take something from those who do and use it as a basis. In otherwords, just becuase soemthing came from a religion, it is not necessarily useless. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] I can live with that (as if you should care )

[Rokenn]

mmmm this article :Skeptic pitied almost has me convinced to switch sides

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by johnny: quote: Originally posted by Masklinn: God is Love and every Men are his children. Therefor...everyone one should have access to heaven. Can you imagin God refusing someone, knowing that He is Love ? There are so much flaws

I'm NOT one of god's children. He didn't put me on this planet, my parents did that, and THEY gave me love. It's very simple.[/QUOTE]That's very good johnny. Did your parents teach you that? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[johnny]

I tought myself that, leave my parents out of this, okay ?

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: Well having grown up in judeo-christain society a great deal of them come from that source. To boil it down to its most basic "do unto others has you would have them do unto you".

Ahh well that is a pretty good approach if you ask me, but of course that is just my opinion. So while you reject the idea of a God, it is not a bad thing to take something from those who do and use it as a basis. In otherwords, just becuase soemthing came from a religion, it is not necessarily useless. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] I can live with that (as if you should care )[/QUOTE]I personally have no problems with religion. As a matter fact looking back historically religion has been a fairly good job of civilizing humans and enforcing social norms. One of the reasons I'm an atheist is that I feel society has advanced to the point were it's possible to move beyond its influence. Like finally putting your childhood security blanket away.

The one thing I do deeply resent though are the attempts but many, mostly conservative, Christian groups to get various state sponsorships for their beliefs. The wall separating the Church from the State should be so tall and wide that even an omnipotent deity can not breach it.

[Cloudbringer]

Originally posted by Grungi: erm its not simple, your basically saying then cloudbringer that im not judged when i die? so what happens to me as i dont believe? in your belief im going to hell then?

Why do you even care what anyone else thinks? Seems to me that if you don't believe in religious tenets, you really have no earthly reason to care since you don't believe in our version of the final judgement anyway. Hedging your bets there grung?

and vaskez your saying i am judged but i dont get there anyway? so where do i go? hell? im a good person living my life in a good way and this good god of yours is going to say basically "fck him,

Grungi, watch your language. I know we've had this discussion before and Ziroc has expressly requested that variations of the 'f-word' not be used so please refrain from using 'fck' or anything similar in the future.

and im still not going with the "if 1 billion people say it, it must be right" that argument doesnt stand up, otherwise everyone else would believe it straight away, and they dont,

Apparently you missed his (and other's) explanations. [img]smile.gif[/img] Basically, God isn't going to take you in if you reject his very existence. If you don't WANT to be saved, you won't be. By not believing in God, you certainly can't believe in his Word or the afterlife he promises, so why on earth would you even care about this? Does it harm you in some tangible way if those 'billion' or so believe something that you can't or choose not to? I don't need you or anyone else to believe for my own sake. My belief stands on its own and frankly, when the end comes, it's only my personal relationship with God that I'm going to need to worry about.

Cerek- nice post! Long, but well written and as concise as it could be! I agree, this has been a very good thread with some thoughtful and intelligent discussion overall.

Originally posted by Rokenn: The one thing I do deeply resent though are the attempts but many, mostly conservative, Christian groups to get various state sponsorships for their beliefs. The wall separating the Church from the State should be so tall and wide that even an omnipotent deity can not breach it. You do realize that the seperation of church and state only gaurentees freedom from a state imposed religion ala King James. It does not gaurentee freedom from religion nor does it say that no official buildings and or grounds may be used by a religious group.