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Dear God, please come out and tell us you don't exist. (and that I'm right)

guesswho

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I. My view on religion: (which may be wrong, but I am mostly concerned about Christianity)

Ok, I will try to be brief, and turn this into a topic for people to argue, this is not my intention.

Many religions have 2 sides:
- an explanation for man's biggest questions
- an ethical code

Each ancient civilization had it's own religion, with various stories, each civilization had a need for religion at that time. The need is very mysterious, do we actually understand it? I do believe religion had many positive aspects at that time, such as uniting people, for a cause and giving them a code of behavior.

-you must do that to please your God
-you will be punished if you do that

So, this way, an attempt to contain bad behavior, and promote good behavior was created. Those times were lawless times, it was rather easy to get away with murder. So faith was required to contain things. ...That makes perfect sense.

But it all backfired, because of the power religion gave to the church. There are very few human beings who wouldn't get corrupted by power. War was carried, in the name of God (and it still is), murdering a christian citizen was not OK, if you were christian, but murdering a person who had different religious views was perfectly OK. (arabs in particular)

Which is possibly one of the biggest hypocrisies generated by man.

Scientists were considered heretics, the church's held on to it's authority in every possible way, inquisiting rational thought.

Religion does not make sense, as a theory, but our need for religion makes perfect sense.

II. My argument against religion. To prove my point I will use 2 popular ancient theories:
1. Geocentrism
2. Heliocentrism

1. Geocentrism
In the 4th century BC, two influential Greek philosophers wrote works based on the geocentric model. Plato and Aristote, the theory was reworked later.
This theory supported the idea that Earth is in the center of the universe, so basically, EVERYTHING revolves around earth.
It was supported by our egocentrism, by the fact that we saw the sun spinning around all day long, and because we did not know what gravity was.

This is how they imagined space:
800px-Bartolomeu_Velho_1568.jpg


What didn't make sense was that, some planets weren't moving like the sun, for instance Mars. It's orbital trajectory viewed from earth had irregularities, it went forwards then backwards. The problem was that they thought the orbits were perfect 'holly' circles, so Mars didn't make sense at all. But some guy drew more circles on the initial circle of Mars's orbit, to prove geocentrism.

2. Heliocentrism
It was first proposed by a Greek astronomer and mathematician in 270BC (Aristarchus )
He calculated the size of the Earth, and measured the size and distance of the Moon and Sun.
Aristarchus thus believed the stars to be very far away, and saw this as the reason why there was no visible parallax (the idea was if that the earth would move around the Sun, the stars would also have to move, but they were so far away that Earth's movement was irrelevant, they would have needed very accurate instruments to detect the stars movement because of Earth's movement)
This guy, did not think the universe moved around Earth, and also explained Mars's irregular orbit (Earth was closer to the Sun, and therefor would pass Mars, making the planed look like it's going backwards).

So.
Which theory won the contest and became the next holly theory of everything?
Geocentrism of course.
The guy who measured Earth in 390 BC was obviously not a credible source.

And geocentrism it was, for about 2000 years, and anyone who dared to oppose was considered a heretic.

Now we have 2 similar theories, and the story repeats itself.
1. The big bang theory
2. The God almighty created the universe theory

And again, the universe revolves around Earth.

I'm not saying I'm 100% sure about the big bang, but I am sure that we don't know much, if we know anything at all.

The God theory will never be updated.
The big bang theory can always be changed it it's wrong.
 
S

Sniffles

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Scientists were considered heretics, the church's held on to it's authority in every possible way, inquisiting rational thought.
No that's not actually true. The "science vs religion" thesis has long come under scholarly criticism for the past 50 years at least. Edward Grant has written about the key role Medieval Scholastics played in the development of modern theoretical science; and John Heilbron has written extensively about how the Catholic Church was a great patron to astronomical research in the 15th and 16th centuries and beyond. One major proof for this is that Nicholas Copernicus was himself an ordained priest, and dedicated a copy of his book proposing the Heliocentric theory to the Pope. Galileo even enjoyed the patronage of the Pope for his scientific research until he decided to abuse it. In many ways the Church's condemnations actually helped the development of science, like when the Inquisition condemned astrology as pagan superstition, which aided in the the development of what we call proper astronomy today.


And geocentrism it was, for about 2000 years, and anyone who dared to oppose was considered a heretic.
That's not true. As I said Copernicus was an ordained priest, and according to Science historian John Lindberg actually had more to fear of condemnation from his fellow scientists than that of the Church. Galileo got in trouble because of his views concerning scriptural interpretation, a subject he had no qualification nor business dabbling in. He was even warned several times to stick to his scientific research and leave theology to the theologians. He didn't do that, and paid the price.

Now we have 2 similar theories, and the story repeats itself.
1. The big bang theory
2. The God almighty created the universe theory

And again, the universe revolves around Earth.

I'm not saying I'm 100% sure about the big bang, but I am sure that we don't know much, if we know anything at all.

The God theory will never be updated.
The big bang theory can always be changed it it's wrong.

I fail to see how this proves your case, considering the Big Bang theory was first proposed by the astronomer Georges Lemaître who was also an ordained Catholic priest.
 

guesswho

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I fail to see how this proves your case, considering the Big Bang theory was first proposed by the astronomer Georges Lemaître who was also an ordained Catholic priest.

My point was:
1. We used to think the universe revolves around Earth.
2. Now we think our God created the universe. (as if the universe still revolves around Earth)

It does not prove my point, since my point was "God doesn't exist", and that is unprovable. But it looks like a nice pattern. I shouldn't have written such a long post.

I don't know, from my perspective, the church encouraged scientific stagnation, because science threatened the church. Stagnation was also present in philosophy, since the church already provided answers to most philosophic questions.
 

Beargryllz

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Out of all the words posted here, I don't see any of them can be considered to assist in the formation of an argument against the existence of gods. We can make gods wherever, whenever, and however we want to. As much as we recreate a knowledge of the universe, so to do we reexamine what we want to elevate to divinity. The qualities we assign to Gods and gods change to best suit followers.
 

guesswho

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Is there such thing as an concrete argument against the existence of God?
 

Beargryllz

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Are you now arguing that arguing is useless? Because that would be an even greater stretch than arguing against the existence of god. The thread title is about an argument against the existence of god, but I cannot find it. If anything, this is a review of human behavior and the development of theories to explain our environment.
 

Lark

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I believe that religion is perrenial, it corresponds to a very human need, and its two elements are:

- An object of devotion
- An ethical framework

Pretty much all religions can be typified that way, also all the modern ideologies which share at the very least superficial similarities to religious precursors, science is also an ideology with a small i too and many of the battles between philosophers of science, ie Popper, Kuhn, even to a certain extent Wittgenstein, were ideological struggles.

Even non-theistic or athiestic religions exist, such as some varieties of buddhism, or by this definition humanism, if the object of devotion is man and mankind, which depending on were you stand will be the greatest virtue or greatest evil about humanism.

I'd question why you have a need to disprove the existence of God and attack traditional beliefs, its characteristic among young people but not really characteristic of anyone who have reached either mid life, either in chronological age or mindset.

I'm not one for believing that tradition qua tradition is good, that's patently absurd, there's too seriously erronious mindsets, one says this is new and therefore good, the other says this is old and therefore good. However, I'd say that surely the important thing is to be a reflective conservative (which is philosophically speaking and not necessarily politically or economically speaking) because otherwise you're squandering your inheritance.

Even if you dont believe in God or Christianity, I think there are bound to be better reasons that the fact that religion can be co-opted by the establishment/state and enlisted in its struggles, or a couple of now obscure battles between reason and revelation/heresy and truth. There's examples of the same things happening to or within science, which is to say there can be bad science, there can be bad religion, the existence of either doesnt negate the good of science or religion per se.

Also geocentricism or heliocentricism are only important in religious versus secular authority debates if the religious really buy into scriptural literalism or solo scripture, personally I think that either ARE heretical or rather idolatrous, religions based on anything other than compassion and love are false, especially those based on literary tastes.
 

Beargryllz

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For me that's proof.

So instead of the universe simply being, it was given to us by a benevolent amalgam of all that is toted as good?

This would reinforce the idea that we should do well unto others, because the universe is beautiful and full of wonder. If it was given to me, I would be happy. To think that a being gave the universe to you, wouldn't it be comforting and a gesture of kindness? The amalgam can be refined as needed, but as long as he/she/it exists and created the universe for us, we would align ourselves with that being and treat it as a friend? Yes?
 

wildcat

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For me that's proof.

Very much so.

The Christians take the idea even further.
For the Catholics, God is Catholic ..

For the Lutherans, Lutheran:
God waited all the time from the outset of the Big Bang to Luther to be born, so He can assign Himself to the Lutheran Church.
Actually He waited even longer.
Luther was born a Catholic. It was only the later Lutherans who were the true Lutherans.
It all boils down to where we are born.
Luther was born in a wrong place. He was born in an all-Catholic Europe.
A half-baked Lutheran, at best.
 

Lark

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Very much so.

The Christians take the idea even further.
For the Catholics, God is Catholic ..

For the Lutherans, Lutheran:
God waited all the time from the outset of the Big Bang to Luther to be born, so He can assign Himself to the Lutheran Church.
Actually He waited even longer.
Luther was born a Catholic. It was only the later Lutherans who were the true Lutherans.
It all boils down to where we are born.
Luther was born in a wrong place. He was born in an all-Catholic Europe.
A half-baked Lutheran, at best.

I dont really understand this, I'm catholic, at least if you mean roman catholic by that, and I dont believe that God is catholic, I believe God is God.
 

guesswho

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I'd question why you have a need to disprove the existence of God and attack traditional beliefs, its characteristic among young people but not really characteristic of anyone who have reached either mid life, either in chronological age or mindset.

I've also asked myself the 2 questions (for me they're separated)
1. Why do I need to disprove the existence of God?
There are many factors which can contribute to this.
I was a very religious kid, I remember this dream when the skies turned into the ceiling of a cathedral (orthodox cathedral- they have a ton of paintings) and God was there in the middle painted, not moving, and there were a lot of angels and beautiful colors everywhere.
But I stopped believing when I was 12.
I guess I have my personal reasons, strongly related to the God superstitions.

2. Why do so many older people believe in God, compared to the number of young people who believe?
I don't know, God becomes kind of a social thing, older people hang in churches like they hanged in bars when they were younger. :laugh:

Very much so.

The Christians take the idea even further.
For the Catholics, God is Catholic ..

For the Lutherans, Lutheran:
God waited all the time from the outset of the Big Bang to Luther to be born, so He can assign Himself to the Lutheran Church.
Actually He waited even longer.
Luther was born a Catholic. It was only the later Lutherans who were the true Lutherans.
It all boils down to where we are born.
Luther was born in a wrong place. He was born in an all-Catholic Europe.
A half-baked Lutheran, at best.

There are so many versions of God, in all cultures, yet the christian God personally transmitted the following sentence:
"Thou shall not have other gods before me"


I don't know.

I'd replace the bible with a code of ethics.
But man needs God.
It's an old need, rooted deeply into our minds.

Our God is 2011 years old.
 

Beorn

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There are so many versions of God, in all cultures, yet the christian God personally transmitted the following sentence:
"Thou shall not have other gods before me"

Neither the catholic or the protestant should worship a collection of theological concepts, but rather the God who is there. I don't believe our limitations in our knowledge about God prevents us from interacting with God. While it is true that my limitations are that of a prisoner bound by chains and incapable of reaching out and touching the jailor who is there it does not follow that jailor is limited by the chains and prevented from touching me.

And so I will worship no other God than the one who knows me.
 

wildcat

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I've also asked myself the 2 questions (for me they're separated)
1. Why do I need to disprove the existence of God?
There are many factors which can contribute to this.
I was a very religious kid, I remember this dream when the skies turned into the ceiling of a cathedral (orthodox cathedral- they have a ton of paintings) and God was there in the middle painted, not moving, and there were a lot of angels and beautiful colors everywhere.
But I stopped believing when I was 12.
I guess I have my personal reasons, strongly related to the God superstitions.

2. Why do so many older people believe in God, compared to the number of young people who believe?
I don't know, God becomes kind of a social thing, older people hang in churches like they hanged in bars when they were younger. :laugh:



There are so many versions of God, in all cultures, yet the christian God personally transmitted the following sentence:
"Thou shall not have other gods before me"


I don't know.

I'd replace the bible with a code of ethics.
But man needs God.
It's an old need, rooted deeply into our minds.

Our God is 2011 years old.

Our God is 2011 years old.
You said it, guesswho.
Congrats.
That is what the Lark boy and the others do not get.
An inconsistency.

In the cosmic set, he is too young.
The Big Bang took place before He was even born!
In the human context, He is too old.
Who wants to live 2011 years?
 

wildcat

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I dont really understand this, I'm catholic, at least if you mean roman catholic by that, and I dont believe that God is catholic, I believe God is God.

Your God is not Catholic then.
You are.
Why?
He said: Follow me.
You do not follow a non-Catholic as a Catholic.
 

KDude

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Galileo got in trouble because of his views concerning scriptural interpretation, a subject he had no qualification nor business dabbling in.

I can see some of the rest of your points, but I think that's silly. Galileo was qualified to interpret scripture because he could simply read.
 

guesswho

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Christianity is one of the Roman empire's greatest legacy. They conquered politheistic countries.

Romania had a multitude of gods before they were conquered, and we assimilated their culture like no others. Hence the name of "romanus".

The old gods fell quickly under the unity of one country and one God, something which was a premiere at that time.
 
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