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I don't see how God could plausibly exist (Christian definition of God)

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figsfiggyfigs

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YWIR...

I'm only affected insofar as anything I discuss on the internet can affect me you know.....

And no I think you should believe in whatever you want to.

But you shouldn't belittle those whose beliefs are not your own.

I don't necessarily believe he was belittling. I don't see it as belittling, I think Nic just does not understand why it exists.


When did he belittle it?
 

Nicodemus

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Tbh, I had a hard time believing in the concept myself initially. My current belief was set through personal experiences.
Would you mind telling us what experiences? I really do wonder how one comes to adopt the faith.

]ps: I'm belittling your belittling.

say that 10 times.
I am German: 'belittling' is much easier to pronounce than 'something'.
 

murkrow

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I know I'm jumping in late but could someone throw me the "Christian definition of God"?

I don't know which side of this I stand on.

If no one responds I'm going to go with "Ultimately perfect and infinite being" and join the pro-God team.
 
F

figsfiggyfigs

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Nic, I answered you via PM since my reasons are what I would define as personal for me to share.
 

guesswho

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Why believe in God? Why perform irrational rituals?
Why do people need to believe in God? I'm talking about the Christian God, as this topic is about this. The.. I'm the only God, and the others are fake and you will be punished if you believe in other Gods.

I dislike the bible because it perpetuates irrationality. I don't know, it's just repulsive.

Let's examine this:
I'm the only God, and the others are fake and you will be punished if you believe in other Gods.
How does one God proclaim itself the only god. What's wrong with the other gods in other cultures. People can believe in whatever the fuck they want. Why must there be conflict between religions? For me they're all a pile of crap anyways, but people fighting, dying, in the name of religion, that's even dumber. George Bush, talking about god in the war of terror. What the fuck!?!? God takes sides?
Oh so now...God loves the USA.

God will make justice?????

Yea...and the Earth is flat.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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I don't see how this thread can plausibly exist. Because this thread is irrational, and as we all know irrational things don't exist. ;)
 

Lark

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Why believe in God? Why perform irrational rituals?
Why do people need to believe in God? I'm talking about the Christian God, as this topic is about this. The.. I'm the only God, and the others are fake and you will be punished if you believe in other Gods.

I dislike the bible because it perpetuates irrationality. I don't know, it's just repulsive.

Let's examine this:
I'm the only God, and the others are fake and you will be punished if you believe in other Gods.
How does one God proclaim itself the only god. What's wrong with the other gods in other cultures. People can believe in whatever the fuck they want. Why must there be conflict between religions? For me they're all a pile of crap anyways, but people fighting, dying, in the name of religion, that's even dumber. George Bush, talking about god in the war of terror. What the fuck!?!? God takes sides?
Oh so now...God loves the USA.

God will make justice?????

Yea...and the Earth is flat.

Yeah well the golden rule and unconditional love, forgiveness and reflection in a spirit of contrition and gratitude are irrational as all hell and likely to make the world a miserable place.

Lets see about some of the rational ideas then, the mass extermination of individuals with birth defects? The mass extermination of "mental defectives" or sterilisation? That criminals or "degenerates" can be spotted by their features or physique?

Its possible to cherry pick from either the bible or modernism if that's what you want to do to protray either as irrational, ie a bad thing or using the word irrational in a prejorative sense.
 

Qlip

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I just read the OT, which I should've done in the first place. It doesn't sound like it was meant to evaluate Christianity per se, which is what I was doing.. but just general Christian concept of God. This may have already said, but there is are a lot of ways that God is believed to exist in Christianity, some simple and concrete, some very complex and mystical.

I'm guessing someone, or mutiple people up there in the thread already have said what I'm going to say.

The trouble with the whole concept is if you suppose the idea of a God, you are talking about not only someone who created things, time and space, but exists outside of them. In this context, the words 'exist outside' sound like intelligible words, and therefore words we can discuss. But, actually they mean absolutely nothing that can be evaluated by us.

There may be ways to understand this type of God, and I actually believe this, but it's not through discourse.
 

Beorn

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Beefeater, how did you come to be a christian?

I became a Christian through God in his sovereignty claiming me as his own before the beginning of time. He then set about creating the circumstances in the world that would bring me to him. First, he sent his son to die as a ransom for my sins. He then resurrected his son so that I might be united with him and partake in his glory.
2000 years later he placed me in the home of loving parents and surrounded me with a community who would teach me about him and show me how to love him.
While within this community God regenerated my soul and gave me the holy spirit making it possible for me to love him. My belief in him is the natural out working of this supernatural act.

My principle is grounded in biological processes just as yours is grounded in the assumption of the existence of god. The grounds that virtually no one doubts are mine.

Don't be silly. We both believe in biological processes. These are not competing or inconsistent ideas. It's just that you don't believe in anything beyond biological processes.


Thus my maxim reads: Do what you want if you can.

I'm just gonna let that sit there and we can stew on that for a while.

I do not condemn children for believing in the tooth fairy and I do not condemn christians for believing in the lies their parents have told them. But I am not going to pretend that their beliefs were true.

The problem is that if everything is biologically based you have no means of determining the truth. You can only say what gives you pleasure and what does not. In that sense you can only say what is true for you and thus that renders truth rather pointless.




No one can believe their own lies.

People live in denial all the time.


--------

There have been several posts that have complained about this post:

Nicodemus is being consistent in some sense in that he continues to operate on the basis of what gives him pleasure and what does not. But, because this is biologically based and not principle based it inevitably leads to inconsistency between action and thought.

The obvious example of hypocrisy is that atheists condemn christians for living lives based upon illusions, but even though they may believe that they are grounded in the truth atheists do not live lives in accordance to the natural workings of their beliefs. That is they do try to live with a sense of meaning and purpose even though they beliefs would make it quite obvious that there is no meaning or purpose to life.

So unlike Christians atheists know that what they believe is an illusion created by themselves and yet persist in their fantasy of significance.

But, I think people need to realize that post was being backed up by this previous post and if you have a problem with my conclusions then you need to deal with the previous post. It contains much of the reasoning to my conclusions.

I suggest moving the last few pages to a seperate thread about nihilism (or the graveyard), since this one was supposed to be about the classic debate about evidence for or against the existence of the Christian god. Nihilism can be a consequence of atheism, but it is NOT the same and not a direct consequence! Besides, this has turned into a personal beef between two members. Less muscle flexing and more debating, please!

LOL
Translation: This thread is supposed to be about how Christianity sucks and not how Atheism sucks.

You didn’t complain about Eck bringing up rape and murder in the bible did you?

Consequences definitely have some place in this discussion.

Moreover, I was talking about evidence based reasoning... I was explaining why it sucks and is a waste of time.

Instead of making blanket assertions and trying to get my posts removed I would appreciate it if you would respond to my posts and explain where my reasoning is wrong in regards to atheism leading to nihilism logically.

I think part of the problem is that you assume meaning HAS to be absolute to have value, where existentialists define meaning as an investment and an act of creation...

Yes, If you redefine meaning and value you don’t need God.


You might still not end up accepting it, but at least you would see the rationality behind it.


I don’t think I understand the point of having an appreciation for an idea that is in part rational but ultimately false.


-----
I’m going to be away for 2 weeks. Maybe I can delve more into the existentialism stuff when I return.
 

Nicodemus

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The problem is that if everything is biologically based you have no means of determining the truth. You can only say what gives you pleasure and what does not. In that sense you can only say what is true for you and thus that renders truth rather pointless.
Unless you want to enter into a really pointless debate about idealism or the problem of induction, I cannot see where your conclusion is coming from.

People live in denial all the time.
Until they face the facts...
 

Red Herring

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I don't even know what you ar taking about. I never tried to have your oosts removed and I never refused discussing the consequences. Since Nicodemus defends nihilism and thee was a personal feud with Disco, I suggested moving that part, I didnlt even think about you, Beefeate! As I said, nihilism can be a consequence, but it is not the same as atheism. The OP ws about arguments for and against. I have no idea what makes you translate my post as "only criticism of christianity, please" - that looks like a willful misintepretation. I clearly see the ethical problems involved with my own atheism and contrary to Nicodemud I deeply respect othe peoples' faith. The aggression of somebelievers in this thread bothers me but so does arrogant atheism. 3hatls why I said less muscle fletching and more arguments. Eithe you think faith is inherntly seperated from reason, than there is no ooint in this discussion or you follow St Thomas of Aquinus in hisclaim that reason two can lead to God and that He left the rational door open. In that case bring it on! Peguy made one of the few valuable contributions with his video (even thoug I consider the arguments in it rather weak). More of that, please!
 

erm

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Instead of making blanket assertions and trying to get my posts removed I would appreciate it if you would respond to my posts and explain where my reasoning is wrong in regards to atheism leading to nihilism logically.

Take whatever world-view you find Nihilistic, and if I'd rather live in it over your non-Nihilistic world, what's the point of this "meaning" that Nihilism denies? Since "meaning" is a very vague word (it can be physical, mental etc), I'm using this approach to see if I can deal with all the definitions out there. Otherwise I find Nihilist arguments tend to define meaning as something that doesn't exist, without justifying the chosen definition, making it a useless semantic argument ("useless" since there are some useful semantic arguments out there. Wittgenstein:)).
 

guesswho

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Yeah well the golden rule and unconditional love, forgiveness and reflection in a spirit of contrition and gratitude are irrational as all hell and likely to make the world a miserable place.

Lets see about some of the rational ideas then, the mass extermination of individuals with birth defects? The mass extermination of "mental defectives" or sterilisation? That criminals or "degenerates" can be spotted by their features or physique?

Its possible to cherry pick from either the bible or modernism if that's what you want to do to protray either as irrational, ie a bad thing or using the word irrational in a prejorative sense.

Unconditional love and forgiveness ?
I don't like the idea that a religion must tell me to show unconditional love, and also telling me that if I do not show unconditional love, I will be a sinner. Therefor be punished and get my ass kicked.

What..people can't be good unless they're told to be good? Unless they're afraid of punishment? God fears people are actually bad, and he must tell them to be good?! As if they can't make the difference between good and bad?

I hate the idea of a reward/punishment system to condition behavior.

1.Saying prayers is irrational. God doesn't hear you. In my culture you are encouraged to say as many prayers as you can, repeat them the whole day if you can. There are holly books who specify how many times you must say the prayer to take effect. I am not catholic, I am orthodox.
2.Not eating specific types of food, because they will make you impure is irrational.
3.God also forbids sex. I can't have sex because God will punish me, and I will end up burning in hell. Does that make sense? Sex only for procreation?
4.God forbids other religions.
5.God forbids lying, even though people lie a lot.
6.God forbids envy, so if you get envious you'll score some hell points.
7.God forbids the usage of obscene words, because they are bad, and you will score some more hell points if you say them.

And so on.
What does God do?
1. He offers rewards, if you do what he says, he will give you cookies in the afterlife.
2. He offers punishments.
3. He brings justice but only in the afterlife, therefor not stopping nuclear weapons, wars, evil.

God creates things. Everything. But you aren't really supposed to explore this everything. You must trust God and he will take care of you. If somehow somebody gets some brilliant idea and he is unlucky enough to live in the 15th century he will be considered a heretic by the church and be incinerated. Many so called 'heretics' weren't actually heretics, but it took some time for people to realize that.

Water can't be holy, that doesn't make any sense. There is no difference between normal water, and holly water.

In my country the church owns a lot of lands and forests, as if the direct servants of god need extra space to perform their rituals.

Again, I have nothing against the general concept of God. I just don't like the Christian God-
 
A

A window to the soul

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^ :chillpill::chillpill: nobody is chomping at the bit to "kick your ass"; no, not even God.
 
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