There is no god

[OldKingCole]

Inspired by another thread … I was surprised by the level of atheism professed … as I always though I was in a tiny, tiny minority.
would be interested to see the MN response.

IABU - there is a god
IANBU - there is no god

Utter bollocks.

@BarkAscending Eh?? You've gone off at a completely bizarre tangent. What has gender ideology got to do with anything? I'm gender critical myself, but I'm not talking about intellectual, navel-gazing elites in American ivory towers! I'm saying that in parts of the world where people only have access to basic education, belief in a god of some kind is much more prevalent than it is in urban, educated parts of Europe. You can't possibly argue with that!

@Woodenheart33 Nope. Atheist through and through here. Not hard wired for faith at all. Not raised with it and merely find it mysterious, nonsensical and baffling.

I had a concrete sign from God as a child. A miracle happened to me when I was praying for something that can not possibly be explained in any other way. My logical brain tries to be sceptical but I can’t deny what happened. I feel lucky in a way that I know for sure there is a God of some kind. I am not religious but I know that God exists.

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Noah Yuval Harari’s best seller, Sapiens. He talks about how a shift from numerous gods - of trees, the sea, storms etc - to monotheism tracks the shift from being hunter gatherers to organised agricultural economies - because of the need to organise very large numbers of people and incentivise them to follow orders, broadly speaking! I loved this book.

‘I had a concrete sign from God as a child. A miracle happened to me when I was praying for something that can not possibly be explained in any other way.’

what was the sign?

Yes I don't doubt you for a minute. God works in mysterious ways. My prayers are often answered in a way that I could never have imagined.

Herroyal it is hard to explain, but I was at my Grandparents playing and a pack of pink panther themed cards that I loved blew away over their balcony into the valley below. I went to look for them and found most of them but my favourite one was missing. It really upset me as I was only young and I loved that card. I had definitely been playing with it at their house that morning. When I got home, I was lying on my bed on my own crying and I prayed and prayed to God to get it back. I was saying I would always believe in him if I could only get it back. It then floated down and landed on my bed. I know it sounds made up. No one believed me at the time, but it definitely happened. I can’t not believe now because I felt like I made a promise in return for that favour!

YANBU. Made up story.

Same

Speaking in terms of probabilities, the notion that the world came from nothing is simply impossible. Philosophically speaking, there has to be a God.

I also quite like the Teleological Argument but I think that, even leaving that aside, the evidence for the existence of an Intelligent Designer is overwhelming.

I'm genuinely amazed that there are rational people in the world who don't believe in God. It takes about 5 minutes of basic reasoning to realise there has to be.

Also - for me belief in God is not wishful thinking. In many ways my life would be a lot easier if I didn't believe in Him, but I have to because the evidence compels me to.

@Mummadeze so god ignores the frantic prayers of people caught up in natural disasters, people with disabilities, the parents of dying children, but decided to intervene to return a toy to you?

wow. He’s a real dick in that case.

Try Wicca or certain versions of paganism where instead of a god or God, they celebrate the divine feminine.

Just rubbish. There is no way to determine the probability of God or God's existing that doesn't ultimately come down to blind faith. You can tie yourself into whatever knot you want trying to show otherwise but it's all based on faith and nothing more.

For some people that's enough, for others it is not.

1.Change exists in nature (evidence)
2.Change is the actuation of potentiality and an essential chain of actuations cannot go to infinite regress. A fully actual Prime Mover is necessary (logic)
3.That Prime Mover is what all men call God (conclusion)

3.That Prime Mover is what all men call God (conclusion)

No, a massive leap. Inventing this 'prime mover' - a solution more complicated than the problem it purports to solve - and naming it 'god' is not a logical conclusion.

So yep, like I said.

Would love you to try to actually show using, y'know, actual science, why God has a probability of 1.

Have a go. Should be worth a laugh.

@Mummadeze sweet though that is, you must see that is a coincidence -
I believed in god as a child and often preyed for things to happen. I once prayed for a white Xmas and we had a big one. As an 8 year old I thought that was because my prayer was answered.
as an adult I know that isn’t true. And if there was a god there would be far more elderly people praying that it wouldn’t…

A poster asked the question.
Why is homosexuality banned from a biblical perspective?
I answered.
Some tried to deflect by arguing about the translation.
The initial command was to be fruitful and become many.
All sexual behavior outside of marriage was forbidden.

In my mind this is simple.

The statement you're quoting is a logical premise.

So I'm waiting with bated breath to have a laugh.

In my mind this is simple.

Which is why the black and white of religious dogma is so comforting to many.

The fact that it doesn't touch the sides of the complexity of real human life is why it cannot be taken seriously.

‘A poster asked the question.
Why is homosexuality banned from a biblical perspective?
I answered.
Some tried to deflect by arguing about the translation.

The initial command was to be fruitful and become many.
All sexual behavior outside of marriage was forbidden.’

So now we have marriage equality being gay is no linger a ‘sun’.
phew! As a woman married to a woman, and we have children together, that IS a relief.

@PrincessConstance your answer was predicated on a massive preference swing in the general population. There's no likelihood of that happening. Homosexuality is a minority preference (that isn't a value judgement, it's a biological reality) that occurs in species other than man.

Forbidding sexual behaviour outside marriage makes sense in a society where it is important to know who is related to whom. These days we have DNA testing for that, so it becomes moot. Your book was written in its time and of its time, by people for their own purposes. That's why there have been so many versions of it.

Here's another piece of logical reasoning: I fit into my coat. My coat fits into my bag. Therefore I fit into my bag.

Logic can be used to manipulate. Logical fallacies are a thing.

I'm not a theologian but I don't remember thr bible ever saying 'don't be gay because IVF is expensive'.

@ShodanLives 😅😅😅😅