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

Constantine not Constantinople- bloody auto correct

This is a very insightful point. And one that a deeply religious friend made when he moved to the UK from a different country, where he'd never encountered an athiest before (or at least none who were stupid enough to admit they were in that culture!).

He told me how shocked he was at people's generosity in the UK, when most of the people he'd met here were not religious. He told me how in his deeply religious home country people observed religion out of fear/ custom, gave money to charity because it was required by the religion (and resented it). And he was amazed the people here, with no religion, did amazing charitable things for their own sake, not for their own supposed good in the afterlife. It massively changed his perspective on it all.

Many here would benefit from a good reading of some Sartre and Aristotle.

This says it all, really.

Critical OBJECTIVE thinking.
Try it, I know it's uncomfortable, as biases, subjective long held ideas and feeling have to be put to one side.

That's rich coming from you

'What did the man say when caught doing the forbidden thing? Yeah, right, he blamed the woman.'

Men wrote most of history, and as we explore more for women's voices we start getting more balanced views...

if you're going to lift stuff from some homophobic website at least acknowledge it

i’m not sure quoting from a book that essentially is made up by humans, and has been edited over the years depending on the cultural norms of the time, adds anything to the argument that god exists.

Particularly as the ‘believers’ have a habit of picking and choosing which bits they take literally and which bits they don’t, as suits them. You have the mad evangelicals who love the Old Testament and reckon we’re all going to hell, for example and then more moderate churches who ignore the OT and focus on the NT and the ‘teachings’ of Jesus.

Yes exactly- now if you manage to see the bible (and all other similar texts) for what they are - guides to self realisation embedded in stories made up of cultural norms then it might be useful. In th as t way it leads you to God, but God might be not quite what you expect.

@OMG12 That's a great way to put it.
I just can't believe in a higher power that condemns certain people for being exactly who they were born to be.
Nor one that condemns Jews over Christians, Sikhs over Muslims, Catholics over Protestants and on and on...
Have your faith, just leave other people alone and stop trying to harm them or their human and civil rights because of that faith.

If you see a God. It’s the source of everything- the alpha and the omega (and everything in between). God is everything and nothing, straight and gay (and nothing), female and male (and nothing). If someone wants to love God they must love every emanation of God.

Humans are divine, everyone of them. Recognise the divinity in self and everyone else. The only evil lies in rejecting this “love one another as I have loved you”

The parts of the bible that don’t treat every person in this way are blasphemous, denying the true nature of God in everyone and everything and prioritising earthly facades over heavenly truth . True knowledge of God (whatever you call that power/energy/source) is within, this is what should be reflected without.

@OMG12 that's the most rational view of faith I've seen pretty much anywhere.

Wish o could claim credit but it’s a view largely nicked off the Neoplatonists. But for the use of religion in power struggles and control it would probably have been a far more common view but is still very much present in Western Esotericism

Chances are God will be an alien

Maybe god is space rather than a creature from it.

or alternatively someone dreaming,

there’s some interesting theories about our universe being a black hole reflecting what’s going on in another universe

lots of ideas - probably none provable in our life times

Saying there is no God is about as rational as saying that if a hurricane swept over a junk site it could create a jumbo jet. Or that a book could be created by ink and paper spontaneously falling from the sky and constructing itself into a volume.

No, those are false analogies.

We know how the processes of evolution work. We don't yet have the full story on abiogenesis but we've not been studying it for very long and there are already several theories.

There's nothing remotely analogous to 'a hurricane in a junkyard'.

I have had to come to the conclusion that it is spiritual blindness, that God reveals himself to those whlm he chooses and blinds others

Why?

I’m always surprised how many people do believe in a god.

The Cosmological Argument from Contingency:
Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

This is a circular argument. Point two is just a statement supported by no evidence; if the universe must have an explanation, that explanation is not necessarily God. You just want it to be.

Your other arguments are variations of the first: circular and therefore meaningless unless you have already chosen to make the leap of faith and believe.

It honestly blows my mind that people can truly believe in it🤯like whattttttttt😱

I remember when DS was little he explained that God sat in the clouds next to Father Christmas and the tooth fairy - I think he’d got thinks right.

My views are complicated but yours are beautiful, @OMG12

Logic demands that God exists.

The Cosmological Argument from Contingency:

Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.

1. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
2. The universe exists.
3. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

The kalam cosmological argument based on the beginning of the universe:

P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The Universe began to exist.
Conclusion. Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

The Moral Argument:

P1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

The Teleological Argument from Fine Tuning:

P1: If God does not exist, then it was extremely unlikely that the universe would permit life.
P2: But if God exists, then it was very likely that the universe would permit life.
Conclusion: Therefore, that the universe permits life is strong evidence that God exists.

The Ontological Argument:

We conceive of God as a being than which no greater can be conceived.
This being than which no greater can be conceived either exists in the mind alone or both in the mind and in reality.
Assume that this being than which no greater can be conceived exists in the mind alone.
Existing both in the mind and in reality is greater than existing solely in the mind.
This being, existing in the mind alone, can also be conceived to exist in reality.
This being existing in the mind alone is not therefore the being than which no greater can be conceived. (See statement 1 above.)
Therefore, this being than which no greater can be conceived exists in reality as well as exists in the mind.

(reposting because I requested my original post to be deleted, as I needed to modify something in it)

@CrimsonPostBox your arguments are still all circular and still all meaningless, as they are all predicated on the leap of faith. They're just a pretty expansion of the God of the Gaps fallacy.