To think that God doesn't exist and is a manmade concept

[Perimama]

As it is taboo to talk religion politics with people socially, I often wonder whether many people think like me. As a species we have dismissed all the other "Gods" ie Greek gods etc. What makes the Christian God any different? I wasn't born into a religious household although I was baptized Christian. The whole concept seems so unbelievable to me.

I just thought it was interesting. We all seem to be having a general discussion about religion now, as OP has long since disappeared after making only two posts.

Yip.

I wish creationists would give it a rest with this "you can't get something from nothing" line that they frequently use in their arguments, because they are misunderstanding the principle, and misapplying in an irrelevant setting.

Atheists do not claim the origin of the universe involved "creating something from nothing" in the first place, so claiming that can not be done as a means to disprove and discredit Atheistic position is a total nonsense.

I know of some already (including myself). I will dig them up and post them here, if that's okay with everyone. I should be working, after having lost all day to a powercut yesterday, but I'll be back...

Even if it could be proven that a god created the universe, there is still no evidence that a god currently exists, so the atheist viewpoint would remain valid.

"You can't get something from nothing"

"If people evolved from apes why are there still apes?"

Some people seem to have failed to notice that these conundrums have been solved.....

@crikeymikeydoyoulikey " just thought it was interesting. We all seem to be having a general discussion about religion"

Oh, I see. You seemed to be expecting it to be a surprise to us that the Bible references historical characters.

Hmm. Ok, this is semantic, but I'm not sure you could really credibly continue to use the term "atheist" in this scenario, given that atheism is the denial of the existence of the divine.

In a scenario where the divine have been proven to exist, even if they/it no longer do, then I would certainly concede that atheism is proven false, although I would have no issue whatsoever accepting the fact that the divine no longer exists.

I think this comes down to personal convictions and definitions of atheism though, but for me at least, atheism would no longer be a valid position because the fundamental definition no longer fits, and I'd be inclined toward the position that if the divine existed at one point, then it would surely follow that the could exist again at some point in the future. I mean, most species of dinosaur no longer exist, but I'm not a dino-denier, and it is possible that science could develop the technology to revive species from DNA, or that in the distant future the planet evolves once again to a state where it could support dinosaur species and they evolve naturally. Unlikely, but not entirely impossible. If dinos could make a comeback, then I'd concede that divine beings likely could as well.

Religion was just a way to control the masses.

It was necessary before most people were educated.

natural selection is a theory which many feel has not applied to humans at least as a species. I think there is some weight to the counter argument.

It was very wise of man to create God.

Quite a number of people proudly declare that God does not exist. I wish they would turn their powerful intellects to ponder the question why mankind felt the need to invent God.

@eardefender
"natural selection is a theory which many feel has not applied to humans at least as a species. I think there is some weight to the counter argument."

Oils you say some more about this?

Ancient people were not uneducated at all. For example, their maritime knowledge was exceptional and advanced. Ancient people also had deep faith as we can see from the monuments they left behind. I think that religious and spiritual connection and experience is innate to us as human beings and its part of our shared subconcious.

@Achildbelongstoitsmother "I wish they would turn their powerful intellects to ponder the question why mankind felt the need to invent God."

Surely lots of people on this thread alone have covered this point?

Not enough, Kate, not enough.

And the few that have, haven't progressed past the conspiracy theory theory.

People need a God. Kate, and I'm sure you can encourage them to realise it. You must stop our secular society going to hell in a handcart.

Off topic for this thread but some feel that it is illogical to say that the fittest survived, they clearly didn't, natural disasters killed so many. The first wave of humans to come to the British isles suffered an ice age and may have all perished. There is so much we don't know about our history. Natural selection may make some sense to a degree but history and evolution is more messy and complex than that. Its an oversimplification to say that the best always survive and get to breed. In the case of humans it was status not health or genetics that meant who could breed or not. It still is, we don't have natural selection now. There are many things people simply cannot survive no matter how strong they are. If a group of animals lived in a stable population in a stable location for long enough then natural selection may flourish but Humans i am not so sure about as we haven't had those conditions and our way of relating to each other and the world is very complex.

You must stop our secular society going to hell in a handcart

Oh for goodness sake.

Go look at every extinct, defunct, dead, non-existent historic civilisation. Every single one of them was non-secular, so evidently, belief in the divine does absolutely nothing to prevent "society going to hell in a handcart".

You could even look at Mayans, for example, where evidence suggests that utter devotion to their system of worship was, in fact, a significant factor in their terminal decline.

You have made a very interesting point. There is an idea that we should all be upholding our religious communities churches etc even if we are atheist because we have nothing else and that atheism does not offer anything to those without faith in terms of life markers like baptism and funerals, marriages etc. No structure to the week, no moral code, no marking the seasons. No centre of a community to uphold values and help people. The idea being that until secular society creates a viable alternative to replace faith based practice then we need to continue with the old.

@Achildbelongstoitsmother

Am I somehow missing a joke? I don't understand your post.

A few people were educated but not the masses.

The most obvious one I can think of is C S Lewis who rejected Christianity as a teenager and became an atheist, especially after his experience in World War 1. He became a Christian and was one of the most influential theologians in the world. When he came to believe in god he described himself as the most dejected and reluctant convert in the whole of England.

Sadly I'm not funny, so you are not missing a joke.

My point is that more thought is required by us all. We need to listen as well as speak. We need to think rather than argue. We need to learn rather than want to be right.

I'm impressed with eardefender's post above. I found that very thought provoking.

31% of the world's population are religious and half of them Christians. In times before universal education the core tenets of the Bible were what educated people, the basic principles of all religions are very similar.
People add to them or make new versions and use religious teachings to control the vulnerable and get them to do what they want. Look at the wealth of the Catholic Church and the poverty round the world. The themes of good over evil are the same themes in all the big cultural phenomenon too, even Harry Potter! 'God' is whatever you want it to be.

@crikeymikeydoyoulikey : "everything that has a beginning must have a cause"

Interestingly, this is challenged by certain interpretations of quantum mechanics (QM).

When Albert Einstein famously refused to believe that "God plays dice", he was referring to QM's implications of essential randomness, with further implications of non-causal happenings (including 'beginnings', such as for instance the start of a particular caesium-137 atom's decay ... or, indeed, what has become known as the Big Bang).

And, well, Einstein's reservations turned out to be misplaced. As far as we can tell (and perhaps modulo more outré interpretations such as 'many worlds' which anyway wouldn't rescue that premise in the argument for theism), events at the quantum level do have uncaused beginnings.

There are many fallacies in that argument for theism, @crikeymikeydoyoulikey; far too many to list, and some of them fairly gross. But I thought you might be interested in a particular way scientific advances falsify one of its major premises.

[Of course QM is the most successful physical theory ever. It just works - predicts and explains - better than any other theory.]

But are you confident that the people would be richer if the Catholic Church did not exist. And if so, why?
If man created religion did he also create capitalism. Or is Capitalism just a natural occurring system of organising society?
Did the Catholic Church protect the poor against capitalism or vice-versa? Did the Catholic Church create capitalism or vive-versa?
If Capitalism controlled the Church why did the Church preach to help the poor, the sick and the needy? Was this just window-dressing?
So many questions. It is so much easier to just declare religion is crap.

@Achildbelongstoitsmother "My point is that more thought is required by us all. We need to listen as well as speak. We need to think rather than argue. We need to learn rather than want to be right."

I'm sorry- I still don't understand.