I have absolute proof that there is no God.

[seeker]

I've just seen in our local paper that a little girl who lives in our town has died. She has been the focus of much prayer since she was taken ill last year. Her parents were thoroughly good Christian people who trusted God absolutely.

The is no way that a loving, omnipotent, beneficent God who notes even a sparrow falling would not have answered these people's prayer.

So, if I had even a scintilla of doubt, it is now gone. There is no God.

Yh, Juggling, the (imo) more rigorous of the researchers pointed out that observant people tend to live sober lifestyles, be non-smokers, etc. It's impossible to test for every variable at once, so generalisations have to be made.

Meditation alone has been rigorously tested with reference to brain activity. It promotes increases in grey matter and connectivity. It has also been tested for stress reduction: good results and is now NHS prescribed (not in my region, though!)

So if the average age of dying amongst miners in 1900 was 50 for non Christians,it might be average 56 for Christian miners. God wouldnt allow it to be say 75 like today. Just to clarify, those figures are completely made up, but I tried to use an example to try and explain things.

I really appreciate your efforts amillion, but you can't just make things up! My point was that ALL the miners were christian and a fat lot of good it did them.

V. true, Molly. There were very few non-christians in 1900 Britain. And all your miners would've been members of the same chapel.

Nothing "snidey" about facts, dream.

I am saying exactly what I think and not aiming it at anyone in particular. Largely because when I do I get completely ignored....as I was by you.

But, with any luck, someone may actually read through the thread without posting - someone who just may be willing to think for once in their life and throw off this clear and total nonsense that is fogging up the otherwise decent minds of so many people.

If we're talking about statistics - I'm going to bring up the elephant in the room.

One statistic that has been bourne out time and time again is that the greater the level of education, the greater the tendency towards atheism.

"All thinking men are atheists" said Ernest Hemingway. And I agree with him.

""All thinking men are atheists" said Ernest Hemingway. And I agree with him."

I don't agree with that, despite not being a believer, and whilst you can bring up the correlation with education, it's a low blow to imply that all those you're debating with are stupid. Also it's obviously not true, there are many many examples of intelligence and deeply religious people.

• intelligent and deeply religious people

In fact, is this even true? "One statistic that has been bourne out time and time again is that the greater the level of education, the greater the tendency towards atheism." The wikipedia article suggests that the evidence is unclear - although of course wikipedia could be biased one way or the other.

Crikey, If I've ignored a post deliberately addressed to me I apologise, perhaps you can point me to it. If you mean your posts in general, well I do find your posting style aggressive, and I don't think you actually take on board other points of view, as you said your motivation for posting is to try to convince believers they are wrong, an atheist missionary if you will. I don't mind if you believe or not, I don't believe (although you seem suspicious of this claim, and I accept I'm posting as devils advocate here).

Sciencelover, I believe firmly in myself. I ask myself "what can/should I do" and tend to find I know the answer. If I don't, I find a reliable person to talk it over with! It's exactly the same as following a religion, only with fewer limitations (and no false promises).

One of things that annoys me most about discussions like this is the way believers appropriate 'spirituality' for themselves. As if no-one else can be compassionate, ethical, reflective and so on. Several fellow atheists have posted about moral compass; by and large, I agree that acting ethically from choice can be worth more than 'doing the right thing' by some book of rules.

By the way, all this discussion has been making me ponder how morality works from a non-religious point of view - what it's based on, how it can be justified. I've started another thread on it and would be interested to hear what you lot think.

they spake with tongues, and prophesied
I had some of that stuff, Sciencelover, in the 70s

I reckon I've done some quite good prophesying too garlic - but basically I put it down to having developed some wisdom over the years and spouting out all the thoughts that come to me without much censure

Science lover - Mark 16 says "15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

I don't understand how we are to think that is just for the apostles?

So if it you are at the very least conferring that those verses suggest that some believers will occasionally have the ability to heal and what not, why is there no evidence for miraculous healing at all?

Imagine if there was an additional verse in that comission that said 'and they will be able to fly'. Imagine how it would throw the whole bible into suspicion. That's what it's like for me. It's like we've read those verses so many times that we've automatically watered our logic down to reverse think why we don't see those things happening.

And what will happen now is another Christian will post a lengthy explanation about why those verses have nothing to do with us now. How come the creator god of the universe who apparently created a fully formed breathing human from dust made such a poor fist of getting his message across in a clear and concise way. Seems like no two Christians agree in even fairly basic stuff.

Amillionyears, in summary (since you don't have time to listen to it) I am right and you are wrong (sorry).

Others, I don't see what value quotes from the bible are in this thread. It has already been stated (correctly) that the information within the bible is politically biased, superseded by modern knowledge and interpreted and translated poorly over the ages. How is it useful in this debate?

I can repeat masses of unsubstantiated text from Internet blogs, but it is unreliable rubbish, why should the bible be treated any differently?

CrikeyOHare, your Tue 21-Aug-12 18:39:16 makes hella lot of sense to me.

Is it time for me to ask why God has never reattatched a severed limb again?

Technodad, what you say about translations of the bible is simply incorrect. I know quite a lot about the practice and history of bible translation, read Hebrew and Greek, and the translations we have now are pretty good. Yes, there are questions and debates wrt the translations of very old texts, of course there are, but none that would destroy anyone's faith (in my opinion as a Christian and therefore someone who knows what the big issues for Christians are, and also as someone who knows bible translation / scholarship and therefore knows what the big issues are there too.) Unless you turn out to be a biblical scholar, which is unlikely, I'm surprised that you'd make that kind of baseless assertion without any evidence. Kind of undermines your credibility as someone who values logic and evidence, and suggests that maybe you're as biased and selective in your use if data as anyone.

Seeker - how do you know that hasn't happened? And if a limb were to re-attach, would you ascribe that to God, or to freak event which science hasn't yet got the words for, goes to show the power of the human mind etc etc? Honest answer please.....! :)

Holo. It doesn't matter one iota how accurate the translations are if there's no evidence that it's the word of god. Same logic you'd apply to other ancient religious texts.