Am I an atheist?

[thirdworld19 0]

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BTW, I just heard a story on the news this morning about a mail lady who was on her route when she looked and sees a 1 yr. old baby leaning out of a second story window. It fell and she caught it, unharmed.
I will always call something like that a miracle, but never happenchance.

What about all of the children who have fallen out of windows to their death? Is that also a miracle?

[jakee 1,257]

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Maybe not if you're talking about a crap game, but the way politicians use the term, 'the less fortunate, winners in life's lottery, etc' insinuates that someone has been smiled on from above.

Wait, you're saying that God exists because politicians insinuate that he does? Fan-fucking-tabulous

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BTW, I just heard a story on the news this morning about a mail lady who was on her route when she looked and sees a 1 yr. old baby leaning out of a second story window. It fell and she caught it, unharmed.
I will always call something like that a miracle, but never happenchance.

Objection 1) So what about all the babies who die when no-one's looking? Are they less worthy?

Objection 2) What about free will?

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Science can never explain something like this.

Thank you Dr, for that learned opinion

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Royd 0]

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BTW, I just heard a story on the news this morning about a mail lady who was on her route when she looked and sees a 1 yr. old baby leaning out of a second story window. It fell and she caught it, unharmed.
I will always call something like that a miracle, but never happenchance.

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Objection 1) So what about all the babies who die when no-one's looking? Are they less worthy?

Their number was up. They just happened to be a baby. Why doesn't everyone get to live to be 100yr. old? It's only my observation, but I see people who die relatively young, other than from stupidity, seem to have some kind of internal clock that they are aware of. They strive to do good with their lives.

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Objection 2) What about free will?

What about free will? You mean like, I come to a fork in the road, and the path I take leads me to a certain situation where the things that I have experienced in life allow me to help someone who is struggling with something, whereas, if I'd chosen the other path, I'd just be skipping merrily down the road?
Since noone can see around the bend, I will continue to believe that I was guided down the path I've taken.
Either way, I'd say we're both fatalists.

[jakee 1,257]

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What about free will?

I mean, whose free will was overridden? The baby to make it fall, or the mail lady to make her be there at that time? Has to be one of them.

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Their number was up. They just happened to be a baby.

Right. So when a baby gets saved from death by a lucky co-incidence then it's a miracle, and can only possibly have happened because god wanted it to! But when a baby dies of an unlucky co-incidence then it's also a miracle, and can only have happened because god wanted it to! And yea and verily, when babies either live or die in perfectly mundane, everyday circumstances they can only be doing so because they are on the path that god has chosen for them. Now, do you see why everyone is laughing at the quality of your 'evidence' here?

Do you also see why the concept of free will is competely incompatible with what you've said on this thread?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[beowulf 1]

Your post are totally confusing and contradictory. You should try reading them and thinking before actually posting them.

[Shotgun 1]

Hmm... You start with this:

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Was it just not your day to die? That won't work.

And now you're at this:

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Their number was up.

So every time someone doesn't die, it's by some miracle of god. But every time someone dies (no matter how tragic or what age they are), it's because it was just their day to die? OK, that makes no sense.

[nerdgirl 0]

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Objection 2) What about free will?

What if science could show that 'free will' was illusory?

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[jakee 1,257]

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Objection 2) What about free will?

What if science could show that 'free will' was illusory?

It would hammer another nail into the coffin of Abrahamic mythology - which is built upon the premise that God gave humans unfettered freewill.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[JackC 0]

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It would hammer another nail into the coffin of Abrahamic mythology - which is built upon the premise that God gave humans unfettered freewill.

Abrahamic mythology is also built on the idea of an omnipotent god which is incompatible with the idea of free will. So if you could prove that free will is an illusion, it would be reasonable evidence for an omnipotent god. Now the devil might be a bastard but at least he's honest about it. But a god that fakes free will, that would take a pretty fucking devious bastard.

[Royd 0]

Hmm... You start with this:


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Was it just not your day to die? That won't work.

I believe I was arguing from the atheist point of view.

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And now you're at this:


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Their number was up.

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So every time someone doesn't die, it's by some miracle of god. But every time someone dies (no matter how tragic or what age they are), it's because it was just their day to die? OK, that makes no sense.

Why? Either way it's by the controlling hand of God.
Some would argue that the donor heart from the person who died in an auto accident, that saved their precious little girl was a miracle, even though, at the same time, it was a tragedy for someone else.

Once again, though, we have two perfectly intersecting paths, that thirty minutes earlier, noone would have even had a clue.

From the atheistic/ scientific point of view, everything has to be explained by reason and numbers. The truth is, that some things and situations defy explanation by the human mind.

[JackC 0]

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From the atheistic/ scientific point of view, everything has to be explained by reason and numbers. The truth is, that some things and situations defy explanation by the human mind.

Erm... no. From an atheist point of view, god just isn't there and that's all. And you will find that science is quite happy to admit that some things have defied all attempts to explain them. That's good news for me cos I'm a scientist and if we'd explained everything already, I'd be out of a job.

Oh and pretty please with sugar on top, sort out your formatting.

[jakee 1,257]

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Abrahamic mythology is also built on the idea of an omnipotent god which is incompatible with the idea of free will.

It's actually built on both, a triple O God and human free will (original sin, or any sin, being meaningless without free will). It's a perfect piece of Orwellian logic, which Royd has brilliantly demonstrated in this thread.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jakee 1,257]

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I believe I was arguing from the atheist point of view.

What?

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Why? Either way it's by the controlling hand of God.
Some would argue that the donor heart from the person who died in an auto accident, that saved their precious little girl was a miracle, even though, at the same time, it was a tragedy for someone else.

Once again, though, we have two perfectly intersecting paths, that thirty minutes earlier, noone would have even had a clue.

But Royd, only a couple of days ago you said this "Especially if they refused to get off of their lazy asses and get the hell out of town, with a week's warning." about people who die in hurricanes.

Which is it? Was it controlled by God or was it their choice? Your argument is so contradictory a 5 year old would be ashamed of it.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Shotgun 1]

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From the atheistic/ scientific point of view, everything has to be explained by reason and numbers.

The atheistic point of view is that there is no god; it has nothing to do with explaining why anything happens.

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The truth is, that some things and situations defy explanation by the human mind.

Yes, that is true. But it in no way proves that some sort of god exists.

[nerdgirl 0]

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From the atheistic/ scientific point of view, everything has to be explained by reason and numbers. The truth is, that some things and situations defy explanation by the human mind.

I heartily agree with your second sentence; the implication/conclusion/explanation is where I suspect we diverge.

There are lots of assumptions tied up/entangled in those two sentences.

6000 years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia, long before Judaism or Christianity had been invented, you would agree that the planet was (basically) a sphere, yes? It wasn’t flat or a boat riding on the back of turtle, right? Gravity still worked, right? The planet revolved around a small, M-class yellow star that the Sumerians called “Utu” (for their sun god), yes? (I'm confident that you get where this going.) Their demons were uncontrollable forces of weather: “Lil” and “Lilitu” for the desert wind, which eventually became the Judaic “Lilith”, to be re-invented another 4000 years later as a pop-feminist icon.

Things that we *know* today (roughly spherical rocky planet, gravity, sun-centered solar system, wind due to changes in atmospheric pressure) that defied explanation by the human mind 6000 years ago weren’t the result of supernatural beings disappearing to be replaced by physical phenomena.

Because a physical phenomenon cannot be explained through our human-developed instrumentation and the limits of our human brain, does not necessitate a supernatural explanation. Like the ancient Sumerians and all of humanity up through the Scientific Revolution, the unanswered explanations for physical phenomena might just need better instrumentation, faster computational capabilities, and more memory.

Having a scientific mindset or approach to understanding physical phenomena doesn't preclude practice of irrational hope, love, passion, joy, anger, nor does it eliminate appreciation of unscientific pursuits like art, dance, or jumping out of high-flying, fast-moving objects.
VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[JackC 0]

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Having a scientific mindset or approach to understanding physical phenomena doesn't preclude practice of irrational hope, love, passion, joy, anger, nor does it eliminate appreciation of unscientific pursuits like art, dance, or jumping out of high-flying, fast-moving objects.

That reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Professor Frink is teaching the chaos theory to the kindergardeners with a corn popper.
Prof. Frink: *Ahem* And so the contraction and expansion of the longitudinal waves cause the erratic oscillation - you can see it there - of the neighboring particles!
[A little Girl raises her hand.]
Prof. Frink: Yes, what is it? What? What is it?
Little Girl: Can I play with it?
Prof. Frink: No, you can't play with it. You wouldn't enjoy it on as many levels as I do! The colors, children! Look at the colors! [laughs]

[nerdgirl 0]

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That reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Professor Frink is teaching the chaos theory to the kindergardeners with a corn popper.
Prof. Frink: *Ahem* And so the contraction and expansion of the longitudinal waves cause the erratic oscillation - you can see it there - of the neighboring particles!
[A little Girl raises her hand.]
Prof. Frink: Yes, what is it? What? What is it?
Little Girl: Can I play with it?
Prof. Frink: No, you can't play with it. You wouldn't enjoy it on as many levels as I do! The colors, children! Look at the colors! [laughs]

I will admit to having thought, on more than one occasion, about taking a flower of hue that particularly appealed to me, sticking it in the UV-Vis spectrometer to find out the specific wavelength of reflected light; isolating the components that caused the color (probably some conjugated macrocycle or transition-metal containing complex) and running it through a mass spectrometer. Never did it, but thought about it. Just to better understand – through other ways of knowing than my basic physical senses – of what that flower was made.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[JackC 0]

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I will admit to having thought, on more than one occasion, about taking a flower of hue that particularly appealed to me, sticking it in the UV-Vis spectrometer to find out the specific wavelength of reflected light; isolating the components that caused the color (probably some conjugated macrocycle or transition-metal containing complex) and running it through a mass spectrometer. Never did it, but thought about it. Just to better understand – through other ways of knowing than my basic physical senses – of what that flower was made.

Haha, got ya. I have run a fourier spectral analysis on my favourite guitar plugged into my favourite amp just to see what makes it tick. Geeks of the world unite!

[maadmax 0]

Atheists, I find your oratorical zeal to dominate and conquer, impressive. But your inability to perceive God has got to be something a lot more than the simple dismissal you propose based on incomplete science. Our current level of scientific understanding just cannot prove your hypothesis. If anything, to me, it points to the opposite conclusion. Many of the wisdom narratives of the past teach that when man replaces the Wisdom of God with that of his own, disaster follows.

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[gjhdiver 0]

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Many of the wisdom narratives of the past teach that when man replaces the Wisdom of God with that of his own, disaster follows.

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Essentially, you're asking atheists to disprove a negative, which is a logical fallacy. I might as well ask you to disprove the existence of unicorns. It can't be done.

If you're happy with the lie, it's not my job to persuade you otherwise. After all, you seem to think that "god's wisdom" is needed to prevent disaster, just as Sir Bedevere beleived that you needed a sheep's bladder to prevent hurricanes. Both have the same effect of magical thinking. I'm sure the hundred millions slaughtered over history in the name of that "wisdom" would have preferred a little benificial atheism instead.

(Extra points for MP and the Holy Grail reference I think).

[gjhdiver 0]

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BTW, I just heard a story on the news this morning about a mail lady who was on her route when she looked and sees a 1 yr. old baby leaning out of a second story window. It fell and she caught it, unharmed.
I will always call something like that a miracle, but never happenchance.

This bullshit was rife after 9/11 particularly. I got tired of the people who said they called in sick to work that day in the towers and said that god had spared them.

All I can say is that he must have hard a huge hard on for all the other poor fuckers that he belted into the ether like rubber javelins that day.

You can make up miracles all day if you just pick your data.

[Royd 0]

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Essentially, you're asking atheists to disprove a negative, which is a logical fallacy. I might as well ask you to disprove the existence of unicorns. It can't be done.

If you're happy with the lie, it's not my job to persuade you otherwise. After all, you seem to think that "god's wisdom" is needed to prevent disaster, just as Sir Bedevere beleived that you needed a sheep's bladder to prevent hurricanes. Both have the same effect of magical thinking. I'm sure the hundred millions slaughtered over history in the name of that "wisdom" would have preferred a little benificial atheism instead.

Sort of like the new fable about how we must do everything in our power to stop global warming, in order to stop hurricanes or the swamping of NYC?

[philh 0]

"Maybe not if you're talking about a crap game, but the way politicians use the term, 'the less fortunate, winners in life's lottery, etc' insinuates that someone has been smiled on from above. "

So you agree that in a craps game one can get winners and losers by chance without the intervention on any kind of spirit or god. yet you refuse to accept that life as a whole can show similar patterns. For every story you can tell me about a baby being caught from a falling window , I can tell you many more of babies that die in horrible circumstances. Thats exactly what you would expect if there was no intervening spirit.

[maadmax 0]

Essentially, you're asking atheists to disprove a negative, which is a logical fallacy. ***


No, not really. What I am asking is what other extenuating feelings, preconceived notions, assumptions, prejudices, etc that go into your unsupportable theorem that God is a myth. You all have repeatedly claimed that your superior understanding of science is all you need. This hypothesis is unsupportable with our current level of scientific discovery. There has to be more that goes into you conclusion that God never was and never will be.

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[gjhdiver 0]

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Essentially, you're asking atheists to disprove a negative, which is a logical fallacy. ***


No, not really. What I am asking is what other extenuating feelings, preconceived notions, assumptions, prejudices, etc that go into your unsupportable theorem that God is a myth. You all have repeatedly claimed that your superior understanding of science is all you need. This hypothesis is unsupportable with our current level of scientific discovery. There has to be more that goes into you conclusion that God never was and never will be.

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Er No actually. It's up to believers to prove that a god exists, not for me to prove that it doesn't. Science has gone a long way to explaining why things are, but there isn't a single repeatable, provable piece of evidence to suggest that a god exists.

If true faith is blind faith, then be happy with the lie, but don't confuse your absolute certainty in your superstitions with the absolute absence of facts to support them.