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I came across this only today. It is an independant summary of a lot of what I believe. That is coincidence, this is not a scripture. Read and understand:
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/WhyAtheism.htm
Perhaps the only part I disagree with is Mark Thomas's encouragement of the nonsense started by Noah Webster.
Stuart
I'm half-way through this article. Thanks for posting it. I can hear many of the arguments put forth by my Atheist friends in this article.
Love,
MandyQuote Let’s start with a quick experiment. You can grab three coins and actually do the experiment, or just do a thought experiment. Drop one coin and watch it fall. Do this again. Hold out the third coin.
If you were to do this again, what do you think would happen? If you could get ten good Christians to pray that this next coin wouldn’t fall, would it still fall?
DEUTERONOMY 6:16
““YOU must not put Jehovah YOUR God to the test, the way YOU put him to the test at Mas′sah.”MATTHEW 4:7
“Jesus said to him: “Again it is written, ‘You must not put Jehovah your God to the test.’””1 John 5:14: “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that, no matter what it is that we ask ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, he hears us.”
So, this experiment fails to take some things into consideration.
Quote Bruno’s crime was writing ideas that the Catholic leaders didn’t like — Earth revolves around the sun, the sun is a star, there might be other worlds with other intelligent beings on them, Jesus didn’t possess god-like power, and souls can’t go to heaven. For these heretical ideas, the Catholic Church punished this brilliant man with an agonizingly slow death.
If a plumber says he's an electrician, does that make him an electrician? These people obviously did not represent God, nor did they follow the Bible or understand it. The Bible fortold such ones who would cause “the way of the truth [Christianity] to be spoken of abusively.”Quote Until just a couple of hundred years ago, most people thought that a god or gods controlled everything.
Again, confusing what people falsely believe with what the bible actually says.Quote When we learned what caused the sun to apparently move across the sky, there was no need for the Greek god Helios and his chariot.
Right, that just leaves the laws of the universe. Several times, the Bible speaks of the “statutes [laws] of the heavens.” It also speaks of “the statutes of the moon and the stars….” Sure, a person can choose to believe that God is up their pushing these things around, but what does that have to do with the Bible or what the Bible actually says?Quote However, this caused a bit of a conundrum for the church leaders; should they trust in their god to prevent lightning strikes on their churches, or should they use these new lightning rods? Again, the Bible doesn't teach that God miraculously spares certain people. “Time and unforseen occurance befall us all.” (Eccl) Jesus Christ spoke of a certain calamity involving 18 people who were killed when a tower fell on them. (Luke 13:4) They suffered because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Similar things happen today.
Quote Actually, that is what they often believed, and many a supposed witch was executed for having caused the destruction of a church.
Yes, exactly as predicted by Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, etc, FALSE christians did bad things. And they believed and taught wrong things, as Jesus predicted.Quote This is why Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein are honored — because their ideas radically changed our views of the universe. With this process of change, science can grow and improve our understanding of the universe. Conversely, most religions are stuck with unchanging “holy” words from a book or founder.
I wonder if Jesus “radically changed” the views of many. The argument: “science is good therefore God doesn't exist” is not a sound one.Quote Near death experiences are likely the result of brain cells misfiring when they are oxygen-deprived, and are obviously subjective.
I agree, and with everything in that paragraph. But the Bible teaches that when people die, they are “conscious of nothing at all.” (Eccl 9:5,10)
People misrepresent what the Bible says, and then others accuse the Bible of being wrong, when it's the people who read it that are wrong.Quote The biggest weakness in using a god to explain anything scientifically is that the explanation is not falsifiable, and thus not even testable. There is no way to create an experiment to show that it’s wrong.
Well then, you certainly have your work cut out for you.david
I appreciate that people are reading this article. I certainly concede the point that to many here the author is attacking a strawman of their own christian beliefs, however it is well to remember that there really are many mainstream people for whom it is not a strawman.
David's point about having your work cut out to disprove the meddling god conjecture is not really relevant. Science does not need gods for its explanations. If you want to add your god to an already perfectly adequate explanation then the onus is on you to provide evidence for its usefulness. I can't think of one example where a god could help a scientific explanation. That does not mean there is not a god, but it must make one suspicious at least.
If David is not happy with praying for a flying coin because it tests god, surely every prayer is like that to some extent.
Stuart
Quote If you want to add your god to an already perfectly adequate explanation then the onus is on you to provide evidence for its usefulness. But here's my point stu.
you came here, and you said over and over and over again in many different ways: God does not exist.
Yet, can you prove this or back up this claim in any way?
As my quote from your site said:
“There is no way to create an experiment to show that [God exists is] wrong.“And since you came here and started these discussions, wouldn't it be up to you to prove the unprovable?
I know you don't have to prove anything. And nor do we. But you started the discussions.
And if you believe something that can never be proven, one must ask: WHY DO YOU BELIEVE IT?
I guess, it would be: blind faith.
Quote If David is not happy with praying for a flying coin because it tests god, surely every prayer is like that to some extent. Once again you're completely wrong. The only point of the coin toss experiment was to test God. People don't or shouldn't pray to test God.
Secondly, the other scripture makes plain that we are to pray for things in line with God's will. Praying for money for example….it's not going to work. So again, based on the scriptures, that experiment had false premises.
david
Quote (david @ Aug. 28 2008,16:38) Quote If David is not happy with praying for a flying coin because it tests god, surely every prayer is like that to some extent. Once again you're completely wrong. The only point of the coin toss experiment was to test God. People don't or shouldn't pray to test God.
Secondly, the other scripture makes plain that we are to pray for things in line with God's will. Praying for money for example….it's not going to work. So again, based on the scriptures, that experiment had false premises.
david
I make a general hypothesis which could easily be disproven with one contrary example. Can you think of a prayer that is not a test of god?Stuart
hi again David
Stu: If you want to add your god to an already perfectly adequate explanation then the onus is on you to provide evidence for its usefulness.
Quote But here's my point stu. you came here, and you said over and over and over again in many different ways: God does not exist. Yet, can you prove this or back up this claim in any way? As my quote from your site said:
“There is no way to create an experiment to show that [God exists is] wrong.” And since you came here and started these discussions, wouldn't it be up to you to prove the unprovable?
Well as I have repeated ad nauseam, I am a philosophical agnostic and a practicing atheist. My provisional conclusion is that atheism is the most reasonable position based on the evidence. I could be swayed toward your extraordinary worldview by extraordinary evidence. Do you have any?Quote I know you don't have to prove anything. And nor do we. But you started the discussions.
Christians use the word ‘god’ but can’t say what it is empirically or mathematically, so whether we are looking for proof or evidence it doesn’t matter because you can’t say what would confirm or falsify the existence of your god. Now apply that (as you have done) to the atheist position: you don’t know what would confirm that god does not exist, which is a logical impossibility. If you want people to be convinced about your god, it is no good telling an atheist they can’t prove its not there. You are compelled to accept the same argument for the existence of the Flying Spaghetti monster (bless his noodly appendage). There is no disproof of that so it must be a reality! Your bible compels you to convert so you do have some need for proof of some kind. Isn’t that behind the desperate lies of the creationists?Quote And if you believe something that can never be proven, one must ask: WHY DO YOU BELIEVE IT?
Take that to its immediate logical conclusion I could only ‘believe’ in mathematics, notwithstanding what Kant had to say about it. Indeed why do you believe as you do, without proof?Quote I guess, it would be: blind faith.
Which is the answer of course. I have considered whether my billionth of a billionth of one percent change of your god being reality is a faith position on my part, but I think it is simply an uncertainty calculation like could be done in a physics experiment. Either I am right, or my understanding of the universe is wrong. To take it any further than that would be faith but I don’t make absurd conclusions of the ‘I don’t understand how natural selection produces greater complexity therefore there is a god’ kind.Stuart
Quote (david @ Aug. 27 2008,23:38) Once again you're completely wrong. The only point of the coin toss experiment was to test God. People don't or shouldn't pray to test God.
Don't test Jehovah although he seems to get his kicks out of testing us, right (read Job)?Quote (t8 @ Aug. 28 2008,06:22) OK, kejonn, so you are really ticked off with YHWH. Now what?
Hmm? YHWH is the product of the imagination. God made into man, just as Christians turned God into man (Jesus). YHWH was just one in a long line of man's attempts to describe the indescribable God.Quote Don't test Jehovah although he seems to get his kicks out of testing us, right (read Job)? Out of curiosity Kejonn, are you confused by the fact that your parents no doubt disciplined you, but you never got the chance to return the favor?
Quote (david @ Aug. 29 2008,14:53) Quote Don't test Jehovah although he seems to get his kicks out of testing us, right (read Job)? Out of curiosity Kejonn, are you confused by the fact that your parents no doubt disciplined you, but you never got the chance to return the favor?
What does god prescribe for disrespectful children? Death isn't it? Let's not forget the game of chicken with Abraham which could have ended in his son's death, or the end to the life of god's own 'son', horribly forsaken as he was. The 'parent' analogy is a bit unfortunate, isn't it?Stuart
Quote (david @ Aug. 28 2008,21:53) Quote Don't test Jehovah although he seems to get his kicks out of testing us, right (read Job)? Out of curiosity Kejonn, are you confused by the fact that your parents no doubt disciplined you, but you never got the chance to return the favor?
No. But I will say that my parents didn't allow someone else to afflict me knowingly. Does that make my parents better or worse than Jehovah?Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
— Douglas Adams, from Last Chance To Seehttp://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/douglas.htm
Stuart
Quote No. And why did it make sense that your parents should discipline you, but you never disciplined them, Kejonn?
Quote (david @ Aug. 29 2008,21:23) Quote No. And why did it make sense that your parents should discipline you, but you never disciplined them, Kejonn?
I listed Job as the example. Where in that book is the picture of Jehovah disciplining Job? The book is about testing Job's faith. You are way off track here.
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