Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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Flying Pig, I wasn't aware that the title of this thread was "Tell an atheist he is wrong" 
Ask an atheist
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bathsheba666
Fast 'n Bulbous
Perhaps hell is trying to inhabit a rational universe, when others want to inhabit a noisy fairyland.
Akka
Moody old mage.
"forced" to be happy ?
Yeah, you know, we are "forced" to live in this world.
Why would making a world that lends itself toward happiness and put people in it would be somehow worse than creating a world that lends itself to fight for life and mutual killing just to live, and put people in it ?
And free will ? We already have our limitations on our free will (by our psyche, our knowledge, how our mind are molded by our environement and so on). Why would making these borders on our free will in such a way that we lend toward being nice and happy would be any worse than the ones we have today ?
Oh yeah, the "it doesn't make sense, so let's just say it's because it's, err... It's a larger scheme and we can't see it all ! That's it !".
If God's really omnipotent, he could totally have made a grander scheme that still have each part being a damn nice place filled with happiness. The "there is a higher meaning we are not meant to understand" is just circular reasoning to attempt to avoid the obvious logical contradiction of claiming an omnipotent benevolent deity on one hand, and having an imperfect world on the other hand.
All this to avoid the simpler and more logical answer : there is no god.
Fr8monkey
Deity
IMHO, Hell (and Heaven for that matter) are figments of ancient primitive imaginations to explain what they couldn't understand or to have solace in explaining death. 1/50th of a dollar
Free will is a cop-out anyway....
The theological doctrine of divine foreknowledge is often alleged to be in conflict with free will, particularly in Reformed circles. For if God knows exactly what will happen, right down to every choice one makes, the status of choices as free is called into question. If God had timelessly true knowledge about one's choices, this would seem to constrain one's freedom. If God doesn't have true knowledge and we have free will, He isn't much of a God anyway.
Free will is a cop-out anyway....
The theological doctrine of divine foreknowledge is often alleged to be in conflict with free will, particularly in Reformed circles. For if God knows exactly what will happen, right down to every choice one makes, the status of choices as free is called into question. If God had timelessly true knowledge about one's choices, this would seem to constrain one's freedom. If God doesn't have true knowledge and we have free will, He isn't much of a God anyway.
God can't have foreknowledge if we have free will, otherwise we would have to do what he knew we were going to do.
Not have to be that way, for a "god" could be at the same time distinct and superior from creation, and be in mutual interaction with it, thus making it possible for you to have "free will" and god to be conscious of the future, for in this case your own free will is changing god as much as god's set future is changing you. Im sure there is some mathematical equation that has described such a relation already, but i do not recall much math from my final year at highschool.
I would love to but I can't explain this from the point of most modern neuroscience so I will have to put it simple from the point of ancient Yoga.
Intelect is nowdays considered the most evolved part of human being but from what I learned from Yoga it is only perhaps most sophisticated part of physical (outer) mind which is unfortunately very rigid instrument. There is suppose to be also intuitive mind, higher mind, overmind and supermind which everybody has but unless is one able to master some form of thought-control these rearly can be part of ones consciousness. Achieving these one achieves altered states of mind(consciousness) and there perhaps faith in God or similar sort of concept(Light or Truth) doesn't seem ridiculous anymore...
_random_
Jewel Runner
Could you expound upon this a little?
Fr8monkey
Deity
I can, but I would have to start expounding on Quantum physics... I don't think this is the place. LOL!
Basically a logical paradox first posed by Diodorus Cronus and then re-actualized by Aristotle:
Suppose that a sea-battle will not be fought tomorrow. Then it was also true yesterday (and the week before, and last year) that it will not be fought, since any true statement about what will be the case was also true in the past. But all past truths are necessary truths, therefore it was necessarily true in the past that the battle will not be fought, and thus that the statement that it will be fought is necessarily false. Therefore it is not possible that the battle will be fought. In general, if something will not be the case, it is not possible for it to be the case. This conflicts with the idea of our own Free Will: that we have the power to determine the course of events in the future, which seems impossible if what happens, or does not happen, was necessarily going to happen, or not happen.
Head hurt yet?
This simple aforism will hardly satisfy any atheist or purely scientific person but what I have red recently on faith an free will maybe worth sharing:
If you live in the body its all fate if you live in the soul its all free will.
If you live in the body its all fate if you live in the soul its all free will.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
What does that mean? Sounds like a pretty sounding statement without support.
ParkCungHee
Deity
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On the topic of Free Will, I don't suppose anyone has a working definition of that, do they?
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
I brought up the topic in the Evangelic Thread but got avoided like the plague.
Except for Tim, who seemed to agree with me while disagreeing, but he did put in the effort. I appreciate that.
Maybe I could ask again here: If my options are not presented to me in an objective fashion, but I am still made to make a choice, is this really a choice out of free will, or am I coerced to favour one over the other.
Except for Tim, who seemed to agree with me while disagreeing, but he did put in the effort. I appreciate that.
Maybe I could ask again here: If my options are not presented to me in an objective fashion, but I am still made to make a choice, is this really a choice out of free will, or am I coerced to favour one over the other.
Akka
Moody old mage.
That's just the classical paradox of omnipotence ("can God create a rock so heavy he's unable to lift it ?"), which is yet another argument against God's existence.
In fact, God's existence is just a long string of paradoxes and logical inconsistencies that would be laughed about if it wasn't for a pre-existing wish for them to be true (Dom's reaction about the three-headed leprechaun was an hilarious perfect illustration of this, the EXACT SAME thing is "obvious and true" in the wishful thinking case, and "ridiculous" in the other, and the person is unable to accept the equivalence).
What is the relation of quantum physics to your statement?
I used to have a lot of faith in god, as time went on and life dealt me more blows as it does to us all, and i witnessed the tremendous suffering of other human beings i lost most if not all of my biblical faith, although i still admire many of the teachings of Christ, i cannot claim to be 100% atheist either however because i think there is still a chance that the universe was made by something intelligent.
long story short, i was a lot happier when i had faith, my life had a meaning beyond just this existence and i had a spiritual direction, since i lost that my life has become pretty dark, from science i've learned i am just an organic robot full of bits of programming, most of it subconcious, much of it unpleasant, and that there is no point to my life.
That nature being beautiful on the outside, and something i used to attribute to god's goodness is in fact unbelievably cruel in it's inner workings, the law of nature is survival of the fittest, not survival of the most noble, or the kindest, or of the just, but survival of the devious, the cruel, survival by any means no matter how vicious or ignoble.
I arrived at a mostly atheist viewpoint kicking and screaming, unwilling and not wanting to face it, i didn't joyfully find it, life just hoisted it on me, i don't find it comforting, i don't find facts like "i'm just a robot with no real individuality" interesting, i just find them deeply, deeply depressing, when i look at my family and friends and realise i will never see any of them again, the monumental nature of life's cruely becomes apparent, eternal separation through death, of loved ones and of your own mind seems like the ultimate in sick jokes.
I admit that i look at some atheists in a rather bemused fashion, often you'l see them on youtube with a big grin on their face clutching one of dawkin's works to their chest as they happily explain that nothing matters, that there is no after-life and that justice is just a man-made concept, and i do wonder where their joy comes from, they obviously seem very happy, as if they have been set free from something, possibly a strict religious upbringing that i never had, i myself however don't seem to be to getting any happiness from my atheism, on the contrary it just grieves me.
So after my long winded post comes my question,
What do you find uplifting about atheism, or if not uplifting, what makes it preferable to you than having faith in a deity of some kind?
long story short, i was a lot happier when i had faith, my life had a meaning beyond just this existence and i had a spiritual direction, since i lost that my life has become pretty dark, from science i've learned i am just an organic robot full of bits of programming, most of it subconcious, much of it unpleasant, and that there is no point to my life.
That nature being beautiful on the outside, and something i used to attribute to god's goodness is in fact unbelievably cruel in it's inner workings, the law of nature is survival of the fittest, not survival of the most noble, or the kindest, or of the just, but survival of the devious, the cruel, survival by any means no matter how vicious or ignoble.
I arrived at a mostly atheist viewpoint kicking and screaming, unwilling and not wanting to face it, i didn't joyfully find it, life just hoisted it on me, i don't find it comforting, i don't find facts like "i'm just a robot with no real individuality" interesting, i just find them deeply, deeply depressing, when i look at my family and friends and realise i will never see any of them again, the monumental nature of life's cruely becomes apparent, eternal separation through death, of loved ones and of your own mind seems like the ultimate in sick jokes.
I admit that i look at some atheists in a rather bemused fashion, often you'l see them on youtube with a big grin on their face clutching one of dawkin's works to their chest as they happily explain that nothing matters, that there is no after-life and that justice is just a man-made concept, and i do wonder where their joy comes from, they obviously seem very happy, as if they have been set free from something, possibly a strict religious upbringing that i never had, i myself however don't seem to be to getting any happiness from my atheism, on the contrary it just grieves me.
So after my long winded post comes my question,
What do you find uplifting about atheism, or if not uplifting, what makes it preferable to you than having faith in a deity of some kind?
bathsheba666
Fast 'n Bulbous
It feels like an infant no longer needing its nappies/diapers.
An adult should not take refuge in comfortable myths.
Stand and face it.
Well this is a seperate question, but why stand and face it?
Since nothing matters, (the objective truth of atheism) then what does it matter if an organism that lives 70 years on average if lucky, makes it's own life more pleasant by believing in something that may not be real? what does it matter?
Everything will be dust and dark echoing space in the end no matter what endeavours or truths are learnt, so what does it matter if a small, sad and lonely organism on a tiny little rock decides to anaesthetise his cruel, short existence with hope?
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
First off, don't judge your opinion on anyone from people on youtube
Nothing matters. Au contraire. Everything matters, but it matters with regard to your fellow human beings instead of an alien presence who is beyond question.
What I find uplifting is you take everything at face value. You accept there are unknowns in the Universe which makes it interesting to live in. You accept that you are part of a far greater mechanism. You deny the fake reassurance of knowing and enter the real world of doubt.
Lets give an example. Take the Grand Canyon. What is more awesome? Erosion taking millions of years to craft this spectacular vista or a God running his finger through the sand going: "There, that's a canyon".
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