Proofs that God is imaginary
- Thread starter eastsidebagel
- Start date
Thank you all for your well wishes. My mother in law is 95 years old and has had a wonderful and charmed life. Until two months ago she was living on her own taking care of herself. those days are over. She has had two strokes now, one on each side of her brain with a top dressing of seizures, so things do not look great. Our only sadness is the indignity of a slowly withering end.
It seems that you all are doing fine without me for now. If I get time this weekend I will try to reply to some of the posts.
It seems that you all are doing fine without me for now. If I get time this weekend I will try to reply to some of the posts.
Just out of intrest, how many of the people here defending belief in God actaully believe in Him?
The ones who make arguments why God exists/might exist.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
I'm an atheist.
But man, I'll tell ya--a lot of the time, I wish there was a God, because there are a whole lot of people in this world who need some Holy Wrath smote upon them.
WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT SMOTING CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.
Edit, directed to Plotinus: What I defend is mostly just the right of people to believe in God/gOd/goD. It's a matter of "how". If you decide for yourself that there's a God/gOd/goD, fine. If you try and force said belief on somebody else......then there's a problem. And I tend to react to this problem using M1A1 Abrams tanks and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
I'm pretty much the same; I've mellowed a fair bit since I started getting involved in these threads.
Murky
Deity
I'm a deist but not religious. I don't believe in a universe without a creator. Most of religion is based on myth so the existence of a theistic deity isn't very likely.
M1A1 tanks are old, and the Tomahawk is sea-launched - where do you get this stuff?
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
M1A1 tanks are old, and the Tomahawk is sea-launched - where do you get this stuff?
Yeah, sea launched...but with a range of over 2500 km. It can reach out and touch someone quite a long ways from the sea.
I'm not sure why you're directing that at me particularly... I'd generally agree. Obviously everyone has the right to believe whatever they want. But I'd say there are some beliefs which, if you have them, would give you a moral imperative to try to impose them on other people. For example, if I am convinced that I can jump out of the window and fly away into the sky, and you believe that in fact I will fall to my death, there is surely a moral imperative on you to try to change my belief. And of course some theists think there's a parallel situation with religious belief. They think that if someone doesn't believe in God, that person will suffer unimaginably as a result. Now we can argue about whether that's a reasonable belief or not. But assuming that someone does believe that - rationally or not - I'd say they would be quite right in thinking that they have a duty to try to persuade other people of God's existence. They might even have a duty to try to force other people to believe in God (assuming this would be even possible), on the grounds that this is a lesser evil than being damned for all eternity. To put it another way, if someone thinks I'm going to hell because of my beliefs, I'd be rather insulted if they didn't try to persuade me out of them. Aren't they bothered?
So this guy's a man with a nuclear submarine loaded with obsolete yankee tanks - I'm quite scared
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
The abrams is hardly obsolete......In fact, I would consider only 1 other tank in the world its better, and that only marginally.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
A very refreshing and postive way to view it Plot - I congratulate you. Now if such insight and understanding tolerance would only occur to others of the atheist persuasion...
The M1A1 tank has been replaced (though not removed) and with those nice new Challenger II tanks, it's not worth much as a crusade-basher.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Errrr. As I happen to be in the US Army and have been for over 22 years, the Abrams has certainly not been replaced. It has been upgraded. Most current version is the M1A2.
Challenger II isnt exactly a new tank either having been built and designed in the late 80s. Challenger II is a much slower tank than the Abrams as well, and in armor that is historically a huge factor in determining effectiveness.
Sorry, boss... 
This is probably unrelated, but I came up with a reason why the whole natural law thing is wrong:
This is probably unrelated, but I came up with a reason why the whole natural law thing is wrong:
- The basis of natural law is that if it is natural, it is god-given, and thus to go against what is natural is a sin.
- However, we know that things evolve through natural selection, which encourages self-supporting traits, for example greed.
- Greed is encouraged by natural selection, and so is natural
- However, it is a deadly sin; so what is unnatural is not inherently wrong.
I don't think that's what "natural law" is. In Thomistic theology, at least, the natural law is simply the eternal law as we understand it and have an inclination to follow it. The "natural" part means it's what can be understood by natural reason. It doesn't mean that any natural impulse, on a broad definition of "natural", is part of the natural law.
It was intended to be pointed at the 'homosexuality is unnatural' people. I think it works there.
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