The Atheism Thread

[weed_G]

Which comes back to what I said in the first place, ie; you can't prove a negative. If you could 'god' would be history. except in America of course.

just so I can understand what your saying can you explain what you mean by 'god' being a 'negative' and why negatives cant be disproved ..from where im sitting you seem to be saying it's impossible to prove that humans cant fly

why is a belief in a god given any more credence than any other unprovable idea

can you say what you mean by 'unprovable' .. what form of 'proof' would be acceptable

is it because its been around for a long time,

yes

or is it because of the numbers of people who accept it without question?

that as well

there's plenty of other superstitions which dont get the same respect,

thats why they are called superstitions and not religions, building a religion around not walking under ladders etc would be crazy ..or do you mean something else

its not as if its some default position,

it is ..from the nature and length of the time its been around ..not to mention the fact that it exists in practically every culture ..the balance is shifting but not by much

or absolute,

it's not absolute

which you have to decide on, one way or another, its just another idea.

absolutely

and it seems reasonable if anyone is going to espouse some view which isn't obviously provable, that if they are to be taken seriously, they should make some attempt to justify their position.

exactly, as I already said in my OP, science is the newcomer if science claims it cant co-exist with god and somehow feels its either/or then by its own scientific rules ..in order to call into question the 'established' it has to back up the doubt with some evidence ..you can call in sick tomorrow and phone the bbc to tell them that Einstein got it wrong ..but a prerequisite to anyone taking you seriously will be the provision of evidence that an accepted/established/default truth is wrong ...if its true that science says it impossible to disprove god there is some irony in the fact they cling to a belief devoid of hard evidence, its not even observable

maybe the reason there are few recorded instances of atheism in ancient history, is that it was a particularly dangerous position to take, when the zealots were in control.

it's possible but can you explain why god concept appeared all over the planet in cultures big and small that didn't have contact with each other ..like I said before even the remotest tribes had some kind of god belief, they didn't all catch it from other tribes ...that would mean the very unlikely occurrence that all these unrelated tribes and cultures also randomly generated zealots to suppress any atheists and that this happened everywhere almost without exception ...its not impossible but wheres the evidence

Edited September 11, 2009 by weed_G

[Guest]

all i know is, man wrote the bible, and from the bible came god. god is mans creation, and that is all he is. no more, no less. really, the first woman was made from a mans rib. this to me is just proof that people were using drugs back in ye olde times just like they do now.

[mokum777]

i didnt call god a negative. what is meant is that its possible to prove something exists, by showing evidence of its existence. but if you want to disprove existence, then absence of evidence is an unreliable method, since you might just have not found whatever evidence exists yet.

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any form of proof would be acceptable, but none has been forthcoming in the millenia hat religious superstitions have existed. at least none which can be demonstrated to others, some people believe their own experience proves god's existence to themselves, but haven't been able to demonstrate this to others. religions themselves accept this, hence the need for faith, which obviously isn't reliant on proof.

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if all that counts is the number of believers, then scientology would have to be viewed in the same way as other religions, it has hundreds of thousands of adherents

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if the length of time the religious superstition has existed is a demonstration of its truth, wouldn't we all be worshipping the gods of ancient greece and sumer?

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i dont see any distinction whatsoever between superstition and religion. both have masses of believers, e.g. astrology, tarot, etc, neither can be tested to prove their truth, their adherents believe what they believe because they believe it, they call it faith.

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maybe default position is the wrong phrase, but the knowledge of religion has been passed down both orally and in scriptures, both methods involve passing ideas from one human to another, its impossible to get beyond this, human ideas, reported as the word of a god, but essentially transmitted from one human to another, with no divine intervention. so why believe that these humans are telling the truth, or that this knowledge came from anything other than human ideas, there is no link that can be shown to any supernatural being, only other humans.

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science may well be the newcomer, although i'm sure the likes of archimedes would disagree, but science is based on questioning, peer reviewed research, a scientific method of hypothesis, trial by investigation/experimentation, and the theories and facts gleaned this way are constantly open to revision as new evidence is revealed or discovered. religion is not open to revision, the word of god is the word of god..

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why did the concept of religion appear all over the world independently? well, the human qualities that give rise to a belief in gods, or conspiacy theories, or a power greater than the individual, seem to me to be based on a need to arrange the world about us into some knd of order that we can understand. science does this too, albeit in a more methodical, evidence based manner.

look at the cargo cults that sprang up on the pacific islands used by the usa during the war in japan. religions built around the return of the troops and equipment, these "religions" sprang up within 50 years. the natives of the islands, largely cut off from the outside world treated the troops and their vessels as supernatural visitors, and they prophesise the return of the "cargo" so the origins of religions aren't some ancient, unknoweable secret, they appear to be a stage in the understanding of humans of events in the world around them. perfectly understandable in peoples who have no other way of making sense of occurrences they havent experienced before, even in science when a new phenomena is observed, the initial hypotheses of what has happened is largely guesswork, until further study is undertaken, and questions answered.

google "cargo cults" if you dont know about this

Edited September 11, 2009 by mokum777

[weed_G]

all i know is, man wrote the bible, and from the bible came god. god is mans creation

before the bible there was no god? ..I would know where to start with that

[Alf4lf4]

I tend to think that religion has prospered on the basis that it holds out the false promise that death is not the end for believers. Those who have faith in 'god' will somehow survive death and live forever. It's an easy sell to people who can't deal with the fact that death, like shit, happens.

thats possibly right, but it suggests that the believers are people who would rather have the comfort of unrealistic hope, than face possibly less comfortable realities. do we really want people who have this outlook in positions of power and influence over others lives?

I certainly don't, but in the good old US of A you can't get elected unless you subscribe to those views. God bless America.

[Alf4lf4]

all i know is, man wrote the bible, and from the bible came god. god is mans creation

before the bible there was no god? ..I would know where to start with that

Would you know where to start with the concept that god was created in the minds of men?

[~nobody~]

Anyone watching Newsnight Review?

[weed_G]

Would you know where to start with the concept that god was created in the minds of men?

I could start by saying thats exactly right ..assuming by men you mean wimmin as well

edit OG:

no tv m8 ..whats hapnin?

Edited September 11, 2009 by weed_G

[Alf4lf4]

Would you know where to start with the concept that god was created in the minds of men?

I could start by saying thats exactly right ..assuming by men you mean wimmin as well

Pardon me girls, I should have said 'in the minds of human beings.' weed G, I find it difficult to pin your position down mate. I have a strong suspicion that you just like arguing. As for me I'm a died in the wool committed atheist and have been since I was fifteen.

[mokum777]

[

weed G, I find it difficult to pin your position down mate. I have a strong suspicion that you just like arguing. As for me I'm a died in the wool committed atheist and have been since I was fifteen.

wonder what gave you that idea

[Alf4lf4]

[

weed G, I find it difficult to pin your position down mate. I have a strong suspicion that you just like arguing. As for me I'm a died in the wool committed atheist and have been since I was fifteen.

wonder what gave you that idea

I can read you mokum mate. Loud and clear. Here's too ya.

[scraglor]

as mentioned in my last post, Science is only a few hundred years old while belief in (G)god(s) pre-dates recorded history disappearing off into the murky black of the past..not sure how they had 1000's of years to supply scientific proof, when the concepts of science didn't exist until recently

on which planet? the concepts of science are evident in the very first civilisations, thousands of years old. aztecs, ancient egypt, etc etc etc

[scraglor]

Argumentative weed G

this is an atheism thread, that's about doubt and questioning things right?

Let's say then that in what is known of human history there has never been a provable instance of the existence of 'god'.

as long as we agree that for the same length of time god hasn't been disproved either ..then we will be in complete agreement

nothing in the universe can be proved absolute, you can only disprove something, all scientific theories can be disproved, this is the fundamental philosophy behind science and makes it what it is, this is the difference between science and religion, religion requires belief without question, science takes a question and seeks to prove it incorrect, if you can't disprove something, the theory holds true until such time, if the theory holds true for long enough it's known as a law, but laws can still be disproved. i can never prove gravity, i can drop a ball for infinity and watch it hit the ground, it only has to travel upwards once to disprove the theory of gravity, i can never prove gravity absolute though, as i'd have to show that the ball will always drop for infinity. the existence of god can never be proven except in death, god could turn up on earth, it wouldn't prove that he existed any time before that particular instant, either way i'm not willing to find out just yet, so the whole subject is a bit pointless to me

Edited September 13, 2009 by scraglor

[weed_G]

the concepts of science are evident in the very first civilisations, thousands of years old. aztecs, ancient egypt, etc etc etc

sure, but termites also appear to build highly complex structures, which can outstrip human engineering at times, that seem to perfectly understand the surrounding physical environment, ..but that doesn't mean termites are practicing science, well it does but not in the abstract or even consciously, or the old saying: 'if you lock a group of monkeys in a room with typewriter for infinity they will eventual write the complete work of Shakespeare

as advanced as those civilizations were ..they still had gods without exception?, ' ,,,I would say real science emerged in the so called 'age of reason' 1500-1700's ...were God(s) is actually called into question for maybe the first time in mainstream modern human history ....now if you think about those ancient cultures, who for all the hype were basically still in the metal age and compare their best efforts with everything that's happened since 1500-2009 ..from nuclear power to the Hubble telescope etc ..I think it's clear that modern science is a different animal

look at the shape of the mound in the pic before you press play, give those termites another million year and they will be building pyramids

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nothing in the universe can be proved absolute, you can only disprove something, all scientific theories can be disproved, this is the fundamental philosophy behind science and makes it what it is, this is the difference between science and religion, religion requires belief without question, science takes a question and seeks to prove it incorrect, if you can't disprove something, the theory holds true until such time, if the theory holds true for long enough it's known as a law, but laws can still be disproved. i can never prove gravity, i can drop a ball for infinity and watch it hit the ground, it only has to travel upwards once to disprove the theory of gravity, i can never prove gravity absolute though, as i'd have to show that the ball will always drop for infinity.

very well put ..solid

edit for scraglor:

just to add when im saying that god predates science, I mean going all the way to the hunter gatherers and animism ...very difficult to say how far back that goes ...could be anything between 10,000 -100,000 years ....I said around the time of fire ..as that's probably the earliest indicator that human were a becoming a bit special ..I mean other animals manufacture tools but fire is slightly different I think

source:

'Now here's your part of the deal, cuz

Lay the secret on me of man's red fire

But I don't know how to make fire

Now don't try to kid me, mancub

I made a deal with you

What I desire is man's red fire

To make my dream come true

Give me the secret, mancub

Clue me what to do

Give me the power of man's red flower

So I can be like you'

Edited September 13, 2009 by weed_G

[mokum777]

definitely pointless, if someone is prepared to believe a story, based only on "faith", then there's no point disagreeing with them. they know they're right, even if they're wrong.