Over the past several thousand years, man has continuously asked the question of why he existed, and even more importantly, what happens after we die. The obvious truth, that the same thing happens to humans as it does to every other life form on the planet, well, it?s not pretty. So humans invented gods.And when I say gods, I mean lots and lots of gods. Thousands of them. Each of the gods gave pretty much the same explanation of man?s purpose, as well as an answer as to why the earth shook, the stars glimmered, the moon changed phases, and the weather changed seasons. Most gods had supporting evidence of their existence. People ?felt the presence? of Zeus on Mt Olympus, and where do you think that lightning came from, anyway? Miracles were witnessed, gospels were written and embellished over time, songs of praise were written and sung. All gods promised immortality and some form of enlightenment AFTER death, and to varying degrees, all described bad afterlives for those who disbelieve. Most of these gods are dismissed today as mythology, because we know why the earth shakes and why seasons change. The mysteries of the world are becoming apparent, slowly but surely. Additionally, the number of religious wars has resulted in conquorings and conquest, so today there are far fewer gods considered ?real? by anyone than there once were. Still, the gods of today have NO MORE evidence supporting their existence than their predecessors. People ?feel their existence?, ?see miracles? even though NONE have ever been proven, and sing songs of praise. But there is no more support for these gods than there ever was for Thor, Qetzalcoatl, and Hawaiian Tikki gods. I?m no fan of watering down the truth, so here?s a nice absolute. There is not a single reason to accept any of today?s gods that wasn?t used to support the gods we all consider mythology. This leads to one undeniable conclusion: religion and mythology are the same thing. Discuss.
karen: Xtian rock band?
Gene Scott’s “I’m a hitman for Jesus” springs to mind.
I’m in CA, so there are a few of those rock bands out here. Melting pot of diversity, & all that.
4Him
If we’re all descendents of Adam and Eve, when did god create all the different races?
and answer the question about the gay girls, please.
Ah… So, Karen *wink-wink*,
that’d make you a MILF, right?
(Sorry, Sorry SORRY! I’ll try to get a grip on myself… which i already have… a tight grip.. uhhhh…NO! STOP IT, MICHAEL!You’re a grown man!)
Sigh… ’tis could never be…
Yet another sign of our simian decent, eh?
HairlessMonkeyDK:
Well put.
4him:
Burden of proof goes to the minority anyways. Red herring (did I get that right, HZ?).
A red herring is a diversionary tactic, so named from fox-hunts, where the fox would catch a fish (guess which), & pull the fish behind it, thereby throwing the pack off the fox’s track. Smart animals.
Address the topic, please. No external outside ARGUMENTS. Parameters thus defined, put up.
HairlessMonkeyDK: Dude, get some porn, willya? LOL.
Ain’t this a family blog? Oh, that’s right. Not even.
HMDK
MILF. Now MY ego’s making me teeter!
(That all depends on your personal tastes.)
Stop being a master of your own domain in public. I don’t want you to go blind!
My, Michael, how you’ve grown!
karen
“If we’re all descendents of Adam and Eve, when did god create all the different races?”
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/AnswersBook/races18.asp
I’ve been out at a meeting most of the day and it looks like I missed a lot. I’m never sure how worth while my comments are, but here goes.
It seems like the common threads in this post is asking theists to provide evidence, theists saying they don’t need evidence, atheists showing how the theistic belief system influences policy and political culture as well as personal relationships. The overarching question seems to be how do theists justify their beliefs with no evidence and how do they justify their mindset.
As a theist I would suggest that there will never be a logical justfication to belief. My opinion is that conversion (whether to theism or atheism) can have the effect of consolidating power within a particular group and should be thought out. However, individuals have the ability to shape their response to their beliefs be it atheism or theism. The individual’s response seems to be where objections often come and I try to focus my efforts there.
Trying to convince someone not willing to be convinced is futile. My opinion is that many theists make the mistake that if they just proclaim their beliefs loud enough and forcefully enough that it will be accepted. Do these theists really think they’ll convert atheists by simply telling them that Jesus died for them? Do atheists think that showing evidence that god doesn’t exist overcome faith?
I think a more useful excercise is to examine our beliefs and look at the results they bring to us. The next step is to consider the macro effects that it has on politics and policy.
4000 and a few miracles ago….God said let “there be light” not “let there be the earth rotating on an axis orbiting about the sun” hmmmm….obiviously God didnt observe perched from places on the planet that doesnt know day/night seperation
karen:
“My, Michael, how you’ve grown!”
You owe me a new keyboard, marm!
HAhahahaha! Seriously…
Okay, I’ll stop now.
Rarely have I conversed online with someone, in a humorous vein, without the point getting lost, or, rather, misinterpreted;
Ye give as good as ye get,
and I salute you!
Hell! Even -THAT- sentence could be evilly misconstrued!
What I REALLY mean to say is that,
humbly, I wish to learn.
The debate has moved on from this now, but I’d just like to add something to the whole “letting Jesus into your life and feeling his presence” thing.
About a year ago, the magician Derren Brown (A former Christian, now an atheist) did a one-off special called Messiah. In this, he travelled to the US, met with “experts” in various belief systems and showed them his special magic powers as proof of their beliefs. The idea was to show how people don’t think about their beliefs logically and will just accept anything that seems to confirm them – the rules were that if anyone asked something like “Is this a trick?” he had to come clean immediately, this never happened at any point.
Now where was I, oh yeah, the point. When Derren met with the person representing mainstream Christianity, his trick was to replicate this effect on an entire room of atheists, convincing them all that they had felt God’s presence (They were “de-converted” later). No magic, no divine intervention, just a bit of psychological trickery and he was able to do a better job of this than most churches can.
OK. Thanks to “curious”, I now know that we are descended from Noah’s family.
And God got mad at everybody when they didn’t go forth and multiply like he told them to. Instead, they stayed where they were and multiplied. (Babel).
But this time, instead of having a two-year-old’s temper tantrum and KILLING everyone, good ol’ god just made everybody talk in different languages. (He’s such a cut-up!) They couldn’t understand each other anymore, so they finally went all over the earth. The people speaking Chinese went to China. Those speaking Japanese went to Japan. Those speaking Hebrew went to New York and Miami.
AFTER they dispersed, lo and behold, their physical appearance started to change to adapt to their new environments. And so….tada! The varying races were formed!
BUT>>>GET THIS…they all still had collective memories, and THAT’s why there are so many various stories of the flood. It happened with Noah, but through the centuries, the memory-passed story came to be adapted to the particular areas where the peoples now lived.
Wow.
Bullenscheisse.
1 John 4:1
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Frying Pantheist,
I too saw Derren Brown’s Messiah episode, and found it interesting. I downloaded it as a .avi file.
RA,
I think red herring pretty much sums up the appeal to proof of King George (if that’s what you referring to)
spanders: as always, my friend, the calm voice of reason.
Truthfully, when theists come in & start trotting out all the old chestnuts, I must admit, ’tis hard to resist.
My ego notwithstanding, your point is well taken.
Unfortunately, most tend to lead w/their hearts, & not their heads.
I plead guilty as charged.
curious
Test them HOW.
And how does one know whether they are “from God”? Do they light up and sing “Hava Nagila”?
HZ: I think it was King Edward. You’re better at spotting them & naming them than I. Red herring’s an easy 1.
Frying: http://www.ctyme.com/bwash/bwash.htm is a great article (I think I’ve posted this on EA before, as well as here). Some1′s mentioned the Derren Brown episode before (where? Dunno).
Free at last, free at last. Thank PB&J Almighty, I am free at last.
Wonder if we could get Derren Brown to have a little sit-down with Dubya and work his trick the opposite way???
karen: Naw, couldn’t get Brown past the SS (secret service).
& hey, curious seems to be a shy 1. Wouldn’t mind hearing more from him/her.
RA
It was Jaraw that mentioned Derren Brown and that’s when I went looking for it…
HZ: could I get you to email it to me? Or is it too large?
RA
Too large for email. Do you have broadband? I could put it on my personal web site, and you could dl load it.
HZ: that would be outstanding. I have DSL, should be no big whoop.
Thanks a bunch. Been trying his website, no luck in location. Much obliged, sir.
RA,
I need to locate the Messiah file. Will email you once I find and position it.
HZ: Dankeschon, mein freund.
Look, HMDK got me talking in tongues! (just kidding, LOL).
Thanks, my friend.
HZ: Messiah file? Sounds like a religious Ludlum novel, LOL.
“Free at last, free at last. Thank PB&J Almighty, I am free at last.”
Just think of it Man! In the end, we are but a speck off the speck of the old crust. Yes, free to choose between grape, and strawberry, between smooth, and crunchy.
The heathens anger the great one with speak of bananas. Perhaps they’ll only be dipped half way through in the acid jar. The other half to be blended on the peanut buttery side.
I fail to see how this kind of analogy doesn’t help Atheists along.
RA – the Ludlum novel is ready for you – check your email. Beware tho, it’s a very big file….
R4D thanks for this aways back
“Once upon a time there was a Grumpy Old Man In The Sky who didn’t have anyone to worship him or anyone to kill. So one day he decided to make a bunch of people. To keep things interesting, the Grumpy Old Man In The Sky made it so that some of these people would worship him and do whatever he asked. The rest of the people he saved for the enjoyment of stomping them out of existence. The End.”
i laughed for 5 minutes. this whole thread has been great, HMDK, reluctant, spanders, a lot of good sensible discussion.
most noteworthy happening today though is i heard that one of the news orgs did a poll about ID. three choices given that went something like:
1)i believe in evolution with no hand of an intelligent designer
2) i believe in evolution aided by the hand of god
3) i believe that god created everything.
results: 15% for #1
34% for #2
51% for #3
hope the poll is flawed or else it looks like we have our work cut out. that’s way too many that believe in god.