Dawkins trying to arrest Pope Benedict Xvi

e36Adz said:
Sorry but wait a second, who actually believes God to be a bearded man in the sky? I think the majority of people in the world who do believe in God, absolutely reject this notion of a man sat in the clouds. :confused:
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That was not meant to be taken that seriously. I just meant a god in the "creator of the of everything sort of way" ;)
 
I will prove right now that there is no god.

If there is a such thing as god, then let him strike me dead right now.

Nope, nothing, I'm still here. Therefore, no God.
 
Tefal said:
There is no evidence you can currently test for.

If that's you're definition of certainty then atoms didn't exist for the majority of mankind's history, until they where able to test for them.
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Not quite what I meant. We can see that an object existed, it must be made of something. Just because we can't see what it's made of, doesn't mean it's not there. You can still see the object, feel it, etc, it exists.

But basically, once someone shows me one piece of actual evidence that god exists, I'll consider it more than just a fairy tale.
 
People can believe anything they want, they can call it a religion if they want, as long as it's lawful and doesn't impact or restrict my way of living as an atheist. I don't see the point arguing whether God does or does not exist, it's a person's right to believe in anything they want.

I think faith and dedication are admirable traits, I may consider it misguided when it comes to religion but I won't disrespect someone because of it. If you believe in a God, good on you, if you don't then at least you agree with me on one thing but please stop feeling that you need to push your agenda onto the God worshipers, that makes you no better than people chapping my door and offering me a bible lesson.

I worked for 5 years with a boss who is a JW, one of the nicest people I could wish to meet and we had some excellent discussions about it. However neither of us disrespectful, which sadly happens all too often on OCUK when religion is thrown into the mix. I even asked this chap what he'd do if his son had to have a blood transfusion - his answer? "I honestly don't know, religion forbids it, but I just don't know."

Now that's an honest answer from a good man.

Everytime we discuss religion it comes back to the childish and unanswerable two statements:

1. Prove God exists.
2. Prove evolution is completely correct.

Fact is until God shows up in a way which cannot be questioned by atheists like me (and I honestly can't think how he/she/it could) question 1 cannot be answered.

However neither can question 2 - I'm an evolutionist, I fundamentally agree with it and believe in it, but lets face it we'll never fill all the holes in the theory without a time machine and I doubt even then we'd manage it.

Can we stop going around in circles now? The OP was talking about getting the pope arrested if I'm not mistaken!
 
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Tefal said:
well done you're finally getting my point.

Although when did time become infinite last time i looked at this kind of theoretical physics it was believed that before the "big bang" there technically was not "time" as we understand it, but then then the guy started referring to a huge amount of maths to back it up and i got bored.

But no please answer the initial question and list all the proof for and against a god.
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That train of thought assumes that our universe is all there is.

I stated my case in so far as i could be bothered. I'm not an encyclopaedia, if you want proof for everything that i've said then you can look in one. But to summarise:

  • The universe came to be without the need for divine intervention.
  • Stuff in the universe (planets, stars etc.) came to be without the need for divine intervention.
  • Stuff on the stuff in the universe (plants, animals, people etc.) came to be without the need for divine intervention.
  • Stuff on the stuff in the universe have very vivid imaginations. The only time God has been in existence so far as the idea had been thought up is since Humans or indeed other species have evolved to a sufficient extent to want answers, but not have the ability to get them and so make up their own stories. Either for escapism or so they can live their lives in an unhappy way while being ignorant of the fact that it's all there is. You don't get anything else, no eternal life, no pearly gates. There's the here and now. It's highly doubtful that anybody will remember you be it one, ten, a hundred or whatever years after you die and even if you do impact on somebody's life enough for them to remember you they will then die too, and eventually you'll be all but forgotten. Then you will be forgotten. Your existence will have been completely pointless, made the more so by the fact that you wasted it in the hope of having another chance to enjoy yourself when you die. The only thing that matters is having a good time while it lasts*. Since nothing will. Humanity will perish, be it with global warming, overpopulation, the death of Sol or even the expansion of the universe - whatever, but then not only will each individual's life have amounted to nothing but life will too. And maybe we'll have some 'alien**' friends to remember us, or maybe not. But that just links back to what i was saying before, if we are remembered then it won't be for long, because they will die too.
  • My point is, essentially, that if this is all there is*** would you rather delude yourself with the belief that there's something... else? Or would you rather just go out with a bang? Or not, whatever makes you happy. Or not, whatever emotion you decide to pursue. Or not... you get my point, don't you?

*a good analogy for this - if all the time on Earth was compressed into the face of a clock humanity would have been around for the last two seconds. How long do you think you will have been?
**of course, they wouldn't be alien's since they loose this label when we know what they are.
***which is, unfortunately, a completely irrefutable fact.
 
Superewza said:
[*]The universe came to be without the need for divine intervention.
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That's not a fact though? It is not testable. String/M theory provides an explanation of how the Big Bang started (collision of 2 multiverse plains in a hyperspace) but this is just a theory and doesn't hold enough ground to be stated as fact.
 
bhavv said:
I will prove right now that there is no god.

If there is a such thing as god, then let him strike me dead right now.

Nope, nothing, I'm still here. Therefore, no God.
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Why do you assume god is listening/cares/is a murderous nutter?


I will prove right now that there is no Bhavesh Patel.


If there is a such thing as Bhavesh Patel, then let him strike me dead right now.

Nope, nothing, I'm still here. Therefore, no Bhavesh Patel.
 
Nanoman said:
That's not a fact though? It is not testable. String/M theory provides an explanation of how the Big Bang started (collision of 2 multiverse plains in a hyperspace) but this is just a theory and doesn't hold enough ground to be stated as fact.
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I said 'without the need' so yes, it is a fact.

Are you seriously suggesting that any religion could possibly hold 'more ground' than that?
 
The biggest single reason religion and god is a lot of crap is Dawkins argument. Why are we not worshipping Thor, Zeus, Mars or any number of hundreds of ancient gods? why are there still so many religions and gods, why are some people catholic/jewish/muslim, surely there is only one religion?

Now ask me if there's a possibility of an alien lifeform engineering life/dna/rna to spread throughout the galaxy and I will say perhaps. The only caveat is Dawkins argument, at some point you have to get down to the entity that created the alien lifeform that created us. You then go into an infinite loop as the very first "god" had to come from evolution and nothing else, intelligent beings cannot just appear from nowhere.
 
Superewza said:
I said 'without the need' so yes, it is a fact.

Are you seriously suggesting that any religion could possibly hold 'more ground' than that?
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You still haven't backed up your unproven assumption that a god does not exist.


You're currently around the same as a theist pointing to religious texts as proof, sort of related but completely irrelevant.
 
Tefal said:
Then. They. Are. Not. An. Atheist.

You have the wrong definition of atheist.

Go find your dictionary and look it up.


Despite Dawkins and others desperately trying to expand the definition that is what it is.
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Like it or not there is no absolute definition.

Writers disagree how best to define and classify atheism,[26] contesting what supernatural entities it applies to, whether it is an assertion in its own right or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection.

http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/p/overview.htm

Misunderstandings arise because many theists imagine that all atheists fit a narrow, limited concept of atheism. Reliance on dishonest apologists and cheap dictionaries only exacerbates the problem.

Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God.
-- Charles Bradlaugh, The Freethinker's Text-Book (London: 1876), quoted from George H Smith, "Defining Atheism," in Atheism, Ayn Rand, and other Heresies


Agnosticism isn't an alternative to atheism since it only deals with knowledge and not belief. It's perfectly acceptable to be an agnostic theist.

For what it's worth I guess I would consider myself an agnostic atheist.
 
Tefal said:
You still haven't backed up your unproven assumption that a god does not exist.

You're currently around the same as a theist pointing to religious texts as proof, sort of related but completely irrelevant.
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Because, Tefal, there's nothing I could say that would make you happy. I have my way with words but i'm not a proper Scientist.

And also, with posts like this you accuse me of 'dodging the question'?
 
Superewza said:
I said 'without the need' so yes, it is a fact.
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How do you actually know the universe started without divine intervention? How the big bang began is untestable, so it is not fact.

I don't follow a religion at all but I also don't take theory as fact either. Not until there is strong evidence. Currently there isn't a great deal for String Theory.
 
naffa said:
Please tell me you're not being serious. :rolleyes:

I can't believe I'm hearing the God of the gaps argument being brought out, again. Of course we don't know every single detail about evolution, all we know is that it happened. Even today, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould have huge disagreements about specifics of evolution.
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/sigh

"We know it happened, we just don't know how."

The very meaning of the word "know" is obviously lost to time.
 
Nanoman said:
How do you actually know the universe started without divine intervention? How the big bang began is untestable, so it is not fact.

I don't follow a religion at all but I also don't take theory as fact either. Not until there is strong evidence. Currently there isn't a great deal for String Theory.
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Which is why i didn't use definites in my statement. I said the universe started without the need for divine intervention. I didn't say it started without divine intervention. As i see it the chance of it actually have happened is so small that it would be easier to just say that it didn't as a generality but in debates such as these you need to be careful.
 
FoxEye said:
/sigh

"We know it happened, we just don't know how."

The very meaning of the word "know" is obviously lost to time.
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Maybe I could have worded it better. Evolution occurred, there are elements of it which still remain unknown.
 
mcast123 said:
The biggest single reason religion and god is a lot of crap is Dawkins argument. Why are we not worshipping Thor, Zeus, Mars or any number of hundreds of ancient gods? why are there still so many religions and gods, why are some people catholic/jewish/muslim, surely there is only one religion?
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You know the bible describes another entity as being a god, and this other one has a very different agenda to the first.

One god wants you to believe in him, the other wants to hide the very existence of both of them. He's happy that you don't believe.

Sadly, without knowing what's in those books you like to describe as a collection of myths, it's hard to understand the reasoning from our side.
 
naffa said:
Maybe I could have worded it better. Evolution occurred, there are elements of it which still remain unknown.
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Rather fundamental elements, however, such as "where did life come from".

At first it was an organic soup, now it's outer space.
 
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