A friend, religion, and what to do?

Johno please? · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:01

Eurofighter said:
I believe in God but struggle to classify myself as any religion. There are people who do horrible things in the name of religion but there are also people who do great things that are religious.

Most people in the world are religious and most people are "alright" by most peoples standards and the same for atheists.

Yes but the point which a lot of people fail to grasp is that otherwise good people only do obscene things because they believe in some god.

No atheist has ever blown themselves up in a mosque as far as im aware.

SkodaMart · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:08

I am also an atheist.

However I am not arrogant enough to assume that the rest of the world who aren't atheists have got it wrong.

He could be correct and you're the lost sheep that needs returning to the flock.

Who will truly know until it's too late.

live & let live.

SkodaMart · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:10

Johno please? said:
No atheist has ever blown themselves up in a mosque as far as im aware.

Good grief I am sure there a scores of atheists committing heinous crimes everyday.

How the hell can you take the moral high ground?

Tony Blair and Iraq had nothing to do with religion to start.

Johno please? · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:22

SkodaMart said:
Good grief I am sure there a scores of atheists committing heinous crimes everyday.

So what? It has no relevance, hitler and stalin also had moustaches, OMG people with moustaches must be evil.

DisrupTor75 · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:30

One of my mates is now, thanks to the morons on youtube, a firm believer that the earth is flat and the moon AND the sun orbit the earth. He started watching some spiritual-type vids on YT then progressed to that madness.

Anyone else encountered these flat earthers?

If you fancy a chuckle have a gander

Surfer · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:31

ICDP said:
How would Atheists look like fools in this scenario? As an Atheist I would simply think, well now that we have some tangible proof I will change my opinion on the existence of God.

Depends on what you accept as being tangible enough proof for you. Some people have a remarkable (i guess) religious or spiritual experience and from that point on believe in some kind of God.

That is in a way quite rational because they have received new experiental data and thus their world view has been altered.

The stereotypical atheist view of: the idea the the existence of God is comparable to believing in invisible pink elephants/fairies etc that no'one can see or measure and suchlike. > This setup is a complete straw man and yet it is used many times in these type of threads on here.

Belief in God is not diametrically opposed to the principles of Science.

see sig

Johno please? · 26 Aug 2015 at 20:37

DisrupTor75 said:
One of my mates is now, thanks to the morons on youtube, a firm believer that the earth is flat and the moon AND the sun orbit the earth. He started watching some spiritual-type vids on YT then progressed to that madness.

Anyone else encountered these flat earthers?

If you fancy a chuckle have a gander

No thanks, Its a depressing state of humanity that in 2015 there are lots of people who believe equally as absurd crap, when I hear it IRL I don't put up with it.

FoxEye · 26 Aug 2015 at 21:04

Dimple said:
(Obviously there is no chance of this ever happening because I know there is no God).

I'm sorry, but anyone who says they /know/ there is no God, cannot be taken seriously.

You can say that you are not convinced there is a God. You can say that you do not consider there to be any proof.

You cannot say there is no God, 100% for a a fact.

Would you say there are no aliens? There is no proof of them either, but many people entertain the possibility. (Not just the tinfoil hatters).

SexyGreyFox · 26 Aug 2015 at 21:26

FoxEye said:
You cannot say there is no God, 100% for a a fact.
.

Yes I can and I'll say it over and over, it makes no sense.

What I won't do is try and convince a friend there is no God if they believe.

Scrutinize · 26 Aug 2015 at 21:50

This is a troll thread right? Nice bit of baiting by the op.

FoxEye · 26 Aug 2015 at 21:52

Dimple said:
Yes I can and I'll say it over and over, it makes no sense.

What I won't do is try and convince a friend there is no God if they believe.

That is not very scientific tho is it. A scientist doesn't make up his mind that something 100% does not exist, because he has no evidence for it. He simply says that there is no evidence for it.

If someone would say there is 100% no planet like Earth in the universe, somebody would rightly say "you do not know that."

You are mis-using the word "know", I'm afraid.

Rroff · 26 Aug 2015 at 21:58

Dimple said:
Yes I can and I'll say it over and over, it makes no sense.

What I won't do is try and convince a friend there is no God if they believe.

Having an opinion there is no God fair enough - I'm of the opinion and fairly convinced that every organised religion is basically a sham and those gods do not exist... but there is so much we don't know about our universe let alone what might exist outside of our universe that saying that there absolutely is no "God" is as closed minded as those who live their lives absolutely to a book that at the very least has factually been perverted by the hands of man over the last 1000+ years even on the off chance there was anything to it originally.

ICDP · 26 Aug 2015 at 22:29

Surfer said:
Depends on what you accept as being tangible enough proof for you. Some people have a remarkable (i guess) religious or spiritual experience and from that point on believe in some kind of God.

That is in a way quite rational because they have received new experiental data and thus their world view has been altered.

Sorry, spiritual experiences/hallucinations for an individual cannot in any way be used as evidence for the existence of God for the masses.

Surfer said:
The stereotypical atheist view of: the idea the the existence of God is comparable to believing in invisible pink elephants/fairies etc that no'one can see or measure and suchlike. > This setup is a complete straw man and yet it is used many times in these type of threads on here.

Totally disagree, there is absolutely zero measurable or testable evidence for the existence of God(s). Why should we give more credence to the existence of the Christian God over the other major Gods of other world religions such as Allah, Krishna, Brahman etc?

They are all mythical figures created in the mind of humanity. No different to the tooth fairy, Santa Claus or leprechauns.

Surfer said:
Belief in God is not diametrically opposed to the principles of Science.

see sig

Religion and science are fundamentally incompatible because one has, and continues to form an understanding of the rules that govern the universe, while the other believes in a supernatural being that exists outside these rules and in fact can change them at will.

The scientific principle requires an open mind that is willing to abandon any and all preconceived ideas or beliefs if sufficient evidence is shown to refute those beliefs. Religious principles on the other hand demand that faith is paramount and anything that challenges that faith should be cast out as impure thoughts.

FoxEye · 26 Aug 2015 at 22:33

ICDP said:
Religion and science are fundamentally incompatible because one has, and continues to form an understanding of the rules that govern the universe, while the other believes in a supernatural being that exists outside these rules and in fact can change them at will.

You are aware, are you not, that various natural phenomena that exist and are observable are outside the rules that we have created.

We create 'rules' based on an understanding of what we see. Since we do not yet 100% understand everything we see - and there is a lot we have yet to see - we cannot create an all-encompassing set of rules.

In other words, our existing rules are incomplete at best, and some may yet prove to be wrong, and superseded as we learn more in future.

The fact that God exists outside of our current 'rules' actually means very little. Our rules are not perfect. We are still learning.

ICDP · 26 Aug 2015 at 22:43

FoxEye said:
You are aware, are you not, that various natural phenomena that exist and are observable are outside the rules that we have created.

We create 'rules' based on an understanding of what we see. Since we do not yet 100% understand everything we see - and there is a lot we have yet to see - we cannot create an all-encompassing set of rules.

In other words, our existing rules are incomplete at best, and some may yet prove to be wrong, and superseded as we learn more in future.

The fact that God exists outside of our current 'rules' actually means very little. Our rules are not perfect. We are still learning.

Nowhere did I say or imply science knows everything, if it did it would stop. You are contradicting yourself, if a phenomena is "natural" then it by definition cannot exist outside scientific theories.

There is nothing in the observable universe that requires the existence of God to understand or explain them. It's the old God of the gaps argument, science doesn't know everything, ergo God. Or, "you can't prove God doesn't exist, so he must exist".

SexyGreyFox · 26 Aug 2015 at 22:46

FoxEye said:
That is not very scientific tho is it. A scientist doesn't make up his mind that something 100% does not exist, because he has no evidence for it. He simply says that there is no evidence for it.

If someone would say there is 100% no planet like Earth in the universe, somebody would rightly say "you do not know that."

You are mis-using the word "know", I'm afraid.

I'm not a scientist so I can say I know for fact there is no God.
It makes no sense that one individual made the whole of the Universe and has planned out the lives of every person.
It's stupid to even think that could happen.

Pudney · 26 Aug 2015 at 22:51

ICDP said:
Nowhere did I say or imply science knows everything, if it did it would stop.

Show me these observable and naturally occurring phenomena that exist outside the accepted rules of science? There is nothing in the observable universe that requires the existence of God to understand or explain them. It's the old God of the gaps argument, science doesn't know everything, ergo God. Or, "you can't prove God doesn't exist, so he must exist".

Surely any unexplainable phenomenon exists outside the accepted rules of science otherwise it would be explainable.

FoxEye · 26 Aug 2015 at 22:56

ICDP said:
Nowhere did I say or imply science knows everything, if it did it would stop. You are contradicting yourself, if a phenomena is "natural" then it by definition cannot exist outside scientific theories.

There is nothing in the observable universe that requires the existence of God to understand or explain them. It's the old God of the gaps argument, science doesn't know everything, ergo God. Or, "you can't prove God doesn't exist, so he must exist".

Only that's not what I said. I said you can't 100% claim to "know" that God doesn't exist, simply because you refute the evidence or there is no evidence.

As for the God of the gaps, I personally see the flip side to this argument. It is man in his arrogance who believes he has the answer to the existence of God, even when his understanding of the universe is so very basic.

Those gaps you speak of may not just be small gaps, but entire worlds of data that we are missing. The trouble is, we just don't know how much we don't know! We may know less than 0.00000001% of how our universe works.

It is again our own arrogance which makes us presume to deny the existence of God.

Rroff · 27 Aug 2015 at 06:35

Dimple said:
I'm not a scientist so I can say I know for fact there is no God.
It makes no sense that one individual made the whole of the Universe and has planned out the lives of every person.
It's stupid to even think that could happen.

Why does it have to make sense? if something or someone existed outside the limits of what we know of the universe our concepts of what makes sense could be entirely meaningless.

Joe! · 27 Aug 2015 at 06:46

I'm assuming you are both adults, if so, I can't imagine the "Why didn't you tell me it was bs?" thing to ever occur.

You should respect his life choices and leave him to it - You don't have to agree, just let him live his life how he wants to, just as long as he doesn't push it on to you.