Fed up of non believers

[janie48]

 

Do me a favour mate, butt out. Lockjaw and I are developing a close and wonderful relationship.

I get the impression with both of you "the bark is worse then the bite"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pFAFsTFTI

[salsafan]

And then there was the "sound of God".

"Water of Life."

Humans are made up of 80% of water.

 

[mjw47]

I get the impression with both of you "the bark is worse then the bite"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pFAFsTFTI

 

Exactly right. I myself am one of the most gentle people you will ever encounter, and Lockjaw is a complete pussycat. Mind you, his posse can turn nasty.

 

Just looked at the link. Saw them live back in the 60s at the city hall, Those were the days!

Edited March 1, 2014 by mjw47

[salsafan]

Have you ever seen or claimed to have seen a ghost?. A family relative claimed to have seen a ghost or two but he was later diagnosed schizophrenic. Not that i'm suggesting this applies to all ghost watchers of course.

 

I try to keep an open mind but it clashes with my firm belief that there is no existence of any kind after death which goes some way to null and void the ghost theory

 

Oh my goodness....

Do you queue, and do you eat peas ?

 

Classic.

[RootsBooster]

Don't entirely go along with that. Yes the position is that 'we will never know for sure'.That is a perfectly reasonable position to take given the current possibility of actually finding out the truth before we die. And to that extent we have made our mind up.

 

I am almost completely certain that that will be the case in my particular circumstance. I'm not in the first flush of youth.

 

However, the outside possibility of science being able to prove there is no creator ( very doubtful ). Or alternatively God rolling up and saying ' What the bloody hell have you lot been up to since I last checked up?'( also doubtful ) cannot be discounted.

 

'Not knowing' is in my opinion the most logical position to take ( obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have taken it ) However not knowing something does not exclude the possibility, however far fetched that you may learn the truth.

 

In which case you would know and accept the truth.

Like I said before, you're trying to synonymise knowing with believing, which doesn't work. They are two different things.

 

You think we can't know for sure if there is or isn't a God (same as me), that's your position on knowledge (gnostic/agnostic)

 

The question is (which I suspect you won't want to answer) do you believe a God exists, yes or no?

This is your position of belief (theism/atheism)

[Lockjaw]

A bit convenient don't you think? you can understand how the religious attribute it to intelligent creation

.

 

Yes. I thought that went without saying.

 

Equally, it can be attributed to a series of perfectly explainable natural events leading to another one.

 

 

What I was inquisitive about here was if it had been done, was it necessary to use precise amounts of ingredients, or did they just lob in a bucket full of chemicals ( do you like my scientific terminology?) and achieve a result? Obviously if the former then it makes random chance less likely whilst if the latter more likely. Agree about the fundamentalist Christian influence in America. Religious fundamentalist of any religion are seriously scary people, trying to talk logic to them is a complete waste of time.

 

Why does the former make random chance less likely? Go back and consider the mouldy log model. If the mould develops it merely means the conditions which arose were ideal for the development of mould. It doesn't mean they were designed to be so.

 

Think of the Hillsborough disaster. Those people didn't all go into a small space so 96 people could be killed. The people were killed because the people went into the space. One thing happened because of the other. It wasn't designed. If no people had shown up that day there would have been no disaster.

 

Equally, if water didn't do the water thing then were would be no life as we know it. There are loads of other requirements which needed to be in place. Think, for instance, of the narrow range of temperatures in which life, as far as we are aware of it, can survive. The Earth had to be within that range at the optimum time AND the water thing had to go on. Then add in the requirement for some carbon dioxide, then add as many other requirements as you want. It's pretty damned amazing. BUT, there is no reason to need to attribute it to design. It could have happened by accident, as has been shown, so why do we need to invent some magical being to have designed it?

 

It is made even more complicated by the fact that everything fits together so well and is completely interdependent. This makes people think, for instance, plants give out oxygen and take in CO2, animals do the opposite, it's perfect. God must have done it. This is because we are looking back at the results of the series of events rather than seeing them develop from scratch. If any of the conditions hadn't been in place at the relevant times then we wouldn't be doing that because we wouldn't exist - just like nobody is doing it on the Sun, or on Jupiter, or in "outer" space.

 

 

That's the thing isn't it? not being able to prove it beyond doubt leaves the door open for faith in a creative force.

 

Of course.

 

That's why discussions such as these take place and why religion hasn't died out yet.

[mjw47]

Like I said before, you're trying to synonymise knowing with believing, which doesn't work. They are two different things.

 

You think we can't know for sure if there is or isn't a God (same as me), that's your position on knowledge (gnostic/agnostic)

 

The question is (which I suspect you won't want to answer) do you believe a God exists, yes or no?

This is your position of belief (theism/atheism)

 

Seriously? You can't accept that not knowing means just that? Later this afternoon the Blades play MK Dons, now we have an abysmal record there and there's every possibility we could lose.

On the other hand we are playing quite well and we could win.

Then again it could always end as a draw.

 

What do I believe will happen?

 

Do you know what? I haven't a clue. Therefore, I'm just going to have to wait to see how it all turns out.

 

I don't believe we'll lose because I don't know if we will.

 

I don't believe we'll win because I don't know if we will.

 

I don't believe we'll draw because I don't know if we will.

 

I don't believe there is a God because I don't know if there is.

 

I don't believe there isn't a God because I don't know that there isn't.

 

Seems logical to me, no one has to take a position one way or the other, it's perfectly acceptable to say 'you know what mate, I haven't a clue, lets see what happens.'

 

Particularly when the one thing that you do know, is that whatever anyone claims is their belief they can't prove any of it and therefore actually 'know' no more than you do.

[redwhine]

I don't believe there is a God...

Therefore you are an atheist.

 

...because I don't know if there is.

The reason is irrelevant.

[RootsBooster]

Seriously? You can't accept that not knowing means just that?

Of course I accept that, I'm asking about your belief (or lack of) though, not what you know/don't know.

 

Later this afternoon the Blades play MK Dons, now we have an abysmal record there and there's every possibility we could lose.

On the other hand we are playing quite well and we could win.

Then again it could always end as a draw.

 

What do I believe will happen?

 

Do you know what? I haven't a clue. Therefore, I'm just going to have to wait to see how it all turns out.

 

I don't believe we'll lose because I don't know if we will.

 

I don't believe we'll win because I don't know if we will.

 

I don't believe we'll draw because I don't know if we will.

Once again you seem to be trying to synonymise belief and knowledge. Your belief doesn't have to come from what you know, in fact very often beliefs are formed without any knowledge or even in spite of knowledge.

 

If a team had been playing great all season and kept improving with every game, you wouldn't know they will win their next match but you might believe it.

 

I don't believe there is a God because I don't know if there is.

...then you, sir, are an agnostic atheist

 

I don't believe there isn't a God because I don't know that there isn't.

...still an agnostic atheist

 

Seems logical to me, no one has to take a position one way or the other, it's perfectly acceptable to say 'you know what mate, I haven't a clue, lets see what happens.'

You don't have to take a position, choose a belief or make up your mind about anything. Simply being without belief qualifies you as an atheist

 

Particularly when the one thing that you do know, is that whatever anyone claims is their belief they can't prove any of it and therefore actually 'know' no more than you do.

How do you know that? For all we know, God might exist and may have made his/her existence known to a select few, however unlikely that may be.

There are people who claim it, maybe they're telling the truth.

 

Most likely though, they're not.

[mjw47]

Therefore you are an atheist.

 

 

The reason is irrelevant.

 

'I don't believe there isn't a God because I don't know that there isn't.'

 

Therefore, I am perfectly willing to believe that there is a God.

 

Therefore I am a believer.

 

Your opinion is irrelevant.

 

---------- Post added 01-03-2014 at 14:23 ----------

 

 

You don't have to take a position, choose a belief or make up your mind about anything. Simply being without belief qualifies you as an atheist

 

 

I have no belief in the belief of atheists, it has been my experience that quite a number of them are arrogant pricks who are under the impression that proclaiming their lack of belief in some way makes them appear 'cool'.

 

Incidentally, if you think that a certain thing is true, but have absolutely no way of proving it, that's what is known as a belief, whether you want it to be so or not.

 

Atheists are believers in the non existence of God(s).

 

As you and your cohorts are so fond of definitions : Belief ,the psychological state in which an individual holds a conjecture or premise to be true.