There is a god

religion is what keeps our species infantial.
it had purpose during our evolution to create morals and standards but buy now we should know right from wrong.
All religion does now is hold us back from our true potential as a species.
i refuse to let my children be told that they will go to hell for ther natural actions . relgion is just control by fear no diffrent from a dictatorship.
i understand that beleif helps people in times of crisis and sorrow but accepting the truth will help generations in future avoid wars and discover who they really are .

 

Enforcer: You said that it is a simpler explanation to say things are natural than made by a god, but I am not arguing about the creation of the universe. I am arguing about human nature, and asking which is a simpler explanation, some god decided to make us moral, or we developed it?

i would still say it's a simpler explanation to say that we as humans developed the concept of morality, instead of it being imposed upon us, for the same reasons as it's simpler when talking about the "creation" of the universe.

Also, why do we believe that there is objective modality?

for the same reasons most people believe there's a god. tradition. assurance. fear? if the majority of mankind believe in objective morality, well, that's a good enough reason in itself to reject it. ;-) but one can reject objective morality by its very name: how can a list of morals, related to human behaviour, be anything but subjective? for it to be objective necessitates a god. since god is rejected, so are all absolutes.

Yet everything we see in nature is either A things become less complex, or B everything else becomes more complex due to life.

what things, in nature, are becoming less complex? all life was once single cells floating around in primordial soup...

 

But here's the thing epic. If we did come out of a primordial soup. What thing created this primordial soup?

 

It was always there, just like you claim god to have been.

 

No you don't understand what I'm saying. I already said in my post a while back that God had to have been created by something. What I don't know. But I keep wondering is how every single thing began. We had creation, so obviously God had a creation. This primordial soup stuff obviously was created by something. Everything has a beginning. But how did this cycle all start. And even if this primordial soup stuff existed what happened to it? Why was it created? And how did that stuff get here if it existed?

 

Not everything has to have a begginning.

 

The amount of confusion and contradiction on this subject is reason enough to be an atheist, I think...

 

The amount of confusion and contradiction on this subject is reason enough to be an atheist

Amen. (insert ironic laugh) That and the fact that I don't need to waste time and energy fearing some magical deity that demands worship....and money.

 

What is God going to do with money ?

 

Buy his own starship?


Enforcer:

?I am asking why do many of us believe or act like there is objective morality??

?? we all say it is wrong to, or act like it is wrong to rape. Why??

We?re mindful of the TOS?

?Any reason that you can come up with (it is harmful, it is forcing them something, not their choice, whatever) I can ask why to as well.

Of course you can. I?ll provide another couple of reasons anyway: lack of inclination and/or realisation that doing such a thing is likely to lead to severe trouble of one sort of another (basically, self-preservation).

?What makes that logic moral??

Nothing, IMO.

?Basically because we define it as such, and short of getting into a linguistics, there is still nothing fundamentally that makes good good unless there is a god of some sort. Otherwise, it is just a human desire to not harm people or something, and what makes that desire better than wanting to act like a animal??

Speaking as an animal, I take exception to the inference in that last sentence.

Seriously, it?s pretty obvious why the majority of people disapprove of murder/rape/theft: they don?t to be victims (or for their loved ones to be victims) and they?ve sense enough to know that there can?t be one set of laws/moral standards/rules for them and a different set for everyone else. In other words, I would still accept that rape was wrong, even if I wanted to commit it: as social animals, it?s desirable that we accept some constraints on our actions and most of us (enough of us) do accept that, at least in principle. You?ve been around here long enough to know that (near) unanimity tends to break down once we start discussing the details.

 

What does God need with a starship?!

?? we all say it is wrong to, or act like it is wrong to rape. Why??

Several reasons. First, because we're taught it's wrong. If you're raised being taught by word and deed that a thing is wrong, chances are you'll think that it's wrong. However, rape has not been wrong all throughout history. If a medieval knight wanted to rape a woman he found, it was perfectly legit -- in fact, he was doing her a privilege; despite her claims to the contrary, it's an honor for a lowborn girl to have been bedded by a knight! In cultures all over the world, women have often been at best chattel and sometimes even worse. Guestrights in a household often included rights to the person's wife that night as part of the hospitality. I could go on, but you probably get my point. So why assume that morality is objective when moral standards have changed so much over time? And why assume, even if there is some objective morality, that what we happen to think is moral now is in fact the true morality, rather than the morality of some other age, past or yet to come? Second, we decide it's wrong not so much out of sympathy for others but out of concern for ourselves. If we decide it's okay to rape others, then by extension it's okay for others to rape us as well, and we don't want that. And maybe now we're strong enough to hold them off, but eventually we will not be. So by setting the standard that Rape is Wrong, we are coming much closer to ensuring that we ourselves will not have to undergo that unpleasantness.

?Any reason that you can come up with (it is harmful, it is forcing them something, not their choice, whatever) I can ask why to as well.

Feel free to ask why.

?Basically because we define it as such, and short of getting into a linguistics, there is still nothing fundamentally that makes good good unless there is a god of some sort. Otherwise, it is just a human desire to not harm people or something, and what makes that desire better than wanting to act like a animal??

That's right. There's nothing that fundamentally makes good good. There is no objective Right or Wrong, no ultimate Truth.

 

No you don't understand what I'm saying. I already said in my post a while back that God had to have been created by something. What I don't know. But I keep wondering is how every single thing began. We had creation, so obviously God had a creation. This primordial soup stuff obviously was created by something. Everything has a beginning. But how did this cycle all start. And even if this primordial soup stuff existed what happened to it? Why was it created? And how did that stuff get here if it existed?

That's the great dilemma, isn't it? The idea of God posited by Judeo-Christian theology is that God is the "causeless cause." It's that simple. It can be left at that. In this increasingly "rational" world, that's unpopular. Everything has to have a cause, a beginning, etc. It's one of our species' newer superstitions: scientism (roughly speaking: that if you can't measure it, it's not there). So they go and talk about Big Bangs and all that. To them, it sounds better than God because all kinds of scientific jargon can be applied, big words and all that. But when asked what came before the Big Bang, no one knows. Some say, nothing. Some subscribe to the expanding/contracting theory. Whatever. Either way, there's no theory that makes sense as to where it all come from, how it all originated. So it's all just a matter of faith: either you believe in God, a "causeless cause," or you don't believe in God, and accept that the universe just is, because we have absolutely no idea where it came from.

I must ask: by "primordial soup," are you referring to the "cosmic dust" that eventually formed into galaxies, etc.? Or the soup that eventually formed into life on earth?

 

OK, the origin of life, the short version:

The Big Bang occurs. Over gazillions of years, accretion and all that occurs. Galaxies form, stars form, planets form. Now we're on earth, before life.

Sometimes when atoms meet, of course, they form molecules. This has nothing to do with life; it happens all the time. On earth, long ago, were a bunch of kinds of molecules, probably including Water, Carbon Dioxide, Ammonia, Methane and so forth. Energy sources included lightning and UV light from the sun. Under such conditions, those molecules will tend to combine into amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. No life yet, but the first steps, certainly. Remember, this is still something like four thousand million years ago. When these organic substances became concentrated in the sea, and under the influence of those energy sources I mentioned, they'd combine into larger molecules. These days, such molecules wouldn't last: they'd be absorbed and broken down by bacteria and other creatures. But life didn't exist yet, so they were pretty safe, but the "primeval soup" continued to thicken as molecules kept combining. And then, at some point, something interesting happened. A molecule was formed that had the ability to create copies of itself. Of course, this is extremely unlikely, extremely improbable. But it's also improbably to win the lottery, or get struck by lightning -- but if you're working in a timeframe of hundreds of millions of years, either of those things is likely to happen to you any number of times. Improbability, over a long enough timeframe, is not the same as impossibility. Now I'll turn it over to Richard Dawkins, because he's better at this than I am, and I'm pretty much ripping him off here, anyway:

Imagine [the replicator] as a large molecule consisting of a complex chain of various sorts of building block molecules. The small building blocks were abundantly available in the soup surrounding the replicator. Now suppose that each building block has an affinity for its own kind. Then whenever a building block from out in the soup lands up next to a part of the replicator for which it has an affinity, it will tend to stick there. The building blocks that attach themselvess in this way will automatically be arranged in a sequence that mimics that of the replicator itself. It is easy then to think of them joining up to form a stable chain just as in the formation of the original replicator. This process could continue as a progressive stacking up, layer upon layer. This is how crystals are formed. On the other hand, the two chains might split apart, in which case we have two replicators, each of which can go on to make further copies.

Of course, there are other possible ways the replicator could work, but I'm too lazy to type it all up. Anyway, suddenly there were these replicators. Because there was no "competition," its copies would have spread rapidly, until the smaller building block moleules became a scarce resource, and therefore other larger molecules formed more rarely. But copying is not a perfect process. Mistakes happen. As miscopyings of these molecules occured and propagated, the primordial soup suddenly had a population not of identical replicas, but of several varieties of replicating molecules, all "descended" from one "ancestor." Because resources are, as ever, limited, different factors: the stability, longevity, fecundity of these molecules, all affected the number of any particular one in the soup. Some became more numerous. Whatever. I'm bored. But eventually these replicating molecules, in competition with each other, would become more complex as the complexities allowed them to survive the competition by making better use of available resources, and eventually the molecules became collections of molecules, with specializations, etc. And thus was born life.

 

But here's the thing epic. If we did come out of a primordial soup. What thing created this primordial soup?

the primordial soup is just the conditions of the earth a long, long time ago. if the earth had of ended up further away, it would have been too cold, and life would never have developed.

this is why they're currently looking for life on mars, because it's the only other planet in our SS which once had water on it. and if it had water on it, then that could mean life may have once lived (before it got too cold).

 

Could be that your reasons just come from logic. [refering to the first reasons on thread]

I have always seen religion as a means of comfort against the huge odds against our creation by random forces.

 

There is a god


No....there is not.

 

Well, there's a convincing argument. That's it, folks. We're clearly done here. Nothing more need be said.

 

I havn't read all of this thread, so sorry if others have already answered this.

First: Nearly everyone believes or acts like they believe that there is objective morality to some degree, even if they do not believe in a god. Rape is a good example, we all say it is wrong to, or act like it is wrong to rape. Why? Any reason that you can come up with (it is harmful, it is forcing them something, not their choice, whatever) I can ask why to as well. What makes that logic moral? Basically because we define it as such, and short of getting into a linguistics, there is still nothing fundamentally that makes good good unless there is a god of some sort. Otherwise, it is just a human desire to not harm people or something, and what makes that desire better than wanting to act like a animal?

Does anybody seriously suppose, looking at a world of six billion people with a shared history of living in communities that goes back hundreds of thousands of years that there is no other conceivable way in which an instinct for co-operative, ethical behaviour could possibly have developed other than a huge invisible spirit threatening us with torment in an afterlife?

- Douglas Adams

Second: I feel this is not logically sound, but I can?t explain how it is not. We don?t expect things with complexity to normally happen from nothing. Life comes from life, intelligence comes from intelligence, we have never seen life or intelligence or order come from nothing (or something that is neither), yet it had to come from somewhere, or be made by something? Humans have built things, buildings for example, that have order, complexity, etc, and given that life is a bajillion times more complex, doesn?t it make sense that something created it?

The building blocks of life came from the Big Bang. We don't know where the Big Bang came from, that's another issue. Also, I believe I have heard that tiny molecules CAN and DO appear out of nothing.

Third: This relates to the first point. There is nothing in godless origins, like big bang and evolution, that would have life, much less intelligent life, much less moral intelligent life.

What?

Finally: Those things can be explained through science or psychology, but if we look at which explanation is simpler, god or the long mental exercises of science, which is simpler? God.

Which is simpler, saying that all children are delivered by the stork, or explaining how human reproduction works?

 

The amount of confusion and contradiction on this subject is reason enough to be an atheist, I think...

Or a buddhist

 

First: Nearly everyone believes or acts like they believe that there is objective morality to some degree, even if they do not believe in a god. Rape is a good example, we all say it is wrong to, or act like it is wrong to rape.

This is rather presumptuous of you to think that. All people do not agree that rape in and of itself is a bad thing.

Utilitarians*, for example, believe that whatever maximizes happiness and minimizes unhappines is the moral thing to do. Therefore, if raping me would make everybody else happy, then that's the moral thing to do. In fact, if you knew that raping me would make everyone else happy and you didn't do it, then you would be morally wrong not to do it.

I don't like the utilitarian theory, myself, but I would just like to point out that it's unlikely that every single person agrees on a rule as a rule.

Finally: Those things can be explained through science or psychology, but if we look at which explanation is simpler, god or the long mental exercises of science, which is simpler? God.

Even if God is completely illogical and improbable and blatantly wrong?

btw, define "God." Do you mean the Christian God? Hindu God? Is God sentient? If I agree that there is a God, provided God is The Invisible Pink Unicorn, would you be satisfied?

Edit - Forgot to add some things.

*There are different schools of utilitarians that don't all allow rape (ex., rule utilitarians).

Since we are discussing god, I would appreciate it if somebody can define what "god" is. In particular:

1. Is He omnibenevolent (wants everyone to be happy)?
2. Is He omnipotent (can do everything logically possible)?
3. Is He omniscient (knows - perfectly - the past, the present, and the future)?
4. Did He always exist? Or did He begin to exist?

Depa Billaba

 

The amount of confusion and contradiction on this subject is reason enough to be an atheist, I think...

I'm not sure I see the logic in that: it's like suggesting that the amount of disagreement in politics somehow proves that anarchy is the way to go.

 

Agreed Bubba!

Confusion most definity!

Contradiction, no. There is no contradiction, your views (not you personally) are either right or wrong there is no in-between.

 

darthOB1: Huh? What do you mean by your last statement?

Depa Billaba

 

It simply means that despite everyones opinions and beliefs about what or who God is, there are only those who are wrong and those who are right.

Selective beilefs, choosing which you think are neat or viable are the cause of all confusions about the true nature of God.

 

wow it took me a long time to read all this, but i have some coments...


as a sort of an add on to what cyprusg said...
what if in a remote location of the world, a small village believed that on the birthday of his 15th birthday, a man must kill the first person he sees. every single person believed this, no outsider has ever come close to the village. the night before his 15th birthday he is sent to a crowded city. he wakes up, and kills the first person he sees. he is thrown in jail and got the death penalty. according to the people in the cities (countrys) laws, that young man created a horrible, vile act. most of us would agree with this. but to the man.....he was doing the right thing, the thing he was told to do, the thing he BELIEVED to do. now, will he go to hell for this?


another thing, i have read the 10 comandments. if i remember, none of the ten are greater or worse than the other ones (if i am wrong, correct me and this section is a total waste of time). anyways, a mom asks her daughter if she brushed her teeth. the daughter didnt, but says she did. he mom makes her promise to tell the truth. the daughter says she promises that she did. in another part of the world, a man kills an innocent victim. according to the ten commandments, the little girl and the man did the EXACT SAME THING, they broke a commandment (one shall not lie under oath, one shall not kill **i know, not exact quotes but along those lines**) the man gets caught and is sentenced to the death penalty. nothing happens to the daughter. for those arguing that people are moral because of religion....how come the girl wasnt killed?


Several reasons. First, because we're taught it's wrong. If you're raised being taught by word and deed that a thing is wrong, chances are you'll think that it's wrong. However, rape has not been wrong all throughout history. If a medieval knight wanted to rape a woman he found, it was perfectly legit -- in fact, he was doing her a privilege; despite her claims to the contrary, it's an honor for a lowborn girl to have been bedded by a knight! In cultures all over the world, women have often been at best chattel and sometimes even worse. Guestrights in a household often included rights to the person's wife that night as part of the hospitality. I could go on, but you probably get my point.

great post


another thing i saw here was the topic of predestination. if God knew exactly where everyone was going (heaven/hell), from the first person to the last person, why doesnt he just save us all the pain and suffering and make everyone now and to be go to there "assigned spots". and if you say God doesnt know exactly where every one is going, then God isnt perfect, which is sort of the whole idea behind a god.


one more thing i tend to not really comprehend are how people "know" they are going to heaven. is there some sort of guidline? "if you do not commit 100 good deeds in your life, you will go to hell" i just dont really get it. someone explain it to me please.




that is all for now, i know there were more comments i had, i will put them in for my next post