I do NOT believe in god

[Stealth3si]

It's hard to trust a man like Sagan who held to a criteria just like his opponents did but chose not to follow through.

I never implied anything about the person. I just quoted what he stated about how miniscule our world is. I thought it would be of interest for people to see/read.

Fair enough.

BTW, your previous historical bit about the house-arrest of Galileo due to his findings not aligning with the bibles philosophy is more disinformation than anything else, not saying that you are the perpetrator. 

Edit: Btw good to see your head pop up again.

You too. I see you have accumulated a substantial amount of posts since way back when.

I'm so ridiculously busy that I have to complect my 30 posts a month at a time!

[Stealth3si]

Christians didn't invent God. The credibility of your argument falls as the IPD does not share this commonality with God. Your thinking fails when you debate using a false "given". God is not akin to invisible dragons or unicorns. They have absolutely no backing.

Yes, Christians didn't invent god.  Humans did.  Humans have invented gods throughout all history - way before the Christians - that's pretty obvious.  Humans invent god(s) for evolutionary reasons (to explain things, to overcome pointless-ness and fear of death).  There you have it.

I would definitely take neuro-theology with a pinch of salt. Until it re-invents itself though, any one investing their time or dabbling into spiritual neuroscience shouldn't be taken seriously. I'd rank it among Christian Science or the Intelligent Design movement, as they are inconclusive and irrelevant, retrospectively, and has nothing to do with the Christian God.

The scientific explanations for the universe are abundant.

Prove empiricism, as the claim that we are limited to empirical methods, and your claim that the possibility for god is virtually non-existent according to empiricism may have some purpose.

For one who is tossing around debate terms against me so as to sound intelligent...

Um, your own debate-speak is working against you right here.  You lead me to assume that you don't know what you're talking about and are only trying to "sound smart".

Why so quick to ad-hominem?

I try to make my vocabulary and grammar intelligible as possible. Let me know if there's anything you find confusing and I'll see if I can clarify.

That is absolutely ludicrous for you to say that everything we as humans have to show evidence for/against god isn't good enough.

Strawman. I wasn't having a discussion about whether empirical means of knowing are good. I grant that. I was having a discussion about whether empiricism is true.

If someday there is tangible, observable evidence for god, we'll have to reexamine our position.

I doubt there's "proof" for God. The whole issue of God v. Nature is based on presuppositions. If you accept only scientific explanations, you'll either come to a scientific conclusion or a question that can't be answered. Scientists don't at present have an accepted explanation of exactly how the universe came to exist as it does today, but they assume there is a scientific explanation.

I think based on the fact that God is Spirit and that scientific proof is based on empirical evidence, there could never be a strictly scientific proof for God's existence, but it's silly to limit the use of the word "proof" so much.

But for now there is not, and god should be able to stand up to hard scrutiny if he really existed, don't you think?

This is question-begging.

It appears to me that through most of your posts you have accounted for this proposition by the links and TUH that you have provided by appeal to authority (never mind that this is a logical fallacy.)  So your argument that the utter lack of evidence in favor of God's existence is enough proof to support atheism is basically, if we already think that atheism is right, then we can conclude that atheism is right?  This is not very convincing.

Please don't throw around terms like "appeal to authority" and "logical fallacy" unless they can actually stand up!!

It's a bad argumentative form of debating when arguing your claims are true because someone else said so in their book, video, website, etc.

My "appeals to authority" are examples of other intelligent individuals who address many things that people easily overlook, but by the powers of logic and rationale, can be known to be true and accurate.

They're bad sources for your arguments. I'm not meaning to come down on you too hard, but the arguments for this approach end up being really ridiculous, so using your examples eventually becomes a waste of time. It's good to look into and check out to a degree, but if you read the arguments carefully, people advocating these particular ideas end up making so many assumptions and wide-sweeping statements that it's not even worth reading them. I'd love to cite them to you, though, if you're unsure of some of my examples, or if you still have questions.

And as I've said earlier in this thread, lack of evidence for god was NOT good enough for me personally when I was first an atheist.

Okay, so it's a personal thing. You haven't proven anything, then.

I now know that there are hundreds of points AGAINST the Christian god specifically (me being an American and all, he's the relevant one), which solidifies my position.

Such would simply reveal atheistic pre-commitments. Therefore, instead of being a proof of atheism, this would be an argument that atheists should be atheists. That's not necessarily a bad argument; it's just not any kind of proof about which the Christian should be concerned.

[Stealth3si]

Interestingly enough, the naturalistic atheists/agnostics have claimed that laws of logic do govern reality. However, the problem is when asked how they know that these laws of logic exist or that they are absolute, we get answers like "Supposition" or "I don't know." They claim to have knowledge but won't substantiate it. Do I care whether or not the atheist knows the color of my eyes? No; it doesn't matter because the atheist has made no statement based on the color of my eyes. However, the atheists/agnostics have made statements based on logic. In accordance with that, I would ask them to account for said proposition.

Also interesting is the fact that in the debate that a gal named Lacey recommended we watch, a Christian in the audience also said this.  My reaction was along the lines of, "Seriously?  What an idiot!"  Not saying that you are an idiot, but it is really dumb to taunt, "How do you know logic is true?  Hahaha!"

Um, we know logic is true because our world would be chaos without it.  We wouldn't be able to make sense of anything, get anything done, or survive very long.  You use logic and rationale in your everyday life, in everyday things, and you know it.  You even have thrown terms like "logical fallacy" at me, so what do you mean, you doubt logic?

I was not making a statement on the nature of logic itself as much as how logic is circularly applied to different worldviews and seeing which of them makes sense of the human experience—that is, which can account for universal, invariant laws of logic and natural laws in science.

Now, logic is about how to reason to new things from what you already know. But it doesn't make the epistemological claim that a person's belief is justified only if it was formed as the result of his use of such reasoning. That would be logic with megalomania. Your response places you in the position of "If I assume logic, then logic is provable (reflexive, if LOGIC=TRUE then TRUE=LOGIC)".

So, how is it that we know that these laws of logic exist according to your worldview? Where did we get the knowledge -- assumption? Again, if it is assumption, such precisely is your case, I simply assume "Christianity is totally right" and am fully justified according to your standard. There must be reasons to know something in a worldview other than mere assumption; that is, what method outside of logic alone can you use to prove logic in your worldview? You claim to verificationalism, so can you show the epistemic justification for immaterial, universal, immutable laws of logic empirically? I would ask simply that question -- how is it that, according to your worldview, you know that immaterial, immutable, universal laws exist, specifically laws of logic?

[Stealth3si]

It basically comes across as saying that everyone who isn't an atheist is a moron, which is not only rude and annoying, but pointless to keep repeating

No, I do not think non-atheist = 100% moron.  That would be arrogant and incorrect of me.

Irrelevant. I don't care how much of a moron you think non-atheists are in the brain.

However, the part of the brain where they hold these religious beliefs IS immature and faulty.

Too bad your neurotheological claim here has no bearing on reality. What happened to basing our beliefs on evidence? Can you prove what you just said, empirically?

[Stealth3si]

My question is simple: Why? Why can emotion and other subjective influences be admitted?

Because that's like saying, "Judge, forgive me, I murdered my husband because he called me names and didn't put the toilet seat down when he knows I don't like that and wore a shirt I thought was ugly."  Sorry, feelings don't mean sh*t ultimately when it comes to justifying important matters.

No, it's not like that. You are completely missing the point. The court/investigation analogy does not apply because I am not talking about taking my subjective evidences and using it to support why someone else should believe in something. IOW, I'm not using subjective evidence objectively but your response assumes that very thing.

You are erring by making the subjective evidence objective.  Subjective evidence is subjective.  To the Christian, the feeling he has is evidence.  He can't show it or prove it to the skeptic, but to him, it's there.  The same with the lack thereof to the skeptic which serves as a subjective evidence of sorts.

[Stealth3si]

My question is simple: Why? Why can emotion and other subjective influences be admitted?

May I ask why you are mainly quoting all of my posts?

No particular reason.

Your onslaught of messages comes across as uninformed ramblings...

I understand. I'm trying to wrap my own ideas around my head too.

Your observation would be accurate only if you had forgotten your original train of thought, since mine weren't meant to be coherently treated as one without inherent diversity.

I think you have to stretch a lot and do some heavy pulling to get what you're trying to say out of them.

[Stealth3si]

I agree with you.  I also attended church on a regular basis, sang in the church choir and had even made up songs for the church.
Then as a got older I realized "What a minute I see people going out drinking-gambling-molesting-etc and they call themselves a Christian".

Next I started having my daughter's ask me "Mommy why did grandpa or daddy do that and they aren't being punished for what they did wrong?   Mommy, where did God live if he made everything?   Mommy how come our country isn't shown in this Bible?"   So I stated asking the preacher or decon at the church we were attending.  Needless to stay within 3 months my daughter's and I were asked to leave the church and not come back.  When I asked "WHY?"   I was told "You are putting doubt in the minds of the others."   OK so  in other words
because the preacher/decon didn't know the answer to our questions nor wanted to admit they didn't have the answer it was better to dismiss my daughter's and I.

So my theory is simple. Believe in the Spirits that surround you. Believe in yourself and question the things you do not understand.  When you are not sure ask yourself the question and then wait for the answer to come to you.  You will be surprised at what appears before you.

EXAMPLE:  OMG where in the world did I put those keys at?    Then stop and not do anything and see what happens.

Hell is mentioned in my bible

That's because the translators but the word hell where Sheol(hebrew) and Hades(Greek) is supposed to be. As for hellfire the Greek word for that is Gehenna. None of these words have the Greek meaning for hell so essentially if you take out the Greek meaning for hell you get common grave of mankind.

Bait and switch exegesis. The word for Hell has been translated variously dependant on the language in which it was translated into.

Non-sequitur. I have no idea what your point was.

[Stealth3si]

I often like to read my favorite posts on here to my husband (it garners lots of lols), and today he was so inspired by one of you, he personally wrote this response:

Well, I'm glad I'm an inspiration to your husband.

This person's ostentatious efforts at maintaining a pseudo-intellectual veneer is undermined by their frequent lapses into hypocritical quackery.  They start off trying (very hard) to seem fluent in philosophy -- at this point, it seems that they are a solipsistic, nihilistic, anti-empiricist Philosophy 101 student. And then, suddenly, in a flash of DID, they begin making strange claims to knowledge about Christian ethics, the Bible, and the very mind of god -- all the while providing no support whatsoever. It's as if their interpretation is the obvious one, and should require no evidence.  Logical terms are thrown about spasmodically in a flailing attempt to justify what it is that they already believe.  The levels of intellectual dishonesty here amazes me -- my brain could not handle such high levels of doublethink.

Misunderstood. It may look like to your husband that there is an inconsistency but I assure you this is not the case. His description has a few underlying assumptions which relate to a misrepresentation of the nature of my position that the statement is fairly far from correct

-"I don't deny "proof" in the traditional sense. I deny "proof" in the Modernist sense. Of course, so did all the greatest secular philosophers of the second half of the 20th century..." (Does he drive a Prius too?)

-"All this I am doing is asking you to give "proof" for any of your claims." (This person values proof, if I am reading this correctly.)
-"Anyone attempting to put forth any worldview has the burden of proof." (Again, proof.)

Ah! But there's a difference between empiricism and the use of empirical means of knowing. Empiricism absolutizes empirical means of knowing, and my quarrel is with that absolutization, not with the use of empirical means of knowing.

Further, I don't see why the use of logical and (the interpretation of) empirical evidence should be disallowed; they are certainly key tools in establishing propositions.

-"Christians didn't invent God. The credibility of your argument falls as the IPD does not share this commonality with God. Your thinking fails when you debate using a false "given"." (Self-contradiction within the same breath, excellent!)

If I assume that you did understand me, then your response had little to do with what I was talking about and is therefore irrellevent.

-"However, such looking is irrelevant when it comes to the existence of God, because He is not a space-time entity." (Hahahaha, no comment necessary!!!)

?

-"God has not been proven false. The IPD was false before it was invented."  (Intentionally misconstruing the point of the analogy.  Ugh, disgusting.)

I don't mean to misinterpret what you said. But your analogy was false to begin with, showing your point as irrelevant.

-"Christian ethics is not and cannot be based on isolated appeals to scriptural commandments because the bible is not a list of do's and dont's."  (Oh!  Wow, I guess I was just mislead...

You were simply misinformed by people who never took the Bible seriously enough or 'too seriously' (fundies like Barth, "Prophecy Experts," 700 club or McDowell) or bothered to learn anything about Christian theology (skeptics like Dawkins, Hitchens or Harris.)

Such is reading the Bible as if it's composed of timeless moral imperatives and abstract philosophies quantified by a series of deductive proofs, but while that's certainly a common Anglo-American way of looking at the Bible it has more to do with Kant or Thomas Jefferson than Moses or Jesus.

...by the hundreds of sects of Christianity that state the exact opposite.)

Theories litter the world of Christianity. But do they have any Scriptural backing? The internet are full of people, 'loony fundies' and skeptics alike, who misinterpret the Bible and write books and make websites (and videos) based on their misinterpretations. Does this surprise you somehow?

-"The question isn't whether we hold to the Old Testament or not, but rather, which parts are still applicable today." (And there is no criterion to determine which parts still apply and which don't...

This has been readily dealt with here in the last comment of that post.

...The Bible is such a massive, ambiguous, contradictory text that you can simply interpret it however you like.)

It really cannot be if you use the whole thing.

There is no honest search for knowledge here...

True only if we define knowledge as objectively proven things starting with an entirely neutral outlook, which only then we are doomed from the beginning. But since knowledge lies in personalism and faith such an outlook doesn't exist, so why are we defining knowledge that way?

...and no true valuing of proof or evidence.

Using empiricial evidence is not the same as empiricism as a worldview/philosophy. You are conflating to the extreme, as previously shown above, and hacking another strawman based on this equivocation.

[Stealth3si]

@queenofnines:
Valiant attempt at replying to Stealth3si. Much of what you said was along the lines of my thinking. I have been gone all day and just saw the new postings. I immediately decided it was not worth covering what you already had and truthfully, by the time I read it all, I wasn't sure what point had even been made since every other sentence contradicted the one before it. I am fairly sure your posts will be cited again (yes, that was very blatant, but perhaps a compliment) in lengthy, obtuse, and vague preponderance on his/her part in order to sound superior as far as knowledge. It all reminded me of 'politician-speak'. Use 10,000 words to say what could have been said in 100 and by the time you get done, no one will even know what you said or what your stance is.

I used to bend over backwards to explain terms and such, but it became too tedious. I've also tried to remove most technical jargon, maintaining only 'metaphysics,' 'epistemology,' and 'transcendental,' AFAIK. I think I used "vicious circularity" recently, too. Oh yes, I use the word 'worldview,' but it seems pretty self-explanatory (worldview => view of the world).

I think you're just trying to find a reason to psychologically justify dismissing me.

I heartily agree that God should be able to withstand tough scrutiny from any and all who question his existence. By the way, why IS it always assumed God is male?

Skepticism detected here and without accounting for it, your requirement begs-the-question

It seems that epistemologically, skepticism yields no absolute knowledge, so nothing is acknowledged to have any objective legitimacy over other things. However, in spite of this, skeptics like yous decide to follow certain lines of belief for subjective, personal reasons. Thus, a person who believed "reality" was fake would be, objectively, just as legitimate as someone who believed it to be real. At least that's what I've gathered.

[queenofnines]

You know the brain has a God center right, Queen? Do you know what the function is?

Yes, I was aware of that.  I've read The "God" Part of the Brain, and such an area developed due to evolution.  A way for us to cope with the fact that existence is essentially pointless.  

[jordandog]

It's usually called the "God Spot" or "God Module" and is in the frontal lobes of the cortex and is also, to some extent, in deeper areas of the brain. This has been studied for at least 20 years now. There was also a fairly recent experiment/study conducted by a large panel of scientists in which they stimulated the temporal lobes (God Spot) with a rotating magnetic field. The result? It was found they could artificially create the experience of religious feelings in 80% of volunteers.

Our brains have evolved to improve our chances of survival and much of that is sensitivity to believing almost anything if there is a basis for doing so. Whether you are religous or atheist, we all use the same area of our brains to process/solve 'moral' dilemnas. If you believe in God, or any other religious icon, you will base your thoughts and actions by those beliefs. If you are atheist or agnostic, you will base it on the 'moral compass' you have acquired through experiences and conditioning.

I don't think this is 'proof' of God though if that's what you are implying.

[queenofnines]

No I was just replying to what she said "However, the part of the brain where they hold these religious beliefs IS immature and faulty."

Just because we first evolved that part of the brain millions of years ago does not mean we still "need" it today.  It has always been my position that just because we're hardwired for something doesn't mean that it is good for us today.  Most of us can grow up and be just fine without having to rely on fairytale superstitions...and what I was saying with the "immature and faulty" bit is that people can be reasonable and logical in every other area of their lives except when it comes to religion.  That area still needs to catch up with reality.

[queenofnines]

I don't understand why you say existence is pointless. Since there is no eternity then it is pointless to live at all? You're married, there is no point there? Something to do out of boredom?

It's pointless in a technical sense not just because each of us are a 70-year blip in the cosmological timespan, but because humankind itself (and our known universe) will be completely wiped out one day -- if not by our own hands first, then guaranteed by the death of the sun and the crunch of the universe.  Everything that ever was will be gone with no trace that it ever existed.

As far as an individual life being pointless, I think you make your own point within the pointlessness (and that is why I am married).  Enjoy life knowing that this is it, and that's all you can do.  I don't really think there being an eternity would make things less pointless, actually.  What would be the point in struggling through eternal existence?  There is no grand purpose to anything, and I can't really see how there could ever be.  That being said, the people who know me can see I live my life to the fullest where many others don't, and I do so because life is fleeting and beautiful.

[queenofnines]

The creation of the Universe and Life and the very fruit we eat along with the flowers and trees is very magnificent if you ask me and was worth seeing even if you won't remember after you're dead.

I agree.  It matters in the here-and-now.

[apatel12]

I am not a Christian, or even that religious (even though I am technically Hindu), but for me, I am interested in the effects that religion has caused on history. Religion was a big factor throughout history.