What it comes down to is basically this: Christians and muslims both believe that god created everything. That god is omnipotent. omnipresent and omniscient. This concept is an anti-intellectual position. It is anti knowledge and repressive. If religious people end up dictating what will be taught in schools it will sound like this: REPEAT AFTER ME: "God created everything. No questions will be tolerated. Now please go to play lunch which god also created."
Faith attempts to reduce knowledge so that all that is required is the following of "belief".
That the gods created man in his own image might be one of the earliest and most successful pieces of propaganda. I would suggest that the reverse is true and that man created the concept of god in man's image. So that all that mankind is capable of, all his aspirations, character flaws and strengths, and all his desires and hopes and dreams have been formulated into a "god concept" in order to attempt to explain and rationalise existence. Therefore, people who are vengeful appear to delight in the aspect of a vengeful god and those who are loving they delight in the aspect of a loving god etc etc. If we are to accept that this proposition is true; that mankind created a concept of god in mankind's image, it goes somewhere to explain the contradictions associated with religions and religious texts.
I cannot know about the unknown through faith. I can only know by knowing. Hence I cannot know of the unknown through faith.
Religions are man made constructs particular and peculiar to the geographical, political, social and economic needs of the time in which the religion was constructed.
The "beauty" of religion as far as the powerful in society are concerned, is that it can be used as a method of societal control. Religion and faith demand that you do not question. A lack of knowledge is not evidence of god. If you follow this to its logical conclusion, god requires faith. Therefore knowledge or the lack of it, is superfluous.
Faith desires stasis so that all is reduced to that of religious text and religious belief. Consequently, any knowledge which might be in opposition to faith, must be debunked, in order for faith to survive.
He is one of those people who deny the existence of everything except his god concept. Apparently he lives in mortal fear that his computer will turn into a homosexual if he doesn't believe in jesus.
Religions require belief without question. There are punishments for questioning in most religions. So if you are brought up to be a believer, you are essentially brought up to not critically analyse anything for fear of punishment.
Religions persist because people are taught to believe without question. Those who are taught to believe without question do not develop the skills needed in order to question. Therefore they continue to be believers. This process is self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating.
Belief systems thrive on fear and though fear is part of human beings' survival mechanism; too much fear or overwhelming fear, limits the chances of survival. Religions persist in upping the fear levels in order to retain believers.
If god did not need a creator, then god came from nothing. Something can come from nothing?
If god did not need a creator, then god came from nothing. Which means that something can come from nothing. If something can come from nothing, it means we also can come from nothing which leaves no need for a creator.
The three major monotheistic religions all justify killing in the name of their omnipotent god, which is totally bizarre as if a god is omnipotent, it does not require man to do any killing to protect it.
Neither god belief nor the lack of it, will guarantee moral or ethical behaviour.
Religion is used by many people as a way of justifiying their political actions. If those political actions require them to kill others, they feel happy and justified to kill in order to protect their religious beliefs. In doing so, they create the evil they say they detest.
Is it love to create a heaven and a hell, then tell people they better do as you say and love you and get your damn name right or you're going to burn them for eternity?
You can find the same attributes of Jesus as being shared among the following gods that came before Christianity: Adonis, Attis, Baal, Bacchus, Balder, Beddru, Devatat, Dionysis, Hermes, Horus, Krishnu, Mithra, Orpheus, Osiris, Tammus, Thor, and Zoraster. So why should anyone disbelieve them while selecting only the human Jesus story to believe as reality?
There is the claim that atheists cannot prove the non-existence of god and theists cannot prove the existence of god, and that therefore these positions are in same way equal to each other. I would suggest that these positions are NOT equal to each other. They do NOT cancel each other out. As theists make the claim for the existence of something, it therefore behoves those who make the claim to have the burden of proof.
The atheist position is a reaction to a group of people who claim that god exists. These people are called theists. If there was no claim for the existence of god, there would be no atheists.
If I make a claim that aliens exist, it is not up to the disbeliever to go to every planet in the universe and disprove my claim. It is up to the person who claims that they exist, or to the person who believes that they exists to come up with the evidence or it is considered a claim without merit.
What if religion is just a memeplex that infects people's minds, pushing them into mindless servitude to some powerful, but untrue, concept? What if people are brutalized by practicing religion? Christianity, for example, has guilt as a major commodity. Would I be happier if my life was riddled with guilt? Would I appreciate and experience all the beautiful moments that I have on Earth if I was torn by a sense of hesitation? Now, while I know that theists sometimes like to paint atheism as a sort of conspiracy by unwitting dupes of satan to fool the public, there is no doctrine of atheism. Nobody undergoes a course or passes a test to be an atheist; there is no catechism, no personal relationship, no moment in which the spirit fills you or feel the Word move upon the face of the earth. There is no commonality of positions in any meaningful way. And yet, becuase this group of people CAN be separated from the remainder, it is entirely valid to label them as non-believers, or atheists. That is a DESCRIPTIVE term. But that term does not imply a dotcrine to which allegiance is given. What sort of confidence do you have that your methodology for ascertaining the veracity of information is logical, or unflawed? That you have considered all the variables and nuances that allow you to say that there is a statistical certainty that your belief system is correct? How do you ascertain the veracity of information? How do you become a discerning consumer of information?
"Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." If faith is evidence, there is no attempt needed to justify belief. So stop trying to justify belief by posting things from the bible.
Is faith just an excuse to believe anything? No matter how implausible this belief might be?
How does a believer ascertain the veracity of information? There is no need for a believer to ascertain veracity because belief excludes the need for examination. If there is no need for examination, then all belief is possible, no matter how implausible or insane that belief might be.
If all belief is possible, then all gods are possible, even the ones I make up now. If all belief is possible, how do people choose?
Atheist Blessing: May your thinking processes expand in order to surpass your blind belief paradigms.
God belief is a recipe for everything theists consider to be the unknown. Then they go for a few hours telling you how they know the unknown.
Religions are like some sort of compulsive/obsessive disorder. People suppose that they have to do certain rituals in order to survive, when in fact the performance of those rituals could be the source of the problem in the first place.
"Jesus Loves You" and if you don't believe he will torture you eternally.
Gods/Goddesses do not exist merely because they have been defined to do so.
If there is evidence of god which is irrefutable, no one would need "belief" in the existence of god, they would "know" of god.
The willingness to believe is the path of least resistence and the willingness to think (or be logical) is the path of greater resistance. Therefore people have a propensity to follow the less challenging path.
" What is it that you do in your daily life that benefits mankind, that I can not do without the belief in your god? " SiberianGypsy
The evidence must be objective. Anecdotal evidence of other people's religious experiences isn't good enough. Strong, compelling evidence is required, because the existence of god is an extraordinary claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being an atheist doesn't bring with it a belief in any sort of superhuman power, nor is it categorized by worship in any meaningful sense.
Atheists live their lives as though there is nobody watching over them. Many of them have no desire to be watched over, no matter how good-natured the "Big Brother" figure might be. It is a natural human tendency to look for "meaning" or "purpose" in random events. However, it is by no means obvious that "life" is the sort of thing that has a "meaning".
Asking "What is the meaning of life?"might be just as silly as asking "What is the meaning of a cup of coffee?".
If god is the concept for the unknown, god should not be able to be defined, for once god is defined, it is not unknown and ceases therefore to be god.
The universe is no more conscious or sentient of the individual parts which comprise it, than I am conscious or sentient concerning the individual cells which comprise my body. Therefore it has no need of my worship, my money or the slavery of my mind.
God belief is inherently dangerous because with god belief comes the competition between groups as to what constitutes god. Believers are people who are marching in lockstep towards a mutally assured destruction with insane smiles upon their faces as they hack their way through those who do not believe as they do.
After human beings anthropomorphised the universe and called it god, they attributed all of the workings of the universe to god. Then it was an easy task to make up the human characteristics and attributes for "god".
Human beings like to create order and will attempt to create order even if none is obviously perceivable. "God concepts" are an attempt to create order, in a world or universe that still perplexes people.
There might be an order in the universe of which I am unaware, but that is a different thing to saying" there is a god" and ascribing a definition and characteristics to that entity. One position is of speculation, the other is of imagination, dogma and belief.
Genesis 2:7 "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." We share about 98% of our genetic code with chimpanzees and about 50% with bananas. We share no genetic code with dirt.
What sort of confidence do you have that your methodology for ascertaining the veracity of information is logical, rational and objective? Do you analyse to see if you have taken onboard the variables or the nuances that provide you with the conviction that your conclusion is valid?
Mankind does not know all the answers. So if mankind does not know all the answers, mankind's answer that it is god, might be incorrect.
If jesus were to stand up today, he'd be gunned down cold by the CIA. If god is the answer, it must have been a very stupid question. It is a leap of faith to say that everything requires a cause except god.
"Belief" appears to be a pleasure seeking response. Knowledge recognises information regardless of the level of pleasure one derives from it.
The more heavily invested one is in the emotional content of a belief, the more likely one is to believe without requiring any evidence.
Believers appear to be like "battered wives". No matter how much they are battered, they are so emotionally, and psychologically invested in believing that "their master/god" loves them, that they deny evidence to the contrary. They put down the beatings or the horror to an aberration rather than an indication that there is something wrong with the relationship.
Believers deliberately create and elaborate upon the concepts of evil, that is their job. They create the concept of evil and then set up a business, namely religion to "save" us from it.
For every believer there is a different god, as each person creates the god which fulfills their emotional and psychological needs.
