Thank God I'm An Atheist (Warning: STRONG Content)

[zanket]

The fact that reality repeatedly
contradicts the 'word of God' is a fine proof that 'God', simply put, does not
exist.

A non sequitur. It is proof that the ‘word of God’ to which you refer is not really about God. Change your source to find a ‘word of God’ that is in perfect agreement with reality.

 

[surenderer]

I'm not generally hostile, and if I am then it's my nature. I cannot change that anymore than I can change what I had for dinner yesterday.



Kindly show me where I implied there is a reason for people to be hungry. However, you seem to think it requires no more than one rich person picking a wad of cash out of his pocket and it's all resolved, which is far from the reality of it. My country gives hundreds of millions annually to the starving, and those less fortunate than ourselves. But in the light of this debate and topic, it can only be said that we did not cause their plight, we did not force abject suffering upon them, and your only argument boils down to god being meaningless. Humans can solve natural problems - god is nothing. You say little more than that.

But then how dare you even try to commend god, to try and put such love on a being that when it comes down to it - is invisible, and hiding from the realities of the life he created for us. Of course it's easy for you to say to me, given that we both enjoy certain luxuries - but sit down and tell that to one of these children.



I fail to see the relevance.



And the pope? My old house was bought by a priest for over half a million British pounds. That is some serious earnings, and this guy wasn't even high up on the chain. Where does his money go? For the sake of this topic, should he not be giving all he has away? Why waste around £580,000 on a house when a £20,000 cupboard would do, and the rest could save the starving? Well?

Tell me why you decided to settle on a "sportsman" as being rich while ignoring the religious leaders who piss and poop money and yet do nothing to aid those in need?



They don't have to be, and wouldn't be if the planet wasn't created by your god to be so fucking inhospitable to human life. If the sun didn't bake those kids to death, kill the crops and the livestock, cause disease etc, then we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

Regardless to what you think, man did not create the environment, nor did he sit down and create the numerous diseases that kill these children in the most disgusting and obscene manner imaginable. So I ask you: who did?



Their lives do suck. Ok, you need to see some kid rotting in the desert so you can enjoy playstation, but that is the most perverse notion to a sane and rational man. I don't need to know about coffee ice cream to like rum and raisin ice cream.



Of course we would. You're giving the fools argument, and it falls apart under scrutiny.



Yeah, tell that to the kids fucking starving to death. Easy for you to say sitting in your warm house heh?



Luckily it wont come to that because god causes enough bad shit to keep us busy until this world and all on it will perish in the most obscene manner imaginable.



It is weird to see the religious folk finally relent and state god is completely irrelevant to life. That is all you're saying. All the praying, all the chorus and cheer is fucking meaningless. People will rot, and the only ones who can change that are humans. People will happily starve and it's upto the world to undo what god has done. It is upto us to fight against the viciousness and evilness of this being you worship. With every move, with every £10 we donate, we are fighting your god hand for hand. Goodbye god, you're worthless to humans, (except comfortable humans).

Dude....you are hard to respond to when you mix my posts in with other peoples anyways I agreed with you on the Pope.I am not catholic so I honestly didnt know anything about the Pope and his billions but if what you say is true I agree with you about him. I say the same thing about the House of Saud in Arabia

 

[one_raven]

It is weird to see the religious folk finally relent and state god is completely irrelevant to life. That is all you're saying. All the praying, all the chorus and cheer is fucking meaningless. People will rot, and the only ones who can change that are humans. People will happily starve and it's upto the world to undo what god has done. It is upto us to fight against the viciousness and evilness of this being you worship. With every move, with every £10 we donate, we are fighting your god hand for hand. Goodbye god, you're worthless to humans, (except comfortable humans).

I am not religious at all.
In fact, I'm not even a theist.
I DO believe that God is irrelevant, and stated such quite a few times on these forums ( I think even in this thread).
My whole point is pretty much the same as yours.

Mind you, I am playing Devil's Advocate here (that expression fits quite well, don't you think? ) and I do not agree with the philosophy, but what I am saying is that the philosophy can stand on its own and not be self-contradictory.
It CAN be true (if, that is, you believe in God and Heaven).

I think that the irrelevance of God to human suffering is not necessarily contradictory to Christian Theology. I think it's just absurd to claim that God must not exist because there is suffering in the world. The two, as you pointed out, have nothing to do with each other, save the Christian hypocracy of claiming to follow the teachings of Christ, and allowing people to starve while they live in abundance and squandering resources on shit that is far beyond what is necessary to live.

Quoting myself again...

I imagine God (if there were one) sitting back watching us saying, "Why the fucx would I help you if you refuse to help yourselves? If you do not consider the suffering your brothers and sisters, then you do not consider me your father, because they ARE MY children!"

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Absolutely NOT!

The Proof of God is in his Wrath punishing a Sinful World.

After the World killed, murdered, His Son Jesus, has not the World fully deserved all the suffering it gets... and more?

There had been a few good years back during the 90's, and it was THEN that I wondered where God was. Now with God plainly pounding His Fist upon the Earth, He had become very clear to me.

But has it been enough to bring Sinners to Penance. No. Well, we just need more of the same until you Atheists finally get the point.

Sounds like 'God' is having a temper tantrum. I don't recall the bible verse
where 'and the Lord said, if thou shall smite my child then I'll fuck thee
and thy children and thy children's children for all eternity without any KY.'.
Love and forgivness, can't you feel it?

 

[zanket]

Exactly. So why relate the bible to God? Makes no sense.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

A non sequitur. It is proof that the ‘word of God’ to which you refer is not really about God. Change your source to find a ‘word of God’ that is in perfect agreement with reality.

I disagree with the first half of that statement. Referring to the bible of
course, 'God' defines how reality is, and this exepectation does not match
the way it actually is.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Exactly. So why relate the bible to God? Makes no sense.

It's the Xian 'God' in question here. My bad if I didn't set up the context correctly.

 

[SnakeLord]

I said our lives, not their lives.

I am aware of that, but accidentally on purpose you seem to have ignored the entire rest of the response I made. What you are actually saying is that it's a good thing their lives are fucked up otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy playstation and masturbation.

Of course their lives suck. And so would ours if theirs did not.

Ah let's send them our thanks shall we? Your claim is astoundingly retarded, and personally I find it offensive to see such an ignorant little shit, enjoying the freedom he has, trying to pass off that these people somehow require this "burden" in order for us to be happy - while all along completely ignoring the abject misery that these people live in. It does not make our lives better, and for the most part people will always find something to complain about no matter how good it looks to the outside world, but we do not need, as god does not need, people to suffer in such manner that you could not imagine, merely for you to be that little bit happier.

You need to have tasted something other than rum and raisin ice cream, or be able to empathize with someone who has tasted that something other.

No you don't.

If it’s a fools argument then it should be simple for you to show how it falls apart rather than just claim it does. You can start by telling me how you can like rum and raisin ice cream when you’ve tasted nothing else.

Fine. The rum and raisin ice cream goes in your mouth. It then hits a bunch of taste buds that either find it nice or not. Your taste buds do not sit there comparing it to anything else. They don't say: "hmm, not quite like the lamb roast I had last Sunday but it will do".

What you are trying to do, is state that man needs to have experienced death in order to appreciate life, that we need to experience amputation in order to appreciate having limbs, or that we need to have been blind in order to appreciate sight.

Whether we've been blind or not, sight is still nice. The same goes for everything. I sit here and enjoy a beer as it's new years, and yet I starving africans don't need to exist for me to be able to enjoy it. Neither do my tastebuds need to taste orange juice just to appreciate beer.

Anyway, as you were committed to the ideal a minute ago, kindly tell me how we need to experience blindness in order to understand sight?

It is the kids who are being charitable.

Stop trying to impress me with utter stupidity. It does not work with me.

They are heroes. We can thank God for them.

You're one deranged fucking child.

The elegance of this setup is hard to fully appreciate if you think the kids just have a miserable life and die and that’s it. But that is not all there is.

Oh really? Tried that life on for size have you?

We are all in this life together, and life is eternal.

Nonsensical statement.

Over many lives everyone participates in the unfortunate role.

One piece of evidence for this please.

How can you know this? Go see a hypnotherapist who, with minimal prompting, can help you to re-experience past lives, which you will experience in vivid detail. You can go back to the hypnotherapist again and again and the re-experiences of your past lives will not alter, but rather be filled in with ever greater detail, as far back as you dare to go.

According to who? Are you in the field or is this just a bunch of handed down hoo-hah that you've grasped onto in the hope of justifying your imaginations?

God is not outside of ourselves, so to understand better replace “god causes” with “we choose”. If most of us choose that, it will certainly happen.

And kindly tell me... Who exactly is it that chooses for a bunch of newborn black kiddies to starve to death before their second birthday. Come on, you were doing so well.. name names. You did say "most", surely you can give me just a couple of names? Well?

 

[zanket]

Referring to the bible of
course, 'God' defines how reality is, and this exepectation does not match
the way it actually is.

OK. If “God” is the character in the bible, then yes, “God” obviously does not exist in reality.

It's the Xian 'God' in question here. My bad if I didn't set up the context correctly.

Isn't this thread about a real God rather than a fictional character in a book?

 

[Godless]

Were there no evil or suffering in the world, how could I have the opportunity to end the evil and suffering? What purpose would I have then? Just to sit in a chair until I die?

Man are you retarded?.

Christians claim god is benevolent, how the hell can any being be benevolent when evil exists in a world supposedly created by this "benevolent deity"?. It's a contradiction to the word "benevolence".

One can't be all good, and then create evil.

Godless.

 

[one_raven]

One can't be all good, and then create evil.

Not that I believe in the Chirstian God, but that's just bullshit for a few reasons.

The first of which would be the recurring theme in this thread. God didn't create the evil, God created Man and gave him free will. The vast majority of unjust human suffering is at the hands of other humans.

If you believe in the Christian ideal of an eternal heaven, then death on the Earth is pretty meaningless, and some pain here is of little or no consequence compared to the eternal bliss of Heaven.

I can go on and on, but I already have.

Point is, you may not agree with Christian doctrine and ideals (neither do I) but to say that God can't exist because evil does, or God must not be benevolent because evil exists, is simply a load of unsupportable crap.
Evil existing in the world could very well be a valid argument against Christianity and Christians, but it is in no way a valid argument against the existence of a benevolent God.

 

[Q25]

The Proof of God is in his Wrath punishing a Sinful World.

After the World killed, murdered, His Son Jesus, has not the World fully deserved all the suffering it gets... and more?

so according to your retarded pov
those starving kids are suffering b/c some Romans nailed a delusional idiot who thought he was son of God to the tree couple thousand years ago.

and if God created everyone wouldnt all people including these kids be HIS children.

Now with God plainly pounding His Fist upon the Earth, He had become very clear to me.

me thinks that only thing clear is the space between your ears!

But has it been enough to bring Sinners to Penance. No. Well, we just need more of the same until you Atheists finally get the point.

and what would this point be,do tell?

 

[SnakeLord]

Dude....you are hard to respond to when you mix my posts in with other peoples anyways I agreed with you on the Pope.I am not catholic so I honestly didnt know anything about the Pope and his billions but if what you say is true I agree with you about him. I say the same thing about the House of Saud in Arabia

So basically...

You just agree with me 100%? You had the opportunity to disagree with other comments I made with concern to your post, but chose instead just to leave the conclusion that you agree with me. I would then question why you bothered with your post in the first place when at the end of the day you just agree with me? Now forgive me, it is new years eve and I have been drinking.. (which reminds me, happy new year to you and the starving millions.). Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, would you care to go through the other points in my post or just continue agreeing with me, in which case there's little more to say?

I am not religious at all.
In fact, I'm not even a theist.
I DO believe that God is irrelevant, and stated such quite a few times on these forums ( I think even in this thread).
My whole point is pretty much the same as yours

While that's most certainly entertaining and interesting, I wasn't even talking to you.

To Zanket:

I know, I come across as being harsh and even rude. But then fuck... if I wasn't rude none of you would understand politeness. I'm a fucking hero, thank god for me..

 

[Q25]

God didn't create the evil, God created Man and gave him free will. The vast majority of unjust human suffering is at the hands of other humans.

so now its humans who created this Earthquake that killed so many people?
and the way nature works that people in Africa starve b/c it never rains there and they cant grow any food.? so who created the world?
God,so who is responsible for the suffering ?God!

and as for free will,if God created some people evil,than its His fucking fault that people cause evil!
if God created ALL than you have no free will!
how hard is that to comprehend
clickGOD

If you believe in the Christian ideal of an eternal heaven, then death on the Earth is pretty meaningless, and some pain here is of little or no consequence compared to the eternal bliss of Heaven.

yeah but belief is just that,a fantasy,fiction an imposibility b/c it doesnt exist!
I guess the belief in a spiritual afterlife helps some people to cope with pain and suffering,on earth,and in life but unfortunately its all
one big lie

 

[one_raven]

Snake,
Sorry if I misunderstood, but you did post that reply directly after quoting me saying:

God didn't "cause" any of these things.
If anything, humans are more to blame for several reasons.
Global Warming.
Overpopulation of areas that can not sustain that level of life (animals move or are nomadic).
Not to mention the fact that with the scientific and agricultural advances we have at our fingertips and the vast resources we have to put those technologies into action, NO ONE on Earth has to starve of hunger or thirst (regardless of God).

Which is probably why surerender said:

you are hard to respond to when you mix my posts in with other peoples

I know, I come across as being harsh and even rude.

Nah, you are just coming of as a little drunk and confused over who is saying what.
That's cool, it's New Year's Eve.
Party up!
(I would be too if I wasn't at work)

 

[SnakeLord]

Nah, you are just coming of as a little drunk and confused over who is saying what.

It's been a long day... My apologies.

I guess I just got thrown off by the statement that no one on earth has to starve. It's so daft it's not even worthy of mention.. (To Zanket).. I mean fuck that, without them starving how do I know my beer tastes nice?

 

[zanket]

I am aware of that, but accidentally on purpose you seem to have ignored the entire rest of the response I made. What you are actually saying is that it's a good thing their lives are fucked up otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy playstation and masturbation.

Yes, that is what I’m saying. I didn’t ignore you. I thought I had already made myself clear.

Your claim is astoundingly retarded, and personally I find it offensive to see such an ignorant little shit, enjoying the freedom he has, trying to pass off that these people somehow require this "burden" in order for us to be happy - while all along completely ignoring the abject misery that these people live in.

Who says I’m ignoring their misery? I need not ignore it to appreciate it. As I said, some of us enjoy helping them.

It does not make our lives better, and for the most part people will always find something to complain about no matter how good it looks to the outside world, but we do not need, as god does not need, people to suffer in such manner that you could not imagine, merely for you to be that little bit happier.

Agreed, they need not suffer for that. We can ourselves suffer and recover, or empathize with others who have suffered in the past.

Fine. The rum and raisin ice cream goes in your mouth. It then hits a bunch of taste buds that either find it nice or not. Your taste buds do not sit there comparing it to anything else. They don't say: "hmm, not quite like the lamb roast I had last Sunday but it will do".

“Nice” is a relative term, no? What are your taste buds (or brain) relating nice to, if not other tastes? Without answering that, you have not made your point.

Were the temperature of everything exactly 72 degrees, would we have a word for temperature? No. We could not even measure temperature then. The concept of temperature would be impossible to describe let alone ponder or feel.

What you are trying to do, is state that man needs to have experienced death in order to appreciate life, that we need to experience amputation in order to appreciate having limbs, or that we need to have been blind in order to appreciate sight.

In general, whatever the subject is (taste, temperature, fear, etc.), it must be measurable to be experienced. Without the ability to experience it, it cannot be felt or appreciated or scorned. To be measurable there must be different levels of it, so that any given level can be compared to the other levels.

Whether we've been blind or not, sight is still nice. The same goes for everything. I sit here and enjoy a beer as it's new years, and yet I starving africans don't need to exist for me to be able to enjoy it. Neither do my tastebuds need to taste orange juice just to appreciate beer.

You have not made your case. If beer were the first thing you ever tasted, your brain would compare it to your saliva, your default taste.

Anyway, as you were committed to the ideal a minute ago, kindly tell me how we need to experience blindness in order to understand sight?

Sight is compared at least to when your eyes are closed. You are blind then.

I suggest focusing on the temperature, a more clear-cut example. Were the temperature of everything exactly 72 degrees, could we appreciate the temperature?

Oh really? Tried that life on for size have you?

I don’t see how this question applies to what I wrote.

Nonsensical statement.

You didn’t show how it is that.

One piece of evidence for this please.

I gave it; the past life re-experience.

According to who? Are you in the field or is this just a bunch of handed down hoo-hah that you've grasped onto in the hope of justifying your imaginations?

According to me obviously. I am not in the field, nor is it hoo-hah. Go see for yourself, or not, as you wish.

And kindly tell me... Who exactly is it that chooses for a bunch of newborn black kiddies to starve to death before their second birthday. Come on, you were doing so well.. name names. You did say "most", surely you can give me just a couple of names? Well?

The kids themselves. They are the heroes by their own choice. Whatever their names are, those are the names in this lifetime of theirs.

 

[§outh§tar]

Not that I believe in the Chirstian God, but that's just bullshit for a few reasons.

The first of which would be the recurring theme in this thread. God didn't create the evil, God created Man and gave him free will. The vast majority of unjust human suffering is at the hands of other humans.

If you believe in the Christian ideal of an eternal heaven, then death on the Earth is pretty meaningless, and some pain here is of little or no consequence compared to the eternal bliss of Heaven.

I can go on and on, but I already have.

Point is, you may not agree with Christian doctrine and ideals (neither do I) but to say that God can't exist because evil does, or God must not be benevolent because evil exists, is simply a load of unsupportable crap.
Evil existing in the world could very well be a valid argument against Christianity and Christians, but it is in no way a valid argument against the existence of a benevolent God.

Now that is simply a load of unsupportable crap. Can you name some humans who were responsible for the recent tsunamis, or tornados, or droughts, or floods, or earthquakes?

Also your claim that humans have free will is NOT found in the Bible. If you can't provide proper and thorough corroboration of this, then your argument is pretty useless.

To quote Mackie's argument:
"If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good? Since there seems to be no reason why an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good god would not have preferred this alternative, the theist who maintains that there is such a god, and yet that he did not opt for this - since by his own account human beings make bad free choices - seems to be committed to an inconsistent set of assertions."

And again Russell's argument:
"The usual Christian argument is that the suffering in the world is a purification for sin and is therefore a good thing. This argument is, of course, only a rationalization of sadism; but in any case it is a very poor argument. I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children's ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they are suffering. In order to bring himself to say this, a man must destroy in himself all feelings of mercy and compassion. He must, in short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes. No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery."

 

[§outh§tar]

They are heroes. We can thank God for them.

You're one deranged fucking child.

Amen brother SnakeLord! Puh-raise Gawd!

 

[one_raven]

so now its humans who created this Earthquake that killed so many people?

When did I say that?
Please don't put words into my moth in a dishonest attempt to sway my argument via unfair extrapolations.
I said the vast majority of human suffering.
I said nothing about natural disasters.
That's another issue entirely, and I don't consider natural disasters evil at all.

and the way nature works that people in Africa starve b/c it never rains there and they cant grow any food.? so who created the world?
God,so who is responsible for the suffering ?God!

If your house gets washed away by the Mississippi flooding and you rebuild on the same spot, and it gets washed away again.
Is that Gods' fault?
I don't see how.

Regardless, as I pointed out, we CAN feed starving people in Africa, we CAN take the many many billions of dollars spent anually to produce disposable crap that no one needs and divert those funds to a dedicated effort to bring fresh water to all of Africa.
The technology is there.
The money is there.
The manpower is there.
What is missing? Oh yeah, the DESIRE to do so.
If mankind doesn't provide for and take care of his bretheren, is that God's fault?
No, it's man's.
Blaming a God (presuming he exists for sake of this argument) for the suffering of man is no different at all than praying to God to fix what is wrong with your own life rather than actually doing something about it.
It is throwing the responsibilities of mankind on the shoulders of a God that, even if he exists, has never once stepped in and actually DONE anything good. An atheist that claims to not believe in God because suffering exists and evil exists is not only highly hypocritical, it's a lie. It is someone pissed off at God for his inaction therefore rejects him. It is not disbelief, it is belief, but rejection.

and as for free will,if God created some people evil,than its His fucking fault that people cause evil!

I don't believe any person is creted evil.
I think people are reflections of their environments.
Until you can prove nature over nurture as the seed for evil (good luck with THAT one!) then your statement is meaningless and pointless.

if God created ALL than you have no free will!
how hard is that to comprehend

Whether or not God created all has nothing to do with whether or not we have free will!
how hard is that to comprehend?

Not very convincing is it?
How about you actually make an argument regarding that statement, rather than just making the simple statement.
Did you expect me to slap myself in the forehead and say, "DUH! Why didn't I think of that?"

God Created All - No free will.
One does not follow the other.

yeah but belief is just that,a fantasy,fiction an imposibility b/c it doesnt exist!
I guess the belief in a spiritual afterlife helps some people to cope with pain and suffering,on earth,and in life but unfortunately its all
one big lie

Possibly.
I would even say probably.
That, however, is really entirely beside the point, and again, simply making a statement and sounding sure of yourself does nothing to convince anyone BUT yourself (sometimes not even that).

I am looking for a debate on the underlying reasoning of the "Evil exists, does that mean that God does not?" debate, not a simple-minded shouting match regarding whether or not Christianity is delusional.