Why would theists talk about God to non-theists, if not to proselytize?

[John99]

Nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity. You can't (or don't want to) conceive of an impersonal god therefore you've concluded that it's impossible to legitimately do so. All atheists are doing (with varying degrees of philosophical lucidity and sophistication) is assigning to the universe the same ontological status that you assign to your god. In other words, even though a typical atheist might not describe the universe as god, that's essentially what they believe it to be. Instead of a great I AM it's simply a great IT IS.

A personal god is an extraneous concept. Unless you can demonstrate why one is needed, you're full of shit.

Who said anything about a personal god and why do i have some guy on the internet, who the only thing i know about this person is calls himself "Rav", telling me i have a "personal god"? This is kind of creepy. Would be nice to tell me who MY personal god is so at least i know.

Getting away from all that and the 50 cent words the whole thread is just disingenuous. Why is someone, who psotst incessantly in the Religious section telling theists they are proselytizing when obviously this person posts the questions?

Talk about throwing the rock and hiding your hand....sheeesh.

 

[John99]

A personal god is an extraneous concept. Unless you can demonstrate why one is needed, you're full of shit.

i wont let this put me in a bad mood.

so i will ask you one question again:

who said anything about a personal god?

i dont see why i need to demonstrate why one is needed otherwise i am "full of shit".

 

[Jan Ardena]

jpappl,

What's the difference ?

I've already explained this.
''Actions speak louder than words''.
This is fundamental to our discussion.

It's an analogy

I know, but how does it tie in?

We have to live via the way we are. That is reality.
If you want to change how you are, then you have to do a whole
lot more than talk about it.

:shrug: Your born either a believer or not ?

This is what I mean regarding depth of understanding.
One does not necessarily believe in God, because one says so.
It's just not as simple as that.

And this is what I believe Signal is talking about Jan, when pressed and you don't have answers to questions you should have been asking yourself, you resort to a false high ground.

I'm not taking the high ground, it was an observation based on that answer, and others like the one above this.
Why don't you respond in kind, and see where it leads instead of trying to palm me off with these accusations.

If only you would try harder to understand, or your not spiritual enough to get it.

Your words, not mine.

Accusing me of not being deep enough, lacking in the willingness to contemplate other scenarios, lacking in introspection such that I can not fathom the concept of god.

You could open your mind a little more than you're doing.
As a result, you stagnate the discussion, on false claim of me not answering
your questions, when you know I have.
Your understanding of God is from the perspective of an atheist, and you come into this discussion sticking to that. I don't know whether or not you can fathom the concept of God, but your display here is one of not understanding. You already made your point when you claim to believe that God does NOT exist (as far as you can tell). What more can you offer?

I've spent many years doing just that. Including months alone in the woods thinking about the world, why we are here, trying to understand the possibilities and I have asked myself these questions and answered them honestly. This is the difference, you have not, because there is only one honest answer to these questions and you briefly let your guard down here:

Just for the record, nobody actually knows.

What do you know about me that makes you think you can say with certainty what I and have not done or experienced?

Regarding my quote, you seemed to have isolated this statement;

Are you basing your rebuttal on the idea that I KNOW what I speak to be
a FACT, or are you challenging my belief??

Just for the record, nobody actually knows.

Nobody actually knows to the point of being able to present God as ''FACT''.
It seems you want me to present facts to prove God's existence.
I can't, and as far as I know, nobody can.

But then you go back in your protective shell

You jumped on that quote thinking I had made some kind of slip-up.
Why didn't it occurr to you that it wasn't a slip?

It's one thing to believe in god or aliens and quite another to claim to know how, when, who and why. Which is where religion comes in.

There are scriptures in which God, or devotees of God, describe God.
Also there are numerous accounts of alien visitations, and knowledge of alien civilisations.
You don't believe them, fair enough.
There's nowhere else to go from there.

I am trying to determine from you if you can believe in the concept of god without a definition or more to the point your own.

If you want to know my understanding of the definition of God , read Bhagavad Gita.

Nope, just asking questions. If your belief is based on reason it should be able to stand on it's own.

It's becoming obvious that you don't think it is based on reason.
And no matter what I say, you're no ''no-reason-filter'' processess it,
and we end up getting nowhere.

If god did not come into being at some point there is no god.

Why?
If God did come into being at some point, that means He will be destroyed at some point.
So why would we call Him God?
A characteristic of God is that he never comes into or goes out of being.
Why change it?

Why argue that God in order to exist MUST come into being at some point?
Why not just say I don't believe in God, and be done with it?

The point of the question is, if we can't answer this, then why place something there that doesn't need to be there. Which in this case is a god

.

The reality is it's all in your mind, you choose to believe, for whatever reason and that's ok, it's called faith. I don't understand why theists can't accept this. Does it cheapen the belief in your opinion ?

Firstly, I have answered your questions.
If you don't accept them as answers, and still seek responses that satisfy
you idea of what answers I should give, there is nothing I can do.

Reality is everywhere and everything. You don't have a monopoly on it.
What you are saying is that I am wrong, and you're reality is right.
And you cannot understand why I can't accept this. Thinking that I am clinging to a belief which [you think] I know is wrong, but am commited to. And as such cannot back away from.

The problem with this is that you have set the bar at a limit (your belief).
You have taken the easy way out (i can't see God so He doesn't exist), and
stand back and ask me to produce God so you can see Him.
You think you are right because you think everything can be accounted for
by material nature, and anything outside of that is non-existent.
How are you any different from a religious fundamentalist who believes his religion is right and all others are wrong?
I respect your belief, or whatever you want to call it. But I don't agree with it.
I'm afraid you're just going to have to come to terms with this.
I would like to discuss this with you, but you have left no room for discussion, as in your world, you are right, and I am wrong.

But how can anyone understand that which nobody can know ?

You have misinterpreted my statement to mean nobody can know God.
This is mistake on your part.

How can anyone define god without making claims of knowledge ?

God defines Himself.
We believe or not.
If we can live according to certain principles, we can understand.
This is how we advance in any knowledge, we live in accordance.

God is not matter, and as such there is no physical evidence.

Claim of knowledge ! You can't know this.

What is point of scripture if you cannot obtain knowledge from them?
What is the point of God, if He material?
From gain knowledge from scripture we can see how this work more clearly through self-realisation. Understanding that we are not the physical body. That it is merely an extention of our present consciousness (simply put).

Actually I am atheist to the question of whether I believe in god. But agnostic in that I realize I can't know for sure. I have no problem with those who believe, but do with those who claim they know because they tend to want to force their particular idea of god on others not their general belief or faith.

I think your problem is a little more intense than you make out.

You still haven't answered my question; Why don't you believe in God?


jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Signal,

It certainly isn't my understanding of what a theist would be like.
I would think that a proper theist would be beyond all anger, all hatred, with no grudges, no use of foul language or calling people names, no hasty accusations.

Where did you get this notion of what theist should be?

Instead, most theists here behave just like all other people - except that theists supposedly have God Himself on their side.
Which is a dynamic I don't understand.

It's been explained to you by myself before, plus there are dictionary abound on the internet which give definitions of ''theist'' (which i'm sure you're aware of).
So my response to you is, you don't want to understand.

If I'd be a theist, I'd be enlightened and I would talk to people only in such a manner that would not aggravate them and would lead them toward God.

You should have started that sentence with ''if i wan an idealist.....''

"Just for the record, nobody actually knows." #29

Explained.

"It is merely the only alternative explanation, and as such, has to be believed." #10

We have to believe it, but nobody actually knows??

Don't get ya.


jan.

 

[jpappl]

Jan,

Before we discuss the other points in # 63, please answer these questions for me.

I am trying to determine from you if you can believe in the concept of god without a definition or more to the point your own. ”

If you want to know my understanding of the definition of God , read Bhagavad Gita.

In the Bhagavad Gita it mentions the supreme being himself Svayam Bhagavar revealing himself within Lord Krishna to Arjuna, blessing Arjuna with an awe-insiring vision of his divine universal form.

Firstly, is there anything that discusses Arjuna describing this form ?

Secondly, it states "He" (ok it can be anything) but also states "being" which indicates that he has some form. Is this your understanding ?

If so since it is in fact a being, how did it come to be without there first being something alive before it ?

Does the text address this question ?

Some additional questions I would ask of myself if I based my belief of god on this text is:

Why does a god bother with us at all ? Of what value are we to it ?

Are there others living on other planets that are also being tested in these ways ?

The story sounds more like something a human would create with their understanding of reality, what is truly god inspired by the text ?

It states that it came to be at the beginning of our existence.

"Within the text of the Bhagavad Gītā itself, Lord Krishna states that the knowledge of Yoga contained in the Gītā was first instructed to mankind at the very beginning of their existence"

If that is the case, then when did humans first roam the earth, in your opinion ?

If you believe in evolution that would be over 100,000 years ago. Do you believe the text to be that old ?

Or do you believe all fossil evidence and the like are fraudulent ?

How does the earliest text date of around 500 BC correspond with the arrival of humans and other animals tens of thousands of years earlier ?

Remembering that we are obviously part of the mammalian family.

These are just some simple questions that I would ask without suspension of "reason" and would continue to question that which doesn't line up with our known fact based reality.

If we read this to believe it's not hard to accept it. But there needs to be more than just a story. If we apply any skepticism and scrutiny it ceases to be so god inspired.

Panentheism is vague, the questions of why and what purpose are our lives are very relevant to such a god scenario. I see value of control of humans by other humans but I see no value to a god and no need either. So the questions of why are very important to try and justify.

“ Actually I am atheist to the question of whether I believe in god. But agnostic in that I realize I can't know for sure. I have no problem with those who believe, but do with those who claim they know because they tend to want to force their particular idea of god on others not their general belief or faith. ”


I think your problem is a little more intense than you make out.

No it's not, seriously. I have lots of friends who are theists, we just don't talk about their religion and I respect them as people. Again, nobody can know if there is a god or not so what's the point in fighting about such unknowns.

Religions are a different matter, as I stated, they are making claims of knowledge which is the same as me saying there is no god as fact, not a lack of belief.

This is the most important part in my opinon, 1) that a belief in god does not require any further justification, but 2) a belief in a specific god does, but if we only answer question number one, the next question becomes "what god am I believing in" and then it goes back to number 2. Which always creates a very tangled web.

So I ask, are you a theist ? yes
What god do you believe in ? and then we have religion.

You still haven't answered my question; Why don't you believe in God?

Yes I did, here from post # 43

"“ Why don't you believe in God? ”

Based on me questioning my understanding of all of my experiences of what I deem as reality, the only god that I could believe exists is one that would be indistinguishable from the universe itself. No other separate entity within or outside of it that has power or control over our lives exists without so many contradictions to make the mathematical likelihood non-existent.

So if we called the universe god I can go along with that, but that's not what most people would accept as a definition, why not just call it the universe."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

 

[Rav]

Who said anything about a personal god

First of all you said that all atheists were really agnostic, implying that you consider the existence of God to be a real possibility. Then you went on to imply that atheists are in some kind of unconscious denial about it, or at the very least have simply not yet realized what they really believe.

If you're agnostic about the existence of an impersonal first cause rather than a personal creator god, then why use terms such as atheist and agnostic which are typically interpreted as relating to the more traditional concept?

i dont see why i need to demonstrate why one is needed otherwise i am "full of shit".

You're full of shit about all atheists being agnostic. The only way that such a statement could be true is if you can show that genuine philosophical inquiry inevitably leads to acknowledgement of the existence of God as a real possibility (you must be able to delineate the steps so everyone is able to arrive at the same conclusion). Then you'd have to show that atheists have either ignored the obvious conclusion or have sabotaged (consciously or unconsciously) their own efforts to reach it (out of fear, or whatever). This is to say nothing of the people who simply lack any kind of belief or curiosity in the first place.

 

[The Esotericist]

Whoever said it, I definitely agree with it.



Many of the theists I know (mostly Christians, plus some Jews and deist-types) are pretty relaxed about their theism. They believe that there's some transcendental higher-power, they usually imagine it in personal terms, and they typically think that their own ancestral religion's scriptures and traditions have some kind of revelatory relationship with this thing. But they generally think that this higher power is probably going to accept every sincere person with a good heart.

There's often quite a bit of universalism associated with these views, the idea that all religions ultimately employ their very different doctrines and imagery to point towards the same transcendental object. The various religions represent the endless variety of human responses to the divine.

It's probably going to be hard getting any solid poll data on it, but my intuitive sense is that these kind of ideas represent one of the most common varieties of religious view here in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's probably associated with the region's extraordinary religious eclecticism.



Maybe this transcendental object of theirs is a major interest in their lives and they just want to talk about it. Maybe they are curious about what their neighbors believe.

I completely agree with this. I think America is one of the most blessed nations to have not only such a high diversity of religious and spiritual variety, but also such a high interest. I think this creates one of the most enlightened and free populations on the planet. Just a hunch.

My only concern is that there also seems to be growing a high disregard for scientific knowledge and inquiry. And any system of spiritual wisdom that disregards the evidence of science? It's completely worthless.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. [Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address]

 

[wynn]

Don't get ya.

So my response to you is, you don't want to understand!!!

 

[John99]

First of all you said that all atheists were really agnostic, implying that you consider the existence of God to be a real possibility. Then you went on to imply that atheists are in some kind of unconscious denial about it, or at the very least have simply not yet realized what they really believe.

How can someone be an atheist without knowing if there is something more, something we are not aware of? Do you just want to call yourself an atheist? Because since you really dont know its pretty meaningless.

I can just pick out another planet that the only thing we know about is that it exists and ask you is there life on that planet.

What will your answer be?

To take an atheistic perspective you would say no, to take an agnostic perspective you would say i dont know. And which one would be the correct answer?

Were here but we dont know how we got here. I cant say if it all just started here or came from someplace else because i just dont know but no one knows.

Looking at it that way then i dont see how the concept of atheism...well i can see how it exists but it exists only as a perspective that is really a belief.

We cant even answer fundamental questions of existence pertaining to this planet then how do we know what else is out there?

You should really be able to answer these questions:

How did we get here?

How did we get a planet populated by living, breathing, thinking beings?

You have water, you have dirt, you have rocks and sand...fine. Out of all that and something moves. Wait a minute, thats not supposed to happen. Its a salamander running across the rocky substrate...well can i make water? i can figure out condensation and collect it, i can get dirt from dust falling from the sky, given enough time i can make a small rock but i just cant get that salamander. I cant get from A to B with that salamander...why? because its alive. I'll try and grab it and it runs from my grasp, i put out a piece of food and it grabs it but that rock aint doin shit.

None of this means i am a theist either though.

If you're agnostic about the existence of an impersonal first cause rather than a personal creator god, then why use terms such as atheist and agnostic which are typically interpreted as relating to the more traditional concept?

They are just descriptive terms and now we see that it is you who is putting the traditional spin on them. I think that says a lot and may be why you are wrong about this. In my view you are wrong, this is just my own opinion.

You're full of shit about all atheists being agnostic. The only way that such a statement could be true is if you can show that genuine philosophical inquiry inevitably leads to acknowledgement of the existence of God as a real possibility (you must be able to delineate the steps so everyone is able to arrive at the same conclusion).

No, i think it is you who has to do that. To prove or disprove is not my obligation but it would be nice for an atheist to be able to do that because if you cant well like i said you are not an atheist.

 

[Dywyddyr]

How can someone be an atheist without knowing if there is something more, something we are not aware of?

Um, because theism/ atheism is a stance on belief not knowledge.

To take an atheistic perspective you would say no, to take an agnostic perspective you would say i dont know. And which one would be the correct answer?

Please look up the defintions of "atheist" and "agnostic".

Looking at it that way then i dont see how the concept of atheism...well i can see how it exists but it exists only as a perspective that is really a belief.

Or lack of belief.

We cant even answer fundamental questions of existence pertaining to this planet then how do we know what else is out there?

Irrelevant.

You should really be able to answer these questions:
How did we get here?
How did we get a planet populated by living, breathing, thinking beings?
You have water, you have dirt, you have rocks and sand...fine. Out of all that and something moves. Wait a minute, thats not supposed to happen. Its a salamander running across the rocky substrate...well can i make water? i can figure out condensation and collect it, i can get dirt from dust falling from the sky, given enough time i can make a small rock but i just cant get that salamander. I cant get from A to B with that salamander...why? because its alive. I'll try and grab it and it runs from my grasp, i put out a piece of food and it grabs it but that rock aint doin shit.
None of this means i am a theist either though.

Beside the point.

They are just descriptive terms and now we see that it is you who is putting the traditional spin on them. I think that says a lot and may be why you are wrong about this. In my view you are wrong, this is just my own opinion.

Yeah, but "your opinion" is, as usal, uniformed and ignorant.

No, i think it is you who has to do that. To prove or disprove is not my obligation but it would be nice for an atheist to be able to do that because if you cant well like i said you are not an atheist.

Bull.

 

[John99]

Um, because theism/ atheism is a stance on belief not knowledge.

but if the atheist cant know for sure then why isnt the atheist really an agnostic?

 

[Dywyddyr]

but if the atheist cant know for sure then why isnt the atheist really an agnostic?

Why should he be? He doesn't believe in god - that's what makes him atheist.
One more time: look up the defintions of "atheist" and "agnostic".
An atheist is an atheist because he doesn't believe in god.
You can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist.
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2698987&postcount=5

 

[Jan Ardena]

jpappl

Before we discuss the other points in # 63, please answer these questions for me.

Okay.

In the Bhagavad Gita it mentions the supreme being himself Svayam Bhagavar revealing himself within Lord Krishna to Arjuna, blessing Arjuna with an awe-insiring vision of his divine universal form.

Firstly, is there anything that discusses Arjuna describing this form ?

Actually Krishna was showing HIS Universal Form to Arjuna. Not that God was
showing Arjuna His Universal Form through Krishna.

Regarding your question, I don't know.

Secondly, it states "He" (ok it can be anything) but also states "being" which indicates that he has some form. Is this your understanding ?

Yes.

If so since it is in fact a being, how did it come to be without there first being something alive before it ?

Does the text address this question ?

Chapter 10, Verse 8.
I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who know this perfectly engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.

Some additional questions I would ask of myself if I based my belief of god on this text is:

Why does a god bother with us at all ? Of what value are we to it ?

We are minute parts and parcels of God. This means we are qualitively
the same as God, but quantatively different. Because of this we have a free will, because God has a free will. Due to misuse of this free will, we decend into the material atmosphere where we play out our fantasies in various guises. God bothers with us because He wants us to give up these fantasies and return to our natural position (pure spirit)

Are there others living on other planets that are also being tested in these ways ?

According to vedic literatue yes.
Although I'm not quite sure what you mean by ''tested''.

The story sounds more like something a human would create with their understanding of reality, what is truly god inspired by the text ?

That's your opinion.

It states that it came to be at the beginning of our existence.

I don't get you.
Please explain by using texts.

"Within the text of the Bhagavad Gītā itself, Lord Krishna states that the knowledge of Yoga contained in the Gītā was first instructed to mankind at the very beginning of their existence"

Chapter 4, Verse 1.
The Blessed Lord said: I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Iksvaku.

If that is the case, then when did humans first roam the earth, in your opinion ?

I don't know.

If you believe in evolution that would be over 100,000 years ago. Do you believe the text to be that old ?

I don't believe in Darwins theory of evolution.
I believe the texts are thousands of years old, but I don't know how many.
As the text above describes the Bhagavad Gita was sung by Krishna to the
sun-god which stated to be 40,000,000 years ago.

Or do you believe all fossil evidence and the like are fraudulent ?

I haven't really given it much thought.
But how do you know that what you're being told is correct?
You should read a book called ''Forbidden Archeology''.

How does the earliest text date of around 500 BC correspond with the arrival of humans and other animals tens of thousands of years earlier ?

The text came with the arrival of a new era (kali-yuga) which is the current one. The text are here because the humans of this time lack intelligence, and brain power, which was prominent in previous ages. This allowed humans the capacity to remember great amounts in great detail and no record of texts were necessary.

If we read this to believe it's not hard to accept it. But there needs to be more than just a story. If we apply any skepticism and scrutiny it ceases to be so god inspired.

Some things will never be understood by science, simply because it is not
with the field of science. I believe you are being fooled into thinking everything can and should be explained by modern science.
While you wait for answers, your body & mind is decaying, soon to be destroyed. What is the point?

You don't believe in God, so what do you expect a God inspired text to look and sound like.
You, I, or anyone do not have the brains or intelligence to scrutinize God.
If we think we do, then we have already lost out.
You may as well not bother about God, and get on with material life.
But somehow I don't think you will, as you know there is something to all of this. That is my opinion anyway.

The story of Darwinian evolution is being forcibly shown to every child who have access to books, tv's, cinemas, video games.
These stories cannot be proven or shown to be correct, they have to be taken at (cgi) face value.

Panentheism is vague, the questions of why and what purpose are our lives are very relevant to such a god scenario. I see value of control of humans by other humans but I see no value to a god and no need either. So the questions of why are very important to try and justify.

Again, you are looking at this from a materialist perspective. To you this is the
be all end all. From that perspective your analasys makes sense.
If you doggedly stick to that perspective then this discussion is effectively pointless. But ask yourself this, what is your perspective based on?
It certainly isn't science, and it isn't personal experience.

Again, nobody can know if there is a god or not so what's the point in fighting about such unknowns.

What makes you think individual people cannot know if there is a god

Religions are a different matter, as I stated, they are making claims of knowledge which is the same as me saying there is no god as fact, not a lack of belief.

Can you elaborate on this?
Give an example of what you mean by ''they are making claims of knowledge''.

This is the most important part in my opinon, 1) that a belief in god does not require any further justification, but 2) a belief in a specific god does, but if we only answer question number one, the next question becomes "what god am I believing in" and then it goes back to number 2. Which always creates a very tangled web.

So I ask, are you a theist ? yes
What god do you believe in ? and then we have religion.

There is only one God.
There are different aspect to God, so when someone believes in a particular aspect, they still believe in the one God.
Religion, as I stated before, is supposed to be an education for the conditioned soul, to learn how to come to the platform of goodness. In this way God becomes accessable. That is the idea.
Your concept of religion makes religion pointless, which may be correct with regard to current institutions. So I'm explaining to you the point of religion.

Based on me questioning my understanding of all of my experiences of what I deem as reality, the only god that I could believe exists is one that would be indistinguishable from the universe itself.

This is flawed. You don't know all you experiences'
What experiences you do know are but a minute part of your being.
Since the moment you were concieved, your experiences began. Every single
moment, you are experiencing (maybe moments are too big a time measurement), and have been ever since, and will be right up to the moment your body stops (assuming we're talking about bodily experience).
To base your life on your waking experience could be like basing you understanding of a photograph by a pixel or two IMO.


jan.

 

[Rav]

You should really be able to answer these questions:

How did we get here?

How did we get a planet populated by living, breathing, thinking beings?

Another argument from personal incredulity. Any open-minded person who properly investigates the wealth of information that science has provided us will realize that the naturalistic explanations make sense. We may not have all the details worked out yet, but we're getting there. The critical mistake that many people make is to dismiss the science as nonsensical simply because they are unable to immediately comprehend the scope and/or complexity of some of the elements in play. In other words, they often can't get past things like the overwhelming improbability of abiogenesis because they can't comprehend the sheer number of planets in the universe or the vast amounts of time over which it had a chance to occur on any one of them. Just because the science is currently incomplete does not mean it's at fault. The mistake lies in the inability or unwillingness to spend the requisite amount of time trying to wrap your head around it.

To prove or disprove is not my obligation but it would be nice for an atheist to be able to do that because if you cant well like i said you are not an atheist.

One doesn't need to fill in all the gaps in our current scientific understanding of the universe in order to legitimately be an atheist. All one needs to do is to become educated enough to properly appreciate the fact that since naturalistic explanations tend to do the job quite well, there doesn't appear to be a need to invoke the supernatural.

Human beings are social creatures. We personify everything. We give names to inanimate objects and even curse them when they are not doing what we want them to do. Is it any wonder then that we bring the same world-view to bear on the question of existence itself? As Richard Dawkins once said:

"The economically useful way to model a person is to treat him as a purposeful goal-seeking agent with pleasures and pains, desires and intentions, guilt, blameworthiness. Personification and the imputing of intentional purpose is such a brilliantly successful way to model humans, it's hardly surprising the same modeling software often seizes control when we're trying to think about entities for which it's not appropriate"

We tend to personalize the universe because that's how we have evolved to relate to the world. So instead of imagining an impersonal first cause, we imagine a personal one. It's not a whole lot different from personalizing the wind, or the moon, or the sun, just like the ancient Greeks did.

 

[John99]

Another argument from personal incredulity. Any open-minded person who properly investigates the wealth of information that science has provided us will realize that the naturalistic explanations make sense. We may not have all the details worked out yet, but we're getting there. The critical mistake that many people make is to dismiss the science as nonsensical simply because they are unable to immediately comprehend the scope and/or complexity of some of the elements in play. In other words, they often can't get past things like the overwhelming improbability of abiogenesis because they can't comprehend the sheer number of planets in the universe or the vast amounts of time over which it had a chance to occur on any one of them. Just because the science is currently incomplete does not mean it's at fault. The mistake lies in the inability or unwillingness to spend the requisite amount of time trying to wrap your head around it.

Sounds like you are talking about yourself because you are not giving any answers.

Either you, as you stated, have not 'wrapped your head around it" or you dont have the answers. Since you dont have the answers your claim of atheism is false. Why is it false? Because you just dont know and that is an agnostic.

To be true to yourself you must then proclaim yourself agnostic because if theism (as it stands now) is delusion then atheism is also delusion. one cannot have it both ways. otoh, if theism is correct then atheism is wrong....but we really dont know do we?...and it is that simple.

Your "personal god" stuff is a straw man.

Now did i claim you needed to be a theist? No, i did not.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Because you just dont know and that is an agnostic.

WRONG!
Please get a clue and look up the definitions.

 

[John99]

WRONG!
Please get a clue and look up the definitions.

oh?

so you do know?

 

[Dywyddyr]

oh?

so you do know?

Wow! Are you really that dense?
As previously stated: agnosticism in NOT a position on the belief in god.
Read posts #70 & #72. And the link in #72.

 

[John99]

Wow! Are you really that dense?
As previously stated: agnosticism in NOT a position on the belief in god.
Read posts #70 & #72. And the link in #72.

Dont call me dense, i understand all these concepts.

You are saying there is no god - atheist

Theist is saying there is a god

You say Theist is delusional...because they cannot know a god exist

Why isnt the atheist delusional? They dont know god doesnt exist.

 

[John99]

Classic catch 22 and your back is in the corner.