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Do you believe in God

Do you believe in God

  • Yes

    Votes: 96 44.4%

  • No

    Votes: 120 55.6%
  • Total voters
    216
Frisco said:
But atheists feel like they have it made because they put the onus on believers to "prove" there is a god to believe in and back it up, erroneously, with the "we don't have to prove a negative" logic; they pretend like their belief system, the center of which is that no god exists (atheists, true atheists) needs no proof at all, even though making such a declaration as "there is no God" is quite a leap in faith, quite an unproven notion.
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As long as you are the one making the claim, the burden of proof is on you.

I am not claiming anything.
 
Frisco said:
I agree with a small portion of that. "Proof" is where most atheists find satisfaction in their chosen faith of their being no god, however.

We always see "unicorns" and "Santa Claus," etc brought up in this type of discussion about faith in things unseen/unproven. I've done that, I've used those analogies.

But, although interesting and fun, it's a mistaken thing to do if we're really going to try to ferret out the core or origins or significance of faith in a god, gods or creative entities.

But atheists feel like they have it made because they put the onus on believers to "prove" there is a god to believe in and back it up, erroneously, with the "we don't have to prove a negative" logic; they pretend like their belief system, the center of which is that no god exists (atheists, true atheists) needs no proof at all, even though making such a declaration as "there is no God" is quite a leap in faith, quite an unproven notion.
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this seems to be a concept many believers don't seem to grasp
imo (and i'm sure many, if not most atheists agree) the declaration that "there is no god" is no bigger a leap of faith than the declaration that "there is no flying spaghetti monster" or "there is no pink invisible unicorn"

the concept of a god to an atheist (or a true atheist as you put it) is exactly as plausible as the concept of a tooth fairy or santa claus
 
Atheism means WITHOUT belief.

Let me reiterate that. It doesn't mean you actively have faith in the fact there is no god. It means you looked at a few religions and realised that there isn't a shred of proof for any of them, and so you don't believe in them. Hence there IS no burden of proof, as there is no belief involved.

My personal favourite quote:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Think about it.
 
bluenova said:
My interpretation of this is that you take with you after death your experience as a mortal. You have to take it with a pinch of salt due to it being written so long ago (i.e. those who practice magic arts does not mean what it means today). But in general the murderers, the sexually immoral (you could add paedophile in todays society) etc etc will be in a pretty dark place in their mortal minds with no happiness and this is taken with them when they die and become a part of the whole.
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even if your interpretation is correct, it's still a damnation of eternal suffering (unhappiness that they take with them after death)
 
Believing in God and religion are two different things. There are religions with no Gods or not much emphasis on them. What smart people pull from those are philosophical values.

It's not the only way to do it, but it is one way.
 
smacky said:
Believing in God and religion are two different things. There are religions with no Gods or not much emphasis on them. What smart people pull from those are philosophical values.

It's not the only way to do it, but it is one way.
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that's all true... what does it have to do with the ongoing discussion?

*edit* btw, i'd rather call a religion with no god nor concept of afterlife a philosophy
 
Intervenient said:
You're claiming Atheist. The burden of proof is to now show me there is not God.
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If you see something in the distance and I don't. Is it my responsibility to prove I don't see it or your's to prove that you do ie. point out the direction, give a description, etc?

Using your logic, you'll need to prove to an polytheist that there are fewer gods than he or she believes in. The burden of proof would be on you to prove the negative. If you can't, then there must be multiple gods right?

I think the main motivation for the believe in god is fear. Fear of hell. Fear of separation and ostracism from their community. Fear that people are inherently evil and without an omniscient and just overseer, they'd lead lives that are harmful to themselves and others.

It takes a pessimist to be religious.
 
tbert said:
I think the main motivation for the believe in god is fear. Fear of hell. Fear of separation and ostracism from their community. Fear that people are inherently evil and without an omniscient and just overseer, they'd lead lives that are harmful to themselves and others.

It takes a pessimist to be religious.
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Not for me or for the many Christians I know or for the thousands I have met from all over the world whilst working in a Christian community.

Not sure where you get that from but I think perhaps from the organised Church a few hundred years ago that used to exploit the common people?
 
tbert said:
I think the main motivation for the believe in god is fear.
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i agree
tbert said:
Fear of hell. Fear of separation and ostracism from their community. Fear that people are inherently evil and without an omniscient and just overseer, they'd lead lives that are harmful to themselves and others.

It takes a pessimist to be religious.
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i don't agree


it's the fear of death; the thought of an afterlife is comforting to many people

another part of it (apart from fear of dying) is coping with the death of a loved one - to believe they're in a better place is comforting to many people
 
mrqs said:
i don't agree


it's the fear of death; the thought of an afterlife is comforting to many people

another part of it (apart from fear of dying) is coping with the death of a loved one - to believe they're in a better place is comforting to many people
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I agree (with you not agreeing!)

This is one discussion I had recently, somebody asking me, "Don't you want to see your loved ones who have died?"

Of course, I would love there to be a heaven where everyone gets on, there is no pain, suffering, want or need etc.

The thing is, though that apparently all there is to do in Heaven is worship God. The whole concept of a heaven where everyone is happy is flawed. Plus can you imagine how big it would have to be to accommodate all people form all times (and where do you draw the line in evolution where somebody become human/elligible for entry into heaven).

  • Not forgetting that the Earth makes up only a small fraction of the universe. And for the sake of understanding we'll just focus on our own galaxy, the Milky Way:
  • Our sun is one of over 100,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy (very conservative estimate)
  • And astronomers also estimate that there are around 30,000,000,000 planets similar to earth, in its solar system placement and make up.

Now lets expand this to the entire universe, where another conservative estimate is that there are over 200,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe.

This gives us over 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets estimated to be able to support life (at any given time over the past 14,000,000,000 years and at any given time in the future billions of years).



With all this in mind, some choose to believe that their god of our tiny planet is waiting to reap the souls of 0.0000000000000000001% of the lifeforms that have existed in the history of this world, at which point the end of time will come,

Doesn't this God and his heaven just seem just a little bit too unlikely.

Note, it has been done before so I'll mention it. Don't try and linke "estimation" with "faith" or "belief" - they are very different. One relies on evidence, the others exist because of lack of evidence
 
tcope said:
Those would be true... but only with out _EXTREMELY_ limited intellect. In just a few thousand years we've gone from thinking the sun was a living "god" to it being a big ball of gas. I wonder what will happen in another hundred thousand or million years.

Every day we get better at understanding the universe. Give us a few billions years and we might understand how it was created.
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Very good point. I agree.
 
Phenomenological said:
Atheism means WITHOUT belief.

Let me reiterate that. It doesn't mean you actively have faith in the fact there is no god. It means you looked at a few religions and realised that there isn't a shred of proof for any of them, and so you don't believe in them. Hence there IS no burden of proof, as there is no belief involved.

My personal favourite quote:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Think about it.
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What a powerful quote....
 
tbert said:
If you see something in the distance and I don't. Is it my responsibility to prove I don't see it or your's to prove that you do ie. point out the direction, give a description, etc?
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This is a different concept. This is two people, looking at one thing. Claiming there is a God, and claiming there is not a God is two seperate ideas. By being an Athiest your analogy would work if you had said I see something in the distances, and you can't see it, so you claim it is not there.
 
Phenomenological said:
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
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Great Richard Dawkins quote. Pretty much sums up my views right there.
 
Intervenient said:
This is a different concept. This is two people, looking at one thing. Claiming there is a God, and claiming there is not a God is two seperate ideas. By being an Athiest your analogy would work if you had said I see something in the distances, and you can't see it, so you claim it is not there.
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The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike

-Delos B. McKown
 
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
C.S. Lewis

I can quote too
 
Weazol said:
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
C.S. Lewis

I can quote too
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From the Chronicles of Narnia I am sure.. ;)
 
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