If the Almighty doesn't exist

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_EAllusion
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _EAllusion »

If I can't make a million dollars a year, what's the point of having a job? What a miserable existence.
_The Nehor
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _The Nehor »

EAllusion wrote:If I can't make a million dollars a year, what's the point of having a job? What a miserable existence.


You should probably just shoot yourself.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_EAllusion
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _EAllusion »

I contemplated writing, "I probably should just shoot myself" after my last line.

True story.
_Roger Morrison
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _Roger Morrison »

Jason, from the topic, I'll be in bold:


2. Without God, there is no objective meaning to life. We are all merely random creations of natural selection whose existence has no more intrinsic purpose or meaning than that of a pebble equally randomly produced. Rm: An old supposition without any validity. Except as it might be imagined in the minds of those who so believe.

3. Life is ultimately a tragic fare if there is no God. We live, we suffer, we die — some horrifically, many prematurely — and there is only oblivion afterward. RM: A lot of truth there! Also true that many live happy, fulfilling lives creating progeny that do the same--when they're lucky. Really, to think that life is pointless unless it's hinged to belief in God, is a pathetic and sorry state of mind to to carry around. Whomever does has my deepest sympathy.

5. If there is no God, the kindest and most innocent victims of torture and murder have no better a fate after de ath than do the most cruel torturers and mass murderers. Only if there is a good God do Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler have different fates. RM: "Fate" in some mythical future existance is not a factor in the mind/soul of a fully evolving mature human being. Such thinking belongs to to the egoist who measures all participations in the reward received. VERY unChrist like. However, the truth is, there is no "...good God" as imagined by such reasoning. So your closer to the truth than you know.
6. With the death of Judeo-Christian values in the West, many Westerners believe in little. That is why secular Western Europe has been unwilling and therefore unable to confront evil, whether it was Communism during the Cold War or Islamic totalitarians in its midst today. RM: What such wimps can't cofront is their own inability to meet life's challenges and reponsibilites. Blame everyone but themselves while waiting to be rescued by a Savior. So be it. Until humanity advacnes to another level of honesty.


9. If there is no God, humans and "other" animals are of equal value. Only if one posits that=2 0humans, not animals, are created in the image of God do humans have any greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons. This explains the movement among the secularized elite to equate humans and animals. RM: "Image of God."??? Which image am I supposed see? Physical, material, humanoidal, spiritual? Bible says God is a Spirit; can't be seen--amidst other confusing statements. I respectfully suggest, human value is measured by the service one gives to society. Where the greatest are the servants of all. IF that is the case--Jesus said it--than probably most of us are valued more as drones and other beasts of burden ;-) But that's OK. "The labourer is worthy of his hire." And much needed whatever their contribution... /b]

11. Without God nothing is holy. This is definitional. Holiness emanates from a belief in the holy. [b]RM: Really, from a belief? What about "works"?
This explains, for example, the far more widespread acceptance of public cursing in secular society than in religious society. To the religious, there is holy speech and profane speech. In much of secular society the very notion of profane speech is mocked. RM: Think you might have goofed here? Did ya mean to say, " seculars mock holy speech?" If so, some might. Most don't, they have no reason to, unless they's relly igorant. And education is curing that progressively.

,


I don't really think the points made by whomever, are considered as little more than stuff from the Monkey Trial of more than half a century ago...
Have you noticed what a beautiful day it is? Some can't...
"God": nick-name for the Universe...
_marg

Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _marg »

Jason Bourne wrote:
These I think are the best points he made.



What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism — the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies.


For all the problems associated with belief in God, the death of God leads to far more of them.


So, while it is not possible to prove (or disprove) God's existence, what is provable is what happens when people stop believin g in God.


I'm only going to address # 1 for now.

Jason, Dennis Prager has not "proved" anything. He fails to establish a cause and effect between "stopping belief in God" or atheism and "deleterious consequences." He fails to connect secular gov'ts & ideologies as a cause to the deleterious consequences such as Gulags,Auschwitz, the Cambodian genocide (the effect). He asserts that Gulags, etc were caused by regimes which lacked religious belief but doesn't explain the connection or why there is or should be a cause and effect as a result of lack of god belief or organized religion. Since God belief/theism, organized religion doesn't prevent crime, murder, wars, genocides etc then it doesn't automatically follow that atheism, lack of organized religion should be a cause of such behaviors.

Dennis Prager's reasoning is extremely poor and faulty, do you not see that?
_Jason Bourne
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _Jason Bourne »

I'm only going to address # 1 for now.

Jason, Dennis Prager has not "proved" anything. He fails to establish a cause and effect between "stopping belief in God" or atheism and "deleterious consequences." He fails to connect secular gov'ts & ideologies as a cause to the deleterious consequences such as Gulags,Auschwitz, the Cambodian genocide (the effect). He asserts that Gulags, etc were caused by regimes which lacked religious belief but doesn't explain the connection or why there is or should be a cause and effect as a result of lack of god belief or organized religion. Since God belief/theism, organized religion doesn't prevent crime, murder, wars, genocides etc then it doesn't automatically follow that atheism, lack of organized religion should be a cause of such behaviors.



I am not to hung up about this. I thought in a short article Prager made some reasonable points. The article was not a treatise and certainly much more time is needed to make demonstrate cause and effect. But I think the theory is reasonable.
Dennis Prager's reasoning is extremely poor and faulty, do you not see that?


This is why I rarely engage you marg. I wish I had a $100 for every time you say this because you say it all the time. Anything anyone proposes that it seems you think it a faulty idea is due to poor reasoning and lack of critical thinking. The comment becomes quite boring.
_The Nehor
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _The Nehor »

Yeah, this is a nice theory but it doesn't show much. This comes down to psychology and unless we understand WHY everyone does or does not believe in God and then check the ramifications from that choice nothing will be found. Finding that WHY will be impossible as many people when asked that question will lie.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_marg

Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _marg »

Jason I tried to respond to you so as to not attack you. I asked at the end of my post, if you could see that Dennis Prager's reasoning is flawed and you used that comment to attack me, that I should bring up, "flawed reasoning". Really Jason practically all of Dennis's points are flawed in their reasoning. And it basically does reflect on you and your reasoning ability that you don't appreciate this. I'm sorry to attack you, I didn't want to do that. I was hoping to simply point out weaknesses and you might realize them upon further reflection.

I wrote :
I'm only going to address # 1 for now.

Jason, Dennis Prager has not "proved" anything. He fails to establish a cause and effect between "stopping belief in God" or atheism and "deleterious consequences." He fails to connect secular gov'ts & ideologies as a cause to the deleterious consequences such as Gulags,Auschwitz, the Cambodian genocide (the effect). He asserts that Gulags, etc were caused by regimes which lacked religious belief but doesn't explain the connection or why there is or should be a cause and effect as a result of lack of god belief or organized religion. Since God belief/theism, organized religion doesn't prevent crime, murder, wars, genocides etc then it doesn't automatically follow that atheism, lack of organized religion should be a cause of such behaviors.



You responded:
I am not to hung up about this. I thought in a short article Prager made some reasonable points. The article was not a treatise and certainly much more time is needed to make demonstrate cause and effect. But I think the theory is reasonable.


It is irrelevant Jason that the article is not meant to be a treatise. Who is claiming it should be? Dennis has established absolutely no correlation, between stopping a belief in God or atheism with crime, murder, wars, genocide.

A lack of belief in God would have to be a factor for people to act upon such that it affects how they behave and contributes to "deleterious consequences." Dennis has made some serious criticisms against those who lack God belief, but he's provided no substance to back those criticisms up. None of his points were reasonable from what I can see.

I wrote:
Dennis Prager's reasoning is extremely poor and faulty, do you not see that?


You wrote:
This is why I rarely engage you marg. I wish I had a $100 for every time you say this because you say it all the time. Anything anyone proposes that it seems you think it a faulty idea is due to poor reasoning and lack of critical thinking. The comment becomes quite boring.


Instead of taking the extremely easy route of attacking me, if you are going to offer a response using some reasoning, explain why you think there is a correlation between lack of God belief and "deleterious consequences."
_Gadianton
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Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _Gadianton »

1. Without God there is no good and evil;


Only when I've had a couple drinks can I bear to respond to garbage like this anymore.

Even Alvin Plantinga admits, unable to seriously respond to the Euthyphro, that morality is subjective to God. That pretty much sets the stage for atheists to make up whatever external/subjective standards they want to have hold over us. Postmodernists are great at that, by the way.

You're a smart guy Jason, why don't you dump the superficial fundy garbage for a few weeks, go down to Barnes and Noble, buy a basic introduction to ethics, read it, and then see if this stuff is as convincing to you afterwards.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.

LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
_marg

Re: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Post by _marg »

Jason Bourne wrote:
I am not to hung up about this. I thought in a short article Prager made some reasonable points. The article was not a treatise and certainly much more time is needed to make demonstrate cause and effect. But I think the theory is reasonable.


Not only did you think Prager's points reasonable Jason but you thought them so good they deserved being posted, in a whole new thread.

It is religious propaganda you've bought into Jason that leads you to your arrogant assumption and rather stupid agreement with Prager who frankly is a moron when it comes to argument addressing "atheism" ....that religion positively correlates with high moral values in people while non belief in an interfering God positively correlates with poor moral values/deleterious consequences. The following study does not support this assumption of Prager's which you seemingly gleefully have accepted apparently absent any attempt at thoughtful consideration.



From Journal of Religion and Society (Vol 7 (2005) Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html


[I've bolded a few sentences]

Conclusion
[20] The United States’ deep social problems are all the more disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third to two or more, than in any other developed democracy (UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism. It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions? There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the responsibility of the research community to address controversial issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies need to chart their future courses.
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