The derailment of this thread is proudly brought to you by atheists insecure in their atheism.

If you don't follow football, why would you derail a thread about "Arsenal VS. Liverpool"? Fuck football!!!

Because football players don't try to tell baseball players how to live their life and occasionally murder them when they don't change.

"Every sentient living being is equally worthy." - do you really believe that? My experiences everyday show me otherwise.

Yes, that's true abgemacht, but I don't think baseball players (not that I think the comparison of baseball players to atheists is very valid) should enter a football discussion unless it is actually detrimental to baseball players. This was clearly designed to be for football fans.

@Jamiet99uk

there are at least some answers to your questions.

1) Because there's at least as much evidence for the existence of God as for the non-existence of God. The pure extent and importance of religion testifies to the existence of God.

2) Because life without suffering is miserable. None of this "God is testing us" BS. Think about a world in which no one ever suffers. Life would be totally meaningless.

3) Because He doesn't want to interfere with free will, and because a God who is proven to exists could have disastrous effects on the world. Besides, why should He want to? People believing in a proven fact seems like it wouldn't be something particularly pleasing to God.

4) This isn't an issue any more than the creation of the Universe without God. It's less, because we have no understanding of what "creating God" would mean.

@Don Corleone
1. There is no evidence for the existence of God. Religion is common but in no way important, and the extent of it only testifies to the gullibility of the people.
2. Yeah right, pain is so awesome.

@Fanas

You wrote
“ok if we don't have free will then not only religion wouldn't be our choice, but also punishment for our sins would be an evil act. If we don't have free will, then in a sense we are gods ourselves or more exactly a mind extension of the one responsible for our actions. Puppets and puppeteer if you will. If there's no free will then whole religion crumbles to the dust.”

Take a look at your analogy. If taken to the extreme you are saying that in a sense a puppet is human because a human pulls its string. I don’t think that you believe this but bring it up to show that your analogy is faulty. As for the idea that all of religion crumbles if there is no free will, you’re taking a narrow view of the topic. Not only religion but all of philosophy, psychology, education, and law crumbles if there is no free will. There would literally be no difference between psychopath and well adjusted;

@ Fanas

You wrote

“Furthermore about changing the holy book. Until recent times majority of population were illiterate. Not only that, but also there was no technology to print book perfectly every time, rewriting it took lots of time and were performed by a selected few. It doesn't even need to be a deliberate change, but rather a mistake by a person rewriting the book.
I'm not even considering translation errors, every single language has some quirks. And one more thing. Can you honestly believe that every single person responsible to preserve the book was afraid of punishment from god?”



That’s exactly the point I refuted in your last post. Not only do I believe that the Scriptures have been treated with reverence in their various transcriptions and translations, but I offered evidence to support my point. When you can look at a 1500 year old document and see that it says something very similar if not identical to the versions being printed currently, it’s obvious that the Scripture has been treated with respect and reverence over the centuries. You can repeat that you think it’s unlikely that this would be so, but the evidence shows otherwise. It does not matter how unlikely you think something is. We have old and even (for centuries) lost scriptural passages that are found and shown to be similar if not identical. Yes, I do honestly believe that the effort to preserve the Scriptures was undertaken by people who took that task seriously and were reverent.

Even if you don't believe in God ( I Do ) Dont you think the 10 commandments and do onto others as you would have them do onto you are good rules to live by?

@ Bearnstien: as TS, what's your opinion in the matter?

@Fanas
"1. There is no evidence for the existence of God. Religion is common but in no way important, and the extent of it only testifies to the gullibility of the people.
2. Yeah right, pain is so awesome."

1) Religion is common even without common background. Nearly every culture has religion. It's rather strange that so many people would independently have the same delusion.

2) You disagree? Imagine a world with NO suffering. There would have to be absolutely no suffering to satisfy the "why doesn't God stop this" argument. By definition, there could then be no joy, because a reduction of joy would be suffering. Joy and suffering require each other to have meaning. Thus a world without suffering is a world without meaning, it is empty.

@Fanas and Crazy Anglican
Is there a reason you're arguing about whether no free will implies no religion? Fanas, if you can show that religion denies free will, I think you've won the argument anyway. And Crazy Anglican, why should religion need to exist without free will?

@ Fanas

You wrote

“you didn't answer anything about my point, that even the first bible could not be perfect due the fact that the knowledge was relayed through imperfect human.”

You’re hovering somewhere between damning the source and a circular argument, here. Let’s look at the basis for this argument to see the fault here. If I begin with the supposition that God does not exist, then sure the Bible would be the creation of an imperfect human and as such would be imperfect. On the other hand, If God exists then the Bible is the work of a human who is operating under the guiding hand of God, and then it can very well be perfect. This is so because it is the words of God, a perfect being, who has the means of insuring that Scripture remain so. This line of reason can prove nothing as it’s utterly dependent on an initial assumption. It only looks conclusive to you because there is only one initial assumption that you are willing to entertain. If you look at both of them, then its possible to see how weak the argument is.


@ Fanas
You wrote

“In any case free will is out of a question. If there is god, there is no free will, period.”


If there is an omnipotent God, then there is free will if he desires there to be, period.

That is an entirely different argument, though.

@Don Corleon

Actually free will has become somthing of a sidenote

Fanas concocted a proof to state that no religion could possibly be right. The problem was that it was based on faulty logic.

"b) If 1 is correct then we have to assume that humans will do whatever they want according to their desires.
If they will do whatever they want we have to agree that holy books are not correct, because they were written and rewritten by humans who have free will to change them however they want and it would be naive to assume that over thousand of years, they done no such thing.
So if holy books are not correct then religions aren't correct either, because those books are corner stone of those religions. "

Fanas' argument hinges on the statement that it would be naive to believe that over thousands of years humans had not freely changed the scriptures. There is evidence to refute his generalization. Fanas has shown no proof that significant changes were made over time, so he withdrew to the untenable position that "it couldn't have been perfect to begin with" but that cannot be shown to be true or false as shown above.

I agree completely, Fanas' argument doesn't work, it just seemed to me you were contesting a one of the few reasonable points in it: Religion requires free will.

I certainly agree that religion requires free will. I just believe that we have free will. I only made the point that religion was not the only thing that required free will as its base.

Okay, let's stop agreeing :)
Religion requires free will, which is perfect, since we have free will.

Okay, I agree we need to stop agreeing. That's completely right ;-)

@Crazy Anglican
And also if the first bible was written by a man guided by god then it would have negated that mans free will.

Anyway the point is that god is all knowing by definition, that means he knows future, if he knows future then future is predestined, therefore we can't change it, therefore we have no free will.

@Don Corleone

1) There are different religions all over the world. It just means that all humans are the same, we wondered about the universe and at a time god seemed like a logical answer.

2) Really? Suffering or pleasure are just chemical reactions in our brains. If brain constantly released pleasurable chemicals then we would be constantly in pleasure.

P.S. Bible is not perfect, we can see that by just looking at it. Not to mention that people can't decide which one is the true one.

"1) Religion is common even without common background. Nearly every culture has religion. It's rather strange that so many people would independently have the same delusion."

Let's split the thread. I think the mods need new tools, but just to reply to this point(Offtopic as it is) It may be strange that many people independently believe the same delusion, however this is not the case, they have in many cases different and personal delusions which have some commonalities. However theories other than 'God exists' could be put forward to explain this human quality.

Thus I believe that you have a decent theory here about the existance of God, though i am skeptical of it (of you should be of all theories) Can you now test your theory? I believe you will find a scientific approach will in-fact fall down once sufficient understanding of the human unconsciouse is gleaned (we're all similar in our brains, and thus all capable of similar delusions)

Still you are doomed to fail in proving he existance of God because there is insufficient evidence, you should instead take an agnostic approach, "it can't be proved, so let's not argue about it" Now move on and argue something worthwhile, like how individuals should treat each other. (If you convince one atheist that 'do unto other as you would have them...' is a good idea then you will not only have done a good thing, and spread one of the more important messages of your religion, but you will also be attempting a task which is easier to acheive, rather than banging your head against a brick wall, repeating the same "evidence" which is insufficient to "prove" to any atheist who has already made their mind up.

good luck.

@Franas

1) I'll admit this is hardly proof of the existence of God, just a curiosity to consider.

2) But chemical release in our brains is governed by our perception of joy or suffering. Which is entirely subjective.
Unless you contend that a loving God would keep us in a constant state of meaningless chemical pleasure.

@orathaic
I agree, and know I have little hope of converting atheists. I am hardly the type to push my religion on others. But I also doubt that you could convince someone of 'do unto other as you would have them...', most people have that much sense and decency, and if they don't, I don't know how to help them.

I'm much more interested in considering the often posed question of "why God would allow suffering", or, to include the atheists, what role suffering has in a decent world.

Suffering makes decency possible. If there were no suffering then there would be no call or need for us to alleviate the suffering of others.

@ Fanas

There is a great difference between influencing someone and negating free will. The existence of a collection of texts that we are all free to read, follow, or ignore does nothing to negate free will. Even if God were to have completely taken over a human to make sure that a particular work was to be made perfectly, it still would have been only temporary and would not have precluded free will in every other aspect and time of his life. This is true especially if the man (many people actually) chose to allow tjemselves to be influenced in this way. The argument as you put it forth simply does not work.

P.S. The Bible is perfect, one can see that by studying it, and billions of people have decided which holy book is the correct one. (sorry, not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to get you to see how weak this reasoning is by turning it around word for word)

@Fanas

You wrote

“Anyway the point is that god is all knowing by definition, that means he knows future, if he knows future then future is predestined, therefore we can't change it, therefore we have no free will.”


At this point I think you’ve gotten to the crux of what I thought your argument was going to be all along. There are two problems with this though:

1) If God is omnipotent, and wants us to have free will, then he can allow it. Our ability to understand how that would be is not necessary.

2) Even if God is omniscient, it does not follow that everything is predestined. If we assume a linear timeline, it appears that is the only possibility. If we assume a branching timeline, or even one that changes with every choice, then it is possible that God knowing the possibilities would not necessarily mean that he took free will from us. Remember also that knowing something will happen is not the same as making it happen.

You’ve strayed pretty far from your first proposal that religion is false whether there is free will or not. Are you ready to concede that this was not the case in order to move on to the new topic? (ie. your belief that an omniscient and omnipotent God cannot co-exist with free will)

billions of people can be mislead or wrong. The bible is not perfect, my one has a page missing. Your opinion is fine, though i think of the billions you claim to believe the bible is the book they will follow many haven't read it, or can't read; of those who have read it, not all believe it is perfect even if they agree with what it has to say on many issues; of those who do believe it is perfect not all agree on which revision to revere.

So not only do billions of people not follow the bible, (a majority, cause of the billions of Hindu, Islamic, buddhists, and atheists in the world) Also just because a majority believes something doesn't mean it is true - this doesn't prove the bible is imperfect, it doesn't prove anything.

@Fanas, as demonstrated your extreme views are as faulty as the opposite extreme.

regarding suffering: From an atheist's standpoint life only has meaning when humans create it, thus suffering and pain are meaningless as is everything else unless we choose to value them(which is easy enough due to brain chemistry, but we are actually just bio-machines which find it useful to create meaning in our lives because that makes it easier to make decision rather than being paralysed with options or suicidal from the idea that our actions are pointless)

What we value and how we treat each is something which religions the world over can teach us much about, though there are other non-religious philosophies which also have much to teach. Understanding more than one allows us to better appreciate our own religious beliefs and practices, and teaching only one prespective limits our awareness of any alternative options. (if you have no other options then you're not choosing to follow your own religion, and if it's not a choice which you are making, just a habit, or tradition then you don't really believe, you're just going through the motions - by the way, my education included religious teaching of the catholic persuasian as that is the standard in a religious Catholic country like Ireland, so i have an idea of what i'm talking about)

There is suffering because we don't live in a perfect world, which would be boring, and thus wouldn't have had the need to evolve inteligence. Any world in which you can ask the question must have intelligence, and therefore requires suffering. (if the physics was different, there would have been no benifit to developing intelligence, and the chances of a randomly assorted atoms coming together to form intelligence is incredibly unlikely, thus only by providing an evolutiontary advantage can intelligence exist. It is advantagous to avoid suffering - you can't build a free energy machine because that would completely unbalance the universe, it's a fundamental part of our universe.)

@orathaic

"Also just because a majority believes something doesn't mean it is true - this doesn't prove the bible is imperfect, it doesn't prove anything.

@Fanas, as demonstrated your extreme views are as faulty as the opposite extreme."

That's pretty much word for word what I was trying to get across to Fanas. The mere statement that something is false, and insinuation that anyone should be able to see it, doesn't make it so. If it appeard that I was trying to use that reasoning to try to prove the converse that wasn't my intent. I was only trying to point out the flaw in it. Likewise the number of people who do ro don not ascribe to a certain idea only speak to its popularity not to its truth.