heres why you Can believe in god, atheists

of course you would!!

thats the way god made this universe. he wants us all to scramble to achieve as much as we can for ourselves. and then, at the age of 45, you will be slammed with the realization that you have accomplished exactly nothing. or you have accomplished a lot, kids who will grow up to live nice lives a nice house, fast cars, and everything you can hope for.

and yet you continue to live. and youve experienced all the happiness that you are capable of experiencing. and yet you still go to work and rake in hundreds of dollars a day. for WHAT!?!? what does it do? the hundreds of dollars of work that you do every single day? does it feed your heroin addiction? buy you increasingly bigger tvs? increasingly faster cars? more and more children who need college educations? WHAT?!?!?

NOTHING! but thats a totally different thread. and you have totally dodged the entire point of this thread.
[/quote]

I didn’t miss the point, I’m just pointing out a mistake. To the surprise of most people, I like you drunk ramblings… I just dont think this one is particularly sound.

I get what you’re saying, but ok… look at at it this way, I can be an altheist and still give away all my money… just because I want to promote net happiness doesn’t mean there is a God. This argument is tricky (and maybe I’ve missed a part in the drunk talk) because it’s predicated on the fact that God doesn’t want us to know he exists. So that allows you to sorta fall back onto that. It’s a good idea, but it doensn’t really prove anything.

But I do like the rational behind why God doesn’t show himself. Keep drinking, I’ll keep smokin… hopefully the ideas will continue to flow as well

I did adress it, and since you totally refused to acknowledge that, Ill say it again :slight_smile:
I don’t have to ‘believe’ either of the choices in that particular bifurcation.
You are hitting a logician with a logical fallacy, your fase dichtomy is powerless against me.

Future Man,

You could be right but not for the reasons you think.

If your whole system relies on the fact that God can’t be known to human beings in order for human beings to succeed in taking self-less actions, then by the very fact that you know that to verify its possibility, makes you inhuman. For if you knew that you weren’t supposed to know you would negate the truth through the knowledge of it.

I will say that the best route to piety is asceticism. If there was a benevolent God then life would be a chance to graduate, a series of gradations toward harmlessness and perfection, and the most certain way to do this is through an almost complete abandonment of any relations to other beings. The Buddhist Monk who has swore a vow of celibacy and limits his action to meditiation among others is of the highest rank.

The test of self-lessness is constitution and endurance. Suffering enough to earn endurance and character, modesty, indifference. Wanting no more because of needing no more.

Some call this nihilism. Some say there is the possibility of moderation. To a point, yes, but total resignation exhibits no Will, and that is impossible in this world. The final graduation is the transcendence into pure Mind by a Willfull disembodiment; the power to Will one’s eternity and not need the body-- is a metaphorical way to put it. The goal is to lose the Will by denying it. Absolute homelessness and no possessions. No desires. A readiness and anticipation to pass on at any moment.

Man that’s gotta be hard.

But anyway, nobody is going to do that, except for the hard-core dudes in the Tibeten mountains.

Future man isn’t human… he’s a secret being from the year 2085

it proves one thing, in a very Impish sort of way:

you cant say, for sure, that god absolutely does not exist. THATS IT!!!

THATS IT!!!

YOU ARE AGNOSTIC! IM TALKING TO YOU! whoever is reading this right now, you cannot logically be an atheist after reading the previous posts.

i am NOT PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD!!!

i am disproving the validity of atheism and forcing everyone to recognize that they are either agnostic, deistic or irrational. its simple.

the reason why you cant say for sure that god exists is because he has shown no proof that he exists. the reason why you cant say for sure that god does not exist is because there are perfectly valid reasons why he doesnt want to show proof that he exists.

with this thread, i am merely illustrating an example or two of why god might create a universe and not make his existence known.

i will logicianify you so hard you cry. this is not the place because its too simple. theres no dichotomy. you dont have to believe that god either exists or doesnt. you just cant possibly say that he doesnt, for sure. thats it. im merely providing a plausible reason for why he doesnt want you to believe in him. you cant possibly say im wrong, therefore, you cant possibly say that you are atheist.

you can go ahead and say that my theory is plausible but you dont believe it, but you definetely cant say that my theory, and any theory of god is impossible. therefore, you cant say that you disbelieve god in the same way that theists believe in him. therefore you cant say that you are atheist. am i misinterpreting the meaning of the word atheist?

impressively perceptive. indeed, when i talk to st peter at the gates, he will bring this up and give me ten, very unfair, demerits. a person who is a purely illogical atheist and accomplishes the same dopamine that i have is most certainly more righteous than i am.

however, i think i will get at least ten gold stars for helping ilp noobie atheists to realize that they have no logical basis for denying gods existence and they should be creating as much happy brain chemicals as possible, since that is the only true measure of religion.

the best way to create the most harmlessness, perfection (and ill add, a little thing called happiness) in the WORLD, is through abandoning everyone and running into a little hole to trip out imaginaing you are a navel?

ill say that god certainly invented meditation as a way to relax stressed out humans. i will go out on a very tiny, secure limb and say that monks are no better than heroin addicts. they contribute nothing to society. they sit in a hole and fucking trip out on some shit. so what if they dont happen to put chemicals into themselves? whats the damn difference?

thats not piety, its god damned selfishness in one of its most disgusting forms. the only difference between it and other kinds of disgusting selfishness is that it doesnt require the exploitation of others to accomplish (which is somewhat admirable). sure, if everyone meditated like a tibetan, the world would be better.

but people are idiots and god gave them shitty lives where they are incapable of appreciating this gift. he made people who commit sins that create children, perhaps too many children. he made places that dont have enough food and water. and he made america with way the hell too much food and water. if every american just sat on their ass and imagined their bellybutton, the world would not contain as much HAPPY BRAIN CHEMICALS as it would if those people got off their ass and did something.

that is the way he created the world. more importantly, he did not make it specifically clear to those poor africans that all they have to do is not have sex and imagine their own belly button in order to be happy. therefore, its up to us to create THE MOST HUMAN HAPPINESS. if you dont think human happiness is the goal, i dont think you understand your own brain, or i think you are discounting the possibility that god might have created the unfair universe so that you may spread your own happiness to those who need it. thats it.

i accomplished a small degree of this long ago. i look down on the materialistic desires of almost all those around me. and yet, people suffer because they have no clue what im talking about. we cant just expect them to stop wanting things because they do want them. things like water and food. i mean, they could just ‘happily’ meditate themselves to death at the age of 20 days, but that would ‘suck’.

Your little bedtime story hardly qualifies as a theory.
A theory requires some kind of evidence to support it. Your fable contains none.
I can say I am an atheist all I like.
An atheist is someone that has no-theism…like the word says.
An agnostic is just a disenfranchised christian, teetering on the edge of the mild psychosis that is deity worship.
Atheism, as I have said before, is the only rational position.

Satan you are wrong.

How can you deny the possibility that there exists a god who provides no evidence of his existance? Because in every single way the universe would not differ a single jot from a universe where there didnt exist a god at all. All you can claim to have is blind faith in the lack of existance of god. Ive been convinced, im agnostic now because it really is the only valid position when considering the facts. The exact same evidence that says god does not exist, is exacally the same evidence that he does exist, just doenst show it.

Nope, the idea of god was clearly invented. With enough knowledge of history, you can watch as religions metamorphose and evolve, concepts and ideas get plaguerized, etc etc.
Knowing what religions is, and where it came from, and how it changes and is utilized for power, it becomes very dificult to give the ideas it presents any real credibility. It is nothing but the ramblings of men with a penchant for fantasy, used by the clever to control the stupid.
To even consider that any current theistic dogma might actually be true is rather silly, and to give it any serious consideration borders on psychosis :slight_smile:

I gotta agree with Dr. S. This seems to me like some very clever wording by Mr. McFly, in particular the paragraph I’ve highlighted. The first sentance takes you deep into the hole, and the second sentence allows you to get out, but you’re still at the same place that you started.

Your theory doesn’t discredit athiests in the slightest. Why? Beceause I can say 'I don’t think God exists because there seems like too much evidence to support the existence of God. Like I said before your argument is predecated on the fact that God exists, and we don’t know that he does. ← Don’t read that and say ‘I know… that’s my point!! the fact that we don’t know gives my theory credit’ No… it doesn’t

The fact that we don’t know doesn’t give you any credit, because until we do know for sure I can say I don’t believe in God because… the fart i just had smelled too bad.

You’re saying ‘this proves we can’t say for sure God doesn’t exist’ I’m saying… we’ve known that all along.

but how can you deny the fact that god could simply provide no reason for his existance. how is that denyable? and if it is true then there is NO way to prove that there is or there is not a god. There are no other options here, and I dont see what evidance can point to one being more likley then the other. The fact that religion is rediculous is obvious, simply because it is rediculous doenst make the point go away. Mabye all the religions you speak of just happen to be wrong (after all they cant be all right) and the true one is the as yet undiscovered religion where god wants your happy brain chemicals. and its not discrediting athiests here. Sure you can believe that it is more likley that god doenst exist. Hell i agree with you, i think its pretty doubtful, but if you got yourself a logic machine, and you fed him the evidence, its going to tell you that it could be either way.

If you replace the word “God” with “Giant Purple Planet Eating Spagetti Monsters”, does it still sound plausable?

FutureMan,

You force me to quote myself.

religion is shi ite
and not the kind that worships muhommed’s son in law

im not talking about religion. im talking about what caused the creation of the universe.

im talking about very simple logic. i guess ill have to deduce it into a crappy little syllogism for you to interrogate.

A universe was created

  1. the cause of the universe incorporates mechanisms furthered by the existence of life; they are the gears, or the force that pushes the gears

or 2. the cause of the universe created life by coincidence, by the same laws of physics that suck all matter into an area until it explodes and eventually runs out of fuel and turns into an inert ball

if 1. then
what? what would signify the proof of 1.? what would disprove 1.?

if 2. then
what??? what would prove to you that 2. is true?

nothing would prove either!!!

NOTHING!!!

so if neither is true, and you believe neither, which you apparently cant (i have been unable to prove either), what does that mean when you are unable to believe either 1. or 2.?

does your all-encompassing disbelief land you in the category of agnostic? oh i believe that it does. i am under the impression that if you classify yourself as an atheist, then you have PROOF that 2. is true.

if you do not have proof that 2. is true, then you have two options. either you believe 1. is true (which is certainly as zany as believing 2.) or you believe that there is not enough evidence.

if you believe that there is not enough evidence, what does that make you? what is the little name that we have devised to describe you?

agnostic.

you are. dont deny it. if you do deny it, gosh darn prove it already. dont call my completely plausible theories a fairy tale unless you can prove them completely unplausible.

if my theory is plausible, you are an agnostic. im sorry. you just are.

there are few things that i want more than a logical, rational reason why my theory is UNPlausible.

i cant remember the last time i had a logical discussion about anything that wasnt arbitrarily dictated by some damn robot who wanted to exercise the critical thinking of the robots who surround me in the (shudder) real world. you want logic, it spews from my ears when i blow my nose too hard.

why are you atheist? you think all religions are totally wrong? so do i. how does that disprove the possibility that the universe was created consciously? by a thing that doesnt want you to be able to prove his existence? do you realize the logical situation i have created? there IS NO atheism. it is impossible.

i dont want your gosh darn poetic responses. what do you think they accomplish? prove that you are atheist. i want proof. if there is no proof, then that means that you are agnostic. period. thats what atheist means. it means you have proof. right?

Yeah… I see what you’re getting at.

I like the theory, I really do, but the thing is I was always agnostic (at least… until I’ve been old enough to really think about this stuff) and I feel like I’ve already thought about this, I mean… what you’ve said -is- the foundation of agnosticism isn’t it? I mean isn’t your argument a really fancy way of saying – ‘we can’t prove either to be false, so we must place our moral flagpoles somewhere in the middle’

I think the problem here is that perhaps (because I do it sometimes) people refer to the term ‘athiestic’ as saying ‘not believing in god’… when really they mean to say ‘not believing in the Gods religion/history have presented’

I am an agnostic rationally. Rationally! However, there is more to me than my reason. There is also an ethical side to my determinations about this world (My Poetic Response to the world!). On it, I find, that I cannot emotionally believe in a just higher being. And my current philosophical investigations lead me to believe that I cannot even have the ability to know if there is an inherent intelligence in the world because I am not certain that I don’t order everything that I see through my own perceptions.

Again, going back to one of our old clashes: I’m more concerned with focusing on this present life – on what is – making it that much more important because of its probablistic finitude (in my determined opinion)

By not having a God(s) to believe in I am responsible for the world. Ethics is not dissmissed by me, though it may be dissmissed by other athiests and agnostics, it isn’t by me.


You’re seeking to comfort your emotions (which are in discomfort by the horror of the world) with this idealization. I reject the idealization because I am not justified in believing in it and instead, seek to do my best to change the current world without any thought of reward. Who is being more altruistic? If you think you are, then you need to immediatly stop holding on to the idea that any good you do in this world matters – then see if you can be altruistic, without any teleological purpose.

The reason I don’t like using the word agnostic is that I still hold hope of progress. One day we might know the universe well enough to either no longer have room for God or to find one.

Really we’ve already disproven any of those nice old Gods with a sun chariot.

Time is just another dimension in the end, we might contrive a way to see our own universe being created. Or we might be able to ourselves create a universe (whos side that proves is hard to say.) In any case, we might know one day. Until that point I’m a provisional Atheist.

Maybe that’s a nice new catagory: Provisional Atheist

I kinda like the sound of it.

I agree

thats why he’s god jackass. you dont know his reasoning or nature, thats the point. so…dumb.

I don’t even believe in god and can still see that god would need suffering as testing material. Then, after the suffering and you have proven your strength you get to go to heaven forever. Good trade there.

well, if you can believe in a system of reincarnation that is capable of recognizing all of our sins and placing us into a position of poverty or wealth dependant on our sins in our past life, then surely a just god is possible. i mean, all you have to do is say to yourself, everytime you feel pain “oh i must have done something bad in my last life” (and then, of course, the amazingly large number of suffering people on earth would have to be counteracted by a similarly large number of happy people on a technologically advanced planet elsewhere)

i would never say that such a theory is plausible, however. i completely agree that god is not just, i find it hard to imagine that he has the capability to keep track and then orchestrate like that. it would be so ridiculously complicated. i dont think that he is just at all. i dont think that our individual souls will be rewarded by the actions that we individually perpetrate. but average human souls will feel better if each of us does good things for them, thats obvious.

i do think that doing good in this world matters. it doesnt matter for me, it hurts me. but it matters for the world. if it didnt matter for the world, if i was donating my money to save the rocks, then i would be a dumbass. and yes, my altruism in that situation would be even more than if i were putting smiles on human faces. but i would feel as stupid as dr satan would feel if he helped someone besides himself once he was a billionaire (actually, probably much more stupid, regardless of what doc might say)

there is a teleological purpose that has been presented to us. happy brain chemicals are great. and there is only so much that you can give to yourself by achieving selfishness. i want a rich old man to post on here and say that he actually felt worse helping others than he did helping himself. i will actually give this old man all of my money, because thats what makes him happy. he doesnt exist. if anybody has an example where they saw such an old man, i will shit my pants and mail them to you as proof. anyway, i totally agree.

you absolutely will not, ever. never.

its not possible. its called an ‘infinite regress’

so far, we have narrowed it down to “there once was a dot, and that dot exploded”

so the question is then “what created that dot” and there is absolutely no scientific instrument that can begin to find evidence that will support that answer.

even if we did invent some completely new science that was capable of probing the time before the big bang, the question then arises “what caused that” and when we find that answer: “what caused that!?!?!”

the uber-creator does not have this property because he is independent of time. follow closely. the only reason why we think the big bang must have had a cause is because we live in a place where time flows in a linear line. the only way we can possibly find out what caused the big bang is if we find out what happened BEFORE IT.

if the big bang created our entire concept of time, and created the mechanism by which we can measure our place in time, then asking what happened before the big bang doesnt even make sense. the big bang was the beginning of time. something might have caused it before it presented evidence to us, but the evidence that it gave to us includes any kind of time perception we can possibly measure.

whenever time started, that is the last place we can ever look for our origin. but something created time. something that was not subject to the laws of time, obviously. but anything that causes something else to happen must have happened BEFORE IT. how can something happen before time existed?

how can that possibly make sense to humans? it cant. something out there caused the universe to exist. and its out there, and it has no past and it caused no future. it just ---- and theres the universe. it didnt cause something in the past to happen in the future because time didnt exist before time was created.

do you see what im saying, the whole concept of creation cant possibly apply to time itself. and time is truly a material, tangible thing just like gravity. something must have created time, since it exists. but what happened before time existed? the question DOESNT MAKE SENSE. that is why we will never understand what “created” time.

and the inhabitants of that universe will be very confused when we show up and say “WE are why you are here!!” and they ask “why are you humans there?”

what made us? what made that? and that? the only way you can ultimately answer the question of where we came from is to answer what created time. and i just cant imagine a way to answer that.

the reason why he is god is to mess with losers who cant hurt him? welcome to ilp thank you for your contribution.

adlerian. it Is very simple. when people think they are being “all philosophical and shit” and they ask why god requires suffering as if it is a difficult question, it is embarassing to all of us “philosopher type motherfuckers”, but you must be strong, because when you say what you just said, they will really be like “oh shit this guy is exactly like einstein in every way that i understand einstein was” and it will be hilarious. and then you must use your gifts to blow their minds further than they ever thought was possible, perhaps by saying what i just said about time. but make them sign a waiver, because you dont want to be sued if they all have aneurysms. (im not insulting you lostguy. just the normals)