heres why you Can believe in god, atheists

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

i wanted to respond to a recent thread entitled “is there a god”

but im too drunk, as much as that may surprise you.

this is simple. and i dont expect any response at all. i just want people who dont believe in god to read this. and go ahead and respond, i am actually interested in that very much. ive heard your responses already and i have another of my own. because im from the future.

lets say that god wants us to live our lives selflessly. he wants us to strive hard to accomplish many things. and he wants us to give those things to people besides ourselves. he even wants us to give those things to people besides our children once we know that our children will not considerably benefit from those things. he wants us to see people who need help, and he wants us to help them. for some period, that obviously includes our children, but once they grow up sucessfully, it does not, and yet we continue to produce.

thats the message of all of those prophets who we easily dismiss as incapable of separating seas, reincarnating dead people or flying through the air and landing in a holy spot in jerusalem, of all the freaking places.

all those “holy” jerks agree that we need to treat our neighbor as we would want to be treated. and, i think, it is really clear that if this is the philosophy that ALL, ALL (ALL) people followed, the world would, very obviously, be an amazing utopia. a garden of eden.

i think it is very obvious. and obviously, not all people agree, and that is obviously the problem. shutup.

so, if there is a god, what do you think he wants you to do, in order to make the entirety of humanity a better place? what could you, rich white man, do to increase average world happiness? expand your business forever, even when you seriously plan to donate billions to your son? hoard all of your resources so that your children will have a better chance of helping the entire world, and then teach them that the world needs their help?

the second option is very obviously something that ought to be accomplished by anybody who is incapable of changing the world. the first option might not be, unless you are the red cross or something.

i think it is obvious that the best thing for anybody to do is to contribute to average world happiness. that is, of course, if you believe in an afterlife and reincarnation.

if you really believe that your greatest accomplishment is your own happiness, then go! spend your entire wealth on heroin. or, excuse me, build up enough wealth so that you can do heroin until you die. and also, screw you, i hope you die before you accomplish that.

what my point is, is that god wants selflessness. the world will be better if you are selfless. because if you believe in a god, then you believe in a god who distributed unequal amounts of happiness to otherwise equal souls. he gave a LOT to you, and he gave less than none to somalians.

if you dont care about other people, do heroin. NOW!!!

if you do, then start listening now. the point of this thread is here soon.

if god wants us all to do selfless actions, he can do a lot of things. one of the choices he has is to make his presence known to us, or not.

if he makes his presence known to us, if he writes in the sky: “you must help your neighbor at all costs, and anybody who does not will be destroyed by lightning!!!” and every selfish person is instantly destroyed by lightning, well!! you better believe that twenty seconds after abe saw that burning bush, the world was a utopia.

apparently, that is not what happened. heres why: ‘selfless’ actions are not selfless when they are motivated by gods wrath or benevolence.

if every jesus freak who donated his life to charity lived a life of amazing happiness, EVERYBODY would learn that they need to be just like him. EVEN the selfish people who, for some reason, hate everybody besides themselves.

if god rewards you for selfless actions, and you know that he will, then when you do selfless actions, you dont care about the welfare of your neighbor, you care about your own heavenly reward. and that makes your selfless actions Completely Void.

so lets say jesus was the son of god. for laughs. he said do all this selfless crap and god will reward you in heaven. and then for the next 2000 years, god doesnt say shit, he doesnt give any further sign that heaven awaits those who are nice. what does that tell you?

does it really tell you that heaven does not await those who are nice? uh, obviously not mr currently-alive. does it tell you that god does not reward those who are selfless by giving them rewards during their earthly life? obviously yes, that is exactly what god is telling you.

if any christian says that god will punish the sinners, or bless the faithful, murder him.

murder him. he is the signal of the antichrist. he is an “idol” and the things he speaks of are blasphemy. uccisore, bob, back me up.

here is the part specifically designed for atheists.

look at your universe. you have two things you can believe, with absolutely no evidence proving either side. 1: the thing that created the universe has something to do with the creation of life and 2: it doesnt

if you believe 2, i have an Extremely Serious question for you. why dont you do heroin until you die? or, if you are contemplating the happiness of children, will you, once they are fully grown, will you do heroin until you die? will you or have you suffered a mid life crisis?

and if you believe 1, you are obviously not atheist but deist. why did the desit god create the universe and also life?

what does he want life to do for him?

there is one mission that humans have a problem accomplishing, but they ALL know is what they should be doing. all humans should be helping other humans who are in trouble. all humans should know that you should be acting with some degree of selflessness.

i am lower-upper class american. my dad has about a million dollars. my whole life is paid for, but not with too much luxuries. i think luxuries are pathedic and disgusting. i will never own the 70 inch high def tv that he owns unless they are eventually like $100 when i grow up.

i want to make a ton of money, and i want to give it all away. i have been unfairly enriched by my unfair circumstances. i refer to my unfair circumstances as “The Universe”.

The Universe gave me an embarassingly easy life, with very very many lucky breaks thoughout, regardless of income. i have no doubt that if god exists, he expects me donate MUCH more than the average human.

if i were born in west philadelphia, and went to a public school funded by west philly property taxes, and all my friends forced me to be in a gang, and my parents were on crack, and half my friends died, and i had an iq of 120, he would expect A LOT less of me.

yes, this is the silly, somewhat unbased rationalization i have of god. he knows what average world happiness is. he judges each soul on where they were placed relative to this average world happiness. he cant make them all equal because that would create a society where selflessness was unnecessary.

he knows that jamal, a crack baby with abusive parents, is not expected to donate 17 out of 18 billion dollars to charity like bill gates is, because jamal does not have 18 billion dollars.

so what happens when earth completely equalizes, 1000 years from now? i predict that we will discover an alien race which is clearly inferior to us, but which also clearly feels pain when we chain them up and whip them. the new selfless mission will be to save these aliens.

either that, or we become the victims of a different alien race with sees us the same way.

or god isnt real, just fucking do heroin already. why are you still alive?

upon rereading, i see parts where i may not have been clear. i want few things more than to answer your questions.

2

the way that god designed the universe requires humans to be selfless in order for all of them to be happy.

in order for all humans to be happy, some must resist the temptations that their ancestors acted on. they must resist the urge to bask in aristocracy.

ok… yeah… i believe that purely selfish people are soulless automatons sent by god to mess up the universe. or, better yet, they are souls who have been sent to heaven, and their perception has been messed up. their perception has been altered in such a way that they do not feel the pain of the unfortunate people who surround them.

some saint was reborn into marie antoinette of france. marie lived her life in ultimate pleasure, apparently unaware of the happiness that she could have caused by caring about somebody besides herself.

i can imagine that her nice soul was sent to heaven, and god said to her: “you have earned this life right here. you will feel so good. eventually, youll feel a few weeks of horror, but you know, who cares, youll come right back here. it doesnt really matter. just listen, i need somebody to be an asshole to make my machine work. if you dont agree to be marie, ill just get somebody else. itll be fun overall, seriously”

and all of the people who have not earned their reincarnated, temporary heaven, they will be faced with the mission of overthrowing this horrifying evil of marie antoinette and king louie. and L and M will be somewhat oblivious to the pain that the peasants feel, because they have not lived those lives, they have not accumulated those experiences. they will have learned, throughout their lives, that the royalty are superior to those shmucks. that running low on bread isnt so bad, because theyve never felt starvation pains. and when the peasants raid their bread stores, they wont understand how desperate those animals are.

they will be living a life that contains more happiness. and ends in more pain. the result of their pain is that they will cause happiness. not by way of the french revolution directly (obviously), but by way of giving up those huge bread reserves to a bunch of starving peasants. and by way of alleviating the hatred that all peasants had for them by their decapitation.

what im trying to say is that the only way a rich person can even out their OWN happiness is by donating that happiness to others. the most selfish tycoon will be most happy when he helps his children. he will donate everything he can to this child who gives nothing in return.

once that child grows up, the tycoons has no such donation. the tycoon looks at all the work he does everyday, very stressfull work, and he asks himself, ‘why the fuck do i go to work???’

‘what will i gain by continuing to go to work???’

the teenagers reading will say ‘oh, hes got some glory. hes gonna go down in history as the amazing, stupendous JP freaking MORGAN who we, One Hundred years later, will all read about and we all wish that we were him!! because we all love big screen tvs, and if we were JP, we would have like a thousand big screen tvs!!! YEAH!!!’

no. if you were JP Morgan at the end of his life, after he had finished donating everything he had to whatever children he had (i dont even think he had children, but i dont know), if you were him, you would not be fucking happy.

think about your future as an amazingly rich tycoon. think about how happy your material objects will make you when you are 60 years old.

seriously think about it.

if god made the universe and life, and he made all people feel like they love material objects, and he made them all stop caring once they were no longer Physically obligated to donate this material happiness to their ‘children’ (‘others who dont return the favor’), what do you think he wants?

i want questions. a lot of them. i will respond verbosely. obviously

3

…you do have quite the imagination…

4

yes the future man plan to replace the “faulty” holy books, with the future man truth.

The only problem is that future mans truth comes from too much x-files, soda pop and alcohol.

5

I am amazed at the one who settles down in the abode that passes away, and ignores the abode that lasts for ever.

6

um…that was…abstract…?..
i m not sure about…hmm…
i guess i see where youre going with this…though some parts were a bit…er…“out there”…but overall i agree…?..

7

Athiest responds: The Judeo-Christian, Allah, G-d – the one whom I reject – is rejected upon the basis that this anger that you have displayed should be directed towards him/it.

There are children being born who for three years or so, due to currently incurable genetic diseases, are born without skin; whereby they needelessly and horrifically suffer until they die (as well as their parents). What good God allows this to occur? What good God creates such a universe?

Furthermore, Dostoevsky wrote in The Karamazov Brothers, a story about how a female serf witnessed her son being ripped apart by dogs because the landowner was angered by the boy (he got this from a newspaper – it is not fiction); Dostoevsky pointed out, that her suffering can never be redeemed, justice can never be reached, even if a Heaven and a Hell exist; for what good would it do to the mother’s suffering if the landowner was to be in Hell – but this is beside the point of the thread, so pay attention to the following: what good would it do that she would be in heaven?–What heaven is possible after living through such a horror?

The prophets all say to be selfless? That is their message you say? But, is that all of their message? No, it is not. What message does the story of Abraham serve (sacraficing Isack?); the message that one must be selfless, not in the sense of love your neighbor only, but love and Fear, and Abide by gods law, for God, afterall, has a teleological end which you, puny human, cannot possibly fathom (for those unfamiliar with philosophical jargon; teleological means grand purpose).

Ah, but I’ll play along for a moment; let’s pretend that the most important thing the prophets teach us is to be selfless. Well, then, these are human beings sharing with you their wisdom, sharing with you how to make this, vain of all vain worlds (check your Ecclesiastes), a garden of Eden (though, I believe, that story is a beautiful allegory about growing up, but that’s another point).

Do you wish to rationalize that God created such a horrific universe so that we may be able to turn it back into Eden by being selfless. Do you mean to say, that we should praise God and rejoice for allowing places like Somalia to exist, for it will allow us, who have unearned luck, to be able to practice selflessness? Mother Teresa was a saint because she went into a God-forsaken land and helped the people there. Are we to say that we must praise god for having created such an abominable circumstance in order that a Mother Teresa could become a beacon to us all. Is that the mysterious way in which God works?–creating a horrific place in order that a saint will be born? What nonsense!

Furthemore, the God you speak of, the god who only wants selflessness, is not a Religious God. It is not the God of scripture – it is an image of God whom, out of your own goodness and inocence, have projected an ideal of; S/he/it is your own personal creation, your own personal ideal, because, I assume, you would like to believe in some type of justice. You would like to make sense of this absurd suffering, and dreadful, meaningless existence – the question is, afterall, what is all this suffering for, is it not?

8

FutureMan:

There are things that happen to people that are beyond any possible, reasonable, justification. The idea that a struggle is a “test” is indecent, impolite to the point where God should know better. There is absolutely no excuse for inducing a struggle in a persons life who has no capacity to understand why, as there are many people who are quite literally stupid, though capable of hurting just as the smartest man. Here, it should seem entirely obvious to God that there is no sense in these efforts, at least not for the stupid man that suffers. It amounts to nothing more than a bad joke, a prank, a selfish, arrogant infatuation with one’s own power and its exercise for pure entertainment.

To concieve of a “plan” of God’s, one must have some degree of intelligence. Yet there are certainly people who cannot even spell their own name…yet they hurt just as bad as anyone else. If, indeed, this process were necessary for some “development,” how then does one engage in this development without the knowledge of its process, that is, without an inspiration? Is not the inspiration fundamental for one’s purpose, for one’s incentive to be tested? How does one participate in a plan without having knowledge of it? As a puppet. A puppet is not a life…a puppet cannot devote itself to anything. It cannot love, it cannot anticipate, it cannot feel joy.

But it can hurt. It can feel pain.

God’s relationship to man can be summed up in this metaphor:

A man jumps out into the middle of the street in the pitch-black hours of midnight and is hit by an oncoming car with its headlights off. The man who gets hit is God. The driver is a human being.

God gets angry at the man:

“Why didn’t you have your headlights on!? You would have seen me.”

The man, confused, answers:

“Jeez, who woulda thought God would be standing in the middle of the road in the dark?”

God says:

“That doesn’t matter, you should have your headlights on anyway.”

The man replies:

“Well if I knew that God would be in the road then I certainly would, but a God who gets angry at me for not having my headlights on while driving at night without the knowledge that God might be in the road has got it all wrong. Is the fact that I was driving without my headlights on a bad deed in itself, or because it was you that I hit?” Could I possibly know how important it is to drive with my headlights on if I could never imagine the terrible disaster it might cause?"

God says:

“That’s irrelevent. There are plenty of disasters that could happen, you could hit another person, for example.”

The man:

“Sure, but again, could I imagine this to be wrong if I had no knowledge of your existence?”

God:

“What do you mean? Explain further.”

The man:

“If I believe that you do not exist, then nothing would be wrong…there would be no “right” or “wrong” without your judgement. Likewise, I wouldn’t take the chance and drive with my lights off if I was sure that you existed…because if I hit someone I would expect to be punished. Now, you jump into the road without announcing your presence and then expect me to keep my lights on because you might exist? What! Look, this is serious business, dude, you gotta be a little more careful when you make these judgements. Its easy for you to know you exist, but not so easy for me. With or without my lights on, pal.”

God:

“So your saying that I shouldn’t be angry at you for driving without your lights on because I haven’t proven to you that I exist?”

Man:

“Precisely!”

God:

“Now wait a minute. What would make you think that hitting another person was okay, had you hit them instead of me?”

Man:

“The fact that without your existence…everything would be okay, that’s what.”

God:

“Damn, I never thought about it like that. You have a point.”

Man:

“I know I do you stupid shit. Now get outta the road!”

Do you see what I’m getting at, FM? It makes no sense to create a set of rules and then hide them.

Nietzsche was right.

God was drunk.

So this whole “he’s gotta plan and we should all be selfless” is moot. If anything one should deliberately do the opposite.

Love yourself and nobody else. I’d rather sit in hell for eternity knowing that I lived my life rationally than go to heaven because I lucked out and guessed right…that God was twenty-feet ahead in the middle of the road.

I will fight God till the bitter end.

Besides…he started it!

9

(Geez, I told myself I wouldn’t get involved with a Future Man thread…)

Detrop, Underground Man:

Just for the sake of clarification: Is it God in general you’re having a problem with, or is it the teleological God-with-a-plan that FM is apparently describing that gives you fits and causes at least Detrop to declare as “drunk.”

(I say “apparently describing” because I couldn’t really get through all of FM’s post and am merely inferring from your respective posts).

10

I would do Heroin if it was easily accessible.

But it’s not. I can’t afford it nor I have any talent for money making. I also hate conflict and I’m not a risk taker, I can’t deal with stress that well too, so drug dealing is outside my reach too.

All I can do is try to get a payed position in the accademy, write a couple of books, die quietly and not have any children.

Not having any children is my contribution to others.

11

Jerry,

For me, the idea of God does not make sense without a teleological end. Deism seems to be an alternative, but it does not apeal to, or interest, me. So I would say, it’s the God-with-the-teleological-end, that has got me all roused up.

12

Dear Future man, from the past.

Find my thread Profie of the creator (Damn keyboard, should be Profile)
if you would like to argue about the nature of god.

Why should we beleive in God?
Why should we?

13

future man’s emptiness comes with his knowledge.
Anyone who knows anything will realise just how futile everything is and just how important it is at the same time.

We are what is known as balanced minds, though it is the truth, onced discovered the 2 halves of the mind will fight each other until they self annihilate and we die.

Do nothing!
The part of you that wants to do something will die and the part of your mind that doesn’t will also die.
Leaving you with your purpose in life.
Then you you follow it.
It’s nothing to do with what god wants or what you want, it’s just what your place in the universe is.

the 96th mile, out of gas
the 97th mile, dispair
The 98th mile, true realisation of purpose and meaning, aquisition of the universal fuel.
The 99th mile, action
the 100th mile and end of the road, enlightenment and wth it, your retirement from philosophy.

14

if you know everything
aka your actions are what they are and there’s nothing you can do about it. and you have accepted that then you will do what you will do.
There is no more philosophy once you understand the illusion it was.
Therefore there is no point in being a philosopher any more.

human beings are under many illusions, and only they can free themselves. There is only 1 course of action for you.

find an interest and then work for free.

15

philosophical ally, ask a real question. because i thought i was very, very specific. and apparently all of our viewers would be very interested in the clarification that i hope you can help me to provide.

WAIT. STOP. THINK. is it “nonsense”?

assume that god exists. he made the universe and intelligent human-like life for some reason.

what could that reason possibly be? it is very clear that he made rich white americans and poor black africans. if you assume he had a say in the creation process.

so why the discrepancy?

wait! take a step back, why did god make the universe? so far i think we have two options, 1. god used a random number generator to create billions of humans who have various free-will tendencies, and he wants to make a super special club for the good random numbers that he generated (amen) or 2. god WANTS TO HARVEST SOME KIND OF METAPHYSICAL BYPRODUCT

if you want to be christian, go ahead, believe 1. im in the religion thread, surely at least one of you must be reading, so ill be polite and extend to you the following: i respect your beliefs and i hope that god has mercy on your soul you god damned dirty sinner, i hope you got holy water splashed on your head or you are fucking fucked. and i hope you ate holy wafers or you are fucking fucked. and i hope you…

anyway, if you want to believe in god, you either believe that he doesnt care about what life does, or you believe that he wants life to do a certain thing. one or the other. it is certainly possible that god just “felt like” creating life because it would be “interesting”, but that just doesnt make sense to me. he wants something to happen as a result of his creating life. certainly if we were ‘created in his image’, then he wants to make a profit from his investment.

so what i am saying with this thread is that if god wants humans to accomplish something, selflessness seems like something that is mechanically difficult for humans to accomplish, and yet yields positive results.

when you look at any machine, they require resistance to work. the pepper grinder, when you rotate it one way, it is difficult because it grinds more pepper. you rotate it the other way and it doesnt grind any pepper and it is easy. this is the way that any machine in the entire universe works. you do work, good happens. you dont do work, nothing good happens.

god made the universe this way, because he is omnipotent. (what kind of crappy god isnt omnipotent? or at least close to it?) so what do humans do that is difficult? what do they do that is easy?

being selfless is difficult, even though it clearly creates good, as if it werre powdery pepper. being selfish is very easy, even though, if you do your research, its kind of bad for the universe (if you are really rich. complex capitalism etc. you know the gist)

here is the point of what i am saying. here is why i used the word atheist in the title of the thread.

assume that what i just said is what god wants from us. he wants selfless actions (the metaphysical byproduct that he wants could be many things, including selfishness (which would make more sense, actually), i assume that he wants selfless actions because that sounds pretty),

lets say god wants selflessness. REAL selflessness. 2000 BC he talks to abraham. he lit a stupid bush on fire that one single person saw. he could have written across the sky “BE NICE OR I WILL ZAP YOU WITH LIGHTNING MOTHERFUCKER”

but he didnt write that. why? why could he possibly refrain from CLEARLY stating what he wants us to do?

he WANTS US TO DO IT!!! so why wouldnt he just write in fire in the sky every ten minutes!!! WHY!!!

because if we knew that god wanted us to do selfless actions, and we did selfless actions in response to his fire sky writing… THOSE ACTIONS WOULD NOT BE SELFLESS ANYMORE!!!

those actions would be for the glory of god, or for our divine retribution, or for whatever we believe to be gods purpose. they. would. not. be. selfless. period.

thats the whole point of this thread. the reason why god doesnt make himself obvious to us is because it would RUIN his whole mission.

i would like to state that, according to my logic (god made a universe do what it does, and the result is clear to us therefore we can only draw conclusions from what we see), according to my logic, god actually wants selfISHness, because that is what has been accomplished more often in the universe he created.
but i actually cling to the pepper grinder analogy: he wants that which is more difficult because machinery requires overcoming resistance, and humans have a natural resistance towards selflessness. plus, selflessness creates more average dopamine and seratonin, which are, clearly signs of ‘goodness’.

no, its not ‘abstract’, its just complicated sentence structure. its really simple. read it again.

there certainly is! god created somalians so that we white men can have an object to contribute to. if there was no unfairness, there would be no selflessness.

i predicate all my theological theories on gods pursuit of human selflessness. its a gruesome goal that he pursues, but i think it is clear that if he exists, selflessness is what he pursues.

without unfair tragedies, selflessness is impossible. what is the source of selflessness? a person in need!!! the only way that any of us white men can be selfless is if we help somebody who needs help.

if nobody needs help, there is no selflessness. do you see how my theory of gods mission relies upon the obvious facts of the universe? god created the universe the way that it is. the question is very simple: which theory of gods mission has been succesfully implemented by god?

harvesting the metaphysical byproduct of selflessness is currently happening. (harvesting selfishness is happening much more efficiently, but i hate selfishness and it feels icky when i do it)

aaaaaaah… i dont know about that. maybe he wants to harvest the selfless actions of the priveleged and he needs to present those priveleged few with a group of soulless automatons who apparently require their help in order to harvest the brain functions that enact their selfless help. it could amount to a lot of things, be creative.

do you know that for sure? i mean, their nerve cells could transmit the same voltage to their brain pain receptors, and their brains could respond to that same voltage with the same, painful, starvation facial expressions that a rich white man would if he were in the same position,

but do you know that that african really feels the same EXACT SOULFULL response to a lack of food that you would if you were SUDDENLY put into his position? its a moot point anyway.

the suffering ones dont participate. their presence is certainly required for the mission to take place, but their participation is almost impossible. for this reason, i halfway believe that they arent even real, soul carrying people the same way that i am. of course, i would never use this judgement in the real world, but hey, it makes me feel good to know that they dont feel pain. and the other alternative is that they are sinners in their past lives (there would need to be many sinners on distant planets to account for the majority of third world sufferers here on earth). thats easy to believe.

the other alternative is that god has no control of what souls get put where. i could live my whole life donating trillions to bums who dont know shit. i could make them so happy like they never would be without me, and i get to heaven and god is just rolling the dice and he throws me right into somalia. and i die after 10 days of pain.

so fucking what. thats the worst case scenario. i get reincarnated into 10 days of desert pain. that is ‘my reward’ for my ‘selfless’ life.

GOOD!!

god made a machine where a bunch of humans rely on the selfless of the few who have unfairly gathered the resources. one day, around 2030 AD, some human donated it all to help those who were hurting. and he increased average world happiness.

in 2060, a human was born in somalia who was in pain and then died.

future man was both of those humans. the world was better because of his existence. GOOD!! why bad? because future man of 2005 didnt have enough big screen tvs? think about what is ‘good’.

god made a world that would be better as a result of a certain, exact, human mindset. he did not make a world that would be better if you ate crackers, or got splashed with sacred water or went to the place where billy bob allah fell out of the sky and tap danced on a rock, HE MADE A WORLD WHERE IF YOU ARE SELFLESS THE WORLD IS BETTER.

Here is the whole purpose of this thread! right here:

what would completely ruin this whole thing he made? what would cause everyone in the world to be completely incapable of doing ANYTHING that can be called selfless? what one action would immediately NEGATE absolutely 100% of ALL selfless actions?

if god made his existence known to humanity, even if he didnt specify what his mission was, or what his mission for humanity was, all humans would do actions that they can personally consider more selfless. they will do those actions because they think that god wants them.

they would become more selfless because they were afraid of god and what he will do. they will not be selfless because they care about people besides themselves, they will become selfless because they care about themselves and what god will do to them when they die. and that is called selfISHness.

the machinery that god harvests is in our brain. he can sense when our brain does something truly selfless and that brain action moves the metaphysical cogs forward one notch. that is why he created humans. the act of selflessness transcends any other action in that it can cause good as a result of a conscious being hurting itself.

a prairie dog, wolf, dolphin and even human can hurt itself in order to alert its neighbors of impending danger, growl at incoming predators to protect children (genetically descendant or not) or even to donate resources to less privelged ones by vomiting up previously eaten food or, beleive it or not, write numbers on a piece of paper that signify resources that have been somehow accumulated but can never be reasonably consumed by the luckily wealthy mammal.

and that is why there is always a backdoor out of atheism. “god doesnt want his presense to be known because that would negate the mission of selflessness”

BAM! you cant be fully atheist if you beleive that the previously quoted statement is feasible. if you dont believe it is feasible, [b]respond at length[/b].

if you think that gods metaphysical byproduct is more likely selfIshness than sefLessness, shutup smart ass i already said that. and the knowledge of gods presence would similarly negate the brain processes that go behind those actions as well as those that are selfless.

dude, the xfiles soda pop and alcohol are only like 80% as awesome as what i just wrote.

16

sorry detrop i went on and on and forget that you wrote a lot, heres more response.

why is that? does the pain of fellow humans not exist without the judgement of god? is the thought that we are isolated brains in a vat experiencing only the matrix a rationally accepted idea in some atheist circles? are you illustrating a point that i havent read yet?..

in order for a set of rules to make sense, you have to have a goal. my goal, and deep down, every humans goal (once selfish desires are satisfied, as all rich white mens are) is average world dopamine and seratonin. those chemicals feel good when inserted into brains. one good way to make them is to be nice and not exploit third world countries.

honestly, as part of a whole new thread, id say that your own personal dopamine and seratonin will be more voluminously dispersed when helping others at some point in your life, the ‘mid life crisis’ point to be exact. but i dont know that.

the point of THIS thread is to explain why you dont know for sure that god doesnt exist. one damn hell ass good reason why he doesnt want you to know for sure that he exists, and why he doesnt want you to know for sure what the mission is, and to know for sure that selfless actions will make your mid life crisis heal is because that knowledge would negate the selflessness of the actions.

if you know that gods wants you to donate your money to poor people, donating your money to poor people is an act towards GOD, the big man who might torture you for eternity. if you dont even know that he exists, donating your money to poor people is a seriously awesome act of selflessness and extremely more difficult. one action is easy like a pepper grinder rotating the wrong way, accomplishing nothing, the other is difficult and causes much powdery delicious pepper to be created.

if god wants difficult selfless actions, he will make sure that humans donate money to those who are not in charge of their eternal destiny. he will make sure that they donate only to those who will not return the favor. he wants selfless actions to be selfless.

This is the Assumption that i make as i destroy absolute atheism. it is not a theory i am trying to prove: IF god wants selflessness, THAT is why he doesnt make his presence known to you. so dont ask why he doesnt make the mission clear, because i told you why. its because selfless actions are not selfless if god told you he wants them and you know god can reward/punish you. he wants the real deal selflessness.

this is isnt a thread describing why you should believe in god, its a thread describing why it is impossible to entirely deny gods existence if you can believe that he might have created the universe in order to harvest the metaphysical byproduct of selfless actions. its simple.

17

Future Man:

I haven’t forgot about you but I don’t want to talk about God today.

I will say this though, if God did exist, it would be something like what you have in mind.

18

I can’t stand heroin. Years ago I snorted some and I recall vomiting profusely. Before I did it I was hungry and I ate a bowl of mac-n-cheese. Fifteen minutes later I hurled it, then I ate more because I was still hungry. I hurled that too. This went on for about an hour and a half.

I remember the feeling was like smoking an ounce of pot in one bong-hit, except it made me dizzy.

19

Ok, Future Man PMed me and asked me to respond to this thread, but I’m doing it anyway.
First,

Wow, look at all the assumptions!
No basis in reality whatsoever, mind you.

This is intellectually impotent tripe.
I don’t have to ‘believe’ either possibility. Who said the universe was created at all?
We don’t even know what the universe is yet.

Solipsism at it’s finest.
So you know what we should ALL be doing. You and every other brainwashed christian…yawn.

Not having to work for a living is a luxury.
Are you aware you are the biggest hippocrite ever?

And what exactly does fairness have to do with the real world?

Blah, this is boring.
What a stupid thread.

20

Ok Future… I’m too high to think any of this through, but bear with me cause it might work out anyways.

Ok… you have heaven and hell, in your system that is.

Now if I’m a soul and I only get 1 shot at the big time, one life, then I would think that given the opportunity to enjoy having senses, and a conscience, and sex, and candy and whatever else for 1 time!! I would be doing whatever I wanted, now alot of the time this results in (around here at least) living the mythical norm - kids, house, coporate job etc. Sometimes it would consist of banging hookers and doing blow. But this would still be in compliance with wanting to live life, and enjoy all the senses you’ve been awarded, perhaps by chance, perhaps by God.

Say it’s by chance of universe mechanics, then it’s more of an existential existence… you live with your decisions and enjoy life.

Say it is by God’s design and after the life of living this carefree life you go to hell because you didn’t follow God’s instructions, you wern’t a horrible guy… but you didn’t sit in a wooden building all day catching the holy fever. Then, knowing that you only have 1 shot at life would you even care what ‘side’ of living you went back to, if you’re going to be in heaven or hell for eternity? compared to living they are void. Living is a change, a switchup, you know they’re going back to a place forever, so why not have a blast living life?

Ok OK Ok hold up… what about reincarnation?
Let’s talk about it… due to the pure number of humans alive compared to before reincaration at some point must involve ‘new souls’, but I’ll get to that in a sec.

If you live a cool life and go to hell, you don’t even care because you’ll eventually be living again, and then you can have a blast all over again. Living compared to the eternity of the dead is always where you want to have the most fun, because it’s the most saught after thing. Everyone sitting around in heaven… they wanna get back to earth because having realized having anything they ever wanted and never feeling pain was just as bad as hell.

But if I’m just some peon in a chess game with the devil and God, then that sucks for me. Either I’m a) someone who’s been to hell and is going to hell cause I know how the universe works or I’m b) a new sole who’s been ‘won over’ by the devil (at least for now… in this hypothetical scenario)

Devil: Matt Jones to weed bong.
God: Clever move my friend.

or maybe there is a different God, who doesn’t mess around with people’s heads nearly as much as the one FM suscribes to.

Souls Future… explain it