Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Respiration!
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
So putting a dead body on a respirator would make them live again.
Re: ATHEISTS … explain
^:naraz:
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
More like a proclomation. A king, for example, proclaims power, and such proclomations dont' lend themselves to reasoning unless we take them to be apriori true.
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However, there is no test for this particular supposition. The conclusions are suppositions as well, which do nothing but reinforce the thesis. It is circular.
A circular argument is not a paradox.
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Circular arugment: God exists because God says he does.
Not a circular argument: God exists because in human history we have received his revelation.
The latter than becomes a question of historical veracity (note, this itself is not up for scientific verifiability because it's not a "natural" phenomena that can be modelled), not of proving a proposition to be true or false.
Demanding proof falls into two categories:
-Tangible evidence, of which the faith groups say none can exist (violation of free will).
-Conceptual arguments, which quickly become limiited if we try to reason formally and not, say, rehtorically.
The paradox above was cited as proof that omnipotence was absurd. On the contrary, paradoxes in general have more to do with the limitations of formal reasoning. That's not an argument for/against God, but one against using formal logic in these discussions.
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This, again, is not a good argument. You present someone that existed but no one knew about. Then want to know if his existence can be empirically deduced after his death. Did he live in a house? Did he eat? Did he leave behind finger prints? Did he leave behing clothes?
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He obviously did all of those, but if there is no trace evidence left (and here we are talking about what we can detect today, not using some yet-to-be invented sci fi gizmo) who would know? That's the essence of that whole tree in the forest cliche.
Just because we, personally, don't experience an event or force, it doesn't mean it never existed.
You hit the nail on the head. It's faith. Either way, nobody can make any definitive statement.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
piccocio,
As a small tangent off this discussion, I would like to point out that it is meaningless to talk of existence of an object that cannot be observed directly or indirectly.
Regarding your 2 examples, it is meaningless to talk about the existence of the hermit or the falling tree until they have been observed either directly or indirectly through their effects.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
So basically atheists do not believe that God exists. What do atheists say about the Big Bang theory?
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
The way it looks like; prove should be given by the people who are theist. If a person do not believe the existance of something how is he required to give a prove of something which he believes not to be there.
As an theist I have already said it earlier it is not possible to give any proof to prove existence of God, its a belief.
If somebody else is hellbent to give the proof of the existense of God please be my guest and come forward. Uptil now all the books I have read give circumstantial evidence of God. Nobody has given any physical proof, atleast I have not met anybody yet who says that he/she has seen or met God.
It's a belief.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
My point can be illustrated by asking question; How does faith differ from
reason? from a somewhat different perspective.
Consider this question: Why does the theist employ two concepts, reason and faith, to designate different methods of acquiring knowledge, instead of just using the concept of reason by itself?
In other words, why is it necessary for the thiests to introduce the idea of faith at all? What purpose does it serve that is not served by reason?
The answer is obvious: the thiests wishes to claim as knowledge beliefs that have not been (and often cannot be) rationally demonstrated, so he posits faith as an alternative method of acquiring knowledge. Faith permits the thiests to claim the status of truth for a belief even though it cannot meet the rational test of truth.
Thus, the thiest is forced to defend the position that there are two methods by which man can arrive at knowledge: by reason and by faith.
Faith is required only if reason is inadequate; if reason is not deficient in some respect, the concept of faith becomes vacuous.
The thiest creates the need for faith by denying the efficacy of reason. Without this element of denial, faith is stripped of its function; there are no gaps of knowledge for it to fill.
If reason is comprehensive, if no sphere of reality is exempt from its scrutiny, there are no grounds on which to posit faith as an alternate method of cognition. If reason can tell us anything there is to know, there is no longer a job for faith.
The entire notion of faith rests upon and presupposes the inadequacy of reason.
This explains why discussions in favor of faith are always accompanied by references to the limits of reason. The thiests must use this procedure in order to prepare the necessary groundwork for faith. Without this preparation, he will be in the position of advocating the use of a concept for which there is no use.
As an advocate of reason;
Is reason provides man with knowledge of reality; yes.
Is reason vital to man's existence; yes.
Man's rational capacity is his distinguishing characteristic but some aspects of existence cannot be comprehended by man. Some facts are closed to rational understanding.
Reason is fine as far as it goes, but it is limited. And here faith makes its grand entrance. Faith is called upon where reason is said to fail, and faith is represented as a supplement to reason, not an enemy. In the other words, faith "perfects" reason.
A theist may claim that reason cannot fulfill the psychological and emotional needs of man, or that reason is limited in its application, or that reason is defective in some respects but, regardless of the details, reason must be pushed aside to accommodate faith.
I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is matter of faith, and above reason.
It's just my opinion.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
I think its futile arguing with an atheist about the existence of God when he can't fathom it inspite the existence of the whole universe. God is part of the unseen for humans. That is the reason God has asked us and communicated to us through his true monotheistic religions to believe in him as he has created this whole universe which testify to his existence. If after witnessing all this you still cannot understand that God exists then surely no human is going to convince you unless you make a sincere effort on your own and should God be willing. Everything in this universe was created. Someone created the universe. that somebody is God. At the heart of atheism lies belief in material sciences. Astronomy has itself bowed to the fact that there has to be a creator of this universe and there is no way all this could have just come into existence out of nothingness by chance. If God were to appear in front of all of us then there would really be no matter of belief. This is what God tests us with in this life, can we find him through rational reasoning or not. Asking for physical evidence for something to believe in is no longer a matter of faith.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
...which brings us to the argument about historical revelation.
The overall point being, what does science and logic have to do with it? We are not talking about empirical evidence for models that describe known phenomena, or reasoning from a basic set of axioms.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Proof is too strong a word. Motivation is a better one. Atheists need a compelling reason to believe. Theists need a compelling reason to disbelieve.
Neither side can adequately resort to sound reasoning or science to come up with a compelling reason, so as you say, it's left to faith.
There is great symmetry between the positions, otherwise.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
reason? from a somewhat different perspective.
There is overlap between faith and reason. Chalking up the existence to the universe (or life, for that matter) to random processes seems more like a wishy-washy way to "explain" (as it's non functional) than reasonable.
There is nothing inherently unreasonable to a Creator.
Anyhow, such arguments degrade over time. A black hole did not simply exist untill it was proposed. It was in fact there all this time. We just had to wait until we could perceive it.
Does that discount the possibility of phenomena (let's call them "dark" phenomena) that exist outside our ability to perceive them? No. As Kash said, it simply calls into the question their relevancy (not their existence).
Claims of historical revelation by God is a fact of human existence. It is the veracity of the claims made by revelation, then, that need to be taken into account
Reason by restricting oneself to naturalistic arguments (i.e. God must be observable) does not help, as it is side stepped by omnipotence.
There are limits to what we can formally reason about, so we hit a brick wall there rather quickly too. That's no mere ploy.
Faith is required because revelation as an event is non-continuous, and confined to points in time. Thus, the tendency to employ naturalistic methods to "study" revelation fail.
We are reduced to the most basic logical proposition:
It's true, or it isn't.
When presented with such a choice, with rationalizations (not so much reasons) to pick between either side, then it implies that faith and not certainty (that is the opposite of faith, not reason) is what guides us.
Atheists simply don't want to admit their belief that the universe is as-is without a creator is a matter of faith, whereas the religious admit freely that they have faith.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Proof of GOD's existence is all around us. If some one has the balls to tell me that the keyboard I'm typing on was all just a pure mistake along with this screen you're reading the text on - u've got issues buddy.
Obviously something powerful created us to be able to even come up with these things...believing in god doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory but I tell you what does. "Life started with a single cell organism that led to dinosaurs/humanity/etc....yea, I've got a bridge to sell YA!
-pak man
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
As the Quran says, there are 'signs' all around us. But not proof. If there were a definitive proof, wouldn't it be in the Quran?
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
An intelligent person would think that so many signs will be enough to conclude proof.
It's like building your little kingdom of toy robots and telling them all what has to be done on a daily basis. You then on purpose put one or many "bad" toy robots and see who of those will listen to your ways and follow your commands for the ultimate prize.
The problem here is that we're not robots cause we can think. Breathe brother, breathe.
-pak man
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Atheists simply don't want to admit their belief that the universe is as-is without a creator is a matter of faith, whereas the religious admit freely that they have faith.
first, can you, a person who believes in god, describe faith? and also i'd like to see a description of faith from an atheist.
second, why do some believe in the correctness of faith and others do not?
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
^^ Why are you here and if you aren't here then why are you here?
Yea that sums up your comment.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
i asked two questions. i didn't make any comments.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
It's like building your little kingdom of toy robots and telling them all what has to be done on a daily basis. You then on purpose put one or many "bad" toy robots and see who of those will listen to your ways and follow your commands for the ultimate prize.
The problem here is that we're not robots cause we can think. Breathe brother, breathe.
-pak man
It seems like God was so bored that he came up with the idea to create a universe and humans just to kill his time and in other words we are just the time killing toys for him. dont u think. and thas not fair at all.
i got a question y god left bits n pieces of clues for his existance . y couldn't he tell his last prophet( PBUH) that since ur my last prophet and ur followers are going to have a wonderful life if they'll follow ur path so i should reveal the secret of my existance , which i hid it from all the prophet before.
Wouldn't be easy for everybody to accept his existance. hmmm
and yes ur right we r not robots we are human ,if he gave us a brain he shouldn't have any problem if we ask for the proof of his existance.i think theres nuthing wrong in it.
I've seen alot of kids asking their parents where did they come from ,parents laugh it out and make some excuses ,parents wouldn't punish their kids becuase of that non sense question cuz they know their kid is immature and they love their kid, so if god is so great and we are so immature to figure out his existance then y would he punish us.Just cuz we turned atheist because he didnt leave any clue for us to believe in him other than Blind Faith.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
second, why do some believe in the correctness of faith and others do not?
Faith is a belief that does not arise from a logical proof or from direct material evidence.
Faith in the religious/ethical sense also hinges on hope. Faith in mankind (humanism, if you like) is a very good example of a very irrational belief as mankind's penchance for barbarity is a constant.