I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.
Re: God
If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Indian's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, 'How about the tortoise?' the Indian said, 'Suppose we change the subject.' The argument is really no better than that.
Re: God
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Sher: *
I observe that **a very large portion of the human race* does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.
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How did you concluded the bolded part?
Atheist are like wanderers in their life. Confused and lost and in times of need/trouble they turn to God.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by taqlee: *
Atheist are like wanderers in their life. Confused and lost and in times of need/trouble they turn to God.
[/QUOTE]
The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.... Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look round for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the Churches in all these centuries have made it.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sher: *
The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men.
You are free to choose which way you want to lead your life. No religion can be forced on to anybody.
When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings.
It's a human nature to regret after doing wrong, be an atheist or not.
We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face.
Exactly. At all the creation and at all the things around you. Who created all that?
We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages.A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage ...
** Agree **
it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
*Elaborate more on ignorant *
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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by taqlee: *
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Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favor of systematic hatred.
religion is based on human nature....
atheists r based on lack of thinking prowess....
who have no ability to look beyond the material perspective of things....
Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by armughal: *
religion is based on human nature....
atheists r based on lack of thinking prowess....
who have no ability to look beyond the material perspective of things....
[/QUOTE]
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by armughal: *
religion is based on human nature....
atheists r based on lack of thinking prowess....
who have no ability to look beyond the material perspective of things....
[/QUOTE]
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sher: *
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.... Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look round for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the Churches in all these centuries have made it.
[/QUOTE]
Fear?? Why does one feel a feeling of comfort and feeling of at ease while praying?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sher: *
Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favor of systematic hatred.
[/QUOTE]
I think I know where you are coming from. Fed up with all the violence? Thinking being an atheist is better than being a Muslim, Christian etc? Understandable.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by taqlee: *
Fear?? Why does one feel a feeling of comfort and feeling of at ease while praying?
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It is b'cos one thinks that he/she has pleased God by praying to him or her whatever god's gender is. I think The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed, the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction.
That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called Ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
[QUOTE]
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
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Man does not have the intellect to comprehend even the simplest of things then how can he understand the nature of the creator?
Men thought the earth was flat .. imagine that .. and you feel that what you comprehend is right. yeah only till the next wakeup call when you
realize that the earth is not the center of the universe.
Science is nothing but discovering a piece of a puzzle
and guess what when you will get the puzzle together, if
at all you are able to do it, you will realize that there is God
All of the wickedness and other evils which you see in religion
are nothing but the actions of men and their vain desires.
Man is but a weak creature prone to mistakes.
Our creator is not in need of us. But we are the ones in need of Him
You feel helpless because thats exactly what you are
When you are deaf what do you hear
When you are dumb what do you say
When you are blind what do you see
When you sit in silence do you not hear God
When you shut you mouth do you not still talk to God
When you close your eyes do you not see God
Oh but if only my heart would please Him
QUOTE
When you are deaf what do you hear
When you are dumb what do you say
When you are blind what do you see
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Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say there would be no right or wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are in this situation: Is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God that made this world, or could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up -- a line which I often thought was a very plausible one -- that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.
My point --- Faith cannot be measured by science and philosophy. Trying to find links between faith and philosophy is baseless because when u believe in God, you believe that He is the omnipotent and consequently, you can't just assume His nature.
^ very good point. Make that a sticky so that when the next clown who puts up scientific or universal laws as a result of religion, he should be tarred and feathered and then given 100 lashed before being drawn and quartered.