Thread: Convince me.

I am an atheo-nihilist with bits of philosophical Buddhism and Taoism tossed in.

Religion bases itself on unfounded premises. There are an infinite number of concievable deities and pantheons, only a subset of which have been worshipped in human history. Many of these concievable gods are mutually contradictory to each other. Why should we favor one over all others when the chances for that god being the "true" one is infinitismally above 0?

God is dead, democracy is dead, humanism is dead, justice is dead and the dollar is dying. I refuse to buy into any belief system which works upon presuppositions without addressing them.

Ultimately we all choose our own cultural narcotics.

Convince you of what?

Originally Posted by Pyrofan1

Convince you of what?

Whatever your beliefs are

.

So tell you about my beliefs? Convince was an incorrect word to use if that's what you meant because convince means to make someone believe.

I'm an Eclectic Wiccan. I believe that nature (i.e. the universe) is a being, but because worshiping a large hunk of matter and energy is difficult. It is broken down into male and female aspects. Everything has a soul in it and contains a "Spark of the divine" a part of it that gives it power over the natural world. Because of this people can manipulate the world as long as you don't hurt anyone (that's not a rule, more of a guideline). When you die you are reincarnated to a new body that is always of the same species and you continue to reincarnate until you learn everything that you want to learn. Whatever you do either good or bad returns to you with three times the force.

I saw the Virgin Mary in a McDonald's french fry today.

...

Therefore, God exists. Convinced yet?

Originally Posted by kaeraz

I saw the Virgin Mary in a McDonald's french fry today.

...

Therefore, God exists. Convinced yet?

Yes. Only a holy saint could manage to fit an image of themselves on just one french fry.

Originally Posted by Pyrofan1

So tell you about my beliefs? Convince was an incorrect word to use if that's what you meant because convince means to make someone believe.

I'm an Eclectic Wiccan. I believe that nature (i.e. the universe) is a being, but because worshiping a large hunk of matter and energy is difficult. It is broken down into male and female aspects. Everything has a soul in it and contains a "Spark of the divine" a part of it that gives it power over the natural world. Because of this people can manipulate the world as long as you don't hurt anyone (that's not a rule, more of a guideline). When you die you are reincarnated to a new body that is always of the same species and you continue to reincarnate until you learn everything that you want to learn. Whatever you do either good or bad returns to you with three times the force.

Hmm interesting. And yes I did mean convince me. I wanna see some debate here, and people trying to prove why they think their religion or non-belief is correct.

Originally Posted by kaeraz

I saw the Virgin Mary in a McDonald's french fry today.

...

Therefore, God exists. Convinced yet?

True dat haha.

No evidence + No reason to believe + Better Explanations readily available = Theology fails.

Any questions?

The pendulum swings, the cogs turn and my world view works without the need for a creator. Organised religion is a bureaucracy, a method of control that was needed in the past but has since long outlived its usefulness to society.

I do not believe in a personal god. We are too small on the scale of the universe (or indeed, a multi-verse) to consider ourselves so special and unique. That is arrogant and naive.

In my weaker moments I can be persuaded to accept a grand unifying energy that was a catalyst for the Big Bang and now pervades all matter and forms of energy, but I feel that is more wishful thinking than understanding and reasoning. It's something I want to believe, but can't bring myself to because I have no evidence for it (just because something is comforting, doesn't make it true).

Ponder this for a moment - Every atom in your body has been present in the crushing pressure of the core of a star, the speed of a supernova and the icy cold of absolute zero in deep space. Ponder on the thought that every atom larger than Helium in my body and yours, was created in the heart of a star 10 billion years ago. Everything that makes you 'you' was once in the core of a nuclear furnace. Every thing on Earth, and indeed our entire solar system, came from that star. It exploded after a very 'short' lifetime, leaving behind all of it's matter.

Gradually, gravity began to go to work, forming our sun, our planet, and the Sol system. The surface of our planet cooled. After a few hundred million years, life formed. 3.7 billion years later, you are the ultimate product of one of the universes most natural processes. Your ancestors for nearly 4 billion years fought tooth, nail and claw to get you here. You are the pinnacle of your evolutionary line. Every atom in your body has come together at this one point in time to create 'you'. Delight in and savour this, before they return to whence they came.

The atoms that make up you, this planet, and everything else in this Universe came from one point in time and space some 13.7 billion years ago. We are all made of the same stuff (matter and energy), we all have the same 'birthday'. We're all related by that one moment in time (even time itself is our brother and space is our sister, for they too were born then).

Someone religious may use my very same argument in favor of a God existing, but I see it as being a wondrous, elegant and self-sufficient Universe. If these images and thoughts don't stir your imagination and instill you with awe and wonder, I don't see how a burning bush, a talking snake or a man walking on water ever could. Truth is so much stranger and fantastic than fiction.

I'm an atheist - welcome to my Universe

Originally Posted by Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot (1995)

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

No evidence + No reason to believe + Better Explanations readily available = Theology fails.

Any questions?

Woes! Now, that is fucking well put.

However, my belief is well supported. There is archaeological evidence that things fly and that there is a food called spaghetti.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

No evidence + No reason to believe + Better Explanations readily available = Theology fails.

Any questions?

Not really any way anyone can argue with that.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Woes! Now, that is fucking well put.

However, my belief is well supported. There is archaeological evidence that things fly and that there is a food called spaghetti.

Haha xD.
And sightings all over the place of an invisible pink unicorn, too.

Through science your knowledge is limited. Science still hasn't figured everything out. Thats where religion comes in, it tries to explain the things we can't explain through science. If science cant explain them, why not do it yourself?

I believe in all religions.. I think it's because I see them for what they truly are, and I don't let other people influence the ideas of the religion. Like for example, theres so many people out there who claim God is an old man with a beard sitting in heaven on his clouds watching over us. I think those people are the same people who believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.. Also atheists, apparently, believe that this is God. An old man with a beard. When you talk to an atheist, that is the concept of God they have in their mind.

There are mad scientists out there who believe the earth is flat, does that make science bullshit?
There are religious people out there who believe God is an old man with a beard, does that make religion bullshit?

For some reason, people only try to find the bullshit in the bible or any sacred text and in any religion. They don't care for the truth, they only want to find bullshit. They even go so far, claiming God is an old man with a beard sitting on fluffy clouds. And then they use their own stupid definition of God to argument religion is bullshit. Or to argument the concept of God that they made up themselves doesnt exist.

Just as science evolves, religion evolves too. If science didn't evolve, the earth would still be flat.

For me religion is just another source of knowledge. Why would you limit yourself only to science? You do realize, that science still hasn't figured out how this universe works? Religion on the other hand, does already realize from the beginning, that the whole universe is interconnected. Science only starts to realize this recently.. quantum theories, wave theories, etc.. It's like science and religion are both going for the same goal, the truth, but they each take their own way.

Chayba pretty well covered it. No worldview, religious or otherwise, is going to win, and none of them is all right or all wrong. If your way of life lets you be at ease with what and where you are, then roll with it.

Basically if there's no evidence for something why the hell would you believe in it?

The only thing I find worthy enough to be called sacred is the miracle of consciousness and the mystery of existence.

Equating religion to science is like equating Atheism to Satanism; Ignorant people do it.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Equating religion to science is like equating Atheism to Satanism; Ignorant people do it.

Assuming you're informed about religion because you were raised by fools who happened to be religious is like hair color; probably a result of heredity.

Lying to yourself by making something up without backing is foolish.

To then take that and equate it to a process of finding things; learning about the unverse, etc...; is ignorant.

Science realizes it does not know everything in the universe and probably never will, however, what it does know it has hard evidence - religion claims to know everything but with nothing to back it.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Lying to yourself by making something up without backing is foolish.

That's what I said: Assuming you're informed about religion because you were raised by fools who happened to be religious is like hair color; probably a result of heredity.

Originally Posted by Sagea

Science realizes it does not know everything in the universe and probably never will, however, what it does know it has hard evidence - religion claims to know everything but with nothing to back it.

Well...no. Few people in even the most bizarre fundamentalist sects believe that anyone in their institution knows the present surface temperature at the north pole of Uranus, and plenty of people building their worldview around science or science-derived narratives believe that scientists will someday figure out everything, or could given enough time. The claims that religious institutions do make, of salvation from sorrow, a place to belong, and a source of strength in times of difficulty, are well-backed by all available data.

Science may be limited in scope. Science is simply building models for what we observe and to be able to predict what'll happen in any situation. Unfortunately science may well hit a boundary where we know pretty much everything about our universe and what's in it, but it's left to logic and reason, and not empirical observation, to work out the nature of the whole of reality. Take for example the multiverse explanation of fine tuned constants: it's not science, but I reckon it's true. It's certainally very logical and elegant.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

That's what I said: Assuming you're informed about religion because you were raised by fools who happened to be religious is like hair color; probably a result of heredity.

Okay then oh guru of theology-- What's religion?

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Okay then oh guru of theology-- What's religion?

Thanks for the question, it inspired some interesting reading

The best general definition I came across was this one, from the Encyclopedia of Religion, cited on the Wikipedia page, Religion:

In summary, it may be said that almost every known culture involves the religious in the above sense of a depth dimension in cultural experiences at all levels — a push, whether ill-defined or conscious, toward some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life. When more or less distinct patterns of behaviour are built around this depth dimension in a culture, this structure constitutes religion in its historically recognizable form. Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience — varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture.

Religion encompasses our varied means of looking upon, expressing and re-connecting with the indescribable depth of what we are and what's going on here, as well as the by-products of that activity that sometimes stray far from those root concerns.

Originally Posted by Sagea

Science realizes it does not know everything in the universe and probably never will, however, what it does know it has hard evidence - religion claims to know everything but with nothing to back it.

So according to you, I realize I do not know everything and never will, however, what I do know I have hard evidence for.
And at the same time I claim to know everything, but with nothing to back it up.

why should anyone have to convince you? believe what you believe, dont ask them to convince you.. ask them to teach you