Evil is not the absence of godliness.  Evil is people doing bad things to each other.  Having moral direction does not require believing in a deity.  In fact, believing in a deity is often an obstuction to moral behavior as a person is no longer required to determine what is nice.  Religion teaches that as long as you follow this set of rules set down by some one else you are doing good.  Relieved of personal responsibility you are then free to oppress in the name of god. 

 

The freewill argument has always perplexed me too. I just view freewill as a choice that has two seperate outcomes. You are free to choose one and have everlasting life or free to choose death or eternal punishment whichever you prescribe to. My little spin is that if god exists and has perfect knowledge then it would know what would help us change our minds. I think of it like the scene in The Matrix: Reloaded when the oracle offers Neo the candy. He was going to take it because she wouldn't have offered it to him as she had perfect knowledge. She saw a need and filled it simple as that. If anybody has read many of my rantings they might remember this example because I use it a lot. God could offer up some shred of evidence to dis-spell our disbelief without violating the supposed freewill, but I have seen no reason to believe it does. God inthe bible violates freewill all the time. Hardening pharoah's heart, allowing demons to possess man are such examples. For all we know god hardens atheists' hearts..... who knows.

I will quote you on your last statement. "To think that god is love is ignorant" and "To think god exists is just dumb". Sums up what I believe pretty well.... thanks.  

I dont think there is much to discuss considering the fact that free will is a myth.

"Our decisions are predetermined unconsciously a long time before our consciousness kicks in," says John-Dylan Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who led the study. It definitely throws our concept of free will into doubt, he adds.

This is by no means the first time scientists have cast doubt on conscious free will. In the early 1980s, the late neuroscientist Benjamin Libet uncovered a spark of brain activity three tenths of a second before subjects opted to lift a finger. The activity flickered in a region of the brain involved in planning body movement.

But this region might perform only the final mental calculations to move, not the initial decision to lift a finger, Haynes says."

The idea of determinism is that all events are the results of previous causes. If we heated a bar of iron, and the bar expanded, we would say that the heat was the cause of expansion.

The idea of a physically determined universe is associated with Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). This is sometimes called the billiard ball view of nature: A billiard ball will only move when acted on by another force such as another billiard ball hitting it. If we could measure the exact velocity and angle of the first billiard ball, we could predict the movement of the second.

The philosophical problem comes with human beings. If we were to accept the empirical view that human beings are organized systems of matter and that our minds are formed as a result of experiences then we may want to explain human behavior in terms of cause and effect.

If we knew enough about the biological make up of an individual, his early childhood experiences and the social and historical circumstances he was born into, then perhaps we could predict all of his actions. From this point of view the idea of free will (the ability to choose) is simply the result of or ignorance of all of the causal factors.
 

I am a hard determinist. So obviously i do not believe in free will. The so-called "free choices" were already predetermined. Some people say quantum mechanics suggest free will...not really, free will is a conscious choice/action, randomness isnt.

 

Maybe im wrong though...dont expect too much from a teenager.  

Unfortunately, what that question gets you is, "Both - Free will is part of God's plan"

Ludicrous, but that's what you'll get.

"It's all part of the plan" Joker from The Dark Knight or god?

god is fake...plain and simple.

 

FREE WILL

 

From my dictionary:

adj. omnipotent all-powerful
adj. omniscient all-knowing

These are adjectives often applied to the Christian god - he is all-powerful, unlimited in his ability, and knows all that can be known. We are often told that God knows all things throughout the entirety of time and space. Everything that can be known, he knows. Everything in the past, present and future is known to God. Fair enough. I wouldn't expect anything less from the Creator of the Universe.

There's just one small problem... Free Will.

Religion teaches that God gave us free will, so that we may make our own decisions, decide our own futures, with no coercion from God. If we do good things or bad things it is entirely down to us, God just sits back and watches over us.
This makes no sense at all.

If God knows all things throughout time (as he must, if he is omniscient), then he knows every action I perform, every decision I make throughout my life, before I have done them. If God knows exactly what I am going to do on 10th July, 2030, then how can I do anything other than that?

God, however, being the Creator, had prior knowledge of your actions at the time of the Creation, billions of years ago. He set the universe in motion, knowing all that would happen throughout time.

Experiment

Try it for yourself. Right now, this minute, exert your free will.
Do something, anything at all, that you don't think God could have possibly known you were going to do.
Can you do it? Can you surprise God?
If you can, then God is not omniscient - he is not all-knowing. And if he is not omniscient, then how can he be omnipotent - unlimited in his ability?
If you cannot, then how can you think you have free will? You cannot do anything other than that which God already knows you are going to do.

As an example:
Does God know what I am going to eat for breakfast tomorrow?
I'll make it easy for Him : it could be either toast, cereal, pancakes or nothing. Four options. Is it possible that God, who is infinitely powerful, in all places at once, having knowledge of all things, who created the space/time universe, who is utterly un-restrained by any physical laws and exists outside the space/time universe, does not know what I'm going to eat for breakfast in the morning?
How ridiculous is that? This omnipotent mega-being cannot accurately look 24 hours into my future? Think about it.

Arguments against

One common counter-argument goes like this:
God knows what you are going to do, yes. But he does not cause you to do it. He simply observes your actions. His prior knowledge does not cause you take that action.

A reasonable argument, but quite flawed. Let's say I use a time-machine to travel forwards in time to next week. I write down all your actions on Thursday in a book, seal the book and travel back again. I present you with the sealed book and tell you not to open it until the end of Thursday. When you read it, you see that I had prior knowledge of all your actions. Did I remove your free will? NO, because I simply observed.

I did not set in motion all the events leading up to your actions, from the creation of the universe. At the moment God created the universe, surely He knew all that would happen throughout its entire history. If so, then He is directly responsible for all our actions - we have no more choice in what we do than a clockwork toy does. If not, then we are part of some huge experiment which God set in motion without the faintest idea of what would happen - he sits back and observes as people die in terrible wars and plagues, ticking off boxes on His clipboard and writing notes like some emotionless scientist.

Another counter-argument, again flawed:
God exists throughout all time, yes, but he does not actually know what action you will perform until you perform it. He knows what choices you might take, but not the precise one itself.

This is quite absurd. It limits God within time. God, who is supposed be unlimited, existing outside of time, surely cannot be restricted by his own creation - time.
It also suggests that God's mind is filled with all the possible actions of all humans (and, presumably, all other life) throughout all of time. There is a portion of the mind of God devoted to whether or not I am going to pick my nose during every nanosecond of time, which possible objects your eyes could focus on at any particular instant, and which possible routes, to the nearest billionth of a millimeter you could travel on your work way to work. There are an infinite number of possible actions that each one of us could perform during our lifetime. God cannot, by definition, know an infinite number of things. (For the same reason that he cannot make a rock to heavy for him to lift, or create a square circle - it's a logical impossibility; meaningless word-play).

This might sound a little pedantic. But try this : lift your hand into the air - then move it slowly in a circle. How many other possible motions can you make with your hand? Obviously, an infinite number (although many will look quite similar). It is impossible for you to make your hand follow that exact path through space again. There are an infinite number of ways you could wiggle a finger or waggle your head. There are an infinite number of values between 0.0 and 1.0 (you could keep dividing a number forever); there are an infinite number of angles within a circle; there are an infinite number of positions to place an apple on a table, or a star in space, or a toothbrush in your mouth. Does God know what all these are? If something is infinite, as are the possible motions of your hand, then it cannot be known completely. Therefore, omniscience itself is a logical impossibility. The idea of an omniscient being can be dismissed, quite literally, with a wave of the hand...

( This could be countered by arguing that God only knows about all the big decisions you might consciously make - he's not concerned with finger-wiggling and hand-waving. But how does he decide in advance what he is going to have knowledge of and what is not important enough to know about? Wiggle your fingers now - did God know you were going to do that or not? Was it below his importance-threshold? The more you think about it, the more ridiculous it all becomes. )

God can know all your actions, but he chooses not to, to ensure that you have free will.
This is also absurd. God denies himself access to his own knowledge?!? The main problem with this argument is that it defines what God is, how he works. How do you know that God does this? To use this argument is to state that you understand God's mind, which is supposed to incomprehensible to mere mortals.
It is a true cop-out - it cannot be disproved and neatly solves the problem. However, it is up to the person using this argument to prove how they know God does this, not just use it because it neatly sorts things out.

 

I think it was Hitchens who said, in regards to our "naughty parts"...."What kind of "design" is it to put an entertainment center in the middle of a sewage system"

The absurdity of a "plan" or "design" is demonstrated in the FACT that cockroaches outnumber humans and have been around longer and will, in all likely hood  outlast our species.

Eagles have better eyesight. Dogs have better smell. We think because our brains are more complex, that as a species we can escape the same extinction everything will at some point. That focus is our, as a species, our worst enemy. Instead of realizing our mortality, we think of superstitious ways to prevent it. Instead, as a species we could be working on a way to extend the ride.

We've long accepted that throwing a human into a volcano won't produce magic. When will people give up on the absurd idea of a magical orgy in the sky with 72 virgins? When will humans give up on magical octopus's  with dots on their foreheads? When will humans give up on the idea that God played a Barry White album and told Mary he was in the mood? When will Tom Cruise lay off the crack pipe and realize that his hero is nothing but a science fiction writer?

If there is anything bleak about the species, it is it's repeated crossing it's fingers thinking rabbit's feet always work.

It wasn't wishful thinking that that dragged humanity out of the caves, it was brave questioning and introspection.

I thought it was George Carlin.

Good quote, anyway.

 

Hello. I shall be brief. I am an Atheist and I am not in total agreement with how many Atheists portray Christianity and it's flaws. That being said, I find many Atheist's comments to be informative and interesting. With regard to your Christian belief, I shall attempt to discredit it fairly.

You claim you were drawn to your Christian faith through feelings of inadequacy - "emptiness" and "sinfulness". In other words, you felt that Christianity was an appropriate response to your perceived failings as a human. Even though Christianity appears to be a solution to your dilemma, such rationalization is completely subjective and cannot be demonstrated to be a valid response to establish a life philosophy.

Going from there, your perception of what Christianity is and should be is likely based upon a standard Bible such as the King James version. If there were no Bible, you would have nothing to base your faith upon. Therefore, your faith rests or falls upon the integrity of the Bible, which can easily be shown to be a conflicting hodgepodge of tribal myths and superstitions. That you would persist in believing that you are a Christian in spite of this either demonstrates a gross ignorance or a willful delusion. As it is, your beliefs are contradictory at this very moment.

For example, you believe that you are saved and going to Heaven. And you believe that Heaven is God's reward to believers, and that it is superior to Earth. That being the case, you should rationally suicide and go to Heaven right now. But why don't you? Because you don't believe and are therefore not a Christian.

This is the essence of my claim. The fact is that you are NOT a Christian, even though you believe yourself to be one, because your philosophy of belief is contrary to the teachings of the Bible.

 

 Circular reasoning based on something called Perfect Love that gives us the free will to choose to believe (or not) does not prove the existence of a supreme being. Neither does invoking the commandments prove the existence of a god. If you’ll look, most of the commandments that don’t pertain to divinity are natural human laws like respect for our elders and abhorrence of crime that exist in almost every culture and religion. Further confusion comes with the comparison of humans and TV’s and microwave ovens. TV’s and microwave ovens are tools made by humans to enhance their lives. That is the basic purpose of these and many other tools and they only evolve by model year and the current technology. They weren’t poofed into existence by a god nor were they put perfectly into place by a tornado. They were built by human hands and by machines that were built by human hands. Love, compassion and respect are a central theme in the purpose my life and I don’t have to believe in a supreme being to do so. There are so many religions in the world not for soul searchers but for soul savers; spreading fear of the pain of Hell and a promise of redemptions and salvation. There is also missionary work. Giving impoverished people assistance while planting seeds in weakened minds. Proselytizing, not searching for purpose, is responsible for the spread of religion.

 

How do you go from the statement "God is perfect Love" to "God hates..."?  That's contradiction in less than a paragraph--far more efficient than any Sunday morning televangelist!  This is why free thinkers (aka, atheists--those who disbelieve in deities) have absolved the unnecessary weight of religion in their lives.  When you can take a step back and look at the system as a whole, you see that you have been spoon-fed lies, hypocricy and hatred since baptism.

Cast off you shroud of false knowledge known as faith; thrown down your weapon known as prosetylization.  Faith simply means to believe without evidence, and anyone can believe or be led to believe in anything if they are used to getting nothing for something.  It's time you asked for your money's/Sunday's worth.  "Where is this ever-loving God to whom I have donated and sacrificed one seventh of my week?  I demand evidence or I'm taking my money and time elsewhere!"

But of course, you'll never ask for such compensation.  That requires balls--the likes that we have already mustered, presented, and retained for so long.

Do any of these "religious" people ever consider HISTORY????  Can they answer the question, Who gave the world Xtianity??  Because it certainly wasn't their gawd and the imaginary garden of eden.  Up until the time of the Zorasters it was polyTHEISM, more than one gawd.   The Zorasters gave people, albeit weak minded ones, the term monoTHEISM, one gawd.  You'd think that people, despite the brainwashing, would figure this "THEISM" thing out, I guess that fairytale, the bible, does come with a set of blinders.   The sad thing is that people have now began to shun actual HISTORY aside for this lame belief of gawd.

A recent email said, "you just don't get it because you just can't feel it, god's love."

I replied, "you can't face god's indifference, and you hate god, because you hate and fear reality, which is god, and run from the simple truth that you are god, as even story jesus said, which you christians, and all idol worshipers, foolishly and cleverly corrupt.

All super natural based religions teach that our natural emotions are a gift from a fictional being.

"Guilt" dispite what Christians think, is an emotion that atheist can have too. BUT, we atribute that to natural human empathy, and not arbitrary fictional law givers who want you to feel guilty about playing with yourself.

I feel guilty when I know I have hurt someone and it doesn't take fiction to explain it.

Karma is another version of bullshit superstition that tries to say that guilt has a magical source.

Human emotions are not the product of magic anymore than taking a crap is.

I am going to start another thread because you brought up something interesting. I know about the Zoroasters but one of the Egyptian Pharohs "Akanaton"(not sure) but one of them did make an attempt to make Ra the one central god. It wasn't popular and the Egyptians didn't like it, and after his reign I believe that they attempted to errase pulbic record of his rule. If anyone can extrapolate on that and tell me who came first, the Zoroasters or the Pharo, I'd like to know that timeline. IN THE NEW THREAD! Lets leave this one to its own topic.

 

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The purpose of a microwave is to make things warmer. The purpose of a
television set is to display images for us to see. Please then tell me
what is our purpose? Do we have any purpose of existence? I'm sorry that
people are threatening you guys. The reason whey there are so many
religions in our world today is because people want to know their purpose.
What's the point of living? Worship means - showing something worth.
Worth-ship. We all show something worth. I believe we were designed for
that very reason; to esteem our designer by loving each other. People
crave this thing called love. Christ did the biggest act of love; dying
for us. No other god has ever shown that degree of love. What's your
purpose?