I know that is not what the writer meant, but that is all that is actually happening when people find confirmation for their religious beliefs when contemplating nature. You aren't physically seeing God, all that is happening is that what you see reminds you of your beliefs about how all this came to be. It is really that simple. Certainly nothing remotely amounting to proof that those beliefs are true.

When I look at nature, I am reminded of the relevant scientific explanations for why nature looks that way. I don't regard that as proof of my ideas, and neither should an honest believer regard his reactions to simply observing nature as proof of his.

That verse is either very naive or dishonest, just as you must be if you take it seriously.

I can't stand TRRS because I can't see other posts when I am posting and always have to open up a new page and it doesn't jump to the last page after I post, but I have to click on the last page to go to it.  It takes about 60 seconds before the post takes. Very cumbersome. And I can't subscribe to a thread without getting an email. Not very advanced forums. Plus I am not getting any intellectually conscientous responses, so that is usually my que to leave. All I am doing is correcting misreading and mistaken assumptions. Boring. That's why they say atheists are dullards.

If anyone though is seeking after the truth with an honest heart, I would be happy to pick up the conversation here if you would like to start a new thread or respond to an existing one,

http://biblocality.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?375-Agnostic-Atheist

Seeya.

 

Since it is impossible to establish that God exists, the rest of your post is purely speculative nonsense.

Actually I agree about this forum software, it sucks.

Had a quick peek at the forum he linked to, where the top sticky post was his 4-step Proof, apparently his handle is 'Churchwork'.

Quick look at the site home page.

What can I say but OMFG...

IOW, you have assessed him pretty accurately there.

I suspect he may have genuinely come here to give us a last chance at recanting and gaining everlasting life.

(Below is an edited version of one of Bobspence1’s previous statements until the ‘I know on many occasions’ part.)

All that is actually happening when people find confirmation for their religious beliefs when contemplating nature is that you aren't physically seeing God, all that is happening is that what you see reminds you of your beliefs about how all this came to be. It is really that simple. Certainly nothing remotely amounting to proof that those beliefs are true.

When I look at nature, I am reminded of the relevant scientific explanations for why nature looks that way. I don't regard that as proof of my ideas, and neither should an honest believer regard his reactions to simply observing nature as proof of his.

I know on many occasions I have heard many people tell me that when I hit my head or bang my toe or break an arm, it's god punishing me but could it just be because my head was in the way of something, I wasn't looking were I was walking and I fell over skiing. When people look at nature they are reminded about one thing, that thing could be scientific explanations or possibly the classic, god did it. 

   I'm not an atheist or a Christian or a believer in god; I am nothing at the moment and the 4 step proof of god hasn’t proven anything and I am not now going to suddenly change my non-existent views of the Universe and start believing in god because of its sheer failure of actually proving something in the first place.

 

Wow, those supposed "proofs" look like they came out of a "Dr"(forever in quotes) Kent Hovind video. Those are supposed to prove the existence of deiti(es), yet they do the same job as Phrenology has done for explaining brain activity and personality. Partrue, if this "4 step proof" thing sounds logical or realistic in any way to you, I advise you seek treatment for your mental health, since falling for this CreaNerthal bullshit proves your I.Q. rests with the rutabagas.

Apokalipse, you beat me too it: How can an uncaused god be the creator of the universe that itself needed first causes? If things need a beginning cause, what about god? If not everything needs a begining, why would you need god to start something that could have existed forever. Partrue the CreaNerthal may have hit and run, but it doesn't mean the refutations of his crazy woo woo bullshit have to cease. So on, in chronological order!

1)Assumptions abound. First, the time scale of your "evidence" is all based on the assumption that there is some sort of human sin quota. "Mankind would not still be sinning to the extent we still do along the exponential progression of conscience we are clearly on". Clearly? The assumption is that, to you, god already "exists", at least in your head and that any "proofs" can be based on assuming it to begin with. Wow... utter fail.

2)Another assumption. It's you fundie CreaNerthals claiming the nothing from nothing thing, not most atheists I personally know, myself included. We don't think the universe is without a first cause, we just find it so improbable that an intelligent being (which would have to be at least as complex as the universe itself, if not much more so) caused it from its special La La Land that it is a non issue. Much the same as worrying if Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu kids get visited by a real Santa Clause. But I won't argue against the universe needing a first cause.. what I will argue with is the assumption you make in the next step.

3)Assumption: that arguments against god arise from misrepresenting it. This begs the question; which god(s) are being misrepresented here? Misrepresenting god to debate it is like misrepresenting Santa Clause as actually having a green suit to diminish his holiday popularity. It's another non issue based on a fictional character you keep referencing back to to prove its own existence. Sounds a little circular to me... And now on to the whopper!

4)You really need to learn how to structure a sentence. WOW. It sounds like you are saying that "supernatural" events are affected by the impossibility of an eternity of cause and effect, so how do you get to the answer being a uncreated powerful interventionist deity that is outside of all that. That just adds an extra lair to the ultimate question of the start of everything. That sound like a 'just so' kind of an answer and that itself is no answer.

Your conclusion is based on the assumption that there is an uncreated creator god who is the only thing that never began, yet exists. That instead of logically proving that it does not exist, we reject it (word choice based on assumption of its existence) purely because our blood pumping organ has some plan that is foiled by our rationalizing flesh (which is somehow given reasoning skills). Then an assumption that there is a spirit of energy that is us, yet immortal. Then an assumption based on claims made by just one religion out of thousands, obviously right though because its the one that Partrue believes in. Then an assumption as to our moral character. Which brings up this question: if theists are so sure we atheists are immoral because we don't believe in a cosmic dictator, it means that the only reason they are good is fear of eternal punishment, and not because of their own good morality. If you are good because you know it's right and you react to empathy and kindness, you are a good person. If it takes fear of punishment not to rape, pillage, murder, and torment your fellow living creatures, then you are a sick horrible person.

The whole thing was the kind of "proof" for deiti(es) that makes no sense unless you take the deiti(es) existence as a given, which it is not. You claim that we are the arrogant ones for dismissing your kooky nonsense, while you are saying that to your cosmic deity, (which is the correct one, because that's the one you believe in) the creator of everything except itself, your religious sect is the center of universal importance. For one subset of one species on one tiny rock within the vastness of the universe we all find ourselves a part of to claim to be the holders of the "REAL TRUTH" and, obviously, the center of god's concentration and affection, is so self centered as to be bordering on narcissism. And we're the arrogant ones for pointing this out. HA!

So in closing, another hit and run preacher afraid for his illogical faith in the solid gaze of reason bails on the party. What a surprise! And please DO let the door hit you on the way out. Then maybe people will be able to see you for what you are Partrue: either an idiotic sheeple bleating the same things you heard other sheeple bleat, or you are a pragmatic liar who sees a future in religious apologetics and is willing to exploit human ignorance to satisfy either your ego or your wallet or both. I hope you like assumptions now!

 

Yikes.  The post on biblocality is like a single throbbing fallacy.  It is almost like he tries to be a poster child of how not to argue for theism rationally...I would think he was joing if it was not obvious he spent so much time on it.

  

We are talking about reality, an actual infinite leads to logical contradictions thats a fact,  your '' greater cosmos'' hypothesis is fatally flawed and totally lacking evidential support. In fact, it is merely an added hypothesis tossed in the mix to support the idea of an eternally existing universe.

 

Oh and naive logical arguments?? is that the term you used? I suggest oppening a book or 2 and educating yourself.

 

Is that your only response? 

Yes infinities really should be avoided, there are intrinsically problematic aspects when an argument even implies such a possibility. Although the work of Cantor does show that the concept of infinities, 'transfinite numbers', can be addressed to a useful extent.

We need to be careful applying standard logical arguments when dealing with such things.

The 'naive logical arguments' are clearly the ones in the original argument.

I did not offer proofs of a-causality, just evidence. 

And I note you omitted the second part of my sentence "but unless you do find the cause, you cannot prove that it is caused." which is a vital part of the argument.

The 'overwhelming evidence' IS the existence of quantum phenomena, and the total absence of any indication of a causal mechanism, taken together with the 'overwhelming evidence' for QT being an accurate and valid theory, despite it being so counter-intuitive, which is basically the category ( intuitive 'knowledge' ) your prime objection falls into  - "it seems obvious that...".

This is all you offer as a counter, and labelling the proposition as 'absurd', along with distortions of my argument. Even your statement that "nothing will never create something" is a conceptually vacuous idea. The use of the word 'create' proves an archaic origin of the statement itself or of the 'thinking' behind it. Now if it had been expressed as "an absence of an identifiable prior state of existence cannot determine any particular subsequent state", we might have something to address.

We do not in most cases actually experience 'cause and effect', what we observe is a consistent association between various pairs of events, and we deduce 'cause and effect', or simply label the event sequence as an example of such. In many cases, proper scientific investigation has shown a that the prior event may indeed have changed the state of the local environment such that the probability of the second event being triggered immediately is virtually 100%. This is the valid way to describe what is happening - 'cause and effect' is a somewhat simplistic notion, derived from ordinary observation of pairs or sequences of tightly linked events where there each event is overwhelmingly dominant in determining the timing of the next one in the sequence.

Much of what actually happens in reality is not like that - there are many contributing factors to what 'happens' in any particular time and location, and most of what happens is a more or less continuous process. Cause and effect concepts are not so 'obviously' applicable. At the extreme of this range of observations are quantum events, where it seems that the 'cause' amounts to 'the state of the universe'...

The God thing is a more patently absurd proposition.

I can manage an answer to this.

 

This objection seems fails to recognize that God has existed eternally and thus requires no cause. I think that Christians don’t mean that “Whatever exists requires a cause”, but rather, “Whatever begins to exist requires a cause”. Therefore, since God never began to exist, He does not require a cause.

Moreover, it is argued that, if one admits that God does not require a cause if He does not have a beginning, then we should be within rational confines to claim that the universe did not have a beginning and does not require a cause. However, as already mention, there are numerous philosophical and scientific evidences ( the big bang) against the eternality of the universe. This was already shown in my previous post to another user here.

 

 

In light of what you have just posted I think the intelligent way for you would be to simply say '' I don't know'' which is a worlds difference between the militant atheism that is advocated on this website,  If there is one thing that is certain it is that God will never be proven to exist with certainty, and I also think it is supposed to be that way, if God was a proved fact we would not have any choice to believe, however god gives us free choice in belief so that there may be belief out of love and not of fear, to believe without seeing, is the highest form of belief and respect, this being said I think there are many events in ones life rather than acting as absolute proof is a cumulative case that leads to belief in God.

 

           I think that what is clear now that we are entering into the postmodern era is that we don’t have any a better answer to the ‘’ why are we here’’ question then the medieval scholars had many centuries ago, so It would seem like a bold position to adopt Militant atheism, But then again so would adopting blind faith, in my case I had to chose, It was impossible for me to chose ‘’ I don’t know’’ so I chose hope over a worldview that is counterproductive and useless, just go see the vids this site has posted on youtube, blasphemy challenges and the likes, surely there is a problem somewhere. This is all just my personal opinion of course. I would now suggest a little introspection on your part, what’s the use of militant atheism? You might not know but the values of the western world were inherited from Christian values, we are in contact with these values everyday of our lives, all of these, fidelity in marriage, love for one another, forgiveness are all values that we are in contact with everyday of our lives.   The ‘’certainly not in mine’’ has a certain meaning here. We should question now the foundation of your militant atheism? Why is it that you hold to a certainty that God does not exist? Certainly I have given you my reasons, now I wish to know yours, some people are activists for global warming for such and such, why are you an activist for atheism?

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know of any atheist who considers themselves "militant".  I think this is a term that has been coined by a theist society that isn't used to atheists actually speaking up. However, I don't think that simply speaking out against irrational thinking is in any way "militant".  Theists are just not used to being confronted. But as long as people keep knocking on my door to prosthelytize, I will respond with my own views and points.  As long as others are out there that wish to force their beliefs in law, I will speak out against it. And I don't own a gun, so I am not sure how "militant" I can be. So your flaw is that you are loading the question by using the term "militant atheism" when many of us wouldn't even consider the term valid. EDIT: Corrected spelling error. 

 

To be a militant religious person, you have to fly planes into buildings, massacre people in synagogues or mosques, or blow up abortion clinics. To be a militant atheist, you have to vocally disagree with religion.

You don't have to be an atheist killing millions like Stalin did or in a false religion of any kind killing millions of Chiristians like Islam or the Roman Church do.

You can literally be born-again, a child of God, forgiven in Christ, given eternal life which is not just eternal blessings to be in the New City, but an ability with the Holy Spirit indwelling your new spirit to have a relationship with God's Son even now.

Who did Jesus ever kill? If everyone was Christlike, there would be no more Atheists, wars, Muslims and Roman Catholis. No Hindus, no Buddhists, no more rancid posters on rationalesponders.com.

Let us pray one day it will happen. Amen.

When the parousia commences 2015/2016, the Tribulation commences lasting 7 years, then Jesus steps down on the mount of olives and reigns with His overcomers believers for 1000 years on earth.

"Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1.11).

 

The real sad thing is that when 2015/2016 passes and nothing of earth shattering theological importance happens people like Parture and Luminon will just pretend it they never brought it up, and stagger along to the claim.

Personally, if my beliefs were staked on a prophecy and that prophecy fell through, I would hope I could do some serious introspection and see if my beliefs were, well, wrong.  But if a person is willing to think like that, they usually wouldn't get sucked into crap like that in the first place.

But yea, Parture knows the "real, true, we really, really mean it this time!  Really!" day of tribulation.  Just like every other Christian has for the last 2,000 years.  You know, the ones that were wrong.

Hey, I might not exist if it wasn't for those guys. My maternal grandfather was an SDA when their latest 'prediction' was that it would all happen in 1914. He decided he wanted to get some action in before it all happened, so he rushed to marry the woman who became my grandmother. At least that was the story that was told in the family.

 

 

When Prophecy Fails

An early version of cognitive dissonance theory appeared in Leon Festinger's 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails. This book gave an inside account of belief persistence in members of a UFO doomsday cult, and documented the increased proselytization they exhibited after the leader's "end of the world" prophecy failed to come true. The prediction of the Earth's destruction, supposedly sent by aliens to the leader of the group, became a disconfirmed expectancy that caused dissonance between the cognitions, "the world is going to end" and "the world did not end." Although some members abandoned the group when the prophecy failed, most of the members lessened their dissonance by accepting a new belief, that the planet was spared because of the faith of the group.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Ha!  That is pretty funny!

 

<<WTF?!?!?! Have you been living under a rock since the Enlightenment or something? Because we have a MUCH GREATER understanding of that question then medieval scholars did. "Why am we here?" is a ridiculous question. We are here because our ancestors did that most "evil" of thing and procreated. Our descendants, whatever species they may be, will be able to answer the same way, only with us in the lineage as well procreating to create their existence! I'm sorry to burst your arrogant bubble, but our species isn't so important as to be the deciders of some epic cosmic battle for the entire universe. You may think that you and the other people who follow your delusion are the ones saving the entire universe for (enter your delusion here). Me, I'm not that arrogant or self-centered.>>

 

The question may be ridiculous to you, but it is not a ridiculous question for everyone, just because you say so does not make it so. Secondly, why do you view procreating as evil? am I missing some form of sarcasm? if you think the bible says its wrong to procreate I suggest you open one and actually read its content. Thirdly you said ''our descendants whatever species they may be'' I would be curious on how our descendants could be of another specie, to use a term employed by you. Forthly I must admit I was surprised at the stawman of my position made by you, never have I talked about ''deciders of the universe'' or ''cosmic battle'' and finnaly the irony in your last entry: claiming not to be arrogant.

 

Good day.

Attitudes to the God concept are not well described by a simple linear spectrum.

One dimension is the inclination to accept or reject the concept, another is the confidence in being able to justify that position, a third is how much you care about or have seriously thought about the whole subject.

But hey, the simple linear idea is good enough for philosophy.

Are you referring to the argument in the OP?

There's not much to disprove there. The argument isn't even valid. 

I guess my tongue-in-cheek comment, pointing out the absurdity of attributing 'militant' to vocal disbelief in god/s when other uses of the word are references to actual violence is completely beneath you, your highness. But please, do go on about 'falacy'.