God is santa for adults.

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Interestingly, so are most philosophers.

...or were raised to believe but never really cared about the issue.

I think there's other reasons people are theists (e.g., a father figure that cares, assurance of answered prayers, social community that goes along with worship, identification with a group, etc.).

Fine, but my original points stands. If you don't like it, don't read it.

The thread title condemning religious people is on the front page.

Can't be ignored.

Exactly, so you can figure out whether the post would offend you before reading it.

Besides, how far must you go not to offend someone? The Haven is also a place for ranting. It's inevitable that someone will be offended, even where legitimate rants are concerned.

Please don't play games. The thread title is intentionally offensive.

I believe in God. I believe that this world, the complexity of its design are proof of his existence. I find that he lack of belief in God is most commonly caused by bitterness. Bitterness because Santa as you call him doesn't deliver every gift that you expect. The chances that a universe like this would come along without a divine creator of some sort... I think that any claim of their being no God is in itself a great stupidity. There are ten thousand factors that if they were even slightly different would make our existence impossible.


If there is no God, then every action is pointless as we will all die one day. One day the earth will not exist because of this or that, and everything you do will be made meaningless. So if there is no God why even bother? If that is true the end of life is just a great sleep and I might as well off myself cause life is way to frustrating to do just for the lulz as some might say. If I didn't believe in God, I'd make it my mission to destroy the entire world to end everyones pain and suffering because in the end it'd all be meaningless. I suppose if you did that it would make you a god huh? Ever thought about that one?

Sort of. Basically I have stopped trusting the church for the most part. I don't believe God would put people into an eternal flame for things like, say, having sex before marriage.

I believe in religion in my own way. Why? Because I like it that way. And then there is no logical reason to disbelieve in something if it gives me hope. Also, where the heck else did the universe come from?

nope, how do you know god is an illusion

I'm not playing games. If he's deliberatley offensive, it's one thing; if he's just venting, then some offense maybe unavoidable. At least he titled the thread so that theists would know to avoid.

There are many problems with that argument. You should note that most scientists are atheists.


True of some atheists, but for the most part, atheism seems to result from education and an exposure to questioning in general.



-So the majority of scientists and philosophers, Stephen Hawking included, are stupid?



Problems:
-Again, most scientists are atheists.
-You’re assuming the physical laws and constants are equally random.
-There could be many universes rather than one, increasing the probability of intelligent life. In fact, we know our universe exists, have no reason to think another universe can’t exist, and have no evidence for any kind of god.

It actually requires more of an explanation to explain why only one universe would exist.

-God or gods have never been a good explanation for anything. No theist explanation has been confirmed. To date, every theist explanation has been falsified or untestable.
-Even if everything was different, life could exist in a different form.
-Even if the universe was fine-tuned, it does not follow that the universe was fine-tuned for us (e.g., maybe God thought stars were beautiful and tuned the universe for their existence, and does not even know or care that we exist).



Fallacy of Appeal to the Consequences


-Not really. If there’s no afterlife, you only get one chance to live, so all the more reason not to waste it.
-Why do I need a reason to live? If by “reason,” you mean a goal, then yes, I’d very much like to have a goal. I don’t see why you can’t form goals yourself, however.


-That doesn’t speak very highly of you.
-You’d actually cause more pain in the process of killing people. Think how someone would feel if his loved one died. To truly end people’s pain, you’d have to kill not just him, but everyone who loved him, then everyone who loved them, and so on. In fact, the only way to end everyone’s pain would be to kill everyone in the world—unrealistic to say the least.
-While you’d take away their pain, you’d also take away their happiness.
-Yes, actually, I’ve heard everyone of your arguments and better many times over.


You prove my point that belief in God is emotional rather than logical. I don’t have a problem with theism per se, but it can’t be defended on intellectual grounds, only purely emotional ones.

I have to say the thread topic is rather unfair, even a bit mean. It shuts down open discussions, too. And that's too bad; you've brought up many subjects that deserve the dignity of open discussion, IMHO. I hope that your wording arose out of frustration or desperation, rather than blind anger.

I think I can see where you're coming from, though. When I was very young, someone in my mother's church did something awful to me. As I grew up, I became aware of how many very bad people, and very bad ideas, used religion as a shield. In fact, it seemed like religious communities were a favorite hiding place of predators, and that those communities were willfully blind. Nobody took responsibility; and I still feel religious communities are complicit through their negligence.

To this day, when friends invite me to attend their churches, I graciously refuse. I don't have enough faith left in me to trust another church, and I don't think I ever will. However, God is another matter entirely.

I don't think one needs to believe in a certain creed or deity to be a good person, or to live a good life. And I believe that one's decisions about spiritual questions are ultimately personal decisions. In my own case, I keep my beliefs few and my mind open. I think it's quite possible that there is a God. I accept that there may be a Heaven. Hell is also a possibility. And I don't believe in anything just by virtue of its place in a particular book. For that matter, I won't say that there isn't a Santa Claus! I accept that I can't know many things, and I wish more people would accept the same.

So I appreciate that you identify as an Athiest. Hey, that's kewl by me. But going from "I do not believe there is a God", to "I believe that there is no God" is not a trivial jump - and I wonder how it can bear the force of logic. I wonder if your strong perspective may be less logic, and more because of the pain you've experienced.

You sound like a weak atheist rather than a strong atheist.

As far as the discussion itself goes, I simply want to promote a welcoming atmosphere of mutual respect, and a plea that statements appealing to logic be sufficiently defended in a logical manner. Judging from your above post, I trust you would concur.

I did ask for an explanation to support Strong Athiesm. I accept the logic of:

P1. Person X does not accept things for which there are are no proof,
P2. There is no proof that God exists, ergo
C1. Person X does not accept that God exists.

for it is an argument regarding criteria for Person X's beliefs. However,

P3. There is no proof that God exists, ergo
C2. God does not exist.

definitely demands something to strengthen its logic, especially because it makes a forceful statement about the world we share. For anyone not familiar with Weak and Strong Athiesm, Wikipedia has an entry
here. "Strong" and "weak" of course refer not to the supporting logic, but of the strength of the claim that is being defended. If there is a sound logical defense of Strong Athiesm (C2), I should like to hear it.

As for myself, I would be closer to agnostic. Spiritually, I find that there is something within me that reliably helps me make morally good choices. While I chose to call this "God" or "The Inward Light", these names are a matter of convenience to me. I am open to the possibility that it may be the result of any number of social or biological processes. There are many religious principles that I cannot defend logically, but that I nonetheless accept as unverifiable, interesting, or useful in making moral decisions. I grant that some of my practices appeal to utility, rather than logic, but I am not trying to convince anyone to share my religious practices using logic.

Agnostic here. Really don't know what this thread's about though. I don't exactly believe in condenming one just because they are of a faith or not. So, to me as long as one can respect another then it's all good.

Isn't this in the PPR Forum already?

-Problem with strong atheism is, it's primary argument seems to be an argument from ignorance.
-One argument for strong atheism is one for theological noncognitivism, which concludes the word "God" is meaningless. Problems are: 1) A word cannot be both false and meaningless and 2) the argument does not rule out the existence of a god, but instead means that we cannot conceive of such a thing as god unless and until we have information regarding it's metaphysical attributes. In other words, it leaves open the possibility that we could find out about a god's metaphysical attributes at some point in the future. Until then, we could not make atheistic or theistic arguments, so the noncognitivist argument goes. Consequently, it excludes the possibility of ever making an argument against the existence of a god.
-The best argument for strong atheism is a pragmatic one. Namely, there is no pragmatic difference between weak and strong atheism because the most rational course of action is to act on the view best supported by evidence, theism and total agnosticism not being supported.

Of course, rational in this context means epistemically warranted rather than being accepted for emotional reasons.

Atheism, in any form, may not be the option called for by one's value-judgments, not that that has any bearing on the epistemic probability of whatever stance is taken.
-Most atheists do not consider themselves strong atheists.
-A god could be ruled out if defined in such a way as to imply a contradiction. Not all definitions of god are contradictory, though.