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It's hard to say actually. If He created everything, then he must know everything, and is clearly omnipotent, but...

No, it's something I'll have to think on.

rubiksnoob wrote:Can you see gravity? Can you see an atom?

Well, there is mountains apon mountains of proof that atoms exist. As for Gravity, don't be silly. Everyone Knows Gravity doesn't exist. Spacetime Bending FTW!

Gwar, your logic is flawed, warped, and twisted beyond all reason. I pity you.

rubiksnoob wrote:Gwar, your logic is flawed, warped, and twisted beyond all reason. I pity you.

And yet it is still more legitimate than any religion

How is my logic flawed?

Before this gets to far out of control I would like to say that "God" does not need to take the form of a bearded man, or a multi-armed giant, etc...

These images are inspirational to many people, and I am actually a huge fan of a lot of religious art. There is no difference to Gwar! and his stubbornness, and a religious person and there's.

This is going to spiral into a HUGE argument, and no one is going to make any single point that will actually change anyone's mind. So before you start ranting about how much you loathe another persons beliefs, take a moment and think about what you hope to accomplish by doing this.

Gwar! is basically going to argue until he dies. I say this as a fact, although an interpreted one at that. People that choose to disagree and argue with Gwar! are basically in the same boat, no need to compromise when I am obviously right... right?

No one will back down, and everyone will tend to be both right and wrong at the same time, sticking to the borders of complete madness.

My beliefs are mine alone, and I have no direct effect on others and how they perceive the world. Trying to shoot down someone else's happy is just sad. If it were Hitler's happy I would say we all need to get an RPG, but it simply isn't.

Taking the subject as a way to berate "non-believers" makes you an ignorant person.

I'm not religious. I'm agnostic. There is no way of knowing that there is a god and there is no way of knowing that there isn't. I see no reason to believe in a god and I have no means of disproving it.


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Gwar! wrote:
How is my logic flawed?

Not believing in Gravity = flawed logic.

gravity is a proven law of physics.

Please explain what "spacetime bending" is.

rubiksnoob wrote:

Gwar! wrote:
How is my logic flawed?

Not believing in Gravity = flawed logic.

gravity is a proven law of physics.

Please explain what "spacetime bending" is.

Gravity is not a force, it is a result of mass bending the space time continuum. As such, calling gravity gravity is misleading.

And thats one of the wonders of science, Science strives to be proven wrong so you can work out the right answer.

This thread was derailed about 5 pages ago.

I was going to make a post regarding the role the church should have in determining the laws of the state (none whatsoever) and point out the obvious difference between Blasphemy and Hate Speech and why the 2 should never be compared. But at this point it would be useless.

If one of the mods is out there please kill this and kill it now.

Gwar! wrote:Gravity is not a force, it is a result of mass bending the space time continuum. As such, calling gravity gravity is misleading.

That makes no sense at all.

If gravity is a result of mass bending the space time continuum (and not a force), then you should call it gravity, because gravity is a result of mass bending the space time continuum (and not a force).

I hardly think changing the word "gravity" to "a bending the space time continuum" is anything near sensible.

Well, Gwar has interesting interpretations of the word "belief," too. It doesn't surprise me that he would have his own personal definition for "gravity" as well.

It just seems silly to say that having found out that gravity has characteristics that were unknown before the word is no longer relevant.

Diseases didn't cease to exist when microbes were discovered, even though our knowledge of their nature changed considerably.

Not to mention it's ignoring the concept of human applied semantics.

If we say gravity and we know it to mean 'the force of,' it doesn't mean gravity IS the force....

Or something.

For all we know it could be really called Quarktacular, but we know what is meant by gravity, so that's what gravity is, it's not open to definition, anymore than 'sun' or 'bomb,' is.

...If everything was "good" then there would be no "evil", but then how would know what is evil?
Sound kinda of boring. Mabye god "made" terrorists for fun?

Fifty wrote:
Is it ironic because no-one is going to convince Gwar! and I of the logic of their belief in the supernatural either?

No, its ironic that you seem to feel that your beliefs (as a strong atheist) are motivated by logic, where those of theists are not.

Fifty wrote:
The simple facts are these;

1) Belief in God is a faith position which necessitates that someone maintain that position even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.

No, that's incorrect. Faith is defined aesthetically. You can have faith without the presence of contrary evidence. All contrary evidence does is render the faith in question empirically verifiable.

If there is a god, and he made terrorist for fun, he has a very sadistic sense of humor.

You do make a good point though. Things can really only be defined by their opposites.
If one was never unhappy how would you know what it meant to be happy because being happy was normal and thus not any different than how you normally feel. The whole concept of happiness is what it feels like to not be unhappy. As the concept of unhappiness is what it feels like to not be happy.

Not sure if that makes sense.

Gwar! wrote:Gravity is not a force, it is a result of mass bending the space time continuum. As such, calling gravity gravity is misleading.

Uh, what? Really? Come on Gwar!, that's ridiculous even for you. No one knows what gravity is. That's the entire point of quantum gravity theory.

Fifty wrote:
Is it ironic because no-one is going to convince Gwar! and I of the logic of their belief in the supernatural either?

It is ironic that you have no logical basis for your argument either. Show me the cold hard PROOF that there without a doubt, no god.
On the other hand, there is no proof that a god DOES exist.

There is no way to KNOW whether or not a god exists.

A sentient "God" figure is a far-fetched idea indeed, but I rarely meet people who ACTUALLY believe in such a deity.

Keep this friendly and we can all learn something. I hope to understand both sides of this subject as I am most interested in the grays (the in between) of this subject.

Black and white are a figment of our imagination, which has absolutely no reflection on their ability to exist in the real world on a perspective only basis. Thoughts are real things, and here is where all the grays seem to dwell, whether there is in fact a sentience to any thought (or faith for that matter) beyond what is taught and evolved CONSCIOUSLY over the history of human-kind.

Perhaps our evolution has taken a step into the surreal, an evolution of the mind itself, and what function or role it happens to serve.

Some might say no animal has a faith or religion, but I would disagree. Most "intelligent" animals seem to directly AND metaphorically represent an action of the universe, a part of the mesh that makes reality. Perhaps there is actually an individual being so aware that they have actually passed beyond any form of logic and time, into a place of pure servitude and symbolism alone. From all the research I have done on religion and faith in general, nothing appears more complex than a modification of the more crude spirituality that the ritualized idealism actually takes the place of. Taking a face and adding a certain perspective will modify your feelings about that face. Maybe the image itself serves as a reminder, and nothing more beyond an "imaginary" friend that dwells in every molecule, and every facet of reality itself.

dogma wrote:
No, that's incorrect. Faith is defined aesthetically. You can have faith without the presence of contrary evidence. All contrary evidence does is render the faith in question empirically verifiable.

Nu-uh. Faith is belief that is not based on proof. Ergo, belief in the absence of/face of proof. Faith carries a definite implication of contrary evidence. If no news is good news, it's fair to say no evidence is evidence against.

@Wrexasaur: What you are saying, to me, is that you think evolution is a god. Little strange...

You could interpret evolution as a form of god, but that was not was I was directly implying.

I was mainly trying to state how I felt about the subject of an all knowing being, mainly how I interpret it's real-life meaning.

To me personally the idea of a bearded man in the sky is just too simple and finite in it's implications. Like fatalism and how each of us has a set destiny... which is simply ridiculous. If I know I have a set destiny it is changed just by knowing, and saying it was meant to change is akin to saying turning makes you turn.

that's sick, and i don't mean sick as in awesome, i mean sick as in the dictionary definition. Ireland sucks. I feel sorry for you man.

Fifty wrote:If I am wrong and it turns out that there is a God, and that he is kind and benevolent, then he will hopefully let me into heaven/paradise/valhalla anyway for the life I have led. If that is how it works out, I will be truly, genuinely glad to have been wrong all my life. Just because I want there to be a heaven though, it doesn't mean it is true or that I am going to believe in it.

Don't you think then, that Pascals Wager would be a logical way to live your life?

Also, this concept of 'God' that you actively disbelieve. Would that be the God of Classical Theism? Because if I redefined God as being a multi-dimensional entity, that is so powerful by our limited powers of perception, that it APPEARS omnipotent, would you still actively disbelieve it?

As for proving something exists beyond, 'I think therefore I am', I recall something from one of my philosopy classes. It was a while back, so I can't remember the name of the Philosopher in question(I believe he was a Russian), but he proved that not only do we exist, but at least one other mind exists independantly of our own, and that it shares a common world to ours.

He did this through the use of language. If I remember corectly, it went something along these lines:-

-I think in a language. Coherent, rational thought is impossible without a language.
-Someone must have taught me language at some point. Therefore there must be another mind. If no-one had taught me language, I wouldn't be capable of thinking these thoughts.
-If that other mind didn't share a common world with me, it would have been unable to share it's concepts with me in language. For example, assume I live in the Matrix, and the only other mind in existence is a computer. The real world is completely different to the one I live in. In my matrix world, fluffy pink elephants fly across the sky daily. Even if no such thing exists in the real world, the concept of fluffy, the colour 'pink', elephants, and the concept of 'flying'(and therefore air, gravity and space) must all exist in the real world, otherwise the computer could never have conceived of them to put them in my matrix world. Anything that exists in my matrix world, no matter how fantastical, must possess certain basic core concepts identical to both worlds. It's actually impossible to conceive of something that has absolutely NO grounding in our world.

I'm simplifying what he said tremndously, and I've probably got half of it wrong, but you get the gist of it.

Elessar wrote:
Nu-uh. Faith is belief that is not based on proof. Ergo, belief in the absence of/face of proof. Faith carries a definite implication of contrary evidence. If no news is good news, it's fair to say no evidence is evidence against.

You can have faith in something even if there is proof that the thing in question real. I have faith in my keyboard, and I have proof that its real. The fact that I have proof of its reality does not change the fact that I have faith in it.

Faith is stronger than belief, but there is nothing which requires that it stand in opposition to contradictory evidence. The word can be used that way, but it would require additional qualification.

Ketara wrote:He did this through the use of language. If I remember corectly, it went something along these lines:-

-I think in a language. Coherent, rational thought is impossible without a language.
-Someone must have taught me language at some point. Therefore there must be another mind. If no-one had taught me language, I wouldn't be capable of thinking these thoughts.
-If that other mind didn't share a common world with me, it would have been unable to share it's concepts with me in language. For example, assume I live in the Matrix, and the only other mind in existence is a computer. The real world is completely different to the one I live in. In my matrix world, fluffy pink elephants fly across the sky daily. Even if no such thing exists in the real world, the concept of fluffy, the colour 'pink', elephants, and the concept of 'flying'(and therefore air, gravity and space) must all exist in the real world, otherwise the computer could never have conceived of them to put them in my matrix world. Anything that exists in my matrix world, no matter how fantastical, must possess certain basic core concepts identical to both worlds. It's actually impossible to conceive of something that has absolutely NO grounding in our world.

I'm simplifying what he said tremndously, and I've probably got half of it wrong, but you get the gist of it.

I like that idea, sort of along the lines of how I think about it.

If there is void (black) and material (white), there are obviously shades of the two for various reasons. If we lived in a "Non" reality, everything would have only 2 dimensions, like a piece of paper (minus the "real" third dimension of the papers thickness) and we would have no perspective. Everything would be this or that, no grays, let alone colors and energy.

Back in reality, we actually have 4 dimensions, one of which is our thought, perhaps a metaphorical dimension, but a "material" one nonetheless. Thoughts can be turned directly into action, given the experience is there to guide it. The thought of a "Mother" earth suits my primitive mind far more than a ethereal "God" figure. I am not pagan either, a rock is just a rock, and you cannot convince me that rock is any different from any other. The actions and re-actions of beings on our planet suggests that the interaction between environment (and it's infinite facets) and being could be a material manifestation on "God" or "Mother" earth itself.

Whether this interaction has a logical pattern is well beyond my grasp of the subject. I have witnessed some very peculiar patterns in day to day life though, things external from myself and seemingly natural in their form. The way people talk, and perhaps the odds of someone saying the same things in the same different places at one time. This could suggest some kind of primitive psychic network, although I can't imagine any sort of true "force" beyond sheer willpower and ingenuity existing in the universe. If there is a "God" I beg of it to keep these powers from us, just watch Dragonball Z... does the planet EVER survive? EVER?

While I see that stand point as more logical than a bearded guy who's both his own son and a non-corporeal mystery entity (or any other popular religion) I do not agree that animals etc have purpose. They live purely by instinct, IMO, and these things are only coincidence insofar as they have evolved to a stage where the actions they take are better suited to their environment than any others that have arisen amongst their species.

Obviously, society is a limiting factor within our own species' capacity to demonstrate non-social evolution.

@Dogma, I did say implication for a reason

@Ketera: That only works where one entity creates the reality of another. For example, I have no way to know our perceptions of black are the same. We may both look at an object, and call it black, but that does not mean our sensory perceptions are identically aligned. As fans of House, MD know, everybody lies. And of course, we could just be mistaken/misunderstanding. Anyway, language is a social construct, so it's not a valid argument.

Perhaps the beginning of life itself was random, but I can't imagine it surviving without some sort of primitive directive beyond the entirely random. So, in a nutshell all animals are doing is living by instinct, but the group instinct for the entire planet (and even the universe itself) seems designed somehow, beyond what I could understand with simple facts.

The thought of aliens somehow managing the universe is a tasty one, yet seemingly beyond my real-life comprehension. There are a lot of reasons why this would make no sense, "humanity" can be taken to a metaphorical level (which it pretty much is already) and used to explain how an alien race would actually take it upon themselves to do something like this. I can honestly say that more than 10% of the planet would lay down there lives without thought simply because of their faith, not in a sacrificial, but a honorable way (no, not death, geez). I am not sure how many people are actually "serving" their religion, that would be an interesting factoid though. So take this idea and apply it to magical clouds of glitter and magic, there is some plausible reality. I have no reason to deny the possibility of this, and it would be quite a story at that.

Maybe my interpretation as a human being makes my perspective seem this way, but I still have a feeling of some presence beyond what is here and material.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Hordini wrote:

Gwar! wrote:And I do not see it as a belief. Belief implies that there is some sort of acceptance of other "beliefs" as legitimate. I KNOW there are no "gods" through both physical (Why isn't he visible etc) and Philosophical (Why is there evil etc) that proves that there is no god, and even IF there was (there isn't) he is such a malevolent PoS that worshipping him is pointless.

Just because you don't see it as a belief doesn't mean that it's not one. Using the word "belief" to describe your feelings on a subject doesn't mean that you accept other beliefs as legitimate, either.

Also, those things you mentioned don't prove anything about the existence of a god, or lack thereof (I'm referring to your physical and philosophical "proof"). The only thing they prove is that you are consistently unable to wrap your mind around what are admittedly somewhat complex theological concepts, and at least consider and entertain them on an intellectual level, even if you don't accept them.


And personally, I'm all about free speech and freedom of expression. I think you should be able to say anything and print basically anything, even if it is offensive and you shouldn't say it or print it, in the interest of being a nice person. The only thing I can think of that should be illegal are things like child pornography (hopefully we all agree on that, at least).

Even in the USA, Freedom of Speech is not protection against libel, incitement to riot, treasonous correspondence, fraud, threatening the life of the President, and so on. I don't know about racist speech, blasphemy and other 'ism' type speech. There is an overlap or conflict between some aspects of Freedom of Speech as a basic human right and other basic rights such as freedom of religion.

Oh, I'm well aware of how it is. I'm just saying how I think it should be.

I don't see how there's a conflict between freedom of speech and freedom of religion, though. Someone telling you about their religion, or even the more extreme cases, like someone telling you they think you're "going to hell" or whatever, while rude, doesn't in any way prevent or stop you from holding your own religious beliefs, and is not forcing any religious belief upon you.

"Tabar...."