Atheist Bible

[caross73]

It would be one page long with one line: God does not exist...the end.

prove to me that God does not exist! Go on and try it.

Tell me all the attributes of your God and where I can find them, and I'll show you that place is empty. If you can't define your God in a testable fashion, then there's no reason to bother. I could be pointing right at him and you wouldn't know it. Either way, I have no more reason to believe your particular God than I do Krishna, Zoroaster, or any of the others.

Given an infinite number of possible Gods, and no evidence for any one of them, the probability of being right on a random pick -- a choice without evidence -- is as close to 0 as to be irrelevant. Nobody can prove there is no God with certainty, but I can tell you the odds.

 

[Legion]

It would be one page long with one line: God does not exist...the end.

prove to me that God does not exist! Go on and try it.

He never said god does not exist. He said that the atheist bible would simply consist of this phrase. That is what the thread was asking about. (although he may not believe in God, your indignation at his post is unjustified in this context).

And one final question for all atheists, if the apocolypse does occur and Jesus did come back for his people, how would you feel about your life choices?

Not as an atheist: What? This suggests that only Christians can be good people. Atheist's don't all burn puppies to death you know.

 

[Cliff_m85]

My brother's a pretty hardcore Atheist. When I asked him what was the difference between Atheist and Agnostic he pretty much said that Atheists believed in no possibility of a greater power(God/gods.) I didn't really think there would be a "moral tome" for Atheists, just a couple guidelines...

Your brother is wrong though, just to let you know. Atheism answers the belief question, agnosticism answers the what we know question.

Agnosticism doesn't answer "Do you believe in a God?".

It's not so much "do I believe in God", it's more, "there could be, but I am not sure..."

If you believe there could be then you are a theist. Perhaps a weak theist, but still a theist. But really your answer doesn't fit the question. Do you BELIEVE there could be a God? Saying "There could be" is like being asked if you like country music and saying "There isn't a radio playing it right now".

 

[Cliff_m85]

It would be one page long with one line: God does not exist...the end.

prove to me that God does not exist! Go on and try it.

He never said god does not exist. He said that the atheist bible would simply consist of this phrase. That is what the thread was asking about. (although he may not believe in God, your indignation at his post is unjustified in this context).


And one final question for all atheists, if the apocolypse does occur and Jesus did come back for his people, how would you feel about your life choices?

Not as an atheist: What? This suggests that only Christians can be good people. Atheist's don't all burn puppies to death you know.[/quote]

I would ask Jesus, if I could, how he possibly hid so well and why his daddy chose to add historically and scientifically false statements in his 'holy book'. Then I'd accept my punishment.

If there isn't a God, how would you feel knowing that not only you wasted your life but you spent part of it trying to get others to waste their life?

 

[Archaon6044]

all you need is this:

 

[cuddly_tomato]

And one final question for all atheists, if the apocolypse does occur and Jesus did come back for his people, how would you feel about your life choices?

What if Ragnrok happens and the Gods go to fight the Frost giants and the seas turn to blood and anyone who wants to survive has to go hide in the branches of Yggdrasil before it falls down?

Christianity is not the only religion you know. If someone had wanted us all to believe in one thing, he or she would have made it abundantly clear what that one thing was. Human history is not consistent with that. Diversity is favored by whatever driving forces are at work, whether it is human creativity, an evolutionary advantage to religiousity, or supernatural entities bombing around making our lives difficult.

EDIT: To poster above me:- "If someone doesn't show up and fix the entire world to my satsifaction he doesn't exist". Well that is convincing. Another one who needs to watch Godfellas by the looks. =p

 

[Legion]

*snip*

I believe you misquoted me there.

 

[Cliff_m85]

*snip*

I believe you misquoted me there.

Yep, but I'd say the system misquoted you. I just hit 'quote' and it went all funny. Sorry.

 

[starrman]

Yeah I know more about evolution than most, being a nut for entomology. Where it come from wasn't anything I have an issue with, merely that we persist with altruism even when it costs us from a logical perspective.

I'm not sure what you mean. You originally posted this: "belief systems and faith are the only source of morality. There is no logic or scientific basis for morality, ethics, justice etc." Price's work shows that there may be a non-belief oriented basis for morality and the counter cases you originally offered are too vague and contain too many auxiliary assumptions to be used to refute the notion of natural origins. You seem to be saying that one should act either logically or morally and never the twain shall meet, but not every situation is one which even demands both. At any rate, whichever one you choose doesn't invalidate the notion that morality can have a non-belief oriented basis.

Well they aren't are they? Science only deals with measurably observable fact and events right? How do you test for justice in a laboratory? Where is the ethics on the periodic table.

Justice is a complex relative aspect of morality, so you'll have to be more specific as to what a)the definition of justice is and b)what it is about justice you wish to test scientifically. If a) is not falsifiable then clearly we're not going to be able to test it scientifically, but we could easily, for example test that people employ morals in various situations. As Price shows we can even test altruism. So it seems they are empirically observable, assuming that an agreed definition has been made and it does not lay outside the realm of falsifiability.

There is a place in this universe. Unimaginably bright and hot. ...........SHORTENED.......Terry Pratchet, The Hogfather

We can easily agree that human perception is required to assert a relativistic view of morals, just as we need a divine one to assert an absolute view, but I don't see how this changes anything in the current discussion. You can't measure human growth rates in that place either, but it doesn't stop such things being measurable elsewhere where humans are present. As to the Terry Pratchet bit, I'm a fan of nodding to the absurd in all things, but it's not really going to help our discussion

That's going to have to be the last post from me for a while, I gotta go to bed and tomorrow's a busy day.

 

[caross73]

Jesus isn't hiding, you can find him hanging out in prison! At least that is what people say, "I got arrested, and then in prison I found Jesus!"

 

[BNguyen]

Okay, being an atheist means you don't believe in a god.

Which, of course, presupposes that you already know everything about everything and know for a fact there is no God. That, naturally, is impossible, so it's a self-defeating title.

So, you don't KNOW there are no unicorns or dragons... so why don't you believe in them too? Applying that rationalization to every silly idea man has ever come up with, pretty soon I'm believing in all sorts of things because I can't PROVE they don't exist. I just find them to be highly unlikely.

Ah ah ah, careful! I didn't say that just because you can't prove it you should believe it exists. Those words didn't come out of my mouth (Or come through my fingers, into my keyboard, and into my post). I was merely pointing out the actual meaning of atheism.

If you find the existence of God to be unlikely, then fine! You claim insufficient evidence? Fine! I'm not trying to convert anyone to anything. But if you can say that you find the existence of God unlikely, but possible, then that's more of an agnostic approach.
Atheism is an absolute statement about the existence, or non-existence rather, of God. Not a believe system, or a non-belief system. Belief or unbelief has nothing to do with it. It's an negative absolute, and therefore self-defeating.

When you describe an inconsistent being, someone who is all good, all powerful, all knowing but creates a universe of flawed humans, and allows evil to exist because "free will" is more important than "good" (typical apologetic canard), I have more reason to think "not exist" than "might exist" or "could exist". Epicurus described this thousands of years ago, and no one has yet come up with a rebuttal that explains how Yahweh, a PARTICULAR God, could be extant.

I claim my refrigerator has no elephants in it, and you say, but you don't KNOW it has no elephants in it. So I open my refrigerator and say, well, I don't see any, and my refrigerator is smaller than you have described elephants to be. There CAN'T be any elephants in it. You think that is bad logic because I just proved a negative?

Either God isn't God as described, or God can't exist. Which do you prefer?

Without our flaws, we would not be humans, we would be as gods on earth, perfect in every way beings, but reality check, no one is perfect. God brought into being good and evil so that we as flawed beings could make our own choices in life. He is caring and loving which means he does not want to force anything upon us, that is why he gave us free will. Free will is better than good, for without free will, we would not be humans or even exist. Think about that for a while.

 

[caross73]

Without our flaws, we would not be humans, we would be as gods on earth, perfect in every way beings

And why would that be a bad thing? What prevented a perfect being from creating us like that? It sounds like, rather than creating beings simply to suffer, he could have created them in a state of perfection from day one, as befits a Perfect, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent God.

Once again, apparently free will is more important, is a greater good, than the nonexistence of evil -- a nonsequitor. And an omnipotent being couldn't manage to reconcile the paradox between free will and perfection. Ergo, God was not omnipotent.

 

[BNguyen]

It would be one page long with one line: God does not exist...the end.

prove to me that God does not exist! Go on and try it.

He never said god does not exist. He said that the atheist bible would simply consist of this phrase. That is what the thread was asking about. (although he may not believe in God, your indignation at his post is unjustified in this context).

And one final question for all atheists, if the apocolypse does occur and Jesus did come back for his people, how would you feel about your life choices?

Not as an atheist: What? This suggests that only Christians can be good people. Atheist's don't all burn puppies to death you know.

I'm not saying that only Christians are in the right, anybody and everybody has the chance of being wrong, and I'm not saying, nor did I even mention that Christians were the only ones to be right. Atheists don't all burn puppies to death? Well neither do Christians, or any other sane persons. But all I'm saying is that if God decides to end the world, and he come to save those who believed in him, then how would athesists feel about seeing this.

 

[BNguyen]

I never tried to force my beliefs onto any one, and if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I still feel good in believing that there might have been someone out there who cared more about me than anything on this earth ever cuold.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Yeah I know more about evolution than most, being a nut for entomology. Where it come from wasn't anything I have an issue with, merely that we persist with altruism even when it costs us from a logical perspective.

I'm not sure what you mean. You originally posted this: "belief systems and faith are the only source of morality. There is no logic or scientific basis for morality, ethics, justice etc." Price's work shows that there may be a non-belief oriented basis for morality and the counter cases you originally offered are too vague and contain too many auxiliary assumptions to be used to refute the notion of natural origins. You seem to be saying that one should act either logically or morally and never the twain shall meet, but not every situation is one which even demands both. At any rate, whichever one you choose doesn't invalidate the notion that morality can have a non-belief oriented basis.

Hmmm.. Right lets see... altruism =/= morality. Acting for the good of family members in order to increase the chances of your genetic material being passed on are not quite the same as ethics. Ethics, morality, and other such concepts cover quite a vast area and depending on the eye of the beholder cover different areas. For instance, I am one of those pussy tree-huggers, and as such I go around saving the lives of every spider I find in my house. Others would stamp on them and not think twice. I find that morally reprehensible, but I know that is just me. This leads quite nicely onto our next point.

Well they aren't are they? Science only deals with measurably observable fact and events right? How do you test for justice in a laboratory? Where is the ethics on the periodic table.

Justice is a complex relative aspect of morality, so you'll have to be more specific as to what a)the definition of justice is and b)what it is about justice you wish to test scientifically. If a) is not falsifiable then clearly we're not going to be able to test it scientifically, but we could easily, for example test that people employ morals in various situations. As Price shows we can even test altruism. So it seems they are empirically observable, assuming that an agreed definition has been made and it does not lay outside the realm of falsifiability.

If someone steals from me, what is the scientifically appropriate response? How do we test this? What form of repeatable experiment would we be able to create in order to assess what the "right" thing to do with blind people is?

Let's leave justice for a sec. Try to explain, in non-subjective terms, a moral. Not what morals are, but a particular moral. Any you like.

There is a place in this universe. Unimaginably bright and hot. ...........SHORTENED.......Terry Pratchet, The Hogfather

We can easily agree that human perception is required to assert a relativistic view of morals, just as we need a divine one to assert an absolute view, but I don't see how this changes anything in the current discussion. You can't measure human growth rates in that place either, but it doesn't stop such things being measurable elsewhere where humans are present. As to the Terry Pratchet bit, I'm a fan of nodding to the absurd in all things, but it's not really going to help our discussion

That's going to have to be the last post from me for a while, I gotta go to bed and tomorrow's a busy day.

The Pratchett quote wasn't absurd, not at all. The point is there is no such thing as morality where you don't get life. Life is in some way "special" in the way it is the only form of matter which actually defines its own existence. But in order to accept this "specialness" one needs to believe in it, if nothing else. Or it is merely just chemicals in your brain forcing you to think the way you do. Free will and independant thought are illusions created by those chemicals.

 

[BNguyen]

If you were God, Heaven forbid, would you want someone who could not follow a simple rule to be immortal and enjoy living forever without at least some punishment?

Yes. Especially when it makes no sense how they could follow that rule. The tree they were not to eat from was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

How were they supposed to know to obey God's rule if they didn't have knowledge of good and evil?

Before eating the fruit, they were like children. Upon eating it, they came to understand what evil was. God did not want them to eat the fruit so that they would have the ability to commit evil.

 

[Legion]

I'm not saying that only Christians are in the right, anybody and everybody has the chance of being wrong, and I'm not saying, nor did I even mention that Christians were the only ones to be right. Atheists don't all burn puppies to death? Well neither do Christians, or any other sane persons. But all I'm saying is that if God decides to end the world, and he come to save those who believed in him, then how would athesists feel about seeing this.

You imply that is what you meant by the part in bold.

You suggest that God will save people based on those who believe as opposed to those that are good people. This was the point I was getting at.

Edit: By this logic, someone who has never heard of Christianity, but who spends their life helping others, respecting nature and staying faithful to their partner is not welcome in Heaven. Which does not make sense at all.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

I'm not saying that only Christians are in the right, anybody and everybody has the chance of being wrong, and I'm not saying, nor did I even mention that Christians were the only ones to be right. Atheists don't all burn puppies to death? Well neither do Christians, or any other sane persons. But all I'm saying is that if God decides to end the world, and he come to save those who believed in him, then how would athesists feel about seeing this.

You imply that is what you meant by the part in bold. You suggest that God will only care about those who believe in him as opposed to those that are good people.

Machines speaks the truth. Your god is not a great god if his mercy and benevolence only extends as far as those with "club membership".

 

[BNguyen]

Without our flaws, we would not be humans, we would be as gods on earth, perfect in every way beings

And why would that be a bad thing? What prevented a perfect being from creating us like that? It sounds like, rather than creating beings simply to suffer, he could have created them in a state of perfection from day one, as befits a Perfect, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent God.

Once again, apparently free will is more important, is a greater good, than the nonexistence of evil -- a nonsequitor. And an omnipotent being couldn't manage to reconcile the paradox between free will and perfection. Ergo, God was not omnipotent.

It technically would not be a bad thing but then what would be the point of an endless existence that most people would probably get tired of. If we were perfect beings, then there would only be need of 1 single person and no more.
He did not make us imperfect to suffer, but to test us as humans. People believe that they are strong but when they are faced with suffering, see how weak we become, we are being tested on how strong we believe we are. Those who admit they aren't strong are the right ones, no one is strong without some sort of support, and that support is all around us, it is support we cannot get from humanity. It is also the same with good and evil, we are being tested over what we would chose with free will.