Is there a God?

[HAL9000]

Isn?t it time to abandon religious tolerance? Especially for those religious ideas that are easily manipulated into powerful weapons of mass destruction: millions have already died on their account. Isn?t it time to say enough is enough?

Shouldn?t rationalists take every opportunity to challenge, expose and ridicule the illogical and irrational nonsense being peddled by rabbis, priests and imams whenever the opportunity arises?

Or should we pass on these ancient superstitions to our descendants for the foreseeable future?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I'm not sure I'd agree it's the one area but no matter for now

Obviously technically correct but it's unavoidable given that if anyone just says "no, move on" that is deemed arrogant

If I start a thread about our blue fairy/pasta monster in space and ask the question "do they exist" - no-one is going to be outraged if anyone says "course not ye daft aputh"

And therein lies the problem. Why do people who believe in God get so upset? They still hold all the good cards?

Sorted in event of an afterlife? Check

Strong bordering on exclusive access to government in many countries - check

All atheists get to do is suggest maybe people who believe in something they choose to believe should go about their business and not dictate to others - and we get called arrogant and militant

[SeanMacGabhann]

HAL - tolerance is always a good thing. What would you suggest - banning religious faith? - a clear recipe for disaster

But if anyone asks a question about God existing I'll give my answer

If any government imposes stupid legislation to appease the militant religious crowd then I'll voice my opposition

[bignumber5]

Why do people who believe in God get so upset?

The point I was really trying to make is that people who disbelieve in God get pretty upset too...

[SeanMacGabhann]

Indeed - but for the reasons I gave

They get upset because religion has it's claws in so much legislation with the ridiculous outcomes that entails

You don't have to leave the country to see what I mean but if you look at countries such as Ireland and the US, not to mention the far east you start to see how much more pernicious and oppresive it is

[SeanMacGabhann]

Oh and if people started telling other people what to do based on the "teachings" of the pasta monster, I'd be upset with them too

[louisiana]

BG5: I don't accept that atheism is following the same route, as you suggest.

Atheists are merely attempting to express views against the religious orthodoxy. Expression of views seems to be a contentious area, unless you are aligned to a religion or group of religions.

Our head of state is a religious figure. Many of those in the House of Lords have held their places there owing to their religious/church positions (the bishops). We have had governments intent on promoting religion in schools (including the current one). Religion is forced on anyone entering the education system. The charity system subsidises tens of thousands of organisations promoting religion, and not a single one doing the opposite, as that would not be for 'public benefit' (the words of the 2006 Charities Act) apparently.

(And all this despite religious 'membership', church attendance etc etc being at an all-time low.)

When anybody just writes a book, or a newspaper article, to counter this situation, they are vilified.

When we have at least an agnostic PM and government, that removes compulsory religious observance from schools as well as automatic charitable status for all religious institutions; when the only book available in most hotels is not a bible; when churches are not given automatically favourable terms under local authority planning policy across the country; when a range of churches try to stop me seeing theatre, cinema, TV etc. that I wish to; and when we propose waging our first 'atheist war' against either citizenry here or another country, I shall concede to your point. Until then...

Edited for missing word. and grammar!

[louisiana]

HAL9000 Wrote:

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> Or should we pass on these ancient superstitions

> to our descendants for the foreseeable future?

Superstitions is a fine word. It reframes the debate. A vital step.

If we were to change every occurrence of 'church' or 'religion' to 'superstition' or 'institution of superstition', this would change the flavour of many of our laws (e.g. the Charities Act 2006, various Education Acts), and might start to sway things.

[HAL9000]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> HAL - tolerance is always a good thing. What would

> you suggest - banning religious faith?

No, I'm not for banning religion. I'm for freedom to criticise without falling foul of religious tolerance laws or allegations of various anti-isms. I'm for a secular government and state education system. I'm for disentangling church and state. I'm for secularising holidays. Etc, etc.

[RosieH]

louisiana Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> and when we propose waging

> our first 'atheist war' against either citizenry

> here or another country, I shall concede to your

> point. Until then...

>

All fair points save this last one I think, louisiana. Mankind doesn't need religion to start a war, only to serve as an excuse. Hunger for power, avarice, aggression - all the baser natural human instincts will give reason enough.

[mockney piers]

Fair point. Is Marx or even 'philosophy' resonsible dor the millions killed by Stalin or Pol Pot?

Mankind's a pretty nasty fella at the best of times, any excuse will do.

[Lewishamman]

Do any of you good people believe in fairys ? The answwer is of course "no" and rightly so.

Belief in God is solely based on blind faith as none of you can say you have seen touched or heard God.

As an adult saying you believe in God is akin to a 5 year old saying he has a imaginary friend. Neither is true but the person saying it belives it to be true.

[daizie]

Futile

but if its true to you then its true .

[Narnia]

.......or smelt or tasted. What if you could experience God through something other than your senses?

Fairies maybe not but I have family members who claim to have heard a Banshee, seen a ghost and communicated with our dead mother through his wife!

[nashoi]

Considering that not all religions can possibly be right in their depictions of god/gods, but they could all be wrong, logically it makes sense to err on the side of the latter proposition as the odds are massively in its favour. Very few decisions are ever made using logic though, I thnk we react to the world we percieve in an emotional way then some try and use logic to justify those reactions and some people are happier trusting their emotional instinct.

[Huguenot]

I'm not sure the terms of the initial question were set out effectively.

Most people (including the OP) seem to assume that the question relates to the biblical figure.

I think it's fair to say that the biblical figure is manifestly the fictitious creation of writers and story tellers of the era. The contents of the bible and the fact that millions believe in it are immaterial in postulating the existence of this so very human God.

If this kind of God did exist, anything he had in common with the biblical figure would be coincidence. He would just as likely be a blue fairy or a Trekkie plasma cloud or something 'outside of our understanding'.

Either way, it's patently nonsense.

For those that stray into scientific territory, HAL9000's being too simplistic. Science has made no inroads in forecasting the concept of existence pre-Big Bang - and multi-verses are just one hypothesis that has an equal footing with divine creators.

For those that simply 'don't like scientists', I suspect that you simply don't like being held to account for your prejudices.

For those that see the world (and God) in a baby's eye, you are merely illustrating that humans are capable of abstract thought. You can achieve similar effects with LSD.

There is undoubtedly something very convenient about a God that encompasses a human moral order. It simplifies teaching those altruistic concepts that children struggle to understand. But this doesn't make 'God' exist.

So then you're simply left with God as politics: religion.

At it's core, religion is about the abdication of personal responsibility in creating a moral framework: "God says..." etc. Having demanded that its adherents take on this ridiculous position, the surrender of the individual is absolute, and consequently presents a neat framework for the execution of some of the greatest crimes known to man. Religion is inherently evil.

Science cannot be ruled as false because it doesn't contain a 'moral' code. In fact it does. It's called enlightened self-interest. Altruism makes sense, as does empathy, teamwork etc. etc.

[macroban]

> I'm not sure the terms of the initial question were set out effectively.

I think this is actually a specific class of question. (Someone help me out here with the technical term.)

If I ask "Is there a Nam Aromram?" it's a question of the same class.

If the "thing" in the question is unknown, or cannot be known, then there is no valid answer to the question.

[Huguenot]

So perhaps then this issue could be nailed with "Is there a God like the one in the Bible?"

To which I shall say the Bible is a selectively edited work of human fiction: if there was a God of the type in the Bible it would be a coincidence of such enormous scale that the likelihood of it being the case is statistically negligible.

In practical terms, there is virtually no chance at all of this God existing. The only reasonable approach to this is to assume that he doesn't.

[HAL9000]

macroban Wrote:

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> I think this is actually a specific class of

> question. (Someone help me out here with the

> technical term.)

Gödel Undecidable?

If so, you might find this interesting: Gödel's Ontological Proof

[Sue]

Belief is bollocks.

Organised religion where someone else tells you what to believe is bollocks.

There's no separate God.

The original question needs restating to give a definition of God.

Sorry haven't read through four pages so probably someone has already spotted this .....

[KatoTheCat]

seanmacgabhann...

Atheism is indeed a faith. to believe in no god, is just as important to peoples lives as to believe in a, (or many) god/s exists. I have always held utmost respect for religion, growing up with friends of all sorts of faith, christianity, sikhism, judaism, islam, and buddhism. Atheism is a faith, a faith in which i personally view humanities pros and cons with unlimited judgement. i agree, that many people live life with the idea of god, benefiting them limitlessly, helping them achieve the unachivevable. this is almost a spiritual connection i see with these people, but at the same time there are mass killings in the name of god. nearly every religion has had wars over their beliefs and faiths. (atheists of course have too tried to spread their beliefs in this manner). i believe the only way we can all truly accept & respect each others beliefs and cultures would be to completely disconcern ourselves from the idea of having the "correct" faith. i grew up with a fairly religious mother, who did not bring any of her children fully into her faith, yet i am still inclined to use terms like "god bless" without even noticing. and i genuinely feel that in one way or another it helps her (whether it is her believing it, or it is there) i know it matters to people, and i know it may well exist.

i think this amongst other areas of (my own personal - i can't speak for some of you) common courtesy.

thank you. and as far as im concerned thats atheism, extremist atheism may well exist in the terms you are thinking, it is a faith indeed.

[mockney piers]

Still not getting it.

I see you can get picky and say "you believe ther is no god and can't prove it, therefore your position is one of faith" but that's just twisting semantics surely.

Atheism is essentially lack of faith(s) isn't it. It's saying that there is no faith based rulebook which governs my behaviour. Your morality is therefore yours to choose.

Explain to me how that is a faith.

At it's best atheism is a default position that doesn't need to consider religion in the slightest as it's not a part of your life.

Where atheists get uppity is when representative of faith(s) go fuether than saying 'you can't deny my right to worship, or to be protected from suppression, bigotry or hatred', and wander in to the realms of 'you can't do stem cell research or watch this play'. Or even worse 'i don't like this book/your job, you will die'

[louisiana]

Or even, 'I'm going to kill you'.

Now, we've had faith-based politics, and faith-based education.

How about setting this god loose and having some faith-based oil exploration, say? Surely if they believe, it will be so, non?

[KatoTheCat]

it is as much a faith to believe no god exists, as to believe one does.

it takes little explanation to show the fact that althought i do not believe in there being a god i still have fully considered the possibility and should continure to show (with interest) a great curiosity in the topic.

thus i am faithless?

this makes little sense

[SeanMacGabhann]

Sorry Kato but you aren't making any case here

You will have to tell me why that is true. If I say I have xray vision, can heal the terminally ill, can levitate and am quite good at math I'm sure I can find SOME people who will believe me. But most people won't. because it isn't true

the people who don't believe me are not acting in faith - they just know bullshit when they see it. They don't have a "faith" of not believing bullshit. They just don't.

Ditto with God and or religion. There is NOTHING to support it. Certainly no more than there is to support my (example) powers

But if people want to believe it good luck to em. That's faith

But

It's

Not

The

Same

Thing

Not believing in a made up/nothing to support it/ is not a faith

I might be damned to eternal hellfire if I'm wrong. But I'm not adopting a "faith"

Can you don an invisible cloak Kato? No... but it's not faith to say no. It just is and we don't need to have an argument about whether me not believing in invisibility or not is a "faith"

Can anyone, on any side of the argument, please explain to me why believing in God is, IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER, different from believing in Jeremy's pasta monster in space. Or Santa Clause. Or fairies at he bottom of the garden.

I know lot's of people get succour, and support and help from believing in God. I don't want to take that away from them. But it just doesn't make it true. Some people think that Accrington Stanley will one day be a force in Europe. And they need to believe in that.. but again.. it doesn't make it true and the rest of us can go about our business..

Just don't let Accrington Stanley supporters have direct access to schools, medicine and the legislative process to the exclusion of people who don't share that faith

I've over-laboured the whole point. But please - no more "believing in No God is a faith as much as believing"