Bill O'Reilly: No True Christian would kill Norwegians.

Malty_T wrote: »

We have a few atheists in this forum who believe in an afterlife as well.:) That's understandable too, I don't like thinking of my own morality either. I guess, the obvious question now is do you believe in justice and punishment. Like, will Mr Brevik go to a place like hell or something.Or are you agnostic on those details?

Personally I think there must be a hell for these types of people otherwise its very unjust. I definitely feel there is a heaven. Of course I am agnostic on details.

MagicMarker wrote: »

I've never seen a baby do a backstroke, have you? Clearly believing in god is not instinct, as then we'd all believe, just like we all breathe.

The reason you don't how how is because it's not physically possible, this is a fact that that you really need to come to terms with.

Do you know exactly what is and is not physically possible? Do physicists understand the universe and existence in its entirety.
Answer to both is - no

As you may of noticed, The scope of what is physically possible is different between people who believe in a diety and people who don't. Maybe you need to come to terms with this? It's called tolerance. The goalposts of what is physically possible get moved with every new scientific breakthrough. Many things once considered physically impossible have been proven otherwise such as space travel.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

This is basically a tabula rasa argument for which there's evidence against.....

Thank you for at least having an open mind.

robindch wrote: »

You clearly implied that since space travel was once believed impossible, but is now commonplace, that something else that's now believed unlikely by many, is in fact plausible.

That's a very faulty form of argument by analogy.

You Clearly misinterpreted my meaning. What I intended to get across, apparently unsuccessfully, was that one cannot rule out certain things especially when so little is known about them.

Very little is known about the Human mind, It's self awareness, the nature of consciousness. Of course if I insulted your mentality you could be offended. To imitate the line of debating as others have done here, I would then have ask you to prove to me that you have a mind at all, Since there is no physical manifestation of such.

So how can one inform me that a babies mind cannot contain awareness of a god presence if one cannot prove the existance of a babies mind?

In other words, cognative ability means essentially computing ability, since it's generally accepted that the brain is the computer, who/what/where is the user?

We can prove an environmental stimulas exists and we can prove the mind can cognate this, we can even prove the brain is active during this process, but can we prove that there is a conciosness behind it?

no

gargleblaster wrote: »

There have been documented cases of children who were not parented by other humans (feral children), and those chidlren behaved like animals.

The human mind is a human construct. Without other people to pass on knowledge such as speech, rules of behavior, etc, we would be like wild animals. Without the ability to form ideas about much of anything beyond ways to survive, and certainly without the ability to form ideas about some omnipotent being that does whatever people decide to believe it does.


Also, an infant's first movements of its arms and legs are not guided by intentional movement. They're untrained impulses from the brain. It's not some magical property that we're miraculously born with. It's electrical impulses from an organ that hasn't learned how to control them yet.


The idea of 'right and wrong' or more likely 'fair and unfair' seems to be hard-wired into us - so maybe that's what some people perceive as being an inborn knowledge of god.

But wild, primative and uncivilised people DID have belief in omnipotent beings. This is well known. Wheter or not we behave in a socially acceptible way or like wild animals has no bearing on the fact that is the existence of a mind.

It was from the imagination of primitives, the workings of a feral mind, a consciousness, that images of animals came to adorn cave walls.

robindch wrote: »

CiscoStudent - this is your last warning. Please learn how to distinguish between somebody criticizing the ideas you believe, and somebody criticizing you as a person.

And have a read of forum charter .

Ok fair enough.


I got a little flustered. Should of expected that no one would agree with me really! I guess when I talk about my spiritual beliefs on the Atheism forum there are gonna be disagreements and questions.

Nietzsche also had his points on language limiting what one can perceive and transfer, It is the topic of many an exhausting discussion but I do understand your point.

Gargleblaster, I don't disagree with a large part of what your saying. I am not a creationist for example, I consider myself a scientific and rational person for the most part, I deal with my problems logically , when emotion doesn't over power me to do otherwise. I hate what I consider "woo woo" as such. However I am a person that believes in God. A God above and beyond our understanding and comprehension. Now you may believe that these two are irreconcilable, the scientific and the theological, But I don't. I am comfortable with my understanding and happy with my theological "lot" if you will.

The beauty of science and academia , both empirical and non empirical is that we can create as many discipline's as needed to explore our inner and outer worlds. Now, religion also has many dimensions and disciplines ( which marry into philosophy in general) but of course this allows for alot of BS , psudeo science and bogus religious movements. They are all features of mankinds thirst for knowledge and other pursuits be they virtuous or not.

However I believe that God transcends and is above all such things, Regardless of what we "think" we know. We can pick apart the tapestry and see how it was made but we will never see the weaver.

Now of course I see the paradox in what I am saying, as I said I don't have all the answers.

I agree that belief in God is Non-Empirical and Paradoxical. I do have my own firm ideas which are very much a reality to me. I can totally understand the fustration of rational athiests when it comes to trying to understand seemingly irrational people who believe in some sort of all powerful invisible being.

however I can find other more, everyday and "down to Earth" subjects to think about which can also boggle the empirical mind as can most intelligent people; Language itself can cause paradoxes in thought and communication and is as a result not 100% efficient as a means of transferring information between people. Which does leave room to imagine, maybe there is more to reality, to the physical etc then meets the senses? Or what we currently can detect using science?

I did not just invent something and believe in it as a diety. I discovered something which a hunch led me to, an innate feeling I always had. Not by directly observing it which cannot be done, but, by observing the effects of it on my life, against the odds time and time again. Not an entirely irrational method for what is on first approach an irriational thought process , ie the belief in god.

I am a believer turned agnostic turned disbeliever/athiest turned believer once more, all as a reaction to my life experiences.

Science is moving the goalposts all the time as I alluded to before. Dark matter and quantum physics are the current "woo woo" of science, many scientists believe in god, some are quacks some are brilliant. The belief in a deity doesn't diminish the possibility in being logically brilliant.

I know you hit on other points there and I would like to discuss them further but It will have to be tomorrow as I gotta hit the hay.

TNTQ wrote: »

And the fairytales you heard growing up....

I don't believe in fairy tales I heard when growing up. I was not raised by religious people. The only time I was in church was when primary school forced it upon us. I didn't really equate it with God. My feelings and inner spirituality that grew with me from childhood have nothing to do with fairy tales I heard.

^How did you get the quote button into the middle of your post? Not a criticism, I wanna be able to do that

Finally got it working as a linky