I'd Like an Argument, Please

[LuisDantas]

All of those? Don't you have some sort of inclination towards some over others?

 

[jonathan180iq]

What kind of evidence would be sufficient to say you knew?

Depends on the individual, certainly. The whole point of the thread is to give you some topics, right?

That's the crux of the whole thing.
Are you certain that there's a God?
Are you secure in your faith?
If so, why?
What standards do you hold yourself to when answering what is possibly the greatest single question of our existence?

I'm of the opinion that such a being likely wouldn't limit sentient beings to only one way to find such enlightenment. We're all wired differently, so I suppose we have different ways of discovering different truths.

I am too. But the vast majority of your denominations don't feel that way.
And if you take your reasonable position one step further, I'd ask why you're even bothering with one particular faith system at all... It's most likely what you grew up with and what you're accustomed to. But is it really the best path for your personal growth?

I'm of the opinion that settling on any one particular faith system is limiting, spiritually. It's necessarily exclusive.

 

[shmogie]

Here's my question, even though you asked for an argument. I suppose we can turn it into an argument, I'm a fan of arguing.

Question is, what do you expect to get from religion? What positive thing do you expect from religion that you can't seem to get without it?

Because my list of positive things about religion is one item long: the lie of an afterlife can mitigate panic over one's eventual demise. That's it, end of list.

I still can't see anything else positive anyone would get from religion that you can't get without it. And with all the negative baggage that comes along with religion, I can't see how it's worth it. There must be better ways to deal with the idea of our finite lives that convincing ourselves there's a happy kingdom in the clouds.

Tell me, have you died and arisen so that you know the concept of an afterlife is false ? Why should anyone expect to get anything from religion ? It seems to me that you are really confused on a number of issues. What did Mother Teresa "get" from her religion ? A life of poverty, working with the absolute dregs of society. By your lights she was insane, right ? I think there is much to be achieved that you are incapable of understanding. So, don't try

 

[Guy Threepwood]

So I'm a Christian without a religion, as I'm unsure what denomination gets it. Thought it might be fun and I might learn something to debate some topic regarding Christianity, such as why one denomination is better than another, or why some other religion is better than Christianity in general, or why atheism why atheism is better than any religion. I'm easy. Suggest a topic of discussion.

I'd say there are a lot more denominations of Christians than atheists, because atheists are far more likely as a group to follow a single authoritative opinion, e.g. anything an academic consensus claims goes 'cause they're the experts, they should know!

But for skeptics of atheism, it's more like trying to herd cats, there is less restraint of a peer pressure review system, we are more likely to nit pick academic consensus, demand deeper understanding on a personal level. The acknowledgement of personal faith opens to door to much more widely varying viewpoints, and that's a good thing.

it's no coincidence that our most pioneering scientists tend to buck the academic trend of atheism

 

[BSM1]

Thanks for yho. So does one example come to mind of something Paul taught, which Yeshu likely wouldn't condone?

It's not really a matter of condoning it's a matter of simplicity as opposed to over and subjective interpretation.

 

[Skwim]

It's no coincidence that our most pioneering scientists tend to buck the academic trend of atheism

Our MOST pioneering scientists?? Hmmmm! Take a look at the following list of

The Scientific 100:
A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present
​

and tell us which 50+ tend to buck the academic trend of atheism.

1 Isaac Newton the Newtonian Revolution
2 Albert Einstein Twentieth-Century Science
3 Neils Bohr the Atom
4 Charles Darwin Evolution
5 Louis Pasteur the Germ Theory of Disease
6 Sigmund Freud Psychology of the Unconscious
7 Galileo Galilei the New Science
8 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier the Revolution in Chemistry
9 Johannes Kepler Motion of the Planets
10 Nicolaus Copernicus the Heliocentric Universe
11 Michael Faraday the Classical Field Theory
12 James Clerk Maxwell the Electromagnetic Field
13 Claude Bernard the Founding of Modern Physiology
14 Franz Boas Modern Anthropology
15 Werner Heisenberg Quantum Theory
16 Linus Pauling Twentieth-Century Chemistry
17 Rudolf Virchow the Cell Doctrine
18 Erwin Schrodinger Wave Mechanics
19 Ernest Rutherford the Structure of the Atom
20 Paul Dirac Quantum Electrodynamics
21 Andreas Vesalius the New Anatomy
22 Tycho Brahe the New Astronomy
23 Comte de Buffon l'Histoire Naturelle
24 Ludwig Boltzmann Thermodynamics
25 Max Planck the Quanta
26 Marie Curie Radioactivity
27 William Herschel the Discovery of the Heavens
28 Charles Lyell Modern Geology
29 Pierre Simon de Laplace Newtonian Mechanics
30 Edwin Hubble the Modern Telescope
31 Joseph J. Thomson the Discovery of the Electron
32 Max Born Quantum Mechanics
33 Francis Crick Molecular Biology
34 Enrico Fermi Atomic Physics
35 Leonard Euler Eighteenth-Century Mathematics
36 Justus Liebig Nineteenth-Century Chemistry
37 Arthur Eddington Modern Astronomy
38 William Harvey Circulation of the Blood
39 Marcello Malpighi Microscopic Anatomy
40 Christiaan Huygens the Wave Theory of Light
41 Carl Gauss (Karl Friedrich Gauss) Mathematical Genius
42 Albrecht von Haller Eighteenth-Century Medicine
43 August Kekule Chemical Structure
44 Robert Koch Bacteriology
45 Murray Gell-Mann the Eightfold Way
46 Emil Fischer Organic Chemistry
47 Dmitri Mendeleev the Periodic Table of Elements
48 Sheldon Glashow the Discovery of Charm
49 James Watson the Structure of DNA
50 John Bardeen Superconductivity
51 John von Neumann the Modern Computer
52 Richard Feynman Quantum Electrodynamics
53 Alfred Wegener Continental Drift
54 Stephen Hawking Quantum Cosmology
55 Anton van Leeuwenhoek the Simple Microscope
56 Max von Laue X-ray Crystallography
57 Gustav Kirchhoff Spectroscopy
58 Hans Bethe the Energy of the Sun
59 Euclid the Foundations of Mathematics
60 Gregor Mendel the Laws of Inheritance
61 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Superconductivity
62 Thomas Hunt Morgan the Chromosomal Theory of Heredity
63 Hermann von Helmholtz the Rise of German Science
64 Paul Ehrlich Chemotherapy
65 Ernst Mayr Evolutionary Theory
66 Charles Sherrington Neurophysiology
67 Theodosius Dobzhansky the Modern Synthesis
68 Max Delbruck the Bacteriophage
69 Jean Baptiste Lamarck the Foundations of Biology
70 William Bayliss Modern Physiology
71 Noam Chomsky Twentieth-Century Linguistics
72 Frederick Sanger the Genetic Code
73 Lucretius Scientific Thinking
74 John Dalton the Theory of the Atom
75 Louis Victor de Broglie Wave/Particle Duality
76 Carl Linnaeus the Binomial Nomenclature
77 Jean Piaget Child Development
78 George Gaylord Simpson the Tempo of Evolution
79 Claude Levi-Strauss Structural Anthropology
80 Lynn Margulis Symbiosis Theory
81 Karl Landsteiner the Blood Groups
82 Konrad Lorenz Ethology
83 Edward O. Wilson Sociobiology
84 Frederick Gowland Hopkins Vitamins
85 Gertrude Belle Elion Pharmacology
86 Hans Selye the Stress Concept
87 J. Robert Oppenheimer the Atomic Era
88 Edward Teller the Bomb
89 Willard Libby Radioactive Dating
90 Ernst Haeckel the Biogenetic Principle
91 Jonas Salk Vaccination
92 Emil Kraepelin Twentieth-Century Psychiatry
93 Trofim Lysenko Soviet Genetics
94 Francis Galton Eugenics
95 Alfred Binet the I.Q. Test
96 Alfred Kinsey Human Sexuality
97 Alexander Fleming Penicillin
98 B. F. Skinner Behaviorism
99 Wilhelm Wundt the Founding of Psychology
100 Archimedes the Beginning of Science
​

(The list above is from the book The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present, Citadel Press (2000), written by John Galbraith Simmons.)

.​

 

[LuisDantas]

@Guy Threepwood , you certainly met some unusual atheists. If you met them at all.

 

[crossfire]

Love your enemies. Go hang out with those with whom you have an irrational aversion, and overcome the aversion. If you want to change the world, start with yourself.

 

[viole]

I'd say there are a lot more denominations of Christians than atheists, because atheists are far more likely as a group to follow a single authoritative opinion, e.g. anything an academic consensus claims goes 'cause they're the experts, they should know!

Well, it is quite difficult to have different opinions about the disbelief of any god. With authority or not.

Atheist X: I do not believe in any God
Atheist Y: Nonsense. Your disbelief is wrong. Mine is right.
Atheist X: What?
Atheist Authority: Stop it. You both share the same lack of belief in any god.
Atheists: Aaaalright, we were not aware of that. Sorry.

On the other hand, it is to be expected that believers disagree. Some think that God had a kid, some think He did not, some think He can have the head of an elephant, others think He comes in the convenient package "get three and pray for one", some others do not believe that, etc.

Ciao

- viole

 

[HonestJoe]

Well, I suppose it has to do with life after death. Some tell me choosing wrong now will be detrimental then.

That basically sounds like Pascal's Wager, which is fundamentally flawed on multiple grounds.

I'm thinking we are in part the choices we make, so I don't yet see how making a choice about religion would make me less than I am.

You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about what you actually believe - I don't think we can actively chose that anyway. My argument is against labelling yourself with a specifically (though often inconsistently) defined label on the basis on a long and hard search to find a denomination you can just about squeeze yourself to fit.

You can believe, say and do all of the same things without that label and without having to follow (or ignore) all the varying specific rules of the specific denomination you choose.

 

[Deeje]

So I'm a Christian without a religion, as I'm unsure what denomination gets it. Thought it might be fun and I might learn something to debate some topic regarding Christianity, such as why one denomination is better than another, or why some other religion is better than Christianity in general, or why atheism why atheism is better than any religion. I'm easy. Suggest a topic of discussion.]

May I suggest that you begin with which God it is that you are looking for....the impotent God of the fragmented churches, or the God of Jesus Christ? They are not the same God.

Then ask yourself if he is looking for you? Are you the sort of person he wants as a worshipper? (John 6:44)

Is Christianity this....

or this....

?...or something else?

What are the teachings of this God and do you want to adopt them and live by all of them unreservedly?

Are you prepared to serve the interests of this God or do you expect this God to serve your interests?

Once you've come to terms with these questions, then perhaps you will have a direction to go in....if you consider yourself a Christian, what do you think that description means?

 

[psychoslice]

I would just stay as you are, and take from the smorgasbord that which you feel is right for you and you only.

 

[savagewind]

So I'm a Christian without a religion, as I'm unsure what denomination gets it. Thought it might be fun and I might learn something to debate some topic regarding Christianity, such as why one denomination is better than another, or why some other religion is better than Christianity in general, or why atheism why atheism is better than any religion. I'm easy. Suggest a topic of discussion.

[emoji4]

Five pages in twelve hours. I am not going to read them.

I think religion is about settling. Settling is not what Father Abraham did. Genesis 17:5

I have observed that there is some truth in every religion. It is my opinion that nothing should be all right or all wrong.

The denomination that is best for each person is the one that works best for him or her.

I think atheism is wrong because 1. the world is too wonderful and cooperative to be without GOD and 2. there is power in the universe that could not have come from nothing imo.

 

[crossfire]

Well, I suppose it has to do with life after death. Some tell me choosing wrong now will be detrimental then.



Yes, if the premise, above is one to be taken seriously, I suppose.



I'm thinking we are in part the choices we make, so I don't yet see how making a choice about religion would make me less than I am.

If you would like to hear about the Buddhist version of Pascal's wager, you can find it in the Kalama Sutta (which is one of my favorite suttas)
{Please note: this is referring to someone who has a mind free of the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion and has developed the four immeasurables of loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equiaimity, as can be seen earlier in the sutta.}

"Now, Kalamas, one who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires four assurances in the here-&-now:

"'If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.' This is the first assurance he acquires.

"'But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease — free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.' This is the second assurance he acquires.

"'If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?' This is the third assurance he acquires.

"'But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both respects.' This is the fourth assurance he acquires.

"One who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires these four assurances in the here-&-now."​

 

[Thief]

That is one thing to ask. Should afterlife be a concern of religion in any way?

and no belief in an after life......supports religion in what way?

 

[LuisDantas]

and no belief in an after life......supports religion in what way?

It frees us up to worthy things, of course.

 

[Thief]

What about the Alwise? [emoji6]

All Wise or All Knowing

I would suppose the Almighty to be such because He cannot be deceived or cheated

I believe He is moving with us in this linear motion of time

He doesn't need to know the future
but He can call the shot better than we can

 

[Thief]

It frees us up to worthy things, of course.

this material life?

 

[LuisDantas]

this material life?

Surely you realize there is more than "matter" in this life?

 

[Quintessence]

Excellent! The argument I was seeking! (Not to say it's the only one, just the first, today.) Before we begin, is there a religion with more than one god I should consider?

I'm not sure it's necessary to with respect to the questions. In fact, doing that might start muddying up the waters a bit, so to speak (e.g., comparing things that don't have much to do with the monotheism-polytheism distinction but happen to be present in religion X and religion Y). If you want to, though, I'd pick one that's more familiar to you.