If it could be proved no god exists

MJFlores said:

Then we will be wondering who started something out of nothing.

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"who"?
So, you 're saying that while you'll then let go of the god-concept, you'll still be asking fallacious loaded questions?

I guess that makes sense.
If irrational reasoning lead you to the irrational conclusion of god, and only the god part is disproven, then you'ld still be stuck employing irrational reasoning... so you'll just end up replacing one irrational outcome with another.

Makes sense, actually.

Indeed. This is why I actually always go after the fallacious argument, instead of the irrational conclusion.
Once it is understood that the argument is irrational, usually understanding that therefor the conclusion isn't justified, follows automatically.

Problem with fundamentalists, is that they usually refuse to acknowledge their fallacies. A few times, the fundamentalist did actually acknowledge the fallacy. He followed it up with "i don't see the problem" - he thus had no problem with employing a fallacy to reach his desired conclusion.

KenS said:

the world would fall into chaos because there would be no standard of morality.

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Funny how reality already statistically shows the exact opposite.

Perhaps you are referring to psychopaths who are only kept in check now, because they have a perceived authority to tell them right from wrong?

For normal people with stable mental health, it seems to me that their moral standards get a boost once they let go off bronze aged "divine command theory".

You completely missed my points. Not surprising... let's break these down:

PruePhillip said:

So there's no distinction between Christians? You are off to a bad start in any deep discussion of anything if you deny distinctions.

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OF COURSE there is "distinction" between Christians. Too much, if you ask me. Which is EXACTLY why I say you can't correctly deny anyone the label "Christian" - because that label can mean hundreds of things - literally.

PruePhillip said:

Let's put it like this - you can be
1 - of the Christian culture
2 - being like Jesus.

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And BOTH of these types of people, even ones who are, or like to claim they are one but not the other label themselves "Christian." And I have no choice but to accept their self-assigned label, because do I know what it means to be "Christian?" And if I ask around, am I going to be presented with a coherent, definitive definition of what it means to be "Christian?" Juxtapose that with atheism... where if I ask around to atheists, I am going to get a lot of similar answers. Such as - "Someone who doesn't believe in God." or "Someone who believes God doesn't exist."... and that's pretty much it. Ask among Christians about "Christianity" however? Man... I don't even want to try. It gets way too complicated way too quickly. And again - this is your collective problem. I have nothing to do with it.

I know that a lot of people might give the simple answer of "One who follows Christ's teachings." But the moment I ask "And what are Christ's teaching?" That's when everything goes insane.

PruePhillip said:

But people of Christian culture warred against each other and committed atrocities.
People of Christian culture took slaves (though Westerners like to forget that Muslims
took over a million Christians as slaves too, and Africans enslaved one another....)

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I'm not "forgetting" anything. You talked about THE WORLD becoming a worse place - and Muslims are part of "THE WORLD," right? So here you are, MAKING MY POINT FOR ME - that there were far worse crimes against humanity being committed in times past. That today's modern era sees a lot better control within societies of maintaining human rights.

PruePhillip said:

If you enslaved another person, or worse, lynched someone, then you are not living as
Jesus lived.

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So what? Are you trying to tell me that you think that it is just Christians who are making the world a worse place? Is that what this is about? I'd be extremely willing to jump on that train if you had some good details and evidence to back you up, believe me. But the reality is, saying that the world is getting worse, morality-wise, is pointing at THE WORLD - which contains more than just Christians. Right? And so when we compare past civilizations'/societies' morality with the morality of today's world, we should be comparing ALL people of the world then versus ALL people of the world now, right? Or would you just like to stick to the immorality of Christians in this discussion? When you say it is "getting worse" WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

PruePhillip said:

In a nutshell, our drug addled and adulterous world judges Christianity by those who
breached its principles.

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No no. It is YOU judging the morality of the entire world. And here you are saying that being "drug addled" and "adulterous" is WORSE than the institution of slavery, or the atrocities of religious wars. Seriously now... do you think you have a leg to stand on in that argument?

KenS said:

I don't think so. There is a big difference between a sprinkling of non-believers than a world without God.

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One other thing about this that I thought should be mentioned. There's even more damning logic on the point that a world suddenly learning there were no god being plunged into chaos would reach "chaos" because of the theists, not the atheists.

And that logic is this: If we suddenly learned there was no god - REALITY ITSELF WOULD NOT FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE. Meaning "The World" would be the same exact world it was before the revelation that God didn't exist! So, what WOULD need to change in order for the world to be suddenly plunged into chaos is the outlook of people. And as I stated earlier, the only people whose outlook would change would be those that currently believe in God. Anyone who doesn't would likely shrug their shoulders and move on, or take the chance to rub the info in the faces of a few theists they know, and that's probably the worst of the fallout you'd see from atheists. If you can think of something much worse than this, I am all ears.

So, ultimately, your point about the world going chaotic if it learned that there were no god is a statement that the theistic mind-set is a dangerous one - because it teeters on the brink of moral collapse! If, with one piece of extra information, your entire community would set the world on fire? Just think about that as a statement describing theists. It's horrid, deplorable, and abjectly vile. In my opinion, you should be ashamed for making such a statement against your own philosophical brethren.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

At some point, we need to use some common sense and apply the principle of parsimony. Otherwise, we get into omphalusm and Pastafarian apologetics territory:


Open Letter To Kansas School Board at Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

If we don't do this, yes, we may not be able to exclude your wild, unsubstantiated hypotheticals, but we also wouldn't be able to exclude the countless wild, unsubstantiated hypotheticals that are incompatible with yours, so you don't get any closer to establishing your preferred fantastic claims as true.

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Parsimony eloquently testifies that the Bible is true. Do you have another religious book with 40 teams of writers sharing prescient prophecy about everything from human nature to dozens of predictions of modern Israel?

BilliardsBall said:

Parsimony eloquently testifies that the Bible is true.

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Nonsense.

Do you have another religious book with 40 teams of writers sharing prescient prophecy about everything from human nature to dozens of predictions of modern Israel?

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More nonsense. There's nothing particularly prescient about the Bible. So-called "fulfilled prophecy" is generally just pareidolia, IMO.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Nonsense.


More nonsense. There's nothing particularly prescient about the Bible. So-called "fulfilled prophecy" is generally just pareidolia, IMO.

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I haven't come across term, pareidolia, before, but when I looked it up I think it describes well some the posts on the subject of prophecy.

MJFlores said:

Now we have something because before that, we have nothing.

It always starts with zero. First it was nothing then we have something.
Nothing can't make something. It takes someone to make something out of nothing.

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You're simply making unsubstantiated claims. WHY does is ALWAYS start with zero? You say that as if we have dozens of examples of universes beginning and in every OTHER case it's ALWAYS come from nothing.

Now we have something... and what evidence do you have that at some point there was nothing?

JJ50 said:

I wonder what would be the reaction of theists if evidence was discovered which proved beyond any shadow of doubt that no god has ever existed, and all faiths are created by humans?

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I imagine the rational ones would stop believing in God while others will reject the evidence. Too bad no such evidence exists yet so we can easily identify the crazy ones

PruePhillip said:

There's a big question attached to that, "Why something instead of nothing."
We can't comprehend Nothing.

Some think nothing is empty space - but space is not empty, and even
"empty" is something, in a sense.
Empty as in no laws of physics, no time, no space, no distance between
two objects, no numbers, N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

And the atheist will tell you this Nothing created everything, as if it had a
mind.

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And where is your evidence that this N.O.T.H.I.N.G. you claim ever existed? In fact, the entire concept of NOTHING existing completely contradicts itself. There has ALWAYS been SOMETHING... just because it may not have been anything we can recognize today doesn't mean it was NOTHING.

MJFlores said:

Now we have something because before that, we have nothing.

It always starts with zero. First it was nothing then we have something.
Nothing can't make something. It takes someone to make something out of nothing.

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Do you have any empirical examples of "someone" who can make something out of nothing? And do you have any proofs or evidence you can present that lead you to your conclusion that "it takes someone to make something out of nothing"? Do you even have any evidence or examples that show that something has ever come from "nothing?"

ecco said:

Considering that there re over 1000 Christian sects, there is no such thing as "a Christian perspective". What you mean is your Christian perspective.

A Christian perspective that, like other Christian perspectives, comes from the idea that one's Christian perspective is the only correct Christian perspective.
A Christian perspective that, like other Christian perspectives, often leads to the death of people with other perspectives.

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I don't agree with your perspective.

With over 1000 Christian sects, you would be hard pressed to convince me that 99.9% of them believe that there is more than one God, which is what we were referencing.

TagliatelliMonster said:

"who"?
So, you 're saying that while you'll then let go of the god-concept, you'll still be asking fallacious loaded questions?

I guess that makes sense.
If irrational reasoning lead you to the irrational conclusion of god, and only the god part is disproven, then you'ld still be stuck employing irrational reasoning... so you'll just end up replacing one irrational outcome with another.

Makes sense, actually.

Indeed. This is why I actually always go after the fallacious argument, instead of the irrational conclusion.
Once it is understood that the argument is irrational, usually understanding that therefor the conclusion isn't justified, follows automatically.

Problem with fundamentalists, is that they usually refuse to acknowledge their fallacies. A few times, the fundamentalist did actually acknowledge the fallacy. He followed it up with "i don't see the problem" - he thus had no problem with employing a fallacy to reach his desired conclusion.

Click to expand...

@QuestioningMind @A Vestigial Mote

The OP said if it could be proved no god exist - what would happen....
Maybe we will be trapped in to endless wonder that in the beginning
there was nothing and then there was a whole lot of something



and if there was really something in the beginning which is the source of all of these plentiful something
isn't that great that this something was the source of all non living and living things?
isn't that amazing that this something was the source of all rational and irrational thoughts?
isn't it amazing that this something was the source of all physical laws of space and time?
Or should we just resign to the fact, like a simpleton would do that....

TagliatelliMonster said:

Funny how reality already statistically shows the exact opposite.

Perhaps you are referring to psychopaths who are only kept in check now, because they have a perceived authority to tell them right from wrong?

For normal people with stable mental health, it seems to me that their moral standards get a boost once they let go off bronze aged "divine command theory".

Click to expand...

You assume that a world without God equates to normal people with stable mental health. Tell that to Hitler, Mao and Stalin.

A Vestigial Mote said:

One other thing about this that I thought should be mentioned. There's even more damning logic on the point that a world suddenly learning there were no god being plunged into chaos would reach "chaos" because of the theists, not the atheists.

And that logic is this: If we suddenly learned there was no god - REALITY ITSELF WOULD NOT FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE. Meaning "The World" would be the same exact world it was before the revelation that God didn't exist! So, what WOULD need to change in order for the world to be suddenly plunged into chaos is the outlook of people. And as I stated earlier, the only people whose outlook would change would be those that currently believe in God. Anyone who doesn't would likely shrug their shoulders and move on, or take the chance to rub the info in the faces of a few theists they know, and that's probably the worst of the fallout you'd see from atheists. If you can think of something much worse than this, I am all ears.

So, ultimately, your point about the world going chaotic if it learned that there were no god is a statement that the theistic mind-set is a dangerous one - because it teeters on the brink of moral collapse! If, with one piece of extra information, your entire community would set the world on fire? Just think about that as a statement describing theists. It's horrid, deplorable, and abjectly vile. In my opinion, you should be ashamed for making such a statement against your own philosophical brethren.

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I don't think so.

MJFlores said:

The OP said if it could be proved no god exist - what would happen....
Maybe we will be trapped in to endless wonder that in the beginning
there was nothing and then there was a whole lot of something

Click to expand...

Who says it had to be "nothing"?

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The origins of the universe are unknown. Science is working on it. They might find out or they might not. If they don't, the only proper answer is "we don't know".

and if there was really something in the beginning which is the source of all of these plentiful something
isn't that great that this something was the source of all non living and living things?
isn't that amazing that this something was the source of all rational and irrational thoughts?
isn't it amazing that this something was the source of all physical laws of space and time?

Click to expand...

The universe is amazing, sure. Point?

Or should we just resign to the fact, like a simpleton would do that....

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I love how the only alternative to "god did it", in your mind at least, seems to be "giving up on trying to find an answer". As if your "god did it" was ever a proper answer...

KenS said:

You assume that a world without God equates to normal people with stable mental health. Tell that to Hitler, Mao and Stalin.

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Or to al-qaida or the phelps or ...

ps: no need to assume. plenty of pretty irrilegious secular democracies to choose from, who have a lot less problems with crime, domestic violence, rape, etc then the extremely more religious US of A.

YOU are the one making the assumptions.
Plenty of atheists demonstrate everyday that you can be nice and not go around raping and killing people without having a big brother threatening you with eternal damnation.

TagliatelliMonster said:

Or to al-qaida or the phelps or ...

ps: no need to assume. plenty of pretty irrilegious secular democracies to choose from, who have a lot less problems with crime, domestic violence, rape, etc then the extremely more religious US of A.

YOU are the one making the assumptions.
Plenty of atheists demonstrate everyday that you can be nice and not go around raping and killing people without having a big brother threatening you with eternal damnation.

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You have completely missed my point.

But that's ok.

KenS said:

I don't think so.

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In my opinion you've unwittingly admitted as much.

Pretty much the same rationale behind calling a theist out when they ask a question like "But if God doesn't define morality, then what stops anyone from killing, raping and pillaging to their hearts content?" - they implicitly cast themselves as a would-be murderer, rapist and thief - with the only thing holding them back being the fact that "God" told them they can't do those things. If you can't see it, then I believe you to be blind to logic and reasoning.

MJFlores said:

@QuestioningMind

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Why not just answer HONESTLY with the phrase "I don't know?" Then you don't have to claim it started with "nothing", you don't have to take the currently indefensible position that "someone" had to be involved. You just get to be honest - instead of lying through your teeth and pretending you know.

Also - do you think these little animated gifs and images you include strengthen your argument? If not, then why do you include them?