Quote: (09-05-2013 12:13 PM)Samseau Wrote:
On the topic of atheism "being the rational choice": Not even close.
Theists believe in a higher power that exists outside the detection of our five senses.
Atheists believe that nothing exists outside of our five senses.
Obviously, according to current scientific research, atheists are already wrong. We know from current Quantam Theory that the world operates much different than how we percieve it. What we know from our senses (sight sound touch taste smell) is only a very limited picture of how the world actually is. The world is almost certainly vastly different than how we percieve it.
Most atheists haven't put much thought into the matter, and are intellectually lazy who just want to take the path of least resistance. Saying, "there is no god" is really easy when you bury your head in the sand.
But if you actually take the time to think about the limits and scope of human knowledge, you'll quickly see that the odds are far higher in favor of there being a God than not.
- Giant fucking universe with over 1 trillion galaxies (no one knows what is out there)
- Age of universe billions of years old (no one really knows how old this place is)
- Some shit about a big bang? (I.e. no one knows wtf is going on)
- Huge mess of inter-space matter that collides to form stars and planets (no one knows what is going on)
- Optimal conditions arrive on a planet in the middle of the universe we call earth and somehow life develops (more guessing)
- Life is structured in a way that it can evolve into more complex lifeforms (no one knows what is going on)
- Somehow a lifeform evolves that is self-reflective and rational, i.e. man (the human mind is still one of the greatest mysteries in existence)
And people want to tell me this is all an accident?
Guys... if you traveled to the middle of the anartatic and saw a house, would you just assume it magically appeared out of the sky? Or would you assume someone created it?
Althought it cannot be "proved scientifically" that the universe was created by a being, science is really pretty worthless when it comes to human knowledge and sometimes you have to figure things out without science before it becomes scientific fact. (A great example of this is Game; all figured out without controlled experiments.)
The vast majority of great scientists were all believers in some kind of ultimate God. Not a surprise really, because the longer one studies how amazing this universe is the easier it becomes to believe in a God.
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Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.
- Albert Einstien
Are you religious Sam? If so, do you actually believe the stuff in the Holy Books?
The things people say, as you have above, which basically say "Well, God must have started the Big Bang" or whatever...That may be true, but it also certainly means the God of the main religions cannot be true because those teachings reject things like the Big Bang (think Young Earth Creationists).
I don't know if there is some otherworldy being who set the rules of our universe...but I do know that the 2870 Gods listed since recorded history, are absolutely most probably bullshit.
You mentioned "Optimal conditions arrive on a planet in the middle of the universe we call earth and somehow life develops" - Well, the answer to that is that out of the (Insert ridiculously large number) of planets, one (possibly more) having the right conditions for life is fairly good odds.
You also said "Somehow a lifeform evolves that is self-reflective and rational, i.e. man (the human mind is still one of the greatest mysteries in existence)." I don't know where you got that from, but the human mind has been looked at in detail and is certainly not one of the greatest mysteries in existence. Just look at the other Great Apes, and it is obvious we are related to them - watch their societal behaviour, watch that Gorilla 'Koko' using sign language. Human arrogance is truly astounding, and it usually comes from the religious who want to believe we're some divine creature - we're not. We're just apes with big brains.
Nice Einstein quote, but just so you know - in terms of believing in 'God', he most certainly was an atheist:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
"In 1945 Guy Raner, Jr. wrote a letter to Einstein, asking him if it was true that a Jesuit priest had caused Einstein to convert from atheism. Einstein replied, "I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist. ... It is always misleading to use anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere—childish analogies. We have to admire in humility and beautiful harmony of the structure of this world—as far as we can grasp it. And that is all."