Recently, I came across a meta-analysis from 2006 (based on 14 studies) that seems to show that intercessory prayer for people with hospitalized patients has no discernible effect. This worries me because it makes me wonder, what if there is no God? It’s nice to believe that, when I pray, there’s someone listening on the other end. It’s also nice to think that, even in my loneliest, hardest hours, there is a compassionate presence that never leaves me. If there is no God, how do I cope with that reality? I don’t want to be alone in the universe! Losing God would feel like losing a best friend! How do I cope with these thoughts I’m having? I can’t sleep and feel queasy because of it.
Existential Obsessions: Recently, I... - Anxiety and Depre...
Existential Obsessions
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mvillarreal
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Don't let anything sway your belief, you've obviously found great comfort in the past from having God in your life, the very fact that you can feel such comfort tells you that he is there for you, just go with your heart ❤
There have been studies that seem to point in both directions so before taking anything from them "as gospel" so to speak, the ideal would be to analyze each study and see if there may be any flaws with them, possibly stemming from motivations or agendas behind the results either way. But most of us can't do that because we don't have access to the info.
Nonetheless, I wouldn't be concerned about it for several reasons:
1) Some have said in criticism of such experiments that God is disgusted by anyone deliberately praying for some but not the others and so withdraws his hand entirely. There may be something to that.
2) Related to that, who can say who was doing the praying and whether they were sincere or just going through the motions for the sake of the experiment?
3) These studies come to you through the national and international media which is overwhelmingly secular so they will -- knowingly or not -- highlight studies such as the one you mention, and 'fail' to report studies that go the other way.
A classic case of this, and one that may bring you comfort, is mentioned in a book by Andrew Sims, Is Faith Delusional? Sims is a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (in England). In it, he covers the American Journal of Public Health's major meta-analysis of epidemiological studies on the psychological effects of religious belief:
In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less deliquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction.
He concludes (and this for me is the money quote, especially regarding the journalism community highlighting some studies and not others):
The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.
4) Finally, your concern that you are all alone in the universe is a consequence of the idea that there is no God and therefore the universe is just here, with no point, meaning or purpose. CS Lewis long ago had a fascinating rebuttal to that, one with a strong implication that the mere fact that we are so aware of transcendant meaning -- by which I mean that there is meaning built into the universe that exists outside our heads -- is in itself strong evidence that there really is something beyond just the physical universe to say the least:
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark.
I consider myself something of an amateur Christian apologist. If you or anyone else wants some more of this or has questions, PM me. I might be able to help.
Thank you for that excellent and inspiring reply! I’m saving that info. Love CS Lewis. For those who aren’t aware, he is the author of ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe’, as well as ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’.
And Mere Christianity.
And Miracles, The Great Divorce (fascinating look at Hell), The Screwtape Letters and many other great works on the topic.
Nice to meet another reader. First read Screwtape at eight years old. I still come back to C. S. Lewis today.
You are suffering from doubt (which is the opposite of faith )
There have been studies where prayer has had a profound positive effect on people who are ill
I wouldn't let something like that shake my faith in God
Don't let stuff like that interfere with your relationship with God - God is real God loves us
Just because there is no physical healing, that doesn’t mean there’s no compassionate God. He works more on a spiritual level than a physical level. Your body can die but your spirit is safe with God.
Based on 14 studies? That's hardly research at all.
If you believe in God then He is there for you, if you don't He isn't. Not everyone believes, it is the way of the world.
I believe there is an energy attached to the Earth which is healing, and if you believe in God and His creation, I think you need not worry.
Cheers, Midori
Doubting is a normal part of life. So just know that it's normal to have these thoughts and to look into this kind of information. With that being said, full disclosure I am an atheist so all I can do is offer some support from what I understand. Even if you lost that belief that someone is there you will be okay. Millions of us do it every single day. There are other things to have faith in outside of religion. You can have faith in yourself, in your friends, in your life, in your family. There are many things that can anchor you and make you feel more at ease. That also comes with being more fulfilled as your life progresses. As far as the feeling of being alone in the universe goes. That in entirely based on perspective. You can say you are alone but if your family loves you and supports you is that not something even if god doesn't exist? There are other things out there, different experiences, moments of awe, ways to appreciate life. Not all of that comes from religion. A good majority of it comes from actually living your life and you can do that with or without a god.
You can say you are alone but if your family loves you and supports you is that not something even if god doesn't exist?
I thank you for coming along side the OP and offering some heartfelt words of comfort and support from an atheist's perspective. Your thoughts and especially your intentions are greatly appreciated by this Christian. Seriously.
But at the risk of stepping on toes, hijacking this thread and maybe even getting kicked out of here, I have to say that if there is no God, the love and support of family really isn't something.
Moments of awe, feelings of fulfillment, family and friends, all these great things that you and I agree make life worthwhile lose all meaning if they and everything else owe their existence to the bottom-up 'creation' of blind/deaf/dumb subatomic particles accidentally bumping into each other -- instead of to intentional top-down creation by God that infuses every single one of those particles with eternal meaning and purpose. As Dennis Prager said:
Only if there is a God who created man is man worth anything more than the value of the chemicals of which he is composed.
In getting rid of God, you are left with a lobotomized universe where all good things will be snuffed out of existence for all eternity for no reason at all, like sandcastles when the tide comes in. I know it couldn't be further from your intent (which again I greatly value) but there can be no more hopeless a message than that.
That you nonetheless rightly see meaning in so many things shows there is a part of you -- a big part of you -- deep down that rejects this message and is even now rebelling against it. In light of that, I urge you, and anyone else like you reading this, to please reconsider...
See that is just not true. If you need god to give you meaning, purpose, morality etc. you don't have an all loving father you have a programmer who has made your life for you. Personally I think if god exists free will cannot exist no matter what the bible says. You cannot logically have something that is all knowing grant you free will. Either god knows everything and everything already exists or it doesn't and then god is not all knowing. There are many contradictions like this. Even in morality you have the problem of evil which to date no one has a good answer for. The reason I have those feelings isn't because of some attachment to a divine creator, it's because I value life. We are nothing more than the chemicals we are composed of, but you assume this means that we have to be nothing from that. Why? What makes being made from the universe any less magical then from god? That is bias on your part. I don't need a god to tell me what my purpose is I can discover that on my own. I don't need god for morality, I have figured that out as well. In fact if you look at the available data we have, the most compassionate and generous group of people isn't christians, it's atheist. By and large atheist communities have less crime, are more egalitarian, offer stronger welfare systems and support systems, off universal healthcare, and are the most charitable. This is standard across the board. Religion likes to claim that it brings people together and that it helps and to a certain extent it does. But never with the belief in god. It's usually the community behind it that is cherished. However, I have seen how religion destroys people and corrupts them. I have watched it take a normal decent person and reduces them to nothing. I have seen people suffer needlessly in the name of god. I don't see a religion on the planet that isn't innately harmful in someway shape or form. Even buddhism is harmful, even though I can say it's more useful than most other religions I have seen as it's more harmful towards he self rather than other people. Religion is not the answer you think it is. Again, you can say when things die it makes it irrelevant but again why? They existed and happened. Those moments of awe are only destroyed if your perception of them is. And to further the point, you would actually be the more nihilistic one of us. If you follow Aquinas's thoughts that you need the unmoved mover and all of that then you are not living for people or for life, you are living solely for god which is absolutely the most dangerous thing a person can do. To quote a song "fear the man who has heaven in his plans So he gets so complacent that he doesn't call his family" this is apt here because it points out that when you live solely for got you lose all meaning in life and love. The only thing that matters to you is god. The only thing that is important is heaven. That reduces life to literally just a thing to get through, to get to the real goal, heaven. I have watched this mentality cause parents to kill their children because praying is more useful than medicine. I have watched this mentality destroy attachments and cause others harm because women should serve their husbands. Again, you can quote old philosophies to me all day long. I have a rebuttal to it all. Just because you have faith in a god doesn't mean it's a good thing. That is your desire and want for it to be a good thing coming out.
You hit me with a fire hydrant of stuff. Let's just take a couple for now.
An all-knowing being can't grant free will? Of course he can.
First let's define free will. Human free will is not absolute -- for example, none of us is free to say to the planet Jupiter "disappear" and it will disappear, and none of is free to run 1,000 mph. So clearly there are some limitations on our free will. Nonetheless we have it in abundance where it really matters to God, which is in the moral realm.
Second, you are confusing God's foreknowledge of the future with predestination; they are not the same thing. If they were, then my foreknowledge that you will someday die means I am guilty of murdering you -- or you of me. To know what people will do or what will happen to them is not the same thing as making them do it or causing it to happen. So it is with God.
Another example: I'm driving on the freeway and it's raining and after a while I drive out of the rain and into the sun. I see the cars on the other side of the median driving in the opposite direction. My foreknowledge of the driving conditions they will soon face does not mean either that I caused it to rain or that I caused the other drivers to drive into it.
Next item: The problem of evil is ultimately an objection that just evaporates when invoked by atheists, for several reasons:
1) To object to evil assumes that every human being has great or even infinite intrinsic value. But if there is no God, if there is only the physical universe and nothing beyond it, then there is no objective reason to think that human life has any value at all; we're just left with emotions and wishful thinking, the accidental products of the firing of our synapses. What is in the collection of atoms that make up the body of a 200-pound man that makes that man of any more value than 200 pounds of rocks? Nothing. This leaves us stranded on the absurdity that breaking a rocks should be treated the same as murder; or that murder should be treated the same as just breaking a rock.
I would add that given that we know that all the cells in a human body are entirely replaced roughly every 7 years, then if you are only your body, is there really even a "you"?
2) If there really is such a thing as evil, and it exists independent of what anyone on earth thinks about it, then there must also be such a thing as goodness also existing in its own right independent of what anyone thinks of it. (In other words, the existence of real good and real evil precludes the possibility of moral relativism.) It follows then that if there is real evil and real goodness, then there must be a moral code by which we can tell one from the other, one that was not written by man and therefore not subject to social/cultural drift or tainted by political or personal convenience. It follows then that such a moral code can't exist in the absence of a Someone beyond humanity and the universe to give it.
Otherwise we're left in a moral Tower of Babel where everyone makes up their own moral codes and the only way to determine which one is 'right' one is by who wins the war.
3) Saying evil means there is no God is looking at the world with only one eye open. If evil argues against God's existence, then goodness by definition would have to argue at least as powerfully for God's existence. You can't have it both ways.
4) Believing there is no God ironically is what really removes the possibility of free will because it reduces all human behavior to the inevitable result of nature and nurture (in a naturalistic universe, what else is there?) and creates a hyper-dystopian moral world in which no-one can be held responsible for anything they do. We become sock puppets of determinism, our pronouncements on good and evil (and anything else we do or say) "no more capable of rightness or wrongness than a hiccup or a sneeze", as CS Lewis put it.
By definition, knowing is means to know everything correct? Well if the divine knows everything that has been, will be, or can ever be, then it is already set in stone correct? Otherwise how would it be known. If it was just possibility then it wouldn't be know. For example, I know that if I flip a coin it will be either heads or tails. That means that I don't know the outcome right? Or if I was betting on a game and I know the odds I would know the probability but I wouldn't know the outcome correct? Well if I knew the outcome, then it would no longer be probability it would be fact, much like saying 2+2=4. So if it is fact then it cannot be changed and it is just truth. Now go back to free will. If you have the ability to choose something that means until it is chosen it is probability. Unless an all knowing being knows the outcome, then it is no longer probability it is fact. And if it is fact for god and his own will because again, he knows everything, how on earth could you, a mortal, change that outcome? Unless you mean to tell me you are greater than god? In which case why believe at all at that point? Foreknowledge has nothing to do with this. If it's a path that has been laid out by god then you are forced to walk it because how could you go against it? How can you go against god's will? Foreknowledge just means true. I know that a rock is a rock. I can literally do nothing to change that otherwise it could not be true.
The problem of evil is no issue for me. I have no conception that life has any value outside of ourselves. The universe doesn't care that we exist. In fact it tries to kill us pretty consistently. That doesn't mean that it can't have value to us as a species though. I again ask why the universe not caring about us means this is the case?
Now to your first point. What leads us to believe that there is a difference is because we are talking about a living person and a non living rock. We can and do have other qualifiers to show what is useful and good vs what is not. I can see the pain I cause to another human being, There is no pain to a rock. Your point is invalid because you are saying that the collection of atoms are exactly the same when they are not. Otherwise how would I be able to distinguish water from air or even dirt? Just because something is comprised of the same parts doesn't mean it's all the same. For example, you believe in a soul so does that mean that therefore everything with a soul is the exact same? No of course not. So what is even your point here? You are trying to reduce things to absurdity when that isn't possible in this context. And going even further then would you say that if a person didn't have a soul it would be okay to kill the because in your words they are just a collection of atoms and mean nothing? If you do I would strongly advise you to reconsider your opinion. As for the whole your cells being replaced thing. So what? Our memories change and are altered does this mean we are no long ourselves? You have different experiences which make you think and know different things all the time and that doesn't mean you are no longer you. So why would a body be any different?
Your second point is exactly the reason I brought up the problem of evil. So we have a god who created everything in your eyes correct? And this god is completely benevolent yes? By definition god has to be 100% pure good otherwise things get very messy. So if you believe god is 100% pure good how on earth could he create bad things? Wouldn't that then make him not 100% good. So for example going back to knowing everything god couldn't create anything bad because that would go against himself as an entity. So that only means one of two things. If evil exists, god is either not 100% good. Or there is something outside of god that is evil that exists and if there is something outside of god we also run into many problems because what else is outside of god? What makes god's will the correct will. Your assumption that absolute good and evil existing means that you have the problem of evil because how can evil exist if god is good? Moreover, how can god morally do a bad thing if his own will would not allow for it? It's all just contradictions here. I can say morality exists because I don't base it on what is good or evil. I base it on other factors such as our empathy, and what is most helpful to us all. There is a lot more that goes into it but the point is I don't need to say that absolute good exists or that absolute evil exists in order to say something was good or not. Again, just because the universe doesn't think something doesn't mean I have to adhere to the same principles? So why do you keep assuming it does? By the way the problem of evil has been around for thousands of years people have struggled with it their entire lives. Literally philosophers are still trying o figure it out. No one has a good answer for it because one doesn't exist.
To your last point, you can have a universal moral code based on truths. For example, it's better for me to help my neighbors than to enslave them. Why, they will be more willing to help me, and I will get farther and be happier and they will be happier as opposed to just enslaving them. This is just true no matter if you invoke the will of god or not. We know that working together and working towards the benefit of all is vastly more beneficial than any other way of doing things. Two heads are just better than one. We have known this for a long time. I don't need god to see that.
Your third point makes no sense. as that could be applied to anything. Like I don't adhere to the belief in absolute good or evil, but even if I did that doesn't even mean it points to your god or a single god itself. It just means that something exists for good to flow from. And even then there are a lot of other interpretations such as it's good because this god said it was. That doesn't even mean goodness has to exist if a god is pleased with the result then we should just accept it as true. So this point is negligible because it does nothing but say that if x created y then x exists. But there is no proof that god created goodness, nor that it exists as a form unto itself. So again, the point is moot.
So I believe that capatablism exists. I think that hard determinism is wrong because at the end of the day we do have choice. Even if it is limited we do have a choice. Determinism make things more probable but you never know until the action is played out. So we can say that things are very likely based on past events but we cannot guarantee that. For example I now there is a very good probability that the sun will rise tomorrow because it has for millennia, and all probability states that it will be very likely to occur. However, can I say for certain that it will occur? No I cannot. So there are probabilities until there are actions. Also, how are you going to quote determinism and not understand the glaring problem of free will and an all knowing god? It's essentially the same issue.
And per your own logic then we cannot hold one accountable for their actions if a god does exist. Same problem as with determinism. And also I can just say I was lead astray by demons or false prophets and such. Because god is good so he can only tempt me with goodness but the bad can only tempt me with the bad. So it wouldn't be your fault at all if you were coerced into being led astray.
By definition, knowing is means to know everything correct? Well if the divine knows everything that has been, will be, or can ever be, then it is already set in stone correct?
No, you still decided to do it or not do it. You're avoiding my point that me knowing you will die doesn't mean I killed you. Me watching you do something is not that same as me making you do it.
The problem of evil is no issue for me. I have no conception that life has any value outside of ourselves.
Then you agree that in the absence of God, the idea that human life has value is just make-believe? Isn't that the essence of what make-believe is, believing something that exists only inside your head? The same thing that religious people are constantly ripped for?
So if you believe god is 100% pure good how on earth could he create bad things?
You have a false assumption here. He cannot, does not create, and has not created bad things. He created good creatures -- angels and humans -- and gave them free will, and some rejected him. Even fallible humans do this when they have kids. They know full well that their kids may grow up to reject them, but the parents -- like God -- think it's worth the risk. But so far no-one seems willing to claim that if kids reject their parents, that means the parents don't exist.
There can be no love without the possibility to choose hate. Otherwise you are just a puppet or a robot or a toy. And besides, if God did create such beings who could only choose good, you would complain that you weren't given your freedom.
Like I don't adhere to the belief in absolute good or evil...
Why not? When people are thrown in jail, it's an absolute jail cell. When they are put to death for murder, they and their victims are absolutely dead. If there's no absolute good or evil, then it seems we have to somehow come up with some sort of squishy, amorphous, relativistic jail cell or death penalty. Any ideas?
...but even if I did that doesn't even mean it points to your god or a single god itself. It just means that something exists for good to flow from.
Like what? Seriously, like what?
Where can you find the point on a photon, electron, neutrino or a hunk of gravity that good flows from? You deny the existence of anything else. Is there a tiny faucet on one of those things that we just don't have strong enough microscopes to pick up yet?
To your last point, you can have a universal moral code based on truths. For example, it's better for me to help my neighbors than to enslave them. Why, they will be more willing to help me, and I will get farther and be happier and they will be happier as opposed to just enslaving them.
What makes that "better" and who decides that? In the absence of God, isn't "better", like everything else, relative? What if they're not willing to help me at all and I get nothing out of them? What if I not only can objectively show that I'll gain a financial advantage by enslaving them rather than begging for their help but maybe I get an absolute sadistic joy out of just pushing people around? And why should I care if they're happy or not as long as I'm happy? What if, in your relativistic world, that's what "better" is to me?
But there is no proof that god created goodness, nor that it exists as a form unto itself.
Another false assumption. God did not create goodness, he is goodness itself. I never said goodness exists as some "form" on its own. All goodness and good things come from God because they can't be separated from God. Thus they exist for all eternity past, present and future.
Determinism make things more probable but you never know until the action is played out.
It seems you are not familiar with what determinism is. It has nothing to do with probability. If it did, it would be called probablism or likely-ism. Determinism means not that anything is likely or probable but that it has been determined, that what happens could not have been otherwise; it was determined from the moment of the Big Bang and could not have been changed any more than marbles tossed down a flight of stairs can change where, when and how often they bounce off each step. That was all determined the moment they were thrown from a certain height and position at a certain angle, spin and velocity.
In your world, we are all those marbles, except rather than spin, velocity, etc, our every move is determined by genes and environment. Or as the Nazis used to say, by "blood and soil".
And per your own logic then we cannot hold one accountable for their actions if a god does exist. Same problem as with determinism. And also I can just say I was lead astray by demons or false prophets and such. Because god is good so he can only tempt me with goodness but the bad can only tempt me with the bad. So it wouldn't be your fault at all if you were coerced into being led astray.
Your point dissolves into incoherence because you are confusing temptation with coercion. You seem to think people have a choice only as long as their entire environment is sterilized of anything that might influence them because anything influencing them means they have no choice. (But in such an environment, there is nothing to choose!)
If you are tempted to rob a bank, you still have a choice; if you cave in, it's on you. But if you are truly coerced, like someone ordering you at the point of a gun to rob the bank or he will torture and kill your wife and kids, you have no choice. There is an infinite moral chasm of difference between the two.
I'll leave you for now with the Holocaust illustration. If man really is the measure of all things, then if the Germans had won WW2 and as time went on, everyone on earth who disagreed with them was exterminated, would the Holocaust still be wrong?
You can't say yes without invoking the supernatural. What else would be left?
I am not avoiding your point. You are avoiding that if god made the world then as you you put he is the unmoved mover. So then everything goes back to him because as you pointed out with your determinism argument it's all cause and effect. Word it anyway you want it's the same thing. You can't have god know everything and have free will. It's a logical contradiction. If god knows then it is fact. And since god made everything then god caused this to be fact when he could have made it otherwise. You cannot undo it because then it could not be know. For example if you make a computer program and tell it what function to execute you have not physically moved it yourself but you are the reason it moves and does what it does. I bring this up because you can say god is just an observer all you want, you are either ignoring my point or you are diminishing god. How can god be just an observer if he knows everything? Again, a fact is a fact no matter what. And if it is fact for god how can you do otherwise unless you are greater than god. Like I can't make it any clearer than if I create a robot to run and it runs then yes it literally ran but I made it do so. It's the same concept. Because if things could have been different by definition it would be probability. So either god knows and it is all planned out and as the first mover he is the prime cause. Or he doesn't know everything and then you can have free will. You cannot have it both ways you cannot have fact and possibility at the same time. You can't say god knows everything but you can still choose to do otherwise because then god would not know everything. He would only, as an observer, know after you chose which again limits god. You can't get around this. It's literally logic. Two contradictory things cannot both be true at the same time.
Why does it have to be make believe? Why can't it be real for me. For example you can't be part of my emotions. they are mine. Does that make them any less real? Just because something doesn't matter for something else doesn't mean it takes away from me. Why does everything need to come from a god then? Because per your own definition god would need to have something make it valuable. If he can just make himself valuable then is that not the same thing you are saying I can't do? So why is god different? Or do the rules not apply to him?
Again, if he cannot create bad things, then how on earth could something reject him? Like okay if god is all knowing then by creating Lucifer he would already know that he would turn against him. That is set in stone. Because if you disagree with any of that you limit god. So if he knew that Lucifer would turn against him he willingly chose to let it happen anyway. That doesn't sound 100% good to me. The other problem is that how could we possess something that god does not? If you are honestly telling me evil exists outside of god then you are admitting there is more than one god that exists as there is something that has power and dominion over itself outside of god. And going further if it does exists and god let's it then god is not good because how could he following his own code of ethics let it exist? So either God created evil and he isn't all good or he didn't create evil and it exists outside of god. You still run into the same problem You are not solving anything you are just repeating the same problem over and over again. And finally no one is saying if a child rejects there parents then the parents don't exist because the parents are not all knowing being. If they were all knowing and then it happened we would be having a very different discussion. But you proved my point with this example. You limit god by saying he knows it's possible. You just admitted by your own word that god is not all knowing. There you go. Case closed free will only exists because god is not all knowing. So now you have the issue of god is flawed and yeah you can see the problems.
Just because someone there is no absolute good or evil doesn't mean something can still be good or bad. And the death penalty is a complex issue. On one hand for smaller crimes no people should not be put to death. If they can be rehabilitated and helped then help them. There are so many reasons for a crime to happen it's impossible to list all the facts so each thing is different. But sometimes if a person won't stop hurting others then death might be an option. I don't have a good answer for this because it's hard. But that doesn't mean that we can't hold people accountable for their choices. And just so you know eye for an eye is literally a biblical concept. So like you throw around the death penalty like atheist started it but that is not the case. But I can admit I don't have the answers when I don't and that is okay too. I don't need to call on god for that. I can have a logical discussion and figure things out.
I was stating that just because you can assume, not that I believe, goodness exists, then like Plato's forms it would come from something. But that something is not proven to be a god or anything else. So to use your example of the "tiny faucet" your argument of goodness leading to god could be used to justify the believe that it all flows from a tiny faucet on an electron. That is my point. Your argument on it's own merits is not good enough to justify god just a thing that happens to be comprised of goodness. It's not about me believing in it. It's your argument doesn't prove god.
As to what makes something better again, human observation. I can just prove it's better to work as a team than to not. I can show definitively that people are happier working together. Even aside from that take any thing you want to through at me, egoism, utilitarianism, whatever, it all ends up being true that working together is better than not. This is why open source beats out privatized every single time. It just does. This is a truth no matter how you look at it. sure you could gain, a short term advantage by enslaving others but it will inevitably fail on you. Whereas working together is much more stable and long lasting. Again, I don't need a god to justify that it's just true.
This point about goodness again proves my point on the problem of evil. Okay so you have just said god is just pure 100% goodness. And you said god cannot create evil things. So then how can evil exist unless it is a power that is outside of god and god's control. You just backed yourself into a corner. If god is pure good evil cannot exist unless it's outside of god but if it's outside of god then that means something exists outside of god that rivals god if god can't get rid of it because as you said god is pure goodness, so on his own moral code he would have to get rid of the bad otherwise he is willingly letting stay and happen. Again, you are literally repeating the same mistake over and over again and claiming it proves your point when in reality it proves the opposite of what you want.
I know very well what determinism is. And yes I know that it doesn't mean probability but my point is determinism cannot predict everything. It's far to complex to break down in that way. So until a choice is made it's probability. And even then if you want to get into quantum mechanics, that literally runs off of probability. There is a lot of weird things that happen there and nothing is set in stone. Such as the position of an electron. it's position is technically everywhere until observed. And we cannot know where it will be. We can only guess at where it will be. So even at the deepest level it's still probability until a choice is made not set in stone.
You just defined coercion though? Like even parents coerce their kids to teach them. Not all coercion is bad either. I think even you would agree to that with god threatening eternal damnation even though he supposedly loves you unconditionally and gives you the freedom to choose otherwise. And no I don't think that but I do believe it's not their choice if something supernatural is affecting them. (I don't believe in the supernatural but if someone is possessed by a demon and they kill, you get the idea I hope).
I can still say the holocaust was wrong because again logic. I pointed out earlier I can prove that working together is better for everyone. I can just prove it. We already have. You would be hard pressed to find a paper in math, or psychology that disagree's with this truth. And regardless of whether the Germans won or not they would still not have proof that "white genes" are superior in any way. So yes you would still have a vast amount of evidence to come to the same conclusions. It would be harder because of the coercion and threat of death but you absolutely 100% can say it was wrong and not valid. And again, I don't need a god to do that.
I am not avoiding your point. You are avoiding that if god made the world then as you you put he is the unmoved mover.
Then I too am the unmoved mover because I killed you by knowing you will one day die. I set it in stone...
So then everything goes back to him because as you pointed out with your determinism argument it's all cause and effect.
God is not omnipotent in the sense that he can do contradictory things. For example, he cannot make a whale that is a whale and not a whale at the same time. Or, as relevant to this discussion, he has not figured out a way to give a creature full life without giving the creature real moral choice. Animals live a deterministic life, people do not. We are given the dignity of free will and causality. And if we are given choice, then the choice actually has been fully given to us. That means the choice is ours and ours alone and cannot under any circumstances be blamed on God.
As to what makes something better again, human observation. I can just prove it's better to work as a team than to not. I can show definitively that people are happier working together.
You can't prove that at all because "better" is subjective. All you can prove is that for certain people who are willing to work together, there is less friction and rancor. But whether that's "better" or not depends on who you ask.
This is because I can show every bit as definitively that at least as many people are not happier working together. Where do you think all the crime, horror, wars and darkness of this world that you blame God for come from? People with a definition of "better" that does not include working together for the common good to put it mildly. Or on a less dramatic level, there are drama addicts or people who want to be living martyrs, or people who like to gossip or who just like spreading rumors to throw a monkey wrench into the works like internet trolls. Or people with vendettas and grudges and agendas. These are all people who have no interest in working together because their definition of "better" is different from yours, with the kicker that in Godless World there is no universal moral standard to which you can appeal to show them they're wrong.
And yes I know that it doesn't mean probability but my point is determinism cannot predict everything.
Of course determinism can't predict everything. Or anything. It's not a living entity that can put together a podcast on Youtube for you to click on and give you a forecast for your future-of-the-universe fantasy league for $19.99 a month. It's just a philosophy (and one apparently neither of us has much use for) that says whatever happens or will happen was determined from the moment of the Big Bang and could have been no other way. It's really just another way of saying that there is no such thing as free will, that we're all just sock puppets of nature and nurture, which is a morally catastrophic proposition.
I can still say the holocaust was wrong because again logic. I pointed out earlier I can prove that working together is better for everyone. I can just prove it. We already have. You would be hard pressed to find a paper in math, or psychology that disagree's with this truth.
Once again, I have already shown that "better" is purely subjective. It's like trying to prove that broccoli "tastes better". For that matter, everyone has a different definition of "working together" too. Some people's definition of "working together" is "you cooperate with me by not resisting while I rape and murder your wife and daughter. See, he's working together with me! That makes me happy! That's what I call better!"
In a world where there is only atoms, no-one can tell him he's wrong, only that they don't happen to like it. Because once again naturalism gives us no reason to think human life actually has intrinsic value and therefore whatever you do to anyone doesn't matter.
And regardless of whether the Germans won or not they would still not have proof that "white genes" are superior in any way.
That totally misses the point. For our purposes here it doesn't matter whether Aryan genes are actually superior or not. This is a moral question, not a question of provable genetics. Because if God exists, even if it was somehow actually true that Aryan genes are superior, the Holocaust would still be way off the deep end bat-guano wrong and evil!
On the other hand, if there is no God, then man is the measure of all things, especially all things moral. And if man is the measure of all things moral and every man left alive thinks the Holocaust was just fine, then by definition and by cracky it really was just flipping fine. (Again, what else would there be to appeal to? Moral giants like gamma rays or Ohm's Law or the Second Law of Thermodynamics?) And it will remain that way until a significant number of people change their mind about it and start to resist. But which group is "right" will once again be determined not by a universal moral code (because there isn't one) but by the sword.
You keep trying to reduce moral questions to scientific formulas by confusing subjective opinions with scientific data. It's a massive category mistake, like trying to measure the pH balance of your swimming pool with a ruler. Or like when some scientists say that science is the only way to truth. (As John Lennox points out with a giggle, it is a self-refuting statement because it is a statement not of science but of philosophy.)
For a bit of levity to break things up, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle has always left me scratching my head. I've always wondered how that electron knows you're watching it.
Also, many thanks for being so civil and respectful and just sticking to the topic and studiously avoiding ad hominem. Not everyone can do that and that you can says great things about you, especially these days.
No. Again, you miss the point. If you created me and made me a path to walk then yes you would be my programmer and the one to blame. But just knowing something does not mean you are responsible. Again, if you assert that god created you and the world around you and all the things in that world and that each of those things has a path based on gods will you are acting out a part not choosing. I can't explain it any clearer if you can't see the connection then you are willfully doing so at this point because I have explained it several different times.
Look either god is all powerful or he is not. You cannot just assert he is or isn't any one thing based on preference. Again, this is special pleading and again, that is a fallacy.
No I can literally prove that everyone involved is better off. Again, open source is better than private. This is just fact. You can not like it but it is just fact. Even your examples didn't exactly lead to people being better off. Most of the warmongers of the world died horribly. And even if they hadn't even if they had actually gotten everything they wanted they would still have less because enslaved people do less work are less motivated and so on. Again, across the board you get farther and get more from working with people as opposed to against them. This is just fact whether you like it or not.
I agree that determinism is true to a point. But I do still think free will exists. Again, I am a capatiblist. I think just because you can show the past is connected through cause and effect but I don't think you can use that same evidence to show the future will happen in a set way.
No, you are assuming that better can only be applied in moral terms but let's use animals as you say. Even they have a preferred or better state. When they are fed and satisfied and so on. So for them better does exist. And the same applies for people. yes things can vary in the sense that better food for me might not be your idea of better food but the general concept remains the same regardless of the relativistic nature of the food. The same thing applies for people, we all need love, but what that love entails is different for the person. For some it's small groups for others it's large groups. For some it's being married. You get the picture. But just because the kind of love they have is relative that doesn't mean the concept is. So I can say better in general terms while still appealing to all the relativity. Because literally working together is better than not. In all area's. Literally all of them. And working together doesn't mean that you have to be right next to people doing what they do. You can do other things to contribute to that working together, see how relativism doesn't matter because the concept stays the same. Again, I don't need a god to see this I can prove it well enough on it's own merrit.
And even then in terms of your view, what codes are you okay with and what are you not? Are you allowed to pick and choose or leave things open to interpretation. Isn't that also relativism? So your same issues apply to you unless you take everything as written law. In which case okay but I would see you having many issues in your future with the law.
That totally misses the point. For our purposes here it doesn't matter whether Aryan genes are actually superior or not. This is a moral question, not a question of provable genetics. Because if God exists, even if it was somehow actually true that Aryan genes are superior, the Holocaust would still be way off the deep end bat-guano wrong and evil!
Unless god ordered the slaughter or deemed it acceptable then it's okay. I cite the old testament. And before you say it doesn't count because you have the new you should strongly reconsider those words as then you lose the ten commandments and the creation story. Again, you can't pick and choose what you like and don't like.
No I am not reducing anything to scientific formula's. I am saying there are just true things about the nature of our world that I can observe and base preference too. Like that all beings aim to reduce suffering. It's literally in our DNA to keep ourselves alive and so on. I can use a combination of these things to build from. Now am I saying all science is truth. No we can get close to some things but may never find the truth but in other things yes. I can say with absolute confidence that lighting is indeed plasma. I can also note certain facts about human being and observe things like working together is better than not. I can then use all of this to say with certainty something like if all being seek to reduce suffering the best way to do this is to work with each other as you get vastly more benefit from it then not. I don't see why this is breaking any rules if I am observing things to be true and see that they hold and do not vary.
Of course. Same to you. By now people usually would have attacked my character so it says a lot that you did not either.
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN OBJECTION:
Unless god ordered the slaughter or deemed it acceptable then it's okay. I cite the old testament. And before you say it doesn't count because you have the new you should strongly reconsider those words as then you lose the ten commandments and the creation story. Again, you can't pick and choose what you like and don't like.
Not a problem. I will make no attempt to sweep things in the OT under the rug of the NT. There is no need.
The God who came down to earth in human form and died of a terrible torture and -- in the span of about 36 hours between his death on Good Friday and his resurrection the following Sunday a.m. -- spent an eternity in Hell to save all of mankind, is the very same God who ordered the invasion and destruction of the Canaanite nations.
Consider Genesis 18 and 19 where God explains to Abraham that he is about to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham gets into a bargaining session with God about how many "righteous" people have to be in Sodom for him to change his mind and not destroy the city -- because his nephew Lot lives there. He starts at 50 and is eventually down to 10, to which God says, if there are even 10, I will not destroy the city. At that point, Abraham stops, either thinking surely there must be 10 so my nephew is safe, or he gives up, realizing just how hopelessly horrible these two cities are so his nephew and his nephew's family gonners.
Then two angels come in the evening to visit Lot, and Lot, not knowing they are angels peers around and tells them to hurry inside because he knows what this city is like. (Why he still lives there is a really good question.) Too late, they've been seen and a bunch of men (take note: "old and young, all the people from every quarter") surround his house, demanding that he let the two 'strangers' out "that we may know them". Or in other words, they want to gang rape these men and apparently this is a regular occurrence there.
That's horrific enough. But the two angels strike the men surrounding the house blind -- "so that they wearied themselves to find the door". Even after being struck blind, they were still so out of their minds horny and addicted to sadistic perversions that they were still trying to get in the house and rape the two strangers -- YIKES!!!! How sick a city do you have when men young and old surround your house and demand to be allowed to gang rape your guests, and don't stop making this demand even after they have been struck blind???
So apparently there were not 10 'righteous' men (even grading by an earthly curve) left in Sodom or Gomorrah because God went ahead and wiped them both out.
Extrapolate that to Canaan -- in Canaan they had child sacrifice where they would put the baby in the arms of a brass likeness of Moloch and move the brass likeness through a furnace. They had temple prostitution and bestiality and many other horrific sexual practices similar to Sodom and all kinds of other twisted values and practices. But they got off light -- in Genesis 15 God gives "the Amorites" (Canaanites) another 400 years to cut it out.
If it it took the kind of darkness described in Genesis 18 and 19 to get God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, you can be sure that after waiting 400 years, God had a very good reason to kick the Amorites out of Canaan. (I say kicked out because the Canaanite peoples were not completely wiped out.)
Given all this, if I put you in a time machine and transported you to Canaan in the days before their destruction (or Sodom and Gomorrah), instead of griping about "slaughter", you would have your hands cupped on your lips screaming up to God "400 years?? What are you WAITING for??"
I'm back... (MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!) But seriously:
Look either god is all powerful or he is not. You cannot just assert he is or isn't any one thing based on preference. Again, this is special pleading and again, that is a fallacy.
Are you a college student or were recently in college?
God is all powerful in the sense that he created and controls the universe and everywhere else. Being all powerful doesn't require him to engage in silly self-contradiction just so you can feel good about rejecting him. There are all kinds of things that an all-powerful all-good God can't do. He can't sin. He can't forget. He can't lie. He can't learn because he already knows everything. He can't allow you to end up in both Heaven and Hell at the same time. And more to the point of our conversation, he can't give you free will without -- get this! -- giving you free will.
It seems to be you who are putting unreasonable limits on what an all-powerful God can do when you say he can't be all-powerful unless he doesn't have the power to give you free will. Huh??
If you created me and made me a path to walk then yes you would be my programmer and the one to blame.
By definition God would not be your programmer if you have free will. He has said in Deuteronomy 30:19 "I have set before you life and death. Choose life." That means you really can choose, it's not an illusion.
But just knowing something does not mean you are responsible.
Right.
Again, if you assert that god created you and the world around you and all the things in that world and that each of those things has a path based on gods will you are acting out a part not choosing.
By definition you are choosing if you are given a choice, even if you choose not to choose. You seem to be saying that unless you are omniscient and omnipotent like God, you have no choice in anything which is self-evidently ridiculous. That you don't have a choice about everything doesn't meant you don't have a choice about anything.
But if what you say is true, then you are embracing determinism (which you earlier rejected) because you can say the same thing about the universe if there is no God: The universe created you and the world around you and all the things in it, and each of those things has a path based on the conditions of the singularity just before the Big Bang. So are you really willing to say there is no such thing as free will, period, even for atheists?
No I can literally prove that everyone involved is better off.
You haven't proven anyone is better off or worse off in anyway because the studies you mention can show only that you get this or that result from people working together, not whether this or that result is desirable. That is determined beforehand by the moral code or value system you bring to the table before you even start your study, about which naturalism -- the belief that the physical universe is all there is, was or ever will be, as Carl Sagan liked to say -- has absolutely nothing to say.
If I'm wrong, tell me where I can find the Golden Rule in a naturalistic universe? Inside the law of gravity? The strong nuclear force? The universal constant? Cosmic background radiation levels? Can the Law of Conservation of Energy really tell me whether it's good or evil to stick out my foot and trip an elderly woman struggling down the aisle of the bus with several bags of groceries? In the absence of God, the entire universe is one big moral vacuum because these laws and constants plus matter and energy 'are all there is, was, or ever will be'.
Naturalism precludes the possibility that human life has any value at all because it reduces every human being to just another collection of atoms. It's just a headtrip, the very thing that atheists ridicule Christians for.
Most of the warmongers of the world died horribly.
While I can't give you a rundown of all the warmongers there have ever been, at least among the big names this appears to not be so. Hitler died quickly when he shot himself in his bunker. Stalin died in his bed -- shaking his fist at God, according to his daughter. Lenin died of a stroke. Ho Chi Minh died at home of heart failure at age 79. Mussolini was shot. Mao died of a series of heart attacks. Most, maybe even all, died either very quickly or by natural causes at a ripe old age -- like everyone else who lives that long.
But even if you were right, it still doesn't mean much because most people period die horribly: Cancer and other diseases where they waste away slowly in a lot of pain, or just rotting away helplessly in nursing homes. Very few people suddenly die in their sleep with little to no pain or fear.
All that suggests that there is not, as you seem to be suggesting, some sort of cosmic justice built into a naturalistic universe because there appears to be little if any correlation between the moral life people live and how they die. All of that is sorted out either in the afterlife or not at all.
And even then in terms of your view, what codes are you okay with and what are you not?
Is this a serious question? The Word of God.
Are you allowed to pick and choose or leave things open to interpretation.
Which things? Should I have a lemon wedge in my tea? I guess that's up to me. Should I burn down an orphanage with all the kids still inside? Not up to me.
Isn't that also relativism?
How?
So your same issues apply to you unless you take everything as written law.
This is a strange, vague statement. You'll have to give an example to make it clear. First, what do you mean by "everything"?
In which case okay but I would see you having many issues in your future with the law.
Who doesn't have issues with any law, never mind God's law? "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23
No, you are assuming that better can only be applied in moral terms but let's use animals as you say. Even they have a preferred or better state.
Says who? How do you know what the better or preferred state for an animal is? Doesn't that depend entirely on who is doing the preferring and what they think is better? Once again, everyone just doesn't agree. There are people who enjoy pain, their own and the pain of others; there are probably animals who have that psychiatric malady too. You're confusing like and dislike with better vs worse so once again you're smuggling in a value judgment ahead of time and trying to pretend you're arriving at it afterward through science.
In a naturalistic universe, like us, the animals are just in whatever state they're in, whether it's alive or dead, in pain or not, for no reason at all. Your value system will determine whether whether that state is "better" or not. But naturalism gives us no reason to think animal or human life has any intrinsic value and therefore the very concept of better vs worse, good vs evil, right vs wrong just evaporates. It's meaningless. If you insist on having some kind of value system anyway, you're forced to just make one up out of thin air. Now that seems to be just fine by you, but you won't be able to tell someone whose value system is radically different from yours that they are wrong because you deny that there is a transcendent moral code by which to judge the two systems. Which one is 'better' will once again be determined the only way it can be determined in a Godless universe -- by the sword, not by its merits.
I don't think you see how much you are coasting on the fumes of the Judeo-Christian tradition you reject. You admit that life has no intrinsic value, yet you claim that it somehow still does anyway. You are trying to keep the sun's rays while rejecting the sun. You are what some would call a "soft atheist", one who won't follow the consequences of his ideas all the way home. Hard atheists like Frederich Nietszche, Albert Camus or Peter Singer would agree with me that if there is no God, life is absurd, human life has no inherent value, or at least not that can be found within the universe which remains silent and totally indifferent to us. They would say you just have to face it and live with it somehow.
You're clearly not quite willing to do that, which I think is a sign that you are rebelling against atheism deep down. Repent even now, and believe. Seriously...
A couple other items...
* You said:
Those moments of awe are only destroyed if your perception of them is.
But if there is no God, isn't that exactly what happens at death?
Again, you can say when things die it makes it irrelevant but again why? They existed and happened.
So what? Who is around at the end to remember or care? No-one.
Consider -- you enroll in a college and on arrival you are told at orientation day for your freshman year that no matter how well you perform in class, how good your grades are or how well you behave, everyone gets an F in every course, and everyone will be expelled and no-one will be allowed to return to try again. Not only that, but they have a special device they will use on you on graduation day that will erase all your memories of the place, all your experiences there, good and bad. Permanently.
Is that a school you would enroll in? Why not? Didn't all those good grades and experiences really exist and really happen anyway?
That's exactly the school you're trying to sign me up for -- except the stakes are infinitely higher than a diploma and a few fond memories.
* I agree that there are people in the church pews who, as the old preacher's saying goes, "are so heavenly bound that they're no earthly good". They are wrong to be that way but they didn't learn it from the Bible because that's not what it teaches. It was not atheists (or even pagans) who invented hospitals, orphanages and universities but, yes, believe it or not, it was Christians.
This is because the whole idea that every human life is priceless and therefore of equal value, no matter what station in life or what their physical or mental ability or attractiveness, etc, comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition -- and nowhere else. Prior to and outside of Judeo-Christianity, human life was considered as cheap as animal life if you weren't in the in-crowd, the nobility. And even then you couldn't always be sure you were safe.
Besides, every study I've ever seen shows that religious people are far more generous on the whole with their time and money than non-religious people so I don't know where you got that.
Also, consider the following:
Andrew Sims is a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (in England). In his book, Is Faith Delusional?, he covers the American Journal of Public Health's major meta-analysis of epidemiological studies on the psychological effects of religious belief:
In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less deliquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction.
He concludes with a bit of a shot at modern (overwhelmingly secular) journalism and large segments of the medical, especially psychiatric community:
The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.
So to paint us all with that brush of not caring about other people is unfair. We are indeed instructed by God and by any serious pastor to care about people and to try to make things in this life better. We're just not to indulge ourselves in the illusion that this life is everything or that heaven can be created on earth by the hand of man. History shows very clearly that we can't.
Our families and friends are around if we die. But going even further, even if the whole plant blew up it mattered while you were around. So why is that not still true? Unless you are saying things only matter if god is keeping score? Which again, leads back to nihilism.
Your school example is not quite right. Because you are assuming I wouldn't like this class at all. I would 100% do it if it was something I very much so wanted. People audit classes all the time for fun, hell some even pay for it when the grades don't matter because they enjoy it. So you are telling me that if a cancer patient did this and they happened to die right as they finished the class then all those things would mean nothing to them if they truly loved it? That is absurd. The other difference is we can willingly choose your option. In life we do not have a choice. But even then, why not have those experiences? Why not do all those things, even if they do get erased? What is the harm in that? Moreover, wouldn't that mean that no one would want to leave gods side? If heaven or the afterlife is best then why on earth would anyone want to be alive at all? Do you see how it just keeps coming back to nihilism?
Okay so you claim that your version or interpretation of the bible is correct but who is to say that is true? Do you claim to know gods infinite wisdom? Why should we take your word over the written word of god? Isn't that blasphemy? You have to take the literal word or else you are left with interpretation and at that point you are just cherry picking what you like vs what you don't. And you cannot know better than god by definition. Second that is just not true. Christians did not build medicine. Sure in the modern era people of the christian faith have literally built the buildings but healthcare as been around far longer than Christianity. Far longer than Judaism even. And the same goes for education. I mean we have evidence that accounting was being done in the oldest civilizations we know about which far predate the torah or the bible. And the literal opposite of that effect happened. There was a whole reformation in the church about it because peasants were not allowed to read? What on earth are you even talking about?
That is just a flat out lie that the bible promotes egalitarianism. It's just a flat out lie. In your own book it says women are beneath men. Like right of the bat you are just objectively wrong. I am not even putting opinion in. You are just objectively wrong. That and anyone who is not a believer is less than as well. Like the bible flat out condones slavery. What on earth are you talking about? Like did you forget about the holy roman empire? The inquisitions, the crusades? Christians have been just as barbaric as any other faith. To deny this is to deny reality itself and at that point there is no point talking further because you are flat out denying truth.
I never said you don't care about others. I said that it's still harmful. Those parents who murdered their child probably loved their child. But they still did it anyway in the name of faith. those parents who exile their sons or daughters for being lgbtq+ more than likely in some sick way still care about their kids but they are doing the right thing in the eyes of god. Just because you care about people doesn't mean you are doing the right thing. The Taliban killing infidels is good because Ala said so. So what makes them wrong and you right? And I even pointed out that religion can have good effects, but for me I would have to look at the study because most of the time it's not the faith that does this, as I said it's the community of people. Because when you all believe and say the same things everyone gets along and is happy to be there to help you. So yes it happens but it's not a lie of the overwhelming peer reviewed research of the damage that religion causes. Again, this is just true today as well as historically.
Also, not all of you have to be bad, even good people do bad things. Again, it's the religion that is the ideology that causes the wrong actions. So no I am not blanket painting everyone as rotten. I am saying that having a fervently held ideology can cause people to do horrific and horrible things. Again, religion is the root cause of the problem.
And the research that I am talking about is from a book entitled the Cambridge companion to atheism.
Here is the link to the book.
amazon.com/Cambridge-Compan...
Our families and friends are around if we die.
They die too. And sooner or later the whole human race is gone. Not with a bang but a whimper...
But going even further, even if the whole plant blew up it mattered while you were around.
Not anymore.
So why is that not still true? Unless you are saying things only matter if god is keeping score?
Yes. Otherwise it's just make-believe, again the same thing that religious people are constantly ripped for. God is the only one who can save you and give you eternal life or, in the alternative he can say to you with a tear in his eye, fine, your will be done, and you can go where everyone goes who wants to be their own God. Hell is a terrible place, but the only place the denizens there would consider worse from their point of view is Heaven.
Which again, leads back to nihilism.
Which is why I say atheism is just disguised nihilism.
On slavery, give me a verse that says the Bible condones it. What is translated as "slavery" in the bible is actually indentured servitude, not chattel slavery.
The Inquisitions -- over the centuries that it existed, only 2,000 people were put to death. Not the greatest thing since sliced bread and certainly nothing Jesus would be pleased with. But you fail to notice the context: they were boy scouts compared to the government courts and prisons around them!!! The difference in treatment was so great that very often people in government prisons would pretend to commit acts of blashemy just so they would be transferred to the Inquisition prisons!
The Crusades -- again much was done there that Jesus vehemently opposed and opposes, like Vlad the Impaler and all that. But again context: the dirty little secret that no-one dares bring up in the current sociopolitical environment is that the Muslims started it by invading Europe. The Crusades were a response to that, a defense against it.
We agree that just because you care about people doesn't mean you're doing the right thing. We agree that good intentions alone aren't enough; results matter. We don't agree that there is even a way to know good intentions and results from bad in the absence of God.
You can point to all kinds of people who have done terrible things in the name of God. I don't defend them and I very seriously question the salvation of each and every one of them. But I do say it's wildly unfair for you to take the proctologist's view of Christianity and focus on these examples as if they are the norm.
So far I haven't brought up Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Caucescu, Castro or any of the other Communist, Marxist, fascist and other secular dictators and their minions past and present who believed with all their hearts that there was no God watching what they were doing -- and who killed more people in one century than all the religious wars in human history combined (including millions who refused to give in to their torturers and say "I shalt have no other gods before The Revolution"), because I didn't think it was fair to lump you or the average atheist in with them.
But...if you insist on putting Vlad the Impaler on my back, then you have to carry each and every one of those super-mass-murderers.
What makes the Taliban wrong and me right? If there is no God, neither of us is wrong or right. Neither is anyone else. That's the nihilism you keep mentioning.
If your question is really just how do I know the God of the Bible and not Allah of the Koran is the "right" God, that's a discussion for another time because it would take up even more time and space than this one. But one I'm more than willing to have.
Christians did not build medicine.
I didn't say they did. I said they invented hospitals (and orphanages, libraries and universities). Prior to that there were only doctors for the very well-to-do who came to their homes, and maybe the occasional clinic for them. That is a matter of historical record. Sam DeStefano answers this and one of your other claims in this quote:
And what of the argument that Christianity is so concerned with getting people to heaven that it neglects to care for them in the here and now? . . . Before Christianity, there was virtually no institutional interest in helping the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, the disabled, the elderly, or the dying; but because of Christian teaching on the dignity of the human person, this societal callousness came to a screeching halt.
In the year 369, St. Basil of Caesarea founded a 300-bed hopsital -- the first large scale hospital for the sick and disabled in the world. Christian hospitals and hospices started springing up all over the European continent. These were civilization's first voluntary charitable institutions, and they were built and paid for by the church.
***
And I even pointed out that religion can have good effects, but for me I would have to look at the study because most of the time it's not the faith that does this...
How do you know that?
...as I said it's the community of people. Because when you all believe and say the same things everyone gets along and is happy to be there to help you.
DeStefano shows above that 'when you believe and say the same (Christian) things', you're willing to help anyone -- not just fellow Christians. Christianity had been legalized and emerged from the catacombs only 44 years earlier by Constantine. This means most of the people St. Basil's hospital was serving were not Christians because they were still a fairly small minority, though to be fair, by now big enough to influence a Roman emperor bring their persecution to an end. So the good deeds are not just for the in-group. Your generalization is once again unfair.
So yes it happens but it's not a lie of the overwhelming peer reviewed research of the damage that religion causes.
What overwhelming peer-reviewed research? Your link is to a book that has zero studies or research, just a bunch of essays by people who don't like religion. Sims offers a study of hundreds of studies. Yes, peer-reviewed.
You seem to also be saying that if religious people do anything good, it has nothing to do with what they believe; but if they do anything bad, it has everything to do with what they believe. You can't have it both ways.
Okay when i talk about nihilism it revolves around Christianity. Because the way you put it nothing matters outside of god. So the here and now doesn't matter to you either. It's only god's love that matters. So as long as you are doing the right thing in god's eyes nothing else matters. So then this life means nothing because it's the next life that is worth it. You even brought up heaven and hell yourself. So yes that is nihilism. I do thing the here and now matters.I do think that what is here is important because it's only here for a limited time. That is why it matters even more. Like if only god watching us matters then your family doesn't even really matter. Only that god thinks it's good matters. Your feelings don't matter. your wants don't matter. Your thoughts don't matter only god's will matters. That is the purest rejection of the world we live in, in favor of heaven. That is nihilism.
Hell doesn't scare me. Neither does the devil demons or whatever because they don't exist to me. None of it is real so I am not bothered by the thought.
And yes the word servant is substituted for slave but it's still slavery.
1 peter 2:18-20, in numbers 31 somewhere Moses encourages the enslavement of women. In Deuteronomy 21 there is reference to taking a women as a wife if she is a war captive. No mention of her having to say yes just that she is to be your wife now. There is a lot of messed up stuff here including advocating stoning your kid to death for being a drunk. Leviticus 25:39-46 are rules for slaves (indentured servitude. but also the buying of foreigners as property with no time limit.) There is of curse the entire covenant code, however, while it does preach indentured servitude there are vastly different rules for men and women. And it mentions that kids born in slavery are just slaves.
As to "laying things on your feet" I was not. I was pointing out that you claimed that the bible promoted equality and egalitarianism. And no it does not. And it has not really been practiced much throughout history either. Hitler was a Christian just an FYI and as for the rest they were atheist yes but atheism is not a religion and so you can't really kill anyone in the name of it. And aside from that you say that they killed more people, in terms of wars yes. But throughout history? Absolutely not. More people by far have been killed in the name of religion. If you account for the fact that most of the governments you speak of, at least back then were religious in nature then they did things in the name of that religion as law. This is apparent in the middle east now. The same rules apply to Christianity. I lay nothing at your feet you didn't kill anyone, I hope. I can still say though that the religion itself caused the issues to happen.
Again, you assume you cannot have morality without god. Why? Just because god didn't say so doesn't mean I can't point to true facts about the world and show how these things work. You keep saying you need to appeal to god but have still not provided me an answer as to why aside form everything is relative which it's not. If I can prove that working together is better in every single way shape and form and we can show this is just universally true regardless of what you like then I don't need to accept the idea that relativism is true. I can say no there are just truths about the nature of the world that exist. I don't need a god to condone them. And even then your view is still relative to what you want as well. Do you believe indentured servitude should be legal? Or the selling of your daughter into slavery for money should be applied? Do you think it's okay to force your daughter to marry someone she doesn't want to? If you don't then you have cherry picked your idea of what is right and wrong according to what you want because those bible verses above condone all of what I just mentioned. And you yourself even admitted to indentured servitude.
They didn't though. All those things were invented long before Christians existed. Like hospitals where a thing before Christians. Ancient Greece, Persia, Egypt all had what could be considered hospitals, places where the sick could go to get diagnosed and treated. So were libraries and learning. All of those things predate Christianity. And as for the help they provided that is very much so in question. Mother Teresa is a good example of this. She set up many places to help the sick and dying but they didn't have proper medical training and in most instances made things worse for the people they tried to help. On top of that mental health is not a route you want to take in terms of trying to prove religion is good. Many have died or been horrifically abused at the hands of the religious trying to quell the demons inside of them. More than half of us on this site would have been lobotomized or or worse a few hundred years ago.
The book I linked to is a collection of essays yes, however, if you look those essays quote and cite literally hundreds of different facts and statistics. A few references made pertaining to the information requested are the human development report from 2004 by the United nations. The CIA world factbook concerning infant mortality rates in 2004. The United nations, report on the world social situation 2003. Homicide rates from Fox and Levin, the will to kill. The 2003 world health organization report on suicide, and Inglehart and Norris human beliefs and values 2004. Go figure an academic text would have loads of references. And that is just literally over 2 pages. But yeah, it's not a good source at all.
I looked up the book you quoted. And the review on the website that literally publishes it cambridge.org even states "I also take issue with the distracting sub-theme ‘why religion is good for your health’. It was not too good for the first Christian or for many of those martyred after him. Nor is the claim for the health benefits of religion particularly robust. 1(this is a citation but it obviously did not link) After adjustment for factors such as social support, such benefits are small (which is what I eluded to). Sims is right to assert that religion is not harmful to your mental and physical health, but to suggest it is good for you is a shakier claim, at least in terms of evidence. Faith does not take you out of the world any more than it makes you comfortable or safe. As Terry Eagleton puts it, to treat God as a ‘super-sized version of ourselves that we might then manipulate to our own ends turns faith into idolatry’. 2 Jesus was so completely good in terms of love and justice that he threatened the power of organised religion. Religious men could not bear to do other than kill him and he explicitly warned that others who followed his path might meet similar fates. To quote Eagleton again, ‘The message of the New Testament is that if you don't live you are dead, and if you do, they will kill you’. 2 But the hope it gives is that goodness and love have already prevailed and that love and meaning are sometimes to be found in the deepest suffering."
So yes there are some things that could be helpful but to promote that religion is helpful or good for you is a very shaky claim.
And finally no, if someone does something good out of pure religious sake sure that is good. Just like it's bad when it's bad. Just like a white supremacist can do good things. Hitler liked dogs and actually helped "his" people. That doesn't mean his ideas where not ridiculous and harmful. Just like for the religious they can do good things. It's possible. But that doesn't meant their views can't be bad or promote horrible things, like the killing of people for being drunk, the disowning and condemning of gay people, the literal subjugation of women. All of that is still grotesque and part of the ideology. You seem to think me saying the ideology is a problem means I am saying the people are bad. No it's the other way around it's the ideology that corrupts the people.
You really need to study the verses more carefully along with the rest of the bible as it usually continues to explain situations and what happened further on. The bible is like a huge puzzle and you need to study to put ALL the pieces together, not just take pieces here and there and think it’s the only thing that happened.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” 2 Timothy 2:15
Details of Leviticus 23. answersingenesis.org/kids/b...
Unfortunately some people force the modern language and other things in the text then claim that’s what it means. But if you actually read it without bias you will see the truth. But some do not want to and will find excuses by making it sound like something else. It’s a heart issue in the end because they don’t like what the bible says about themselves. Denial is sometimes difficult to overcome. I’ve been there.
It’s interesting how some people get mad about certain people dying for certain sins. That’s because it is evil and against life. This is the point where people claim to be God telling us what’s right and wrong. According to them murder and stealing isn’t ok but the other claims you provided is for some reason. Have you seen how crazy our society has become now since more things are “acceptable” now?
I have looked at the bible and found it severely wanting. The thing is most of the old testament are written laws and not open to interpretation. Even Jesus himself said in the sermon on the mount that he was not here to rewrite his fathers laws. Which means those old laws still apply. You cannot claim that something which is written as a direct law from god is up for interpretation or change. This means you know better than god.
No one is making excuses they are looking at the word as written. People have been studying that book for literally hundreds of years in the translations and the original text. We are all aware of this. The problem is you don't like the conclusions we have come to and thus attack the person instead of their arguments. All you have done in your second point is say everyone is in denial but that is just not true. People have had valid issue with the bible for thousands of years. People have offered valid counter points to the bible, I myself offered a few above. Such as the problem of evil. And the innate contradiction between being all knowing and having free will. But instead of looking at those counterpoints you have instead claimed that I am just in denial of the truth which again isn't talking about the concerns I have brought up but attacking me saying that if I just tried harder I would come to the truth naturally. I can assure you that the majority of atheists have come to the conclusion that the bible is nonsense because they read it.
This last point is truly just horrifying. You are justifying murder and death in the name of god which is actually horrific and my point exactly that ideology corrupts man. I could be reading you wrong but your direct quote is "It’s interesting how some people get mad about certain people dying for certain sins. That’s because it is evil and against life. This is the point where people claim to be God telling us what’s right and wrong. According to them murder and stealing isn’t ok but the other claims you provided is for some reason." How am I supposed to interpret people "dying" for their sins. No one died from being gay. And this is why religion is innately harmful because it leads us to say if a sinner dies or is killed or is murdered it's fine because they were evil and against god. Again, you call atheists the vile ones but I have yet to find half as many atheists calling for the outright death of people for being different.
And finally you are seriously misguided on society being worse now. People live longer, have more freedoms, have access to much better resources, and are generally safer than they ever have been at any point in human history. No more than 300 years ago life expectancy was literally 30-40 years. We have doubled that today. We have better mental health care, better medical care. Like what are you talking about things have gotten crazier? And again, if you fully read above I have linked to an academic book that shows that societies that tend to be more atheist in their views are the most egalitarian, free, and healthy. They have lower crime rates and lower mortality rates overall compared to all other countries. So even your premise that being a "sinner" somehow make life worse is actually objectively wrong.
What I’d like know is why killing is wrong? Is it according to you or Hitler? Or maybe Darwin with his Preservation of FAVOURED RACES in the STRUGGLE for Life? You’re the one claiming drugs and alcohol is a good thing and people ruining their lives and others is much better? I see this countless of times. But at least they’re alive according to you. It always seems as though atheists only have an issue with death of a sinner that won’t repent and doesn’t care to. I’m not saying this should happen but you never look at BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE and yes God can do so to show HOW SERIOUS SIN IS!
And no your free will argument was terrible compared to the answers of Zhangliqun. I don’t understand how you don’t see that, it’s very clear and logic.
Also regarding the life expectancy, that data is very skewed because there were times were the expectancy was lower due to certain conditions and peoples lifestyle. Just because we live older today doesn’t mean it’s better. People are struggling severely with illness and “meds” that are keeping them alive but not much of a life. Even Hippocrates lives very old and many more of his day. I already looked it up. There’s too many factors and data to include.
Killing is wrong because on a level we all value our own life. If we expect to be in a social contract with someone we also have to expect that they value their life as we value our own. On a base conception, essentially meaning we don't want to die. Also, we can say that through biology we have a base level of altruism that exists in us. That would be called empathy. There are other things but I already know your counter and that you won't accept anything that I provide.
Also, you don't understand Darwinian evolution. It doesn't say preferred races exist, that is the most abundantly wrong thing. All Darwin pointed out was that if you are adapted to surviving where you live, like say a polar bear in the arctic, you would survive. If you are not adapted to it probability was high that you would not survive. Like a penguin in the dessert. That is all. there is no preferred anything. It's about being able to exist in your environment successfully.
No I am no claiming they are all on drugs. that is also a false statement. If you look at pew research you will find the vast amount of atheists are happy with their lives and tend to get more satisfaction in their life. It's not just that they are all high. And on top of that many people of faith use drugs to, in particular recreational weed. So it's not just the horrible atheists who are doing it either. And to the point that atheists don't care about others that is just wildly false. I have already showed this with the data on societies being more egalitarian and free. and above with the mention of pew research. It is just wildly false that atheists don't care.
And his counters were not against my argument for free will. His counters were against a false perception that I was blaming god for knowing something. Which is not what my point was at all. So my issue was never actually addressed. Look the free will argument is simple god either made a plan for you or he didn't. If he didn't he is not all knowing. If he did then you cannot stray from path set forth by god. There is no way out of those points. There just isn't. If you can find a way I'd be happy to hear it but until then the point stands.
Okay so let's go in with slavery, barbaric laws in regards to cutting off peoples hands or having witch trials. The countless wars where innocents were slaughtered. The subjugation of other countries and the taking and selling of women. as property. The needless suffering of peasants under monarchs. You get the point. Yes people suffer now. No one is denying this but to claim it has gotten worse and not better is just factually wrong. Yes we have issues. Yes we have problems but overall people live better now then they did 500 or so years ago. Even taking away all that I mentioned above.
You keep lying about slavery. You’re clueless, it WAS AN AGREEMENT and like employment or debt payment.
You are also changing what Darwin CLEARLY stated. Go tell that to a lion not to kill because it’s wrong. Same for your supposed ancestor apes. You’re making up an excuse and invention of “biological” reasoning. Sorry all other animals don’t follow what you stated hence why Darwin stated the same and Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Mao, Lenin putting the theories in practice.
I’m sure you also have proof that code can code itself and assemble itself by random chance. Never been observed nor is it even logical that complex coherent information can randomly come together. It’s like believing a space shuttle can design itself and assemble itself and work!
Wasn't refereeing to the bible you just said prove that the past was worse and I did slavery is a thing. And it was not always an agreed upon contract. Parents would sell their kids. Dads often sold their daughters. And the lines are still blurred as there is not time limit given for foreign slaves. It just says you can have them. So again not lying just point out the things that I can see. You may not like it but that is just true. And above I gave bible verses to back that up. So I don't know what you want from me. I am literally quoting your own book.
No I am not. It is literal fact that Darwinian evolution works that way. You will not find a single line in anything he wrote about evolution stating there are superior races which is why certain animals thrive. Literally it does not exist. All he said was different animals are adapted to different environments. You are just wrong on this. Your understanding of what Mao, and Stalin did is also wrong. They were slaughtering people in the name of their own brand of communism not race. Hitler, who was a Christian was the only one slaughtering based on race. And Marx literally never killed anyone and actually advocated for an egalitarian society where race wouldn't matter. It's literally written word for word like that in the manifesto itself.
Animals live on a base level to survive. So they kill. If they developed high conscience they would come to the same conclusions as I have. Name me one animal that runs around and kills when it is full, has a home and is not being threatened, or perceiving itself to be in danger. Only humans do that. And animals do have altruism in them as well. Which is why packs exist and why monkeys and apes have societies and territories. There are things that exist that show minor empathy in those animals and show their behavior comes from knowing the all time truth that working together is better than working alone.
I find it funny that you will say believe in a god that cannot be proven but then when probability says something can happen the odds are just really low you claim it's impossible. If things are in motion stuff will happen inevitably. The earth and all this took literally billions of years to happen. Like none of this happened overnight. It took exceptionally long periods of time to occur and even when things did occur it also took time for things to happen with that. Take the building blocks of life. It wasn't like we just had proteins exist and then suddenly a tiger appeared. It took billions of years for that protein to form a single cell and so on.
Whatever, you’re clearly lying and twist what Darwin clearly stated, then you twist the bible. Typical. You relate secular slavery to biblical slavery and use that ridiculous proof. That’s the point. You have to lie to fit your story. Go read the verses and chapters again instead of lying. Go research also if you need the help to understand how the lifestyle was in those days and STOP USING CHANGED MODERN TERMS FOR OLD TERMS. Today if I said you were gay you’d either get upset, or wouldn’t be bothered yet you wouldn’t know I’d be calling you happy since that was the ORIGINAL meaning. But there’s always someone like you that comes along changes the meaning then uses it against people…
Long periods of time is the ridiculous excuse. No an entire series of books multiple volumes all coordinated to make sense will never remotely come together by luck even billions of years. You can actually simulate this very fast on a computer. The letters of the alphabet and do a program that would randomly choose a letter and see what the output would be over billions of times, you’d be lucky to even get a few words that actually made sense let alone multiple encyclopedias. That’s the problem with you people, you actually give science and the laws of nature a bad name.I’m a programmer and have played many times with randomness and it’s insane.
So many wrongs with what you say I just don’t want to go through it all. Atheists are not more fulfilled in life. I see so much narcissistic atheists it’s insane, very materialistic etc. Yet the last 100 years suicide rates are at the worst of all time.
That is anecdotal evidence and I could say the same thing about any other religious group. You can disagree with it all you want it's what the data we have shows. You can claim i am wrong but again, look at pew research. Look at the UN reports on healthy societies. This isn't just me saying random things it's real data we have and can prove. And yes there are narcissistic atheists just like there are narcissistic Christians. What is your point? That narcissists exist. Again, we have data that shows otherwise. Yes atheists are materialistic but so are Christians and other religions. Again, all of this is anecdotal evidence which proves nothing. Yes suicide rates are higher but this could be for a variety of reasons. For example. Japan has a different standard of living and work then we do. Also, suicide is looked at differently by atheists and religious. You view it as a sin against god and so that might prevent you from doing it where atheists don't see that. They only see their own pain. Again, a lot goes into it. And yes mental illness is a thing. However, we cannot say just because suicide rates have gone up that that somehow invalidates all the data we have on the atheists who are living a good life. That would be like me saying that all the Christians who left Christianity for other religions are representative of all Christians. So yes mental health is an issue, but that doesn't discredit any of the other points I have made.
Hey guys, can you please not hijack the post? I’m just trying to believe that I can mentally cope, whether God exists or not. This is not the place to debate who’s right or wrong.
That is fair. I apologize and won't respond further. I hope you are able to figure things out for yourself. Take care. Take things one day at a time. And feel your emotions as they come. Process them and work from there.
Hi, it is normal to have doubts- if everything was proven, there would be no need for faith. Faith is belief in the absence of proof. You need to listen to your own heart and soul. For thousands of years, there have been those who want to shake people’s belief in God. You have to ask yourself why that is. During most of that time, there was not a huge gap between religion/faith and the scientific community. But that has changed in the last 50 -100 years- the field of science has become largely secular in its beliefs and somewhat anti-religion, and (I believe), that bias is reflected in certain studies and publications. Some see the knowledge we have gained about the universe as fueling the argument as a world initiated and propagated without God, whereas I see more of the vastness of the world designed by our Creator. The most important thing to most people in the world is love- and to me, love is the essence of God. A good (and enjoyable) book to read is ‘Hinds Feet in High Places’ - an allegory about faith. ❤️
Very well said. God bless!
God Bless you too! 😊
No one can prove anything one way or the other. Go with what is right for you. Love & peace ✌💙
There are people. Have you ever felt the energy in the room change when someone walks in or someone is suddenly happy or angry? Are you able to resist smiling if someone is right in front of you smiling? Have you ever felt like something happened to someone close even though they aren’t near and found out something did happen? Are you aware a crowd can be more powerful than the sum of its parts? Did you know that in the game where you guess the number of marbles in a jar the average of a group of individual guesses is actually close to the actual number? Every time. We are connected. You are not alone. We are bags of water and energy. How it works? 🤷🏼♀️ It is measurable though.
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