The Anti-theist Thread

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Cemetaries and funerals are a way to make us feel better about death - and heaven is an extension of that concept.

Well said, Jersey Devil!

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Starr Polish
It's funny that everyone seems to think that people become Christians because it's the easy way of life, and it's acceptable. I can tell you, that especially in my school, some people do not find it acceptable that you believe in God. My friends and I have been cussed out simply because the person knew that we were Christian. Our biology teacher repeatedly attacks my friends on their religious beliefs.

I think the worst thing that goes on is there are people at my school that claim that they are 'as unprejudiced as they can get' and are 'all for people doing their own thing', but then come out and insult us and mock our beliefs.

Kind of like this girl that claimed she is the most tolerant person in our school, right after saying she's an atheist because all Christians are stupid and brainwashed.

People get cussed out for being white, black, jewish, muslim, atheist, gay or fat. Bigots exists. If your Biology teacher "attacks" you, you should report it. If you are arguing with him during an evolution class he may just not appreciate the interuption of his job. Atheists, being in the minority, are much more likely to be subject to intolerance and ill-judgement. My neighbors yelled at me to go to church when I put out a jack-o-lantern. My son had people handing him christian liturature instead of candy.

People of great zeal, who are instructed at their places of worship to "spread the word", spend a good deal of time trying to save us from ourselves. This can be a bit annoying. The approach is as though they are telling us something we never heard. There are churches everywhere where I live. I've been to church hundreds of times. I've read the bible. Sorry, but for me, it doesn't work. The are no houses of atheists/agnostics gathering weekly to hear the word. There are not dozens of television broadcasts trying to convert people to become atheists.

* A commercial for the Methodist Church just came on telling me they are always there, waiting for me*

I am, personally, an agnostic, only because I can't beleive that I have the ability to see everything in the universe (or outside) and don't have every single fact o rule it out. But so far I have no proof that there is a god or gods. If man is god's best work... .... the horror ...the horror.

My biggest conplaint in this thread is the dishonest, semantic, and "eyes wide shut" promotion of creationism. As an american i respect everyone's religeous rights, which don't include twisting the facts resulting from the honest, scientifc research of many, many, dedicated people (most of them theists) to promote what amounts to an anti-theory, or propaganda. Religious thought has no role in science. Science has no role in religion.

Mutual toleration and understanding would be nice.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Cirdan
If man is god's best work... .... the horror ...the horror.

Hehehe... Just about fell off my chair with laughter!

*Applauds* regarding the other "eyes wide shut" points.

[jerseydevil]

I agree - more religious people try to force their beliefs on others.

I had friends that came out to visit - they were upset that everything was open on Sundays (including liquor stores). We were in Philadelphia when they made that statement. I thought that was sort of ironic. Here we were looking at the historic sites where the concept of seperation of Church and State was born and they are saying that because THEY believe that Sunday is a day of rest - that all people should abide by that concept.

When I lived in Indiana - I lived 3 blocks form a Baptist Church - they blared their music out their clock tower (electriconic religious music) so I was able to hear it all the way in my back yard. If I played my music that loud the cops would have been there in a second for breaking the noise ordinance that Seymour has.

My friend got involved with the Pentecostal religion. She invited me over to my house for dinner (something I had done a million times before she was "saved") - I found out after I got there that it was a Bible Study with other members of her church. I felt like I was in a group of friends smoking pot - having to say no thank you when they passed the bible around and asked if I would like to read from it. I was put in a very uncomfortable position that I did not like.

This same friend invited me to an Easter play her church was putting on. I went - I have no problems going to religious functions. After it was done - several people had said they hoped I would consider joining. Her whole attitude afterward was that I should join - as if because I had gone to that it I would change my mind about my beliefs. I had been in many Easter pageants and Christmas Choruses growing up. Soon after she told me that my beliefs didn't fit in her life any more and that she basically didn't want to talk to me anymore. Her beliefs weren't a problem for me - but my lack of beliefs was a problem for her.

[mirrille]

Originally posted by Cirdan
My son had people handing him christian liturature instead of candy.

People of great zeal, who are instructed at their places of worship to "spread the word", spend a good deal of time trying to save us from ourselves. This can be a bit annoying. The approach is as though they are telling us something we never heard. There are churches everywhere where I live. I've been to church hundreds of times. I've read the bible. Sorry, but for me, it doesn't work.

You know, that thing about the candy is actually really funny. That's never happened to me. This is in D.C. or somewhere else?

I never really noticed that the approach seems to be to act as though we've never heard of God, but on reflection, I think you are right. Hah!
I have a story. My grandfather was visited by those people who knock on doors to see if they can convert you. You know the ones. They are all smiles and politeness, and then they pull out a pamplet and start talking really really fast so you can't cut them off or slam the door without being rude. Well, as soon as he figured what they were up to, he grabbed a random figurine by the door. It turned out to be something we call a "big bellied Buddha" - a jolly looking bald guy, about 9 inches tall, with a really big tummy. Supposed to represent prosperity or something. He held it up to them and said in heavily accented English, "Dis is my got! Bye-bye!" and sent them on their merry way. My aunt saw this and was trying very very hard not to laugh and give him away. The Buddha is just for decoration. Nobody actually worships it. It's just traditional.

[jerseydevil]

Oh - my friend Anita who I was talking about above - would go out to "recruit" people by going around the neighborhood. Instead of people from those religions worrying about saving people's souls by recruitment - why don't they just work at a soup kitchen or something and actually do some good.

Last year I went over to a friends house for his families Sedar Dinner for Passover. I was asked if I wanted to do any of the readings. I had no problem with that. I was there as a guest - Adam had asked me to be there - and I knew it was a very religious dinner. They weren't askign me if I wanted to read because they were trying to recruit me. I thought it was fun to learn more about the Jewish Religion - that had been the first time I had been to a Sedar. I had been to Chanukah celebrations many times before though.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by mirrille


You know, that thing about the candy is actually really funny. That's never happened to me. This is in D.C. or somewhere else?

I never really noticed that the approach seems to be to act as though we've never heard of God, but on reflection, I think you are right. Hah!
I have a story. My grandfather was visited by those people who knock on doors to see if they can convert you. You know the ones. They are all smiles and politeness, and then they pull out a pamplet and start talking really really fast so you can't cut them off or slam the door without being rude. Well, as soon as he figured what they were up to, he grabbed a random figurine by the door. It turned out to be something we call a "big bellied Buddha" - a jolly looking bald guy, about 9 inches tall, with a really big tummy. Supposed to represent prosperity or something. He held it up to them and said in heavily accented English, "Dis is my got! Bye-bye!" and sent them on their merry way. My aunt saw this and was trying very very hard not to laugh and give him away. The Buddha is just for decoration. Nobody actually worships it. It's just traditional.

Oh, I've been there... you know those 'Chick' pamphlets? The ones that promote bigotry, and eyes closed syndrome? Well, me and a friend from varsity were horsing around, pretending we hated each other, when this little old lady ambled up, and said: "Please dont' fight dears! Have a read of this" and gave us these god awful Chick pamplets! Ugh. And this place I used to work, had this customer who consistently left these pamphlets on the 'serveover' for us to read!!! Yech.

[Nibs]

I apologize, jerseydevil. Obviously that's a yes to my question .

I can't bear it any longer... I felt no animosity towards anyone before this thread. Unfortunately, that feeling has changed in a few of my recent posts.

If I've been offended, I realize that it's my own fault, for debating on a thread that is explicitly against my type. If I've offended you, forgive me. I will keep my comments to the proper thread henceforth.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Nibs

It seems to me like you say this from a purely nontheistic paradigm. I know that I spoke from my theistic one, but from personal experience. I speak from experience with both.

In the most sincere way, I ask you: can you honestly tell me that you do as well?

How did I say yes to your question? I was stating personal experiences that I had. I can respect others beliefs - but they have to respect mine too. I was tricked into going over her house - when she knew how I felt. It was a recruitment ceremony.

If you feel offended by anything that I said concerning how I felt at my friend's house - maybe you should get in a touch with her and tell her she should be more accepting of people. I also found it offensive when I was on the boardwalk in Seaside last summer - just walking a long - and this girl out of no where stopped me an my friends and started askng if we were saved. I don't go up to people stopping them and telling them all about evolution or why I feel god doesn't exist.

I came to this thread to state why I don't believe and discuss scientific discovery. You may notice that NOT once did I post anything on the Theism thread knocking or even commenting on your beliefs. Nor did I go there to state my own. I have no posts on the Theism thread - because I feel that is a place for you guys to discuss YOUR beliefs.

[mirrille]

Originally posted by Nibs
If I've been offended, I realize that it's my own fault, for debating on a thread that is explicitly against my type. If I've offended you, forgive me. I will keep my comments to the proper thread henceforth.

Wow, Nibs. That's so mature and gracious of you to admit that. I'm surprised, but in a good way, not that you will be seeing this message unless you look here.

[Nibs]

Hey, whoah, whoah... only that first sentence was directed at you, my friend. I never mentioned that I was offended with what you said, either. It was without any particular direction.

Originally posted by jerseydevil
I have no posts on the Theism thread - because I feel that is a place for you guys to discuss YOUR beliefs.

Yes, I became aware of that as of late, though I rationalized posting here because afro-elf and others had done so there...

I'm sorry, again, but I don't like the idea of making this a "stay on your side of the fence" affair while some on each side yell at the other side.

[jerseydevil]

I can't bear it any longer... I felt no animosity towards anyone before this thread. Unfortunately, that feeling has changed in a few of my recent posts.

I did feel that this was being directed at me - and if it wasn't then I'm sorry. But also - the only time you should feel animosity toward others is if they blindly critisize you for your faith. I was not critisizing you for your faith, nor have I really seen anyone on this thread critisize any religious people.

If I've been offended, I realize that it's my own fault, for debating on a thread that is explicitly against my type. If I've offended you, forgive me. I will keep my comments to the proper thread henceforth.

I don't mind religious people being on this thread. I think a two way dialog is good. But you seemed to be the one backing out of the discussion for some reason. As I said I thought these two comments were dirtected at me - if they weren't then I am sorry. If they were then my examples still stand as to how I've been treated by many religious people that at one time were my friends. I can come up with many other examples too.

The one thing that really gets on my nerves is recruitment. I'm sorry. But to me - religions that do that seem more like cults to me.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
The one thing that really gets on my nerves is recruitment. I'm sorry. But to me - religions that do that seem more like cults to me.

Yes, that's my problem as well: between psuedo science, and recruitment: they're enough to make BeardofPants a very unhappy person!

I always thought, that religion should be a personal thing, between you, and God, not between everyone and his monkey. But then, that's me, and I'm sure it says in the bible somewhere that 'Thou shalt recruit, or GO TO HELL!!! BWAH HAH HAH HAHA'

[jerseydevil]

Well it does say to go forth and declare your religion and to share the word of god with others. At least that's what the New Testament has a lot of. But it doesn't mean going door to door either, or to interrupt people's conversations while they're walking on the boardwalk.

I also feel religion is a personal thing.

In NY - there are a lot of people on street corners handing out pamphlets on everything under the sun. You get very good of walking past them as if they don't even exist - even when they do thrust their arm in front of you trying to get you to take their pamplet.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
In NY - there are a lot of people on street corners handing out pamphlets on everything under the sun. You get very good of walking past them as if they don't even exist - even when they do thrust their arm in front of you trying to get you to take their pamplet.

In Auckland as well. It's like an obstacle course... avoid the pamphlets, dodge the singing christian... hide from the Jehovah's witness... put away all your purchases so you can pretend you have no money...

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by mirrille

You know, that thing about the candy is actually really funny. That's never happened to me. This is in D.C. or somewhere else?

Yes, in D.C., and it happened several times, beginning before my son could read. Halloween has been banned from schools in many areas. It's strange because it is based on a christian holiday. The dressing in a Buzz Lightyear cotume and asking for candy apparently will lead to eternal damnation. Like when Homer S. sold his soul for a donut. " Donuts, is there anything they can't do?"

To the theists:

I hope our sometimes heated discussion hasn't permenently offended anyone so as to ruin our dialog on Tolkien et al. If it helps there are lots of things I like about religion. The architecture (Notre Dame, Hagia Sophia, The dome of the Rock), Music (Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Creed... not John Denver, though), ethics, and moral conduct (The Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments). Did you notice me turning the other cheek on some of the more personal attacks in recent discussions?

[jerseydevil]

In DC????? I mean in Indiana they were against Halloween and banned it from schools (at least in Seymour and other towns). It's called the Fall Festival and kids can only dress up in "good" costumes and there can be no pictures of witches or anything. I mean again - I went to Catholic school and we didn't have those ridiculous rules. It's not something I would have thought would be happening in DC.

New Jersey doesn't have much of a backlash against things like that. As a matter of fact, while most states are trying to censor the internet in public libararies - NJ's Supreme Court ruled last year that public libraries can not put censorware on their computers because it infringes on free speech and is against the New Jersey Constitution.

[Cirdan]

JD,

Actually most of it occurs in rural counties and all of Virginia. It has been scaled way back in the suburbs of Maryland because a few zealots complain and it's not worth fighting about. The farther south and west you go from here, the less tolerance can be found. The groups that are against it usually view Catholicism a different religion.

[jerseydevil]

Yeah - they are more intolerant in the center of the country. It's funny - because NJ has every religion under the sun here - but everyone basically gets along. Out in Seymour - everyone is basically christian but they constantly critisize each others religions. I kept hearing how Catholics had 50,000 kids because they didn't believe in birth control (not true), that they were all drunks - because they have real wine with Communion.

When I lived in Oregon - again Religion was a nonissue - the same as it is here in NJ. No one cares what others believe really - as long as your not hurting anyone. My friend's parents though think it's wrong I'm atheist though - but they'll get over it. It's my life anyway - not their's.

I'm just glad now that I'm back in New Jersey that I don't have to conform my life around other's beliefs. I mean if people feel that Sunday is a day of rest - then don't do anything, but don't prevent others from having a life on Sunday.

[Andúril]

Originally posted by Wayfarer
That arguement only holds water if God is constrained by time. He's not.
I think CS Lewis put it best. God inhabits the Eternal Now. There is no past or future to God, and therefore the line of reasoning unravels.

This assumption can be made both ways: one either assumes God is constrained by time (or by a time) or he is not constrained by any time. If we accept that time is a dimension of a universe, then we should agree that if it were possible for more than one universe to exist, that the existence of more than one time dimension would be possible (assuming other possible universes have a characteristic of change).

Where am I going with this? The bible speaks of a place called Heaven. It goes on to describe shapes in this place, implying existence of the three spacial dimensions; it also describes events in this place, implying the existence of the fourth dimension of time. We must ask the following questions:

1) Is the place defined as Heaven a seperate universe to the one we find ourselves in?

If yes,

2) Where is God if he is not in Heaven or our universe?

If your answer is that there is nowhere else to possibly exist, then we can reasonable conclude that God acts within time, whether the time of our universe, or the time of heaven.

If the answer to 1) was no, then we can deduce that God exists inside our universe (because Heavn exists inside our universe), hence he is constrained by time. This has too may problems, though.

The bible seems to give Heaven a directional location very often (I have compiled a list of the verses where this is mentioned, although I can't remember whether I went through all the books or not...if someone wants to see it, I will post it here), but this favours a positive answer to 1) because it is incoherent for one universe to have six spatial dimensions (it is incoherent to me, perhaps someone can demonstrate a universe with more than three spatial dimensions...).

So, if one still wants to conclude that God is not constrained by time, one way to do so would be to show God as neccesarily and constantly inhabiting no universe. Another way would be to show that God has magical "time-travel" abilities. There might be other possibilites, but I have not thought of any yet (trust me, I am thinking for both sides of the argument).

Clearly, God is claimed to have inhabited our universe, so the first possibility fails. If the bible indicates God as having the ability to operate against the flow of time in our universe, then I would like to request the evidence of such indication.

Moving away from this, in the King James Version that I have, Genesis states (I don't have the good book with me at the moment): In the beginning, God created....I know that the Hebrew language leaves a lot to interpretation (and imagination), but give this a thought: In the beginning of what? Beginning is a concept of time. It does not say Before the beginning, but rather in, which could also be understood as at the beginning. Anyway, before is also a concept of time, so that would not matter.

It seems that the concept of God existing outside of time is compatible with God necessarily existing in some other universe. It follows that God would never be constrained to the time of our universe, as he is not part of it. However, since the bible claims that God has interacted with humans and he has shown himself through various manifestations, the belief that God does not exist in our universe (in order to be free of our time constraints) is contradictory.

This also poses a number of problems, one of which is how God was geographically present during the creation. If God was to exist outside of the time of our universe, that would mean that he would have to exist outside of the spatial dimensions as well. This seems reasonable to me because time is relative to space; it is the change from one state to another that denotes time (without change, there would be a frozen state, thus time "has stopped"). However, the bible shows in Genesis how God was present geographically during creation.

An interesting point - an omnipotent god must be able to create a universe while inside another (and any omnipotent god must not take six days, nor feel the need to rest, unless he has some unknown motive...).

God must have been present in some or other universe before he created our universe. My use of "before" is not from the perspective of our universe, but from God's perspective. If our universe did not exist, but God did exist, then he must have existed in another universe. I have made an assumption here, which is that God needs a universe to exist in - is it logical to think of something not existing in any universe, yet still existing?

My next point is one of equal importance, but is subject to interpretation: According to KJV, Genesis 1:1 says In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. while the Young Literal Translation takes the same verse as meaning In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth. The point I want to bring up here is that the "heaven" mentioned in the KJV, and the "heavens" mentioned in the YLT, are sometimes understood as being Heaven. In my opinion this is incorrect; heaven, when written with a lower case h, and heavens, refer to the sky, or the atmosphere. An example of this would be Jeremiah 31:37

Thus said Jehovah: If the heavens above be measured, And the foundations of earth below searched, Even I kick against all the seed of Israel, For all that they have done, An affirmation of Jehovah.

or perhaps Daniel 4:11

become great hath the tree, yea, strong, and its height doth reach to the heavens, and its vision to the end of the whole land;

The reason I bring this to your attention is so that it is clear that God did not create Heaven together with our universe, or as part thereof. I think it was Revelations that gave an account of the war in Heaven, which happened before creation (I could be wrong here...).

Therefore, I come to the conclusion which I find reasonable, that God existed in Heaven before creating our universe. It follows that God is constrained by time.

If there is another way for you to show that God is not constrained by time, such as an instance of time-travel, or anything else, I would appreciate the insight.

Even if you can show how God can and has acted against the flow of time, you would still need to show how he could possibly act against the flow of his own timeline (sequence of events from God's perspective). If God had this ability, then he would truly be time unconstrained...

I will in my next post show the implications of time constraints with referance to my argument against God's free will.