Atheism creates a moral vacuum which only a religion can fill.
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Ah, grasshoppers, you do well.
Pragmatic-I am embarrassed for you. in dismissing all my posts as "disagreeable" or "sarcastic or confusing, spamming, deceiving, trolling, boring, or agitating. Maybe your half a face also has half a brain. It may be true on accession I step over the line but rejecting all my perceptive, interesting, unique, intelligent and serious comments shows your lack of understanding and your prejudice towards me. I can't be all those things you accuse me of. I am quite intelligent, handsome, and funny. Maybe some of my posts you disagree with but to reject everything I "say" shows your boring tendencies and lack of sense of humor. I have to control myself to "say" what I really think in order not to get banned again. To be honest I don't care anymore as I am tired of all the bullshit I know I will get banned again (it is inevitable) but when I do I will never return and it will be Atheist Republics loss. ................
kenny - "I know I will get banned again (it is inevitable) but when I do I will never return"
Oh you'll be banned the instant the monkeys start throwing darts again, don't worry.
Both me and others have given you opportunities to redeem yourself, and each time you happily continue burning your bridges.
I don't even get what you're whining about, since the only one screwing things up for you, is you.
Not that I think you actually can stay out of the forum, considering the lack of self control you continuously display.
FredK can be a bit of an ass, but I suppose in my own opinion, that is what happens when you begin trying to create absolutes where there are none. Anyway, that is a totally different subject I could write about for days.
Anyway Valiya, it's nice to see so many of of us come back from such a long hiatus to unanimously dislike Fred,K and his cryptic and strange insults. Some times I ponder what he writes for a bit before I come to repeating conclusion that he's just an ass who can't quite articulate the ideas he truly wishes to express.
Anyway, I believe we left off debating whether or not a supreme plan can exist in conjunction with free will. You had given an analogy about how both can exist via an analogy about a parent played as yourself (presumably this represents the role of god) who offers a child a choice of chocolate or vegetables. Knowing a child will go for sweets over a vegetable, you already have a plan to give the vegetables to a neighbor. Thus we have a role where a god has offered up a choice, but knowingly had a plan incorporating the known outcome.
But here's the problem. The God role already knew. This seems insignificant, but it really drives home the philisophacle debate. If the god role already knew your decision, and ultimately the outcome incorporated all this not into the plan, but as the known plan, what sort of free will was exercised? If every action you will do is known and is a part of the plan, that seems very much like god had made you to fit the niche, and you had no say in the matter.
Much like a watchmaker must form each cog perfectly in the watch based on mathematical ratios so that the spring tension turns the peices exactly in accordance with the movements of the earth, sun, and moon. He cannot allow one piece to be imperfect, or the watch will move too fast or slow, and the watch will not display the correct time of the daily cycle. He cannot have one piece decide to be too large one day and have the watch slow down, too small and speed it up the next, and just right the third. Such a watch would most certainly be ineffective and referred to as a timepiece solely do to it's cosmetic appearances, as it would almost never display the correct time.
However, I'm slowly tiring of analogies. They certainly are very fun things, very visual, sometimes poetic. But the main idea here is the two philisophacle beliefs. One, being fate, fatalism, or the devine plan, in which we are all parts with a known behavior and role. The other, free will, in which every individual chooses his/her actions, which cannot be known, until the exact moment each individual chooses their action.
Hi Travis
So nice to catch up with you again.
I think the problem is we are attributing the limitations faced by the watchmaker (in the real world) onto the God.
Imagine, the cogs in the watch all had a will of their own. They want to do things their own way. But the watchmaker is extremely smart and knew in advance what each cog likes to do. Based on this, he creates a design for the watch, such that the cogs do what they want to do, but also fulfill the design perfectly well. The cogs at their level are acting independent of the design… but the design co-opts their independent actions to fulfill a grander scheme.
Pragmatic, Jeff, CyberLN, Nyarlathter and others. It is inevitable I will get banned again as my perception of all of you is ridicule, blindness, prejudice, stupidity, ignorance, intolerance, and worst of all lack of a sense of humor. You tolerate a "debate with Valiya that goes on for 12 pages. A person who believes he will go to heaven and see God and enjoy eternity with 72 or 73 virgins. Valiya who believes the Koran is the written word of God and if you leave the faith the penalty is death. Valiya whose holy book demands homosexuals will go to hell and the penalty for homosexuality is death. I can go on and on and on and on about the absolute ignorance, stupidity and perversion of morality of Valiya and the Koran. And yet all of you embarrass yourselves by carrying on a discussion with such a moron. Imagine debating whether there is a Santa Claus. Come on lets have a discussion whether there is a Santa Claus. Ridiculous-of course-- Yet all off you assholes continue a discussion with Valiya. What is the difference between the discussion about Santa Claus and GOD. I try sometimes to be funny and make fun of Pragmatic's half a face or use satire to make a point. I accept your intolerance for my ridicule of religion and the exaggerated humiliated way I belittle those who believe in the imaginary man in heaven. Your tolerance for morons like llovequestion, Valiya, and others and your inability to tolerate decent, satire, humor, or often even outrageous ideas by me -----you should be embarrassed- The "horror" of religion is more profound than Jim Crow, slavery and racism. Martin Luther King and people with empathy and passion resorted to "action" although non violence to express there outrage.... Anger, passion, outrage, against religion is at least as powerful as the harm of racism. It is inevitable I will get banned again as I can't control my discussed with the many "characters" who hurt others in the name of God. It may be ok for you to try to have an "intelligent" discussion with Valiya but not me. Maybe my anger needs to be pulled back just a little. If Joel Osteen , Dennis Prager, Bill Oreilly, Sean Hannity, John Lennox, Rick Warren, William Lang Craig, Pat Robinson, or Valiva happen to casually bump into me walking down the street one day--------I may pour elephant vomit all over their stupid face.---That's just me.
Anyways you all are way to serious-Jeff is way way to serious- Except when he "tells" jokes--and then he is funny.
Kenny, the title of the space you posted these comments in is, "The Debate Room". DEBATE. It is not called 'The Diatribe Room'.
It seems your expectation (based on your behavior and words) is no debate but lots of diatribe.
Occasionally you post something rather lucid. Unfortunately, you too frequently bump up against the forum guidelines, cross over them, and get yourself banned.
If you have a problem with people engaging in debate, in a DEBATE forum, the fix is quite simple...stay the hell out of the forum. It would sure save you considerable heartburn. It would also save the forum moderators considerable time and energy from having to monitor what you say.
I couldn't agree more, if you don't want to see a debate, stay the hell out of a forum devoted to nothing but debate. People who come here and complain about seeing debates are literally being retarded. Would you go to a pizza place and complain about all the fucking pizza?
CyberLN and Travis--No need to use the fuck word. Control yourself. Debate is reasonable when both parties have different points of view but have expectations to have valid arguments. If you were to debate if Santa Claus exists and the true Santa Claus arguer said "Santa Claus fit down the chimney or flew through the skies with reindeer. No matter what else was discussed to prove the validity of Santa Claus it wouldn't matter. When Valiya explains the truth of Islam and the Koran no matter what valid arguments he "proves" some invalid or stupid ideas Donald trumps everything. Valiva with intellectual bullshit tries to prove the Koran is perfect and there are no inconsistences his warped examples may even win the argument. When confronted by you(Travis or CyberLN ) that there are different parts of the Koran that explain how many days it took God to create the world(was it 7 or 8). Valiya may have proved in his own mind that the interpretation is in fact consistent. This argument and others went on and on and on. What the fuck difference does it make if there are or not inconsistencies. The idea that God can create Adam out of dust and Eve out of Adams rib and the talking snake and even how ridiculous it is that God can do it in 7 or 8 days--What fucking difference does it make. You may able to prove Santa Claus wore a red costume or had a beard but flying through the sky with reindeer Donald trump cancels any argument that he exists. Even if there are no inconsistences in the Koran(but there are hundreds)the idea God could create the world in 7 days(what about evolution) Donald trumps everything. If you think a debate about Santa Claus is reasonable then go ahead and debate the Koran with Valiya . ..............Morality of the Koran... Killing a Moslem who leaves the faith--DEATH...A woman who commits adultery-stoning to DEATH... Homosexuality ---DEATH.... What the fuck difference does it make if Valiya makes sense of the Koran or not......The immorality and "horror" of the Koran- Donald trumps anything. Valiya can prove or not prove of the inconsistences of the Koran Debate Valiya if you want. Intellectually discuss all the details of the Koran but what difference does it make. If you reject the religion as a Moslem you are sentenced to death. All the other BULLSHIT does not matter
OK, Valiya... Please, enough analogies, I really wanna focus on how absurd this is in terms of reality and things and forces we understand. So I have to ask, if a diety gave you the choice to choose anything you want, how exactly does that diety know what you are going to do before you do it? I mean the full understanding of how a diety knows before you're even offered such a choice, exactly what you will choose?
@Travis
The answer to any question regarding “How God does something” is that “I don’t know.” Why go that far… even if you ask me “How a computer works” I would say I don’t fully know. It’s quite beyond my grasp. If that’s the case with a human invention, I think it’s really foolhardy to try and grasp the ways of an eternal being.
Though it is to a different Travis, I suppose I will also chime in.
"The answer to any question regarding “How God does something” is that “I don’t know.”"
It is quite worse than that, actually. You don't actually do not know if, how, or how it is even possible for a "god" to do things. The answer has ZERO value in an investigatory sense. The god answer adds utterly NOTHING to our knowledge, and actually attempts to take away from it. It is an anti-answer, a way to do anything BUT answer the question, it sidesteps it without actually addressing it in any measure.
You cannot know IF god is the foundation of morality, how he relates to morality, or if morality could exist without god. Yet, despite all of this, you remain fairly convinced that your god is the basis for ALL morality. That your absolutely unconditional god, somehow creates morality that is wholly and fundamentally conditional, and somehow it qualifies distinctly human actions that relate to it not at all.
"Why go that far… even if you ask me “How a computer works” I would say I don’t fully know."
True, you don't FULLY know. You do, however, understand the basics of how it could work. You can also be sure that computers do exist, and prove that specific type of things can be created by them through direct observation. Meanwhile, no one knows how a god could work, if it even exists, or if it ever did anything at all. So...
"It’s quite beyond my grasp. If that’s the case with a human invention, I think it’s really foolhardy to try and grasp the ways of an eternal being."
It would be foolhardy to assume an eternal being simply because of that we don't understand, the universe is much greater than every god mankind has ever created, and so god is the smallest non-answer to the biggest questions ever asked.
If you feel that religion is required in order for you to have the inspiration necessary to treat your fellow human being like a fellow human being then your belief in god is actually the least of my worries.
Valiya, even science has quite a few "I don't know's" left in it.
Science has proven you can have an "I don't know". The remaining "I don't know's" are what makes it interesting in a romantic, naturalist, spiritual sort of way. However, you can have an "I don't know" cause, but you must be able to replicate the experiment for scientific scrutiny. Which, this critical gap of replication, is where most atheists are made.
As an example, science has long struggled to explain how gravity works. We aren't exactly sure why mass creates gravitational pulls. But through replication, we can prove that such a force does in fact exist. You can drop an apple much like the famed eureka moment of Newton. We understand how it works, and it's relationship to mass, and how it affects other forces.
However, the same cannot be said for, say prayer. Not only has prayer failed to show any known cause when it's claimed to work, it has never been able to be replicated. The requested action mist often fail to come about. In fact, prayer has actually been one of the most scientifically tested subjects in history, even beating out psychic claims such as clearvoiyance, prophecy, and telekenesis.
Prayer has been shown to be uninfluencial, often times being so little above or below the statistical average as to be negligible. So not only do we not know how prayer supposedly works, no body has ever been able to produce in a scientific environment how to make it work, or evidence proving that it works at all. Much to the same can be said for miracles.
well put
What she is doing is basically creating a character that should explain creation and then justify the lack of an understand of this explanation by saying:
"I think it’s really foolhardy to try and grasp the ways of an eternal being."
Why bother inventing the character in the first place?
Why don't you just admit that this character gives you no explanation what so ever, neither regarding creation nor the bliss you feel while praying(if you do).
Apart from what you have been told about this character from childhood, you do not know anything about him from his actions.
Every emotion/inspiration can be attributed from other more rational explanations and even other gods.
This obvious lack of interest your invented character(god) shows towards you and others is the nail in the coffin for his existence.
You belief that he cares for you and yet he shows no interest for you, not even enough to dignify you with a reply or a decent explanation of why you exist IN PERSON.
Like a father that was never there for you or anybody else.
People like me and you tried to justify this lack of interest by JUST claiming he is omniscient and that he is there always.
Just invisible and enjoys watching only.
Very convenient to justify something that does not exist.
@Travis P
Hi. Sorry for the delayed response.
This is the problem with long trains of chats. We sort of tend to get lost somewhere along the way. If you remember, this part of the discussion is about the conflict between free will and predestination. Therefore, the question is not whether god exists or not. It is… IF god exists, and that god has preordained everything, then why/how free will?
When I provided my answer to that question, you then went on a tan throwing a different question… about god’s knowledge? Here once again, the premise is “IF god exists, then how does he know what my free will is going to be?”
It is to that I said, “I don’t know.”
But as a reply to that you are trying to show me how in science you have ‘I don’t knows” but we have means yet to prove they exist. Here is what you said: “We aren't exactly sure why mass creates gravitational pulls. But through replication, we can prove that such a force does in fact exist.”
Therefore, now you are asking me to prove that God exists, though we started out with the question of free will vs predestination under the premise “if God exists”.
I am only trying to show you how your argument is shifting track from one line to another, creating an obfuscation – though I know that you didn’t do it with any malicious intent.
I would be glad to explain to you why I believe god exists. But that’s an entirely different topic. What is relevant here is only the logic of how free will makes sense, despite God’s predestination. I think I have answered that already.
Regarding prayer. I don’t know how you have understood prayer. But let me explain some basics. We often have a tendency to think that god only works through miracles. But it’s not so. Miracles are only the rarest of rare exceptions. However, what we have taken for granted in our everyday lives are also the workings of god. The sun rises, giving sunlight to plants, and then it rains, inundating the soils, for the roots to absorb water and minerals… and then there are flowers, which are pollinated by the bees, giving rise to fruits… which then get plucked by the farmer, who then brings it to the market and sells it to us… we end up eating it. This is a normal event… but, to a believer, it’s god that ultimately gave him that fruit. Similarly, don’t expect things to fall into your lap from the sky when you pray for them. Rather, god has his own ways of making things happen… a series of causes and effects.
What about prayers that are not answered. Once again, we can’t judge the wisdom of the omniscient. He knows what is good for us more than we do.
What a fallacy, religious-dogma is NOT pre-requisite to refrain from actions harmful or degrading to another.
Also I would invite you to consider why you presuppose that "religions are all goodness"?
In fact, religions are merely a collection of superstitions, moral & indeed immoral creeds and behaviours towards others.
The OP seems to be saying that if they stopped believing in the existence of god, they would have no reason to be good. That is an extremely immoral philosophy.
valiya s sajjad: "Atheism creates a moral vacuum which only a religion can fill."
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It's an absurd claim that's been destroyed thoroughly of course, as you have admitted you have no way to assess the morality of a claim, so your religion's "morals" could be pernicious or evil and you would have no way of knowing. In fact lets take a look at your idea of "objective morality" in a quote from you in another thread:
Sheldon “You think a 9 year old girl has "come of age, and can consent to marriage and sex?"
valiya s sajjad: "Yes. Aisha (the prophet’s wife in question) herself thinks so. What more do you want?" "Coming of age is the dividing line. If a girl has not attained puberty then she can’t be entered into a sexual union. That’s my standard."
I think that quote alone endorsing a 40 year old man marrying and raping a 9 year old girl says everything we need to know about your ridiculous claim that your religion is the sole arbiter of objective morality. Anyone who thinks a nine year old child can give consent to either marriage or sex hasn't even a tenuous grasp of morality, objective or otherwise.
The Bible is a truly revolting source of morals. In it, in bot old and new testament it advocates slavery, genocide and murder to name a few. It is laughable that anyone could even argue that the only way to have morals is to follow the Bible (or any other holy book) when so much hate is printed in them.
You wanna wgere I get my morality from? I get it from the notion that everybody has the right to do what ever they want to do, so long as it doesn't bring harm to anyone else.
"The Bible is a truly revolting source of morals. In it, in bot old and new testament it advocates slavery, genocide and murder to name a few. "
Indeed it does, and infanticide, sex trafficking, and incest, and of course the Koran fairs no better, despite the absurd claims it represents "objective morality" in the OP, from an author who has stated on here he thinks it is moral that a 9 year old child can give consent to marriage and sex with a 40 year old man, and then makes the risible claim that it is atheism that creates a moral vacuum, you couldn't make it up...
Now take the word "atheist" out of this paragraph and replace it with the words "religious person." You'll find that exactly the same principle applies.
Where does a theist draw his moral values from? What is right for a theist at one place is wrong for another at another place. What is right for a theist at one time, is wrong at another time. This makes a theist's moral ground extremely relativistic, and in the process he can justify any deed as good or bad according to his religion. This leads to a world of exploitation because the powerful is always going to find a justification to exploit the weak, and will not feel guilty about it because in their relativistic morality, they are always right.
This very serious problem is magnified GREATLY by religious pluralism: there are 20 major religions in the world. There are 40 major divisions in Christianity ALONE, including divisions in belief.
See what I did there?
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