Please enlighten us. Exactly how does one test for the existence or nonexistence of god scientifically.

since this is so far off topic, check the link and be enlightened, seek and ye shall find....

http://www.amazon.com/God-Failed-Hypothesis-Science-Shows/dp/1591024811/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0929878-9473559?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193019936&sr=8-1

This should be interesting.
Apparently not, I think he just saw how deep the hole he was digging was.

Jaroge, that book doesn't prove what you say it proves. It disproves some things that have been claimed by some believers in some gods. It says absolutely nothing about the existence of a god.

That's only one of many theological assertions. Another is this: God is not a being, but Being itself. Therefore he's not an empirically-verifiable entity, but is instead the ontological ground of all entities.

what does that mean exactly? also if tha is the case then what possible evidence would anyone have for beleif? There must be some reason? when someone makes an outlandish claim the burden of proof rests on them, otherwise anyone could propose any ridiculous assumption.....

Shut up, douche.

Talk is cheap Bitch, come shut me up...

fuckin' keyboard warriors...

what does that mean exactly?

It means God isn't a being.


also if tha is the case then what possible evidence would anyone have for beleif? There must be some reason? when someone makes an outlandish claim the burden of proof rests on them, otherwise anyone could propose any ridiculous assumption.....

Logical proof.

God brings morals? the r33l morals??? I beg to differ. It doesn't require GOD for things to mean something, to have morals, or to live a righteous life, or even...to follow the teachings of Christ (or whoever, pick your mangod) as he is described.

The most degenerate, conniving, sniveling, backstabbing, intemperate people I've ever had contact with, were deep in the church. And the most boring, and the horniest, and the drunkest, you get the idea. The church is the r3al str33t. It's a cloak for some pretty disturbed indeviduals, hiding amongst the people of genuine faith, or at least honest curiosity or searching.

My monk friends up on Mission Hill who live their beliefs don't preach at me, they lead by example, and I'm touched by their humility and warmth. For those who like to "share" the word by pumping mini mcbiblical lessons, I'd like to see no more pamphlets as long as I live, written by idiots, for idiots. They describe the race to the afterlife like it's fisher price my first eternal contract.

So people, does it require GOD for one to have morals???

Big topic, lots of posts, and I don't want to read them all. But knowing the crowd at bullshido, I can guess where most of the comments lie. I probably disagree with much of what was said, but really I just want to add my thoughts on the specific aspect of God being necessary for morals.

NO.

Now then, to get into it, morals mean right conduct. In other words, how people should act. If they follow, they are righteous, but how can we determine what is right or wrong in terms of how one should live their life?

Well, think of it in terms of an experiment. To expand it to abstracts - in order to remove circumstantial variations - if you are trying to reach a result, there are certain steps to achieve it. If you fail these steps, or miss some of them, then there is a good chance that the result you wish won't arrive. Take MA - if you want to learn to beat someone at grappling, there are certain rules, guidelines, principles, etc. set down by those who teach how to grapple. They add up, modiy, waver, and don't apply depending on the situation, but they are there - they are the morals of grappling. They are right conduct in grappling so that a person can acheive the goal - vistory - they desire.

When it comes to life itself, well, there are many ideas as to the goal of life, including the idea that there is no goal. However, talking with the people that claim there is no goal, and you will find that they still seem to strive for things, which I always found either ignorant of their own motives, or hypocritical, but I digress. Upon deciding what that goal is, there then becomes the question what is the better way to achieve that goal - what is the right conduct - morals - to get from A to B?

The question of whether God exists or not really doesn't matter to the questioon of morals. In many different ways all over the world, instructions have been given purported to be from some other existence. These instructions are how to get to these other places. Judeo-Christian morals come from a person whose existence is in question, who lives in a place that whose existence is in question. That rightly should make many people suspicious, BUT for those who accept this, these morals are simply instructions on how to get to that other existence called Heaven.

If you follow Christian morals, the belief is that you will end up in Christian Heaven. True or not, doesn't matter in regards to the morals. God rules Heaven so God made the requisites for getting there - seems fair to me. Don't want to go? Then you have no reason to follow. Don't believe? Same response.

Now, it is not necessary to have any belief in any higher power in order to have a goal for life. ANY goal you have will have rules and principles, thus will brin about morals - including humanism.

The biggest problem - since I saw it mentioned a few times - is that people as a species are desperate for superioroty and control, thus anything that differentiates me from others gets blown out of proportion and used as a tool for beefing up one's own self-worth. Elitism hits religion and morals VERY hard because they are core aspects of one's identity, but that is NOT the fault of religion. Using any religion, philosophy, or idea for nefarious purposes is the same as taking a surgical instrument and using it to kill someone.

Elitism can be achieved from anything that generates a distinction - if you don't think so, then look at bullshido itself. Many here are trying to get the world to realize what it means to train for combat of any type, and it is making a difference. But who here can step back and say that it doesn't also create people who use their status as "knowing what aliveness is" or any other thought to ridicule, put down, and berat those that don't have this identification? Whether it's true that aliveness is the way or not, it doesn't justify ill treatment and elitism.

the only logical proof of god is that of first cause, but it explains nothing about personifcation or human inspired traits.

Basically it can be summed up

"Wow isn't it amazing that the universe exists?!"

and everything else about god is just a bunch of wankpots speculating about things they can never know.

You're forgetting Anselm's argument, and varieties of Kant's (e.g. Otto) (which aren't proofs in the technical sense, but which infer God from a priori knowledge).

And 'yes' on the wankpots.

Talk is cheap Bitch, come shut me up...

fuckin' keyboard warriors...

Welcome to the Internet, ass. Talk is all we got... especially with that hollow profile of yours.

1) please give an example of any instance of someone killing in the name of Atheism. Hitler, Stalin and Mao do not count as there crimes were committed for reasons of Racism, Paranoia and stupidity, in that order.

The Crusades were for riches. Any persecution based on religion was intended gain more power, or more money, or more something. The motives are unimportant. The important part is that atheism is capable of producing crimes equally atrocious to those produced by religion.


2)Atheist don't necessarily believe that religious are weak minded, just choosing to ignore the mountains of evidence that disprove the "God" hypothesis. Faith=ignorance
No, atheists don't necessarily believe that the religious are weak minded. But they often do. Are you missing my entire point about the distinction between "I'm better than you because you believe in God and you are wrong" atheism and "Whatever" atheism? And there is a middle ground, of course. You're in it. You don't believe that someone is weak minded because they are religious, but you can apparently still bear listening to Hitchins or Dawkins speaking for more than a few minutes at a time. That puts you somewhere between the two extremes of the spectrum.


3)Atheism is not the worship of now god, any more than it is the worship of no Santa Clause. Really, there should be no need for a name for someone who disbeleives something that does not exist.
It's not the "worship of no God," this is true. It is "not the worship of God." But I was trying to make that last sentence sound good. Gimme a break.


4)Why are Hitchens and Dawkins "arrogant asshats"?
They try to force their beliefs on others. That's how they make a living. What's more is that Hitchins is incredibly disrespectful. His book is entitled god is not Great. Not only is he being disrespectful by refusing to capitalize His name, he is going out of his way and violating traditional naming conventions to do so. What's more is that I'd think God, as in the Abramic god, is a proper noun. You're supposed to capitalize it.

How are they NOT arrogant asshats? Like I said before, they make a living by forcing their ideas on others. Now, that's pretty normal for let's say a columnist or pundit. With pundits, however, there are always two sides of an argument because of our disaster of a two-party system (different conversation for a different thread). Nobody, however, will ever try to convince an atheist that God exists. Hitchins and Dawkins created a strawman of an opposing argument. That's what makes them worse than most pundits. Their opposition never started anything until they came along (especiall Hitchins).

I love Dawkins's "you can't disprove the flying spaghetti monster" thing. HOLY ****, YOU CAN'T PROVE A UNIVERSAL NEGATIVE! THIS MAN'S A GENIUS, HE DESERVES A FUCKING PULITZER! You can't prove that your entire life isn't actually a television show. Does that mean you should live your life like a paranoid schizophrenic? Of course not. I don't believe in God, but come on, that argument is stupid and weak.

I'm actually going to do a paper on this type of thing for school. I'm going to read The God Delusion, god is not Great, I'm gonna watch the movies, and if I'm still not converted to some asshole atheist with a smug sense of superiority, I'll write a paper entitled christopher hitchins is not Great. Do you see the disrespect?

I absolutely hate Hitchins, Dawkins, and that type of atheist. Don't force your ideas on me, please.

And stop it with the spaghetti monster. It's just fucking stupid.

Man can only attempt to contemplate God.

The important part is that atheism is capable of producing crimes equally atrocious to those produced by religion.

This idea that belief systems produce atrocities... kinda reminds me of the idea the whole gun control thing, that guns are bad. A belief system can't possibly produce human suffering, beyond that that is self imposed, which is entirely dependent on how ignorant the belief system is & how much or little it improves one's quality of life. The motivations that inspired all of the horrible crimes of humanity against humanity are much deeper than someone's belief system concerning cosmic intangibles.

JMO...

Man can only attempt to contemplate God.

I think that you're using a rather limited definition of "contemplate". Men have been contemplating the Infinite for a very long time. It probably started when man first looked up...

This idea that belief systems produce atrocities...
Obviously you havent studied the holy mandate of slaughtering infidels in the Qu'ran.

I think that you're using a rather limited definition of "contemplate". Men have been contemplating the Infinite for a very long time. It probably started when man first looked up...

You of course have missed my point completely.

Obviously you havent studied the holy mandate of slaughtering infidels in the Qu'ran.

So, do you think that Islam is some intangible force capable of murder or perhaps an autonomous construct separate from the ego of man?

Again, guns don't kill people...