The best argument for the existence of God is as powerful as the best argument for the existence of invisible pixies that dance in my backyard at dawn every morning.
I have no time for philosophical wanking that attempts to prove that God just might exist in the cracks of the universe that we don't yet fully understand. While I have some sympathy for those who believe in God because that gives them comfort and their life meaning, I despise those who assert that their version of God is the only correct one, and therefore everyone should comply with the rules of behaviour that they deem correct.
Our opinion of religion is all but identical. As a side note, I for one find your thought-out responses delightful and often read them even when the topic doesn't pertain to me. We agree on a lot.
I think the comfort aspect is what keeps religion alive. While a great deal of it is fire and brimstone, it nonetheless offers an escape from death. The religious are somewhat mentally ill but for very understandable reasons.
So as for evolution to function, it was vital that fear of death rank above all else. Humans are the result of that mechanism being honed for billions of years. As the planet's alpha species, there's even an argument that humans fear death more than any other species.
The unfortunate reality is that humans are also the only species currently sufficiently intelligent to understand that death is inevitable, at least at our current technological level. There are other animals that understand the concept of death, that ailments or especially predators might end their life, but humans uniquely understand that no matter how careful they are they are going to die in the end.
Humans suffer that curse uniquely. Humans suffer the anxiety of knowing the mission of their DNA, survive, fails no matter what. Nothing is more important as per our very biological programming yet there's a zero percent chance of success and we know that. That is mental illness-inducing if anything ever was.
The intelligent more easily bypass this but even some of them occasionally fail to. Look at guys like Hugh Ross; he's clearly extremely intelligent, something I can rarely say about the religious (just being honest), yet he jumps through hoops to make sense of talking snakes all while practical when discussing viruses and astrophysics. He is mentally ill. He doesn't want to die. Like all of us, he'd do almost anything to see his parents again as well.
Unlike many atheists, it's really hard for me to claim some alternative beauty in all of this; I think it pretty much sucks, but we've been dealt the hand we have so all we can do is make the most of it. I will never see my loved ones again and I will be dead as well soon enough. I just hope to do the best I can while I'm here. That's reality and me doing the best I can with it instead of losing my mind.
When I was a teenager I played in a band and ended up in a debate with my drummer about all of this. Unable to counter my reason, he eventually said, "My father died when I was 10! Do you have any idea how comforting it is to know he'll get to see me as a grown man?"
It was almost as if he knew, yet he didn't.
As for "gods", the only possibility is an extraterrestrial race having either programmed this universe as a simulation, manipulated the manner in which this universe budded from a mother multiverse, or seeded the planet with the ingredients for life upon realizing it was habitable. None of that is what religious folks are talking about as opposed to someone else popping up first and it's all highly unlikely either way.
[OP] "As a side note, I for one find your thought-out responses delightful and often read them even when the topic doesn't pertain to me. We agree on a lot." are you talking about my responses?
Theism isnt really a belief in God. Its a belief in some type of intelligent force. It doesnt have to be in our image. Doesnt have to be the god in the bible. It could be the universe or a the earth itself. Maybe even that atoms have intelligence. Einstein and Tesla were both theists.
No he wasn't. There's even a letter from Einstein calling the religious childish. Einstein had a bad habit of saying things like "God doesn't play dice" but he meant the rules of the universe. Einstein was not only an atheist but the type of atheist who was severely annoyed by the religious and felt the need to mock them.
"Albert Einstein's religious views have been widely studied and often misunderstood. Albert Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza. He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve."
Thats on wikipedia which is not the best source. But I have some Einstein quotes here as well. That description above sounds like theism to me.
Responding to a letter in which he was asked if he was Jewish religiously since he was ethnically he said this.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. For me the unadulterated Jewish religion is, like all other religions, an incarnation of primitive superstition."
I think it's rather clear. The letter was verified and sold for 2.1 million US dollars posthumously.
While alive he was a thorn in the side of other physicists who straight up told him that his constant use of the word "God" would someday be used in quotes despite his open atheism.
He didn't seem to give a shit, insisting anyone capable of actually understanding his papers would easily understand that his use of "God" was shorthand for the four forces: Electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity.
It's pretty understandable that the man who discovered special relativity itself thought humans would better manage misinformation in the future, especially as he was openly atheist. I would have thought the same and I'm not Einstein. He failed to imagine a future wherein people simply pull whatever they wish from context to support their views.
Unlike "God doesn't play dice" which was an assertion that the universe is completely deterministic during his initial frustrations with the very quantum mechanics he helped discover, the letter didn't leave room for interpretation to even laymen.
How familiar are you with the term theist? Theists do not believe in the bible. We dont believe in a physical god. We believe god is something we can not understand. An intelligent force thats description eludes us.
Heres a quote of Einstein rejecting atheism and in my opinion seems to be giving theism a thought. Pantheism and theism is pretty much the same thing
"Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a PanTHEIST. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds."
"We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's PanTHEISM. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things."
Question for Athiests
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The best argument for the existence of God is as powerful as the best argument for the existence of invisible pixies that dance in my backyard at dawn every morning.
I have no time for philosophical wanking that attempts to prove that God just might exist in the cracks of the universe that we don't yet fully understand. While I have some sympathy for those who believe in God because that gives them comfort and their life meaning, I despise those who assert that their version of God is the only correct one, and therefore everyone should comply with the rules of behaviour that they deem correct.
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How else do you explain morning dew, hmm????? It's the sweat of those pixies from dancing, obviously, duh
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Wow! I never thought of that, and now I've seen the light.
Do you think I should put some milk and cookies out for them every night? I wonder if pixies are gluten or lactose intolerant.
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o.o ... Y-yes, sugar cookies and silk chocolate milk. Leave plenty out for the pixies, not me or anything 😏
You would not belive how many northern european people still believe in elves. Around 50% of Icelandic people belive in elves.
Our opinion of religion is all but identical. As a side note, I for one find your thought-out responses delightful and often read them even when the topic doesn't pertain to me. We agree on a lot.
I think the comfort aspect is what keeps religion alive. While a great deal of it is fire and brimstone, it nonetheless offers an escape from death. The religious are somewhat mentally ill but for very understandable reasons.
So as for evolution to function, it was vital that fear of death rank above all else. Humans are the result of that mechanism being honed for billions of years. As the planet's alpha species, there's even an argument that humans fear death more than any other species.
The unfortunate reality is that humans are also the only species currently sufficiently intelligent to understand that death is inevitable, at least at our current technological level. There are other animals that understand the concept of death, that ailments or especially predators might end their life, but humans uniquely understand that no matter how careful they are they are going to die in the end.
Humans suffer that curse uniquely. Humans suffer the anxiety of knowing the mission of their DNA, survive, fails no matter what. Nothing is more important as per our very biological programming yet there's a zero percent chance of success and we know that. That is mental illness-inducing if anything ever was.
The intelligent more easily bypass this but even some of them occasionally fail to. Look at guys like Hugh Ross; he's clearly extremely intelligent, something I can rarely say about the religious (just being honest), yet he jumps through hoops to make sense of talking snakes all while practical when discussing viruses and astrophysics. He is mentally ill. He doesn't want to die. Like all of us, he'd do almost anything to see his parents again as well.
Unlike many atheists, it's really hard for me to claim some alternative beauty in all of this; I think it pretty much sucks, but we've been dealt the hand we have so all we can do is make the most of it. I will never see my loved ones again and I will be dead as well soon enough. I just hope to do the best I can while I'm here. That's reality and me doing the best I can with it instead of losing my mind.
When I was a teenager I played in a band and ended up in a debate with my drummer about all of this. Unable to counter my reason, he eventually said, "My father died when I was 10! Do you have any idea how comforting it is to know he'll get to see me as a grown man?"
It was almost as if he knew, yet he didn't.
As for "gods", the only possibility is an extraterrestrial race having either programmed this universe as a simulation, manipulated the manner in which this universe budded from a mother multiverse, or seeded the planet with the ingredients for life upon realizing it was habitable. None of that is what religious folks are talking about as opposed to someone else popping up first and it's all highly unlikely either way.
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[OP] Also, I do agree with your answer from what I got from it.
[OP] "As a side note, I for one find your thought-out responses delightful and often read them even when the topic doesn't pertain to me. We agree on a lot." are you talking about my responses?
Theism isnt really a belief in God. Its a belief in some type of intelligent force. It doesnt have to be in our image. Doesnt have to be the god in the bible. It could be the universe or a the earth itself. Maybe even that atoms have intelligence. Einstein and Tesla were both theists.
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No he wasn't. There's even a letter from Einstein calling the religious childish. Einstein had a bad habit of saying things like "God doesn't play dice" but he meant the rules of the universe. Einstein was not only an atheist but the type of atheist who was severely annoyed by the religious and felt the need to mock them.
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"Albert Einstein's religious views have been widely studied and often misunderstood. Albert Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza. He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve."
Thats on wikipedia which is not the best source. But I have some Einstein quotes here as well. That description above sounds like theism to me.
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Look, I've followed Einstein my entire life.
Responding to a letter in which he was asked if he was Jewish religiously since he was ethnically he said this.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. For me the unadulterated Jewish religion is, like all other religions, an incarnation of primitive superstition."
I think it's rather clear. The letter was verified and sold for 2.1 million US dollars posthumously.
While alive he was a thorn in the side of other physicists who straight up told him that his constant use of the word "God" would someday be used in quotes despite his open atheism.
He didn't seem to give a shit, insisting anyone capable of actually understanding his papers would easily understand that his use of "God" was shorthand for the four forces: Electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity.
It's pretty understandable that the man who discovered special relativity itself thought humans would better manage misinformation in the future, especially as he was openly atheist. I would have thought the same and I'm not Einstein. He failed to imagine a future wherein people simply pull whatever they wish from context to support their views.
Unlike "God doesn't play dice" which was an assertion that the universe is completely deterministic during his initial frustrations with the very quantum mechanics he helped discover, the letter didn't leave room for interpretation to even laymen.
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How familiar are you with the term theist? Theists do not believe in the bible. We dont believe in a physical god. We believe god is something we can not understand. An intelligent force thats description eludes us.
Heres a quote of Einstein rejecting atheism and in my opinion seems to be giving theism a thought. Pantheism and theism is pretty much the same thing
"Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a PanTHEIST. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds."
"We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's PanTHEISM. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things."