/atheism/ - Atheism

The amount of ignorance and crap logic around this is one of the many shit things Dawkins was responsible for.

Firstly, the version of the cosmological argument often given is Anselm's, which was not intended to be an argument to convince skeptics, but to help people who already believe with their conception of God. An actual cosmological argument establishes some law (if a then b) either logically or scientifically, then applies this law to the universe and ends up with b being God.

>Example

Anything which we can touch had a creator. We can touch the universe. Thus the universe had a creator.

I've chosen an especially weak version deliberately.

The response "well who created God?" does not work, because nothing in the argument means that God needs a creator. Furthermore, the common thing I hear of "special pleading" ALSO does not work. Special pleading is saying that certain logic does not apply. But I can apply the above logic to everything. Watch

>If something can be touched, it has a creator

>My bed can be touched, thus has a creator

>The English language can't be touched, thus doesn't necessarily have a creator

>The world can be touched, thus has a creator

>God cannot be touched, thus doesn't necessarily have a creator

The logical statement is "if a then b" and this statement can be applied to everything. It would be special pleading to say that God cannot be fed through the statement. It is NOT special pleading to say that feeding God through the statement ends with "not necessarily b"

In order to show infinite regress we need to show that a is true for every subsequent created thing, something which is difficult to do!

Here's a formulation of the cosmological that's more common these days

>Everything which began to exisPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

update the thread hotwheels, I want to see the post

>>14578

heatDeath can be virtual. It's not computable anyway.

>>14629

In principle, it doesn't matter if the world is in infinite regress as no one could know. This is still simpler than religious arguments.

>>14629

What a pile of bullshit.

>Magic is real but only for God.

This is special pleading.

Also:

It explains nothing. It's a place holder for a real explaination.

>>14640

lrn2read.

"magic is real but only for God" is not special pleading. In fact, that's not even any deduction in that so it's an assertion. It's the same as

>trees are real but only grow in the ground

or

>trees are real but only grow in France

These assertions could be true or false, but are never special pleading.

Special pleading is when we have a logical statement, say, "if a then b" and then refuse to let someone apply this statement to something, on the grounds that the something is special.

>it explains nothing

Actually, it explains everything. It's a shit explanation (reasons need to be given for this), but it still does the job.

If you want to demonstrate that a theist is being illogical, at least try to make sure your counters and arguments are logical.

>>14585

>By then me and you will probably be dead.

You were called shortsighted already but too retarded to realize. But that statement is really all that needs said to know you have no business voting, having kids or anything affecting Americans in the future.

>>12912

>Objectivist, Ted Cruz

is he atheist and liberal/libertarian?

I don't get why so many Ayn Rand fans are simply normal conservative right-wingers who don't want to spend money on the military. Rand would be so fucking disappointed.

>>13500

>You don't know what you're talking about. You're just unskeptically regurgitating media narrative.

enlighten us anon, or are you just a big mouthed POS who calls names and doesn't bother backing up his shit. Are you a Trump?

I'm not for shillary btw. I don't know why you needed to assume so. However, now that you are at it I would vote for Shillary over a sensationalist moron with no obvious understanding of politics any day of the week.

>>13501

>We’ll rebuild our military and make it so strong no one, and I mean no one will mess with us.

I chuckled. Normies don't understand that jihadists aren't motivated by rational values like keeping your ass safe.

>>14317

>Bill Gates

>having any influence over the Internet infrastructure and its censorship

>Bill Gates

>actually knowing shit about technology

sometimes I forget that most people is actually this retarded.

>>14540

we need to get rid of SJWs

>>14592

>and doesn't bother backing up his shit.

Except if you read further you could see I did. Holy shit, the media calls the man Hitler 24/7 and you call him the sensationalist. Learn to put things into perspective.

>moron with no obvious understanding of politics any day of the week.

In other words not Trump. The man runs a multi-billion dollar business, that is politics. Meanwhile Shillary is an idiot who is currently under criminal investigation.

>>14354

Btw Hitchens definitely wouldn't have gone Hillary.

>>14626

nice false dichotomy there bud.

I don't understand. I thought you Eurofags decided you'd rather have regular terrorist attacks than to be called a racist. What's the problem here?

>>14633

I want them deported, I don't care if I'm called racist. They don't belong in Europe.

>>14634

I think in that case it would be a good exercise to think deeply on why people may not agree with you. Not to change your mind or agree with them necessarily, but to isolate the cause of the problem.

>>14627

>Most Muslims are illiterate

>Most haven't read the quran

Gotta say the bible is more coherent and interesting to read than the quran. The narratives flow better whereas in the quran the stories are often simply referenced, and it's all over the place. The quran is more like reading a political text.

>>14478

If you think like if meaningless without gods, your life is a shell.

Life is but a brief interlude in between infinite expanses of nothing and it will end whether you expect it to or not. how long you live doesnt mean anything nor what you do with time. death is but a return to something you've known long before you were even thought of. Best live life on your own terms, and when that old friend comes knocking on your door greet it with a warm hug, a smile, and a goodbye to the time you were given. Simple as that.

>>14485

Christfag here. Some notes

1) The old testament has frequent examples of henotheism, not polytheism.

2) There's no such thing as a "most accurately translated" version as the feel, flow, impact, implications of the text are all important. I could argue that the KJV is the most accurate translation as no other translation accurately draws on the same kind of imagery as the original.

That said, if you can pick up an NRSV with commentary, this is the most used by scholars for whom the original version isn't of utmost importance.

>>14605

They have only one argument, and many phrasings of it.

>>14606

>faggot can't into /rocks/

what a surprise

>>14605

>The "But look around you, all this couldn't be from chance" arguments.

Let them google "teratoma" or "harlequin baby". Life can be ugly for no reason at all as well.

>>14611

Whenever it has to do with a human defect (even in a confused and defenseless infant) or some disaster killing people they will say its because "WE'RE IN A FALLEN STATE" and say we have to use our free will properly, as if a natural disaster is freely chosen (free will is a joke anyway).

You can argue all you want, but the smart choice is to tell them that you hope their child is born a harlequin and then promptly tell them to fuck off. If that makes you sound like an unintelligent moralist, good, they're getting a taste of their own medicine.

>>14621

Courier Six?

>>14617

The story is a bit different. The is already a smaller telescope. The natives give a shit about the gods they want money and power. They use religion as a pseudo reason to get media attention.

>Muh oppression.

>muh culture

>fight da white man

This is even worse than superstitious believes.

>>14618

Pretty much this. There is a line between "religion/superstition" and "intrinsic part of an oppressed and post-colonial culture" , and in the eyes of many Americans, the myths and outright bullshit of the asian Hawaiians fall in with the latter category. So, you know, easy money, hopefully continuous revenue. Its what booga-bogga, the Volcano God, would want.

>>6426

This. Anyone got that shortish vid about how "God" is an amalgamation of like 3 different gods (as in from a pantheon, not like the trinity). It had some fancy visuals with a sort of paint splash of color from the different sources staining the bible. IIRC, one of the source gods was a minor thunder or storm god from another religion.

>>7016

Thanks for the worldbuilding material. I think I'll incorporate that into a fantasy story at some point.

>>7076

Three gods? I heard it was only two, tell me more people.

>>14018

Maybe so. We're linked from /christian/ and he came about that time. Maybe he thinks personalities are based on magic. That you can change all sorts of things in the brain but it won't change behavior because that's based on some sort of magic, spirit or some such bullshit.

>>13674

I think I can now articulate my own argument which once won me over. It began with a rejection of Christian aesthetics, and is kind of wordy though:

>All stories must end someday and it's better when characters stoically face their fate and exit the stage gracefully.

>No individual truly needs one thing or person to be happy; there are no sacred cows when there are so many substitutables.

>Real life is cold and nothing like the bible.

>People drop dead instantly.

>There are no dramatic speeches from God or to loved ones; no themes and readily apparent deeper meanings before most of us die.

>People just separate without goodbyes, which is the opposite of what you would expect if someone had put everyone in the universe on a stage before either an audience or some judges.

A compassionate God would allow you to take time making slow goodbyes before someone left you forever. But in the bible no major characters die without Angels giving speeches, God or Jesus giving a speech first. It's like how you can predict someone might die in a fantasy novel because someone just gave a long speech that made you care about that person. It's a set of cliches that foreshadow the future, but which you never see in real life when someone suddenly dies of a stroke or to an automobile accident.

Real life ends with "natural endings" which are always open-ended. There is no meaning expect what is interpreted by the observer, and there is no absolute sense of closure. A narrator never appears to tell you what its about. Grieving can be protracted because there is no final speech that explains why it had to be.

Life periodically shoves you from companionship into separation and loneliness, therefore the idea of an afterlife of eternal companionship is unnatural. Expecting eternal love from soul-mates or God is unnatural, selfish and oppressive. Looking for absolutPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

never was a theist myself. the biggest gripe that kept me from actually believing any of that nonsense was the sheer amount of different religions. theres no point in praying to one god or one instance of a god that says they are the one true when there are literally hundreds of thousands of equally as plausible gods that say the exact same thing. its like playing Russian rullet with a revolver loaded with 99,000 bullets and one of thems a blank. best to just exept there never was a blank and accept your inevitable demise into nothingness

>>14411

I used to be big on conspiracy stuff. More the alien abduction sort of stuff than the 9/11 sort of stuff. For a while I subscribed to the ancient astronaut stuff which basically set me up as knowing that religion was bullshit.

Over the years I grew more distant with that stuff when I started getting into actual science and from there I ended up reading a bunch of stuff on the God debate.

Not exactly the most rational way of coming to the conclusion and had to be refined over the years. However, ancient aliens or not, the underlining premise of my reasons was basically "People in the past are capable of making mistakes, misinterpreting things, telling stories strictly for the sake of stories, or outright bullshitting."

>>14600

sorry, but your vast stupidity cant be condensed any further, consider your unwillingness to read what ive said as a resignation from the argument.

>>14433

>>14374

1. Yeah, I mean I guess.

2. UK, specifically Scotland. There isn't,

3. Three items, laptop with solar charge, a fucking flamethrower and a daft punk suit.

(Blast music namely Rush Tom Sawyer, claim to be Apollo, prove it by blasting shit with fire, teach a good teacher how to use laptop and to use religion to manipulate the masses, tell him the world will always need an 'Apollo' etc. Give him a bunch of shit to read and create a council of elders to maintain this information.

Go up to a mountain or something and make it my home, have the elders meet with me and elect one as the next Apollo. Fug woad bitches, fug slaves, get high as shit and die knowing that I've created Jews)

QUESTION 2

A human being is fine, though we should be able to breathe underwater so something like Abe Sapien that is able to transcend it's mortal form.

>>14433

There's no way that I'd make a nerve transmit data like they do now. They are ridiculously slow compared to normal electrical signals, due to the bass ackwards and overly complex system that a nerve uses to transmit an electrical potential.

>>14433

BRAIN GOES IN THE MIDDLE GODDAMNIT

Think about it: why the fuck would we have our brains out on this head, exposed to the elements and attack when you could just have a sensory stalk coming out the top? It also saves on wiring to keep the brain centrally located.

>>14598

>dat id

>le funny hate meme