The "Is there a god?" thread

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Is there a God

Yes
22
38%
No
36
62%
 
Total votes: 58

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Spain Snuden
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Re: The

Post by Snuden »

No, it was a serious question.
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Re: The

Post by duckzilla »

Which questions do you have in mind?

How did life got here? - By chance.
What is the meaning of life? - None.

But these are not the only possible atheistic answers to the questions. The answers cannot be proved, but the difference to your answers is that they get along without the interference of a god.

Also, this is not about enlightening you. You can, of course, choose to believe in whatever you want!
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

By chance is not an answer. How did that person with a bullet hole in their jacket end up lying on the floor pouring with blood? oh you happen to be holding the type of gun that shoots that type of bullet with a round missing. They got there by chance isn't going to work.
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Re: The

Post by gibson »

Amsel_ wrote:@gibson It's funny how in one of your posts you complained about Christians not providing evidence and just giving appeals to emotion; and then when I questioned you about why you have so much trust in science, you said you don't have to prove anything, and started talking about all of science's accomplishments.
You asked me why I trust science, of course I’m going to list it’s accomplishments. A normal and rational person trust something that has been proven thousands of times to work and has provided humanity with all its greatest advances. Youre actually delusional. You’re literally asking me why I trust something that I can observe, something that I can measure, something that I can quantify to try to justify your belief which can’t be observed, can’t be measured,can’t be quantified, and not only is the belief itself irrational but the entire belief structure (Christianity) is full of holes. You’re literally either not reading my posts or not comprehending them.....
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Re: The

Post by Goodspeed »

chris1089 wrote:
I don't immediately see a link between origins and the doppler effect. Can you explain?
I am referring to red shift, which is the same in principle as the doppler effect. This suggest the universe is expanding as stars further away from us are moving at a greater velocity. This suggests the universe is expanding and therefore had a beginning.
We already know it began with the big bang. The origin of this universe is not what I'm talking about though, unless you think it's the only thing in existence. I think that's unlikely; what I'm talking about is the origin of existence itself. Notably, that includes God, unless you're saying he doesn't exist.

What prevents us from following the same thought process when it comes to existence itself? It is eternal, doesn't have a beginning or end, is not constrained by time. Removing God from the equation makes it much less convoluted, doesn't bring up a ton of other questions.

I don(this is quite an amusing repetition of the same root)
?

How many times do I have to repeat myself. I already said God is eternal and doesn't conform to our space-time continuum. Therefore he is not the first thing to exist, as he is eternal. How is existence "seemingly absurd or self-contradictory." God provides an answer to how we got here (and also how life got here, the universe) among many other answers, which I have not seen answered by an atheist.
You think you need to repeat yourself but ironically have failed to register my and other people's argument about origins. I'll try to explain in more detail. 2 possibilities:
1. Existence is eternal
2. Existence is not eternal

With the God hypothesis, you assume possibility 2. But then you add a creator, and say that he is eternal. But God exists, is included in "existence", so really what you did is a 180 back to possibility 1. And the point I'm trying to make here is that God is not needed for possibility 1. If existence is eternal, it doesn't need a creator. And if it is not eternal and was created by something that is eternal, then it is still eternal because whatever created existence must necessarily exist.

So God is a middle man that was added to make it sound more intuitive at first glance, but provides no actual answers when you think about it.

How is religion anti-intelectual?
It generally discourages curiosity in children, claims it has all the answers already. Religious schools often don't even teach the natural sciences, because they contradict the bible too much. In this, it actively combats intellectualism and is the epitome of closed-mindedness. There is no room for uncertainty, curiosity, or the changing of one's mind.

How do you measure success?
In this case, the amount of converts. The political and financial prowess of the church, especially in the middle ages.

Who are you accusing of being blind to opposing perspectives? I'm certainly not.
Religion. It and its followers often claim to have a monopoly on the truth and dismiss opposing views without question.
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Re: The

Post by momuuu »

chris1089 wrote:
So the universe at some point started existing. We do not yet know if that is just the way it is or if it requires some further explanation. However, I feel like logically it does not actually pose a problem to state the universe simply started existing. There are no actual logical problems with that statement, are there? There are no inconsistencies that arise from it that make no sense at all.

Yes you need to explain how the universe started existing. It does pose a logical problem. According to the laws of physics, an external force is required to change conditions. I can go into the specific laws if you want, but I assume your excellent Dutch education taught you that. No, God, or magical man as you call him, is an external force. As I have said before, the premise of God is that he is omnipotent. Therefore, although not limited to our space-time continuum, he can effect it. I don't think you get the premise that God can do anything and is in control of everything that happens.

From the limited human brain, it seems weird. However, many things about the universe are weird and unintuitive - from the behaviour of the smallest particles to the behaviour of the largest objects in our universe things behave very unintuitively. Regardless, there isn't necessarily a requirement for something to explain the beginning of existence. Saying it just started existing seems the same to saying God created the universe - except that in terms of explaining it the former is better according to Occam's razor and seems slightly more satisfactory to me. Saying the universe magically started existing is basically equivalent to saying a magical man caused the universe to start existing, except that it removes the middle man.

Just because some things seem counter intuitive and are correct, this doesn't mean that you can justify anything that is counter intuitive. This is completely illogical. Take this example:
A is true.
A being true feels counter intuitive.
C is or is not true.
C feels counter intuitive.
Therefore C is true.
You are saying there is not necessarily a problem with this logic. There is. C might not be true. This is a logical flaw.

So then in all this argument simply states that if one subjectively requires explanation for the start of the universe - something that objectively speaking isn't actually necessary - then one would believe in some unknown thing(s) (whether there is a physical reason or some divine creature(s)) that provide(s) this explanation.


Yes you require an explanation for the start of the universe. See above.

Physics definitely doesn't require an explanation for things being where they are for a reason. You're simply making up a problem that there isn't and then taking my argument out of context.

Saying the universe just started is physically acceptable. It does not defy any law of physics, it just states one new law. Saying god created the universe does the exact same thing except instead of stating that law it says god did it. If this simply was logically inconsistent, you could come up with an example that proves the inconsistency. Yet, I will assure you there will be no inconsistency found within our understanding of the world.

And furthermore, my argument was twofold. The second part was about assuming you do need an explanation for the beginning of the universe. You have not adressed why that specifically should be God. As far as I can tell, your logical reasons for believing in god (while in fact simply flawed, but let's ignore this) are equivalent to reasons for believing in the Magical Marshmallow. Yet surely you do not believe in the Magical Marshmallow? If so, then you have so far failed to justify that.

EDIT: Because you are mixing two different arguments up, lets solely focus on the first matter, and then later on the second matter. So first off all, you need to properly explain why it is logically inconsistent to have a universe simply start at some point in time.
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

So the universe at some point started existing. We do not yet know if that is just the way it is or if it requires some further explanation. However, I feel like logically it does not actually pose a problem to state the universe simply started existing. There are no actual logical problems with that statement, are there? There are no inconsistencies that arise from it that make no sense at all.


Saying the universe just started is physically acceptable. It does not defy any law of physics, it just states one new law. Saying god created the universe does the exact same thing except instead of stating that law it says god did it. If this simply was logically inconsistent, you could come up with an example that proves the inconsistency. Yet, I will assure you there will be no inconsistency found within our understanding of the world.


1 word, rhymes with go and contains the letter n. The law of thermo dynamics - energy can't be created or destroyed. E=mc^2, this means matter can't be created or destroyted. Therefore you can't get a universe from nothing. That is unless you have an omnipotent being, God, not confined by our space-time continuum, to created all matter and energy.
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Re: The

Post by gibson »

chris1089 wrote:
Show hidden quotes


1 word, rhymes with go and contains the letter n. The law of thermo dynamics - energy can't be created or destroyed. E=mc^2, this means matter can't be created or destroyted. Therefore you can't get a universe from nothing. That is unless you have an omnipotent being, God, not confined by our space-time continuum, to created all matter and energy.

You just said within 3 sentences of each other that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that God created energy......
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

Read the rest of my post. You may be enlightened to find my explanation there
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

The origin of this universe is not what I'm talking about though.

Ok, I'll address your argument now.
?

Seems I made a mistake editing in the code so part of my post was edited out. I'll move on.

You think you need to repeat yourself but ironically have failed to register my and other people's argument about origins. I'll try to explain in more detail. 2 possibilities:
1. Existence is eternal
2. Existence is not eternal

With the God hypothesis, you assume possibility 2. But then you add a creator, and say that he is eternal. But God exists, is included in "existence", so really what you did is a 180 back to possibility 1. And the point I'm trying to make here is that God is not needed for possibility 1. If existence is eternal, it doesn't need a creator. And if it is not eternal and was created by something that is eternal, then it is still eternal because whatever created existence must necessarily exist.

So God is a middle man that was added to make it sound more intuitive at first glance, but provides no actual answers when you think about it.


I think you are talking about the concept of existence in the abstract, not the existence of anything specific. Correct me if I am wrong, but I'll continue on that premise. Existence is a concept. It is an abstract noun. Words that come under the same category are goodness, love and morality. Therefore existence can't have a beginning or an end. What can have a beginning or end is something in a state of existing. I think you need to redefine your point in light of this.
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Re: The

Post by gibson »

chris1089 wrote:Read the rest of my post. You may be enlightened to find my explanation there
I did and found it irrelevant because its complete and utter baseless nonsense
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

gibson wrote:
chris1089 wrote:Read the rest of my post. You may be enlightened to find my explanation there
I did and found it irrelevant because its complete and utter baseless nonsense


How? What's wrong with my logic or axioms?
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Re: The

Post by momuuu »

chris1089 wrote:
Show hidden quotes


1 word, rhymes with go and contains the letter n. The law of thermo dynamics - energy can't be created or destroyed. E=mc^2, this means matter can't be created or destroyted. Therefore you can't get a universe from nothing. That is unless you have an omnipotent being, God, not confined by our space-time continuum, to created all matter and energy.

So you're allowed to make an exception in God yet I'm not allowed to simply state that energy can simply be somewhere at t=0 ? Basically logically if the universe simply has started to exist containing matter, which can simply be stated as an axiom (like you axiomatically state god is omnipotent), then there is no creation of energy. There simply is energy.

By the way, don't throw around simple physics terms around without knowing that they mean. For example, E=mc^2 actually literally means that matter can be created or destroyed, but you use that to argue that matter can be created or destroyed. So basically you don't know too much about physics and most definitely not anything about Einstein's famous E=mc^2.
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Re: The

Post by vardar »

i <3 God
c0ns!
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Re: The

Post by Goodspeed »

chris1089 wrote:I think you are talking about the concept of existence in the abstract, not the existence of anything specific. Correct me if I am wrong, but I'll continue on that premise. Existence is a concept. It is an abstract noun. Words that come under the same category are goodness, love and morality. Therefore existence can't have a beginning or an end. What can have a beginning or end is something in a state of existing. I think you need to redefine your point in light of this.
Ok in your words then: Existence includes everything that is in a state of existing. Its opposite is inexistence, which is "nothing". Existence is something rather than nothing.
And my point is that whether existence is eternal or not, God provides no answers as to its origin or to the question why there is existence as opposed to inexistence, which is the inherent paradox. Even if it is eternal, why is it this way and not another way? We will never know.
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Re: The

Post by deleted_user »

Goodspeed wrote:
deleted_user wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:Luke Cage is bad period.
When are people going to get over Marvel?
I have a conundrum for you:

A person does not believe in a religion, however, they are a fan of the Marvel movie universe. Can this person exist in the natural world bound by natural law? Or are they a paradox?
Are you asking if you are a paradox?
Yeah, but not for that reason.

No, I'm actually neither of those things. But then I guess it would inversely apply..
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Re: The

Post by gibson »

chris1089 wrote:
gibson wrote:
chris1089 wrote:Read the rest of my post. You may be enlightened to find my explanation there
I did and found it irrelevant because its complete and utter baseless nonsense


How? What's wrong with my logic or axioms?
Reread your post and find the direct contradiction that I've already point out and you'll see.
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Re: The

Post by Goodspeed »

deleted_user wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:
Show hidden quotes
Are you asking if you are a paradox?
Yeah, but not for that reason.

No, I'm actually neither of those things. But then I guess it would inversely apply..
You're religious?
Well, at least you're not a fan of Marvel..
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Re: The

Post by deleted_user »

Lesser of two evils, baby.
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Re: The

Post by duckzilla »

chris1089 wrote:By chance is not an answer. How did that person with a bullet hole in their jacket end up lying on the floor pouring with blood? oh you happen to be holding the type of gun that shoots that type of bullet with a round missing. They got there by chance isn't going to work.

"By chance" is just an answer that you don't want to accept. It is an answer nevertheless. You can be more precise by stating that there is a (near zero) probability that life happens by some molecules being randomly in the correct order in the right circumstances. As there is a (very slight) probability for this event, "By chance" is an answer to the question.
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Re: The

Post by duckzilla »

chris1089 wrote:1 word, rhymes with go and contains the letter n. The law of thermo dynamics - energy can't be created or destroyed. E=mc^2, this means matter can't be created or destroyted. Therefore you can't get a universe from nothing. That is unless you have an omnipotent being, God, not confined by our space-time continuum, to created all matter and energy.

You try to defeat science with its own weapons. But science does not give absolute answers and does not claim to do so (in contrast to religion). What you refer to are theories and they are just "how we currently think the universe works". It might be that none of these theories is exactly true, but only in those circumstances that we were able to analyse yet.

It is a bit like accusing an ancient scholar of giving incoherent answers, because he cannot explain how lightning works -> clearly there has to be a god of thunder!
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Re: The

Post by Snuden »

duckzilla wrote:
chris1089 wrote:By chance is not an answer. How did that person with a bullet hole in their jacket end up lying on the floor pouring with blood? oh you happen to be holding the type of gun that shoots that type of bullet with a round missing. They got there by chance isn't going to work.

"By chance" is just an answer that you don't want to accept. It is an answer nevertheless. You can be more precise by stating that there is a (near zero) probability that life happens by some molecules being randomly in the correct order in the right circumstances. As there is a (very slight) probability for this event, "By chance" is an answer to the question.

Yea, and it is not like humans as we are today was the only way for life to evolve. Had things gone slightly different, we would just not be as we are today.

Kinda using gib-sons example with the cards here.
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

momuuu wrote:
chris1089 wrote:
Show hidden quotes


1 word, rhymes with go and contains the letter n. The law of thermo dynamics - energy can't be created or destroyed. E=mc^2, this means matter can't be created or destroyted. Therefore you can't get a universe from nothing. That is unless you have an omnipotent being, God, not confined by our space-time continuum, to created all matter and energy.

So you're allowed to make an exception in God yet I'm not allowed to simply state that energy can simply be somewhere at t=0 ? Basically logically if the universe simply has started to exist containing matter, which can simply be stated as an axiom (like you axiomatically state god is omnipotent), then there is no creation of energy. There simply is energy.

By the way, don't throw around simple physics terms around without knowing that they mean. For example, E=mc^2 actually literally means that matter can be created or destroyed, but you use that to argue that matter can be created or destroyed. So basically you don't know too much about physics and most definitely not anything about Einstein's famous E=mc^2.


No, it means that the total amount of energy and matter can't be changed. They can be converted from one to the other but they can't be lost or gained. So what you are really saying is you think the universe has existed in some form eternally, but has significantly changed to what we know it to be like now.

So what form did this matter and/or energy (as they are interchangeable) exist in?
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Re: The

Post by chris1089 »

duckzilla wrote:
chris1089 wrote:1 word, rhymes with go and contains the letter n. The law of thermo dynamics - energy can't be created or destroyed. E=mc^2, this means matter can't be created or destroyted. Therefore you can't get a universe from nothing. That is unless you have an omnipotent being, God, not confined by our space-time continuum, to created all matter and energy.

You try to defeat science with its own weapons. But science does not give absolute answers and does not claim to do so (in contrast to religion). What you refer to are theories and they are just "how we currently think the universe works". It might be that none of these theories is exactly true, but only in those circumstances that we were able to analyse yet.

It is a bit like accusing an ancient scholar of giving incoherent answers, because he cannot explain how lightning works -> clearly there has to be a god of thunder!


So your claiming that you have no ability to explain the world around us, and science, in your eyes, is not able to give coherent answers all the time. Yet you still believe in science to explain the world around us without a God at all. This is a far greater leap of faith than believing an omnipotent God created the universe and made life.
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Re: The

Post by saveyourskill »

The Argument from Ignorance - Debunked (The Appeal to Ignorance - Refuted)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2dYW1pSQy8
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