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Thread: Should an atheist as questions of believers?

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    Quote Originally Posted by MisterVeritis View Post
    It is okay. I don't see it.
    Well, that's the point, you don't see a way to justify truth, right/wrong without. As I said, neither do I. Individualism goes in the wrong direction, progressivism seeks but cannot find.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by MisterVeritis View Post
    Some of you know I see no evidence supporting the existence of any gods. Throughout time many people have believed in many, many gods. The Sumerians and most other Mesopotamian cultures believed in hundreds of gods. Every city, town, hill, valley, wood and stream had its god or gods. Today, Christians believe in three gods while Jews and Muslims believe in one.I have asked believers to show their evidence supporting the existence of the gods they believe in. Most believers are rude to me. A few are not. But none can provide any evidence.As I was eating lunch today I thought, perhaps, I believe wrong things. Believers believe, after all. Is it possible believers are hearing one part of their brain conversing with other parts of their brain? That might explain where there is no evidence for gods and yet there are huge numbers of believers.Should I ask this question of believers? Do you believe because god is a voice inside your head?Note the tPF. It is really just to keep things civil.
    You can ask the question but most would tell you you're wrong. The rest wouldn't understand what you mean or know how to respond.Faith is the belief in something you can't prove. You are asking a question that has no answer.
    https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html
    The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years tthe cosmos that we know today.Because current instruments don't allow astronomers to peer back at the universe's birth, much of what we understand about the Big Bang Theory comes from mathematical formulas and models. Astronomers can, however, see the "echo" of the expansion through a phenomenon known as the cosmic microwave background.

    While the majority of the astronomical community accepts the theory, there are some theorists who have alternative explanations besides the Big Bang — such as eternal inflation or an oscillating universe.

    I can't prove God and the smartest people on Earth can't prove the Big Bang Theory.
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    Quote Originally Posted by MisterVeritis View Post
    I can see that death is a distraction. Given that all of life is horrific may be a factor in believing. Gathering, farming societies tended to see life emerging from death and decay. Hunters believed life was in the blood.
    where did they get that idea...that life was in the blood?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    Yes. A sense of right and wrong isn't really in question. Human beings can be said to have such a sense. The question is one of a sense of right and wrong that corresponds to a reality independent of the human mind and will.

    Objective truth could still exist but only by definition (e.g. a triangle has 3 sides).

    In your scenario, all rights are political and could be nothing but political.

    True, we have a sense of truth, right/wrong, so there must be some way to account for it.

    Axioms are useful.

    I'm coming to see modern rights are merely political. I left them out of truth, right/wrong.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Standing Wolf View Post
    Ultimately I think it might in large part be a fear of extinction at death; imagining a being who cares about you as an individual and can ensure that you'll go on living in some fashion is certainly an attraction. There is also a human tendency to try to make sense and order out of everything that is encountered. The idea that it could all be an accident - an accident that might be completely erased if a big enough rock hits the planet and sends it hurtling into the Sun, or something similar - is unacceptable to them.
    I've heard very few believers say that. I hear that from atheists who can't understand belief.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Calypso Jones View Post
    that is not an answer to the question he asked.
    You're right. Nevertheless, I do think it's a reasonable enough explanation of why people tend to believe in gods. As for the question of proof, I will go out on a limb here and predict that this thread will end at some point without any even reasonably compelling "proof" being offered. Not because I'm prejudging anything or rejecting any arguments beforehand; it's just that countless philosophers and theological scholars have, collectively, spent centuries attempting to come up with such objective evidence without success.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captdon View Post
    You can ask the question but most would tell you you're wrong. The rest wouldn't understand what you mean or know how to respond.Faith is the belief in something you can't prove. You are asking a question that has no answer.
    https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html
    The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years tthe cosmos that we know today.Because current instruments don't allow astronomers to peer back at the universe's birth, much of what we understand about the Big Bang Theory comes from mathematical formulas and models. Astronomers can, however, see the "echo" of the expansion through a phenomenon known as the cosmic microwave background.

    While the majority of the astronomical community accepts the theory, there are some theorists who have alternative explanations besides the Big Bang — such as eternal inflation or an oscillating universe.

    I can't prove God and the smartest people on Earth can't prove the Big Bang Theory.
    But we do know that all human societies ponder these unknowns. Relatively speaking, very few believe these unknows came about by random chance. The faith traditions believe something guided these processes but of course don't agree in the detail. And many of those think it is the honest search that matters rather than the following of route tradition, like learning 3+4=7 with no ability to explain why that is.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    I'm not sure about your first observation. The fact that personal religion and the being you describe are historical phenomena would seem to suggest that human beings would have then developed this particular fear rather late in the history of our species.

    As for your second observation, the concept of existence as an accident entails a great deal particularly with regard to progress, morality and ethics which, IIRC, was unacceptable to you. Considering how it went the first time, I'm not interested in having that discussion again but I thought it a point that bears repeating. Have a good evening.
    Okay, I get it. Just a brief note about the idea that a personal afterlife might be something developed "rather late in the history of our species, though. While by no means conclusive, there have been some discoveries suggesting that even Neandertals may have had some thoughts in that direction.
    '
    https://www.discovermagazine.com/pla...-the-afterlife
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    Yes. A sense of right and wrong isn't really in question. Human beings can be said to have such a sense. The question is one of a sense of right and wrong that corresponds to a reality independent of the human mind and will. ....
    Who is judging Man's "sense of right and wrong" to be so far removed from the natural world as to indicate a supernatural origin? Wouldn't that be Man himself? Isn't this just another instance of human beings standing back and admiring something about themselves and marveling at their own innate virtue? Saying, in effect, "We're so smart and good it MUST have been a god that made us so!"?
    Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard

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    In general relativity the chair that I am sitting in is a chair. In quantum physics the atoms that make up my chair are not a chair. We only perceive that collections of atoms as a chair when we observe the object (or sit in it). Those atoms could be anything else.

    This unknown is what faith traditions are trying to answer. And it is why science came out of religious inquiry. That changed with the Enlightenment where science rejected everything that it could not measure.

    Today quantum physics is returning to the pre-enlightenment age. The answers we discover will change us more than advances of the pure age of enlightenment.
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