sees_all1

Who are you to call it stupid? It makes sense to me. I know in my heart that that prediction is the truth. You can't disprove me and therefore our ideas should be treated with equal warrant. Alright, so let me point a gun to your head and shoot you. No objections?

Yes it does, assumptions I cannot prove. But I believe them to be correct. I don't believe anyone has ever made the assumption that a magical force in the universe will always keep them alive. Its a stupid assumption, because millions of people die every day. Even in religion, death is certain.

You're wrong though. I can assign a weight assignment, statistically speaking the probability that each of the events are going to occur, and sum them. If you hold a gun up to my head, and pull the trigger, one of several things may happen: Case 1 - There is no bullet in the gun. Case 2 - There is a bullet in the gun. In Case 1, there is some percentage that you forgot or just didn't put a bullet in the chamber. This outcome is negative, no positive. If you pulled the trigger, I'd be freaked out and jumpy, emotionally distraught with good reason. Even if I had no emotion this case at best is neutral. In Case 2, there are two more cases. Case 2.1 - The bullet is a dud, Case 2.2 - The bullet goes off. I can find the probability that the bullet is a dud through repeat testing, in fact most bullets are rated this way. 2.1 is slim to none. The outcome in 2.1 is the same though as in 1, and I'd be freaked out. Negative outcome, neutral at best. In Case 2.2, there are several more cases. 2.2.1 - Your aim sucks, and you miss. 2.2.2 - You shoot me. What's the probability you miss? Don't know, but the outcome is the same as 2.1, and its Negative, neutral at best. In 2.2.2, there are even more cases. Case 2.2.2.1 - I survive with half my face being blown off Case 2.2.2.2 - I die. Both of those to me are negative, in the extreme. You argue that there might be more cases, some of which are "positive," for some people. If you ask those people if they want to be shot in the head, they may say yes, but they'll have different reasons (like they're tripping on acid). When you sum up the probabilities multiplied by their expected results (positive or negative), the expected result is grossly negative. You don't even have to make a guess at the probabilities for any one of those outcomes, all the expected results for each probability are negative. There is absolutely no positive for me to be shot in the head, which is why without having ANY certainty in the matter at all, I can tell you I don't want you to hold a gun to my head and shoot. I don't see how that example, with a thousand or more variables, is the same saying there is no proof for the axiom against triviality. Why does it upset you that math, at it's very core, is a set of large assumptions?

That mean public, private, and clan are turned off? I generally hide public, and don't respond to anyone in my immediate surroundings. So much fun when someone thinks you're AFK, only to find out that you hit 350+

I see that statement as, "We don't have a better explanation, but when we get one we'll believe it." Alright, that's fine as it is, but I see far too many atheists that are condescending to people who already have a belief, especially the atheists with a view that is more or less "You're wrong until you can prove it with absolute certainty." They hold that latter view on religion, but hold the ideas and theories from math and science above all else. As I've shown, there are aspects of math (and by extension science) that cannot be proved or disproved, which make them very similar to religion.

Ohaithere. Only if your stats are near max. The biggest difference between a rev. and a pker is one will respond when you call them a safer, the other won't.

Duh, there are so many gods and so many religions. What were you even trying to prove? The point I've made is very simple, yet you don't seem to understand it, or even make an attempt to understand it. You'll find that most of us, when we try to debate something, try our darned hardest to understand the points the other side make, find the validity or the flaws in them, and respond appropriately with respect (which by the way, does not include name calling or insults). Sometimes we'll come to a consensus, other times we'll respectfully disagree. You haven't shown the capacity to do either. You've tried my patience, so you'll get it no more. When you show you can discuss and debate, I'll respond. Until then, enjoy being by your lonesome self.

Congratulations, you've successfully demonstrated how not to debate. I've done you the good service of making valid points and actually attempting to prove them. Clearly you aren't interested in reciprocating, so I think we can assume you have no desire to actually debate on the topic. And they say the religious are closed-minded. Lol, stop trying to sway from the point.I asked you to show me a flaw in atheism, and you haven't provided a single one. I've shown you a "flaw" in math and science, which is the same "flaw" for religion. Math can't prove that one does not equal zero, religion can't prove that a higher being exists. Math and science can't show everything you want to know about the Universe (like how it came to be), while religion can. However, religion can't show everything you want to know about God.

So the questions that lead us to religion make us special? :wink:

Pretty sure that science is debunking this one - humans aren't the only intelligent species. Prove to me that we're special. We can think symbolically. I dont know enough about animal intellegence to know if any species may have that ability too but as far as I know that ability is what separates us from other animals. Rhesus Monkeys can do math. Pretty sure that science is debunking this one - humans aren't the only intelligent species. Prove to me that we're special. We've sent another of our species to the moon.There, happy? I don't think you will be, for some reason. Right, so then humans up until 1960 weren't special at all.

Pretty sure that science is debunking this one - humans aren't the only intelligent species. Prove to me that we're special.

Well essentially, but their based on our survival instincts. Ex: Killing is morally wrong for most people because we have empathy which developed through evolution because it helps us survive as a group. You'd expect to find that in other species as well, but most of the time males of the species will not hesitate to injure other males. I'd expect them to kill each other if they had the tools to do it, or if the losing party didn't retreat.

From what I've learned as a Catholic, I disagree. It is impossible to know a person's heart when they die, it is impossible to know if even Judas Iscariot, the person that sold out Jesus Christ (or insert awful person here), is in hell or not. Also, if Catholics believed that all people will get what they deserve, then all people would go to hell because all people are sinners.

If religion was just meant to be a comfort blanket, why would the religious invent the concept of hell? You might say hell for their enemies, and that's all fine and dandy, except not even the most devout Christians believe they are truly "safe" from hell. Also, as far as "luck" goes, I don't believe in luck (in the traditional sense). I've had enough training in statistics to understand probability. I don't believe objects can be "lucky" - a coat may look good or work for your image, or you may like the feel of it, the coat might affect your psychology and how you project yourself, but nothing in an object changes the inherent probability of an outcome. You can test this. Wear your "lucky" coat, and flip a coin a million times. Luck would say that you'd flip heads some proportion more than tails. If you remove your coat, and do another million trials, luck would say the difference of those two proportions would be statistically significant. This is also to say that the fact that we're here, everything just as it is, in perfect ratios for life, is incredibly "lucky," and I'd have trouble believing it was all random without an external influence.

Since you offered please answer the questions you can on my post on the bottom of page 7 I will answer, but you probably won't like my answer :wink: God is. God is everywhere and nowhere, all at once. God was before the beginning of time, will be after the end of time. If our universe has n dimensions, God resides in the n+1, not bound by the laws that we know. God is unimaginable, and awesome. God is love. God loves so much that He created everything. God loves us so much that He created us in His image, and He gave us free will. People ask the question can an infinite being create a rock that is too heavy to lift? The answer is yes, God created free will. God, in all his infinite might can't force me to chose Him, a paradox. God created everything, formed us in His image, and put us in the Garden of Eden. Our free will was we could chose to live happily forever, and stay away from the two trees, or we could chose something other than God. Our own misfortune, death and suffering, was created solely because our entire race as humans is sinful. God did not create sin, we did from our own free will.

Note it requires ignorance of the Gospel and the Church, because it assumes desire, not to be a good person, but desire to be baptised. Not necessarily total ignorance, just they don't understand the importance of it. Say someone decides their morality at a young age, they're going to live their life by a code. They keep that code throughout their life, because they believe that code is good. They desire good. They might read somewhere something about baptism, but brush it off because they don't understand the importance. Do I believe that person will go to Heaven when they die? Yes, I do. As a Catholic though, I understand that it is impossible to know what the "bare minimum" required to get into heaven is, as that would be knowing more the nature of God. In relating religion to science, I wouldn't necessarily put the existence of God as an axiom, much like how 0 * a = 0 isn't an axiom, it is a result of those axioms. Or rather, religion in a general sense would have more general axioms - something existed before the Universe, and something will exist after the Universe. Also, consequences of axioms may not be the same for different religions, much how in linear algebra the circle dot operation and circle plus operation can change from vector space to vector space so long as it fits the characteristics of axioms. That story defines what sin is. Sin is anything that separates you from God. After eating the fruit, they realized they were no longer in God's grace, so they hid. There are other ideas you can take away from the story, but only in the context of the entire Bible.

Didn't feel it. Didn't see it. Didn't find a reason for there to be one. Is that to say that if some radical event took place in your life, with no understandable explanation, that you would start to believe in something supernatural / higher being?

Works for me, but if you have earnest (read this as legitimate, curious, etc. and not prefacing the question with "this is why you're wrong") questions about Catholicism, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. I have a personal question for you atheists - When did you decide there was no higher being, and why?

"You Christians believe such and such and that's wrong" No, we believe this "I DEMAND PROOF BECAUSE ITS NOT IN THE BIBLE" Here's the proof, and the Bible is cited "THAT PROOF IS TOO LONG I DONT KNOW WHERE TO LOOK IM NOT READING THAT" And that makes me a troll. :wall:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church The Holy Bible This thread :thumbdown: poor form.

God loved us so much that He gave us free will, and the ability to choose something other than Him.

So what? What are you trying to say? Just because the Catholic church has these doctrines doesn't mean other religions/churches do. And where did they get the idea from? You specifically pointed out Christians, and the majority population of Christians are Catholic. Catholics believe in three types of baptisms, so when you said that Christians believe that other religions most likely go to hell, you were misinformed. Read it again. Where did they get the idea from? Certainly not the Bible. No, from the bible. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm Scroll to the bottom and you can see every reference to the Bible and other religious works used.

No. I am referring to the Christian god as one of many non-existent gods. If I ever simply called the Christian god, "god" then I apologise as it was not my intent. However, I make sure to refer to it as "the Christian god" and not "Yahweh" or "Adonai" which I will indeed capitalise. Right, because you didn't muck it here: So what? What are you trying to say? Just because the Catholic church has these doctrines doesn't mean other religions/churches do. And where did they get the idea from? You specifically pointed out Christians, and the majority population of Christians are Catholic. Catholics believe in three types of baptisms, so when you said that Christians believe that other religions most likely go to hell, you were misinformed. Exodus 20:5 - "5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me," so isn't that what I just said? He claims to be a jealous god. This is what I said, the word jealous pertains to the First Commandment. "Jealousy" definitely is a human emotion, but how else are people to understand the nature of God if they can't relate? If God told everyone, "You shall worship no idols," then people think "That's a stupid rule, why?" When God tells everyone that He won't like it because He's jealous and He'll punish you, your children, and generations to come, people won't be so keen to break that rule.

Looks like free trade is shaping up to be a pay feature. <_<