Anti-theist

The anti-theist case has been made in many ways. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged attacks the "mystics of spirit" and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great discusses almost every individual version of religion invented by humans.

But the most basic principle, in my opinion, is that good people will do good things and evil people do evil things, but in order to persuade good people to do evil things faith is needed to drive them.

Welcome to our Sundae Service, Brothers and Sisters.

Healthy discussion is fostered by different points of view. We need do no less.

Dr. George Ellis is one of the most prominent cosmologists in the discipline. He co-authored books with Stephen Hawking. The smart just drips out of the video. Ten minutes of wonderful cosmology well worth the listen.

Then …

… the ending is a bother. Big time.

How physical causality within the universe is not exclusive he doesn’t explain. And how he leaps from the supposition of these other causalities to a “something that intended it to be that way” is interesting. Wrong, but interesting.

To hear that part you have to get to the end first. Don't skip ahead or you'll miss out on all the good cosmology stuff.

Philosophy of Cosmology | Closer to Truth

Then … … the ending is a bother. Big time.

It didn't bother me. But then I take most cosmology as speculative.

He seems to be attempting to answer the question "Why is there something, rather than nothing." And we should all know that there will never be an answer for this question.

How physical causality within the universe is not exclusive he doesn’t explain. And how he leaps from the supposition of these other causalities to a “something that intended it to be that way” is interesting. Wrong, but interesting. To hear that part you have to get to the end first. Don't skip ahead or you'll miss out on all the good cosmology stuff.

I like his thought process...as far as I can understand it. I also like that he does not favor the multiverse theory. I have always maintained that even in an infinite array of potential multiverses, there would still only be One God. Just my belief...but I will say this, AZ.
You have no basis to declare his "something" as WRONG. It is one of the five possible options. A ten year old budding anti-thesit can push it out of his mind, but he cant push it out of the realm of possibility. And God can make His home in the imaginations of smart folks as well as authoritarian simpletons.

Today is Easter Sundae for most of the christian world.

So as I understand it if Jesus comes out of his tomb and sees his shadow we have another year of guilt to go through.

Has anyone heard what happened this morning? Do we get more guilt or, after 2000 years, is it over?

Guilt is a Catholic thing. Protestants feel "Blessed", Highly Favored" and occasionally boast about being a "peculiar people".

Phat writes: Guilt is a Catholic thing. Protestants feel "Blessed", Highly Favored" and occasionally boast about being a "peculiar people".

Once again Phat, you are simply showing your ********* about Christianity.

Guilt is an HONESTY thing rather than a Catholic thing.

It is only those Christian Cults that are totally divorced from reality that feel "Blessed", Highly Favored" and occasionally boast about being a "peculiar people".

On Sunday’s vid with Dr. George Ellis.

We’re talking unfalsifiable speculations on the fine tuning for life in this universe.

There is a reason the cosmologic constants of the universe are as they are. We just don’t know what that reason is.

Dr. Ellis groups the many various speculative theories under these 4 reason categories.

Pure happenstance
Inevitability
High probability among multi-worlds
Designer, Intent.

Why did he make this last one? It doesn’t seem to be of the same logical class as the other three. To me it is cultural not cosmologic. If it wasn’t for religion in human culture the meme from which he created this one would not have existed. Seems more of a personal religious category than a universal cosmologic one. There is no reason for designer/intent to be on that list at all. But if you’re an active believing Quaker you can do that with your cosmology. I think he may be trying to find ways to justify his god’s claim to the universe.

But since it is there … designer/intent is supposed to be a category of possible unfalsifiable speculations for why the cosmologic constants are as they are. And designer/intent is just one of three such categories chuck full of possible unfalsifiable speculations for why the constants are what they are. Convoluted enough?

Anyway, no, cosmology is not making room for gods. Speculations are not actualities.

It may take a thousand years but we will figure out why the constants are as they are and I am assured, by several of my secret powers, it won’t be anything from the designer/intent category.

It won’t be gods. It’s never gods. Gods are kinda like aliens but fake.

Welcome all to our Sundae Sermon where we not so much sermon as babble.

Today’s babble is courtesy of our long suffering Christian friend, Phat.

Blame him. He started this. See Message 69 (nice)

Bible Basher

All he does is trivialities.

Defending trivialities. Bible de-thumpers using trivialities to attack. Neither addresses the problems reality presents for the evil of the bible. Trivialities don’t matter. The overall theme, the evil of the Abrahamic tribal war god, the evil that subsumes every book in the tome, should be the subject, well beyond the trivialities of syntax and minor error.

The conclusion your apologist arrives at is that the bible is god’s word because some of the book's boo-boo’s are, he declares, resolved. How blind. Resolve all the little dates and names you want. The problem of its evil remains.

10 Quick reasons you shouldn’t be so quick to write off Christianity

1. Christianity far from being a crutch for the weak grew and continues to spread during times of intense persecution.

Humans in trouble are likely, if the basis of belief is within them, to seek comfort from their misery in their acculturated religion. Your bible thumper gives a couple numbers that I cannot verify.

Regardless, he neglects to recognize that the same motivation to escape life’s hardships happens in every culture with every religion. Christianity is nothing special in this regard. People who are weak in the recognition of reality will gravitate to religion in times of stress. It’s a human thing – not a Christian thing. And most humans are not Christian.

2. Jesus is the most influential person in history.

No. He wasn’t. The political power of the European church made the cultural references to Jesus ubiquitous. If some temporal category change is the evidence then it is the Roman Catholic Church, 500 years into their reign, which influenced the calendar, not your Jesus. And they lied about the reasoning they chose. Dionysius Exiguus - Wikipedia had no details of Jesus’ birth and faked the timeline. So much for divine inspiration and influence.

3 & 4 are classical creationism which was debunked over 100 years ago. No one should be surprised at the thumpers clinging to debunked false claims.

5. The universe had a beginning.

The Kalamata Cosmological Olive Principle.

To say everything that exists has to have had a cause is fine given the evidence reality has shown us. That would include any gods.

Religionists want to exempt their gods from this requirement. That may be allowed in an article of faith but it is not allowed in the halls of logic. Articles of faith have no force on the reality of logic and the exemption of gods to this rule is illogical, false and rejected.

If you invoke the olive principle then if your gods exist they had a cause. Which would mean it is not the ultimate power and is inferior to another. If you insist that your gods did not have a cause then, in accordance with the olive argument they do not exist.

The only thing we know for certain is that the universe exists. The universe had, apparently, what we have called a beginning in the big bang because we do not have any evidence (or reasonable explanation) of what would have preceded this period. The logic of reality tells us there had to have been something prior (if we define time to allow for a prior and if this logic treatment holds inside this unknown realm) but with present knowledge we are unable to say what that something prior was or even if such a thing existed at all. We do not know.

To jump from that extreme level of ignorance to, not just *therefore god* but therefore to the Christian branded offshoot of a god, is the usual illogic of superstitious stupidity - religion.

Further still, if your gods are not caused then whatever reasons you use to justify this applies equally well to the entire universe. If your god needs no causation then neither does the universe.

6. Historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.

Myths embedded in a book of myths should be no surprise. Unlike the thumper’s insistence there is no reliable independent evidence this myth is any more or less fairy tale than the rest of the tome. Also, all the science says this course of events is not possible for a complex biological organism that is dead. Invoking majik is not historical. It’s charlatanism.

7. The existence of objective moral values.

The arguments presented are juvenile. Objective morality is not known to exist. All of human history shows the differences in morality to include every depravity, evil, love and compassion humans can do at each other. Even the most basic of moralities we as humans practice (empathy, compassion, etc.), born of the social mores learned from the evolution of our social species, are subjective. Subject to change from social pressures. We know this. We have seen this. Objective morality does not exist. This is objective fact.

8. The fact mercy is at the heart of Christianity.

What bullshit. Christianity is one of the most destructive, blood-letting, murderous, death-cults ever unleashed on the world. We have the history. We have seen its fruits. Christianity is far from merciful. It is known evil.

9. Christianity provides a framework from which science can be practiced.

Again, bullshit. Science is still struggling to get out from under religious restrictions on major areas of research and discovery. Religion in general, Christianity in particular, have a long history of science repression. This fool is blind to this reality and his argument is apparently meant to convince the believing choir not the knowledgeable layman.

10. Christianity speaks to the heart of the human condition.

The human condition envisioned by Christianity is one of subservience to assumed divine revelation as determined by the shamans and the priests. The human condition envisioned by Christianity is a mind imprisoned by creed unwilling to challenge the elders of the church.

To the Christian church humans are born evil and will act evil as a matter of existence. And the evil perpetrated by us humans is non-belief, non-obedience to the dictates of the power priests, independent thought and action not sanctioned by the church. And for this evil you must burn in hell forever. Unless … you bow and empty your wallet.

Christianity is not addressing the human condition, it is still trying to enslave it. Christianity is known evil. Like all religions, there are no redeeming qualities in efforts to enslave the human mind and bend it to its will.

There are no reasons to NOT write off Christianity.

I like this guy on YouTube. He defends the Bible very well.

Of course you do, Phat. You are part of the choir he is talking to. His treatment is all fantasy and articles of faith, insistence on myth and wishful thinking. No reality to any of it to cause you any concerns, Phat.

But, Phat, his arguments are juvenile, debunked decades ago, and wholly unsophisticated and uninspiring. This reads as an awkward child’s excuse for his favorite wet dream and defends nothing very well at all.

AZ writes: Defending trivialities. Bible de-thumpers using trivialities to attack. Neither addresses the problems reality presents for the evil of the bible. Trivialities don’t matter. The overall theme, the evil of the Abrahamic tribal war god, the evil that subsumes every book in the tome, should be the subject, well beyond the trivialities of syntax and minor error. The conclusion your apologist arrives at is that the bible is god’s word because some of the book's boo-boo’s are, he declares, resolved. How blind. Resolve all the little dates and names you want. The problem of its evil remains.

The evil does not come from the Bible. The evil comes from the people.

Humans in trouble are likely, if the basis of belief is within them, to seek comfort from their misery in their acculturated religion.

I agree. The Bible is a record of humans and their usage and misusage of their religion.

One cliche which I recall as being apt is the fact that Jesus desires relationship and not religion.

Regardless, he neglects to recognize that the same motivation to escape life’s hardships happens in every culture with every religion.

True, but the mistake many people make is assuming that all gods are equally relevant or irrelevant. (In my belief)

The political power of the European church made the cultural references to Jesus ubiquitous. If some temporal category change is the evidence then it is the Roman Catholic Church, 500 years into their reign, which influenced the calendar, not your Jesus.

IF my Jesus was a cultural meme and a product of human thinking, you will win the argument and religion will eventually disappear. Tangle and you can celebrate in a pub somewhere. But if Jesus is who he says He is, you will encounter Him some day, either through judgement or through forgiveness. So will all of the other beliefs, all of the other religions, and all of the humans on this planet, regardless of what they believe. God is not simply a product of our imagination.

The overall theme, the evil of the Abrahamic tribal war god, the evil that subsumes every book in the tome, should be the subject, well beyond the trivialities of syntax and minor error.

Warring people do crazy and desperate things. The culture of that time was very territorial and warlike. We hope not to see it again, but if the global warming scenarios of global food scarcity come to fruition, you wont find people huddled at a big table seeking consensus among desperate people groups.

Also, all the science says this course of events is not possible for a complex biological organism that is dead. Invoking majik is not historical. It’s charlatanism.

Science is not a power unto itself. Science is only as alive and influential as the people who use it. I predict that some day when desperate people again turn to "myths" for comfort that science will try and make them stop doing that. (Rather, those holding the concept of science in their minds who also reject the idea of God. ) This alone will lead to further wars.

The evil does not come from the Bible. The evil comes from the people.

And the attack on Capitol Hill did not come from Trump either.

True, but the mistake many people make is assuming that all gods are equally relevant or irrelevant.

Since none of them exist in actuality that means that all gods are equally irrelevant.

IF my Jesus was a cultural meme and a product of human thinking, you will win the argument and religion will eventually disappear. Tangle and you can celebrate in a pub somewhere.

Hey, Tangle, it's suds time. Phat's paying.

God is not simply a product of our imagination.

Not only are they imagination, your gods are the product of millennia of the Big Lie perpetrated by generations of charlatans and power priests. Like the safety of cigarettes the Big Lie repeated often can make you believe anything.