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Author
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Topic: A question for Athiests/Evolutionists. (re: How can one not belive in something greater than himself? et all)
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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quote:
How can one go through life's difficulties and be unable to always know that at least one person loves you?
One person always does love me. Me.
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At times, it is my only comfort knowing that God loves me, and I cannot understand how one can go through life without belief in something. Can anyone give me a good reason on why they do not belive in any omnipotent being or diety?
I do not see any evidence that such a diety exists, so I don't know if such a diety exists or not. Nobody knows.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 1 by TheClashFan, posted 11-19-2004 9:24 PM | | TheClashFan has not replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: It's a matter of choice
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Atheists and Theists believe the way they do simply because they want to.
Mmmm, not exactly. I can see no other rational alternative.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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quote:
Ted Bundy, in my opinion, was definatley following the instructions of demons wether he knew it or not.
But this just excuses Bundy's behavior, doesn't it? "Demons made me do it!" I think that when people portray those who perpetrate terrible acts upon others as "monsters", or being "posessed by demons", it is just a way to avoid confronting the truth that humans are capable of atrocities all on our own. The Iraq war has killed well over 100,000 innocent people. Bundy killed only a few in comparison. Is Bush following the instructions of demons? At least Bundy was obviously mentally ill.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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off topic
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God created cancer, and it is not good, though it is an organism.
As an aside, I just thought I'd make a little correction here... Cancer isn't an invading organism, it's the body's own cell repair system that doesn't know when to stop.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Any omnipotent being allows evil to exsit
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I think that some athiests on some level know that just beause they deny God, they can't be protected from the devil.
I think that some believers on some level know that just beause they have invented their God, they can't be protected from the reality of death.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Any omnipotent being allows evil to exsit
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If you weren't intending on forcing me to love you, then sure, I would take the beating in order for you to show me that you love me.
Hmmm, Battered Women's Syndrome.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Clash Fans thread synopsis
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As for demons, one(as a Christian who belives in such things) can't go through life ignoring them. If you spread out your arms, you touch angels and demons fighting. They are unseen, but there none the less, so one must understand and be aware of demons in order to protect yourself against them.
What a frightening, drama-filled world you live in. You sound like you have time-traveled in from medieval Europe during the Dark Ages. There is a very good book your post reminded me of, and I reccommend it to you: "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark", by Carl Sagan.
Read more here
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Any omnipotent being allows evil to exsit
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I can see what you mean, though, but as a Christian, you can't simply belive in God and not beilve in the devil.
The devil is hardly mentioned in the Bible, and neither is hell. It is modern Christianity which has given the devil and hell a much greater presence in the practice of the religion. Having a Big Bad living in a terrible place is a great tool to keep people fearful and therefore more controllable.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Survival is amazing?
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No offense against women, but we do get scatter brained and forget to take things one at a time.
This is very true of boys as well. Perhaps "Stupid Teenager Syndrome?" FYI, between my husband and I, I am much more mentally organized and he is the scatterbrained one. He's the professional scientist, though, so go figure.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 174 of 282 (163286)
11-26-2004 7:36 AM
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Reply to: Message 171 by lfen
11-25-2004 11:05 AM
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Re: Survival is amazing?
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Is that the "absented minded professor" syndrome? A person so caught up in their thinking about the subject that is of central importance to them that they don't pay attention to the mundance details of their lives such as if their socks match or where they sat their coffee cup down.
I think it has more to do with worry and stress making his thinking less clear about the mundane things. He is defending in February, you see...
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 171 by lfen, posted 11-25-2004 11:05 AM | | lfen has not replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: It's a matter of choice
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It all comes down to what is rational to you and what is rational to me.
Well, no, because "what is rational" about the facts of the nature of the universe can be objectively agreed upon based upon evidence. What is rational is not arbitrary or determined by what one wants it to be.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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My statement was not meant to give his actions any excuses, but to merely explain them. Following the instructions of demons is in no way forgivable.
I see what you are saying, but shifting the explanation to "demons told me and I listened" is still making up some other thing to explain where the idea or origin of horrible acts comes from. People come up with all sorts of terrible things to do all by themselves. The sooner we learn to deal with this reality the better the human race will be able to understand why people become this way. It is just a needless, meaningless distraction to ascribe the motivations of human behavior to magical creatures like angels or demons.
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As for Bush, I think that he is doing his best for the U.S.A, even if people don't always agree with him.
I'm not so sure he's doing his best. If he is doing his best, it certainly isn't near good enough to be president of the US.
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As for those who died fighting, it was their choice. I am unsure about the casualties numbers.
I wasn't talking about fighters. I was talking about 100,000 civilian Iraqi casualties.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Any omnipotent being allows evil to exsit
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He does speak to us, but we are to stupid to hear Him.
But God is all-powerful, right? Why doesn't god either; 1) Make us not stupid so we can hear him, or 2) Speak to us in such a way so as to make it 100% unambiguous to every single person on the plantet exactly what He is saying?
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: Any omnipotent being allows evil to exsit
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I assume because He wishes us to try to listen to Him.
But there are many, many people who never have the opportunity to learn about your particular concept of God. There are also lots of people who do hear about your concept of God, do try with all their hearts to hear Him, but don't.
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And again, free will comes into play. He does not make us love Him because He wants us to choose to love Him. Would you prefer to be feared and be the reciever of false love, or would you wish to be the reciever of true love?
I am not talking about God making us love him. I am talking about God making it 100% clear that He exists. You could choose to love or not after God's existence is established.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Hmm, you'd think someone would have heard such a great number on T.V or on the radio...I know I haven't...
When I did a Google search on "Iraqi civilian deaths 100,000" I got 128,000 hits. This is common knowledge unless you are watching Fox News.
ABC.net.au: Page Not Found Last Update: Friday, October 29, 2004. 7:10am (AEST) Iraqi civilian deaths put at 100,000 Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to public health experts who estimate there were 100,000 "excess deaths" in 18 months. The US-based researchers found that the risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher than before the war. The rise in the death rate was mainly due to violence and much of it was caused by US air strikes on towns and cities, they said. "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq," said Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a report published online by The Lancet medical journal. "The use of air power in areas with lots of civilians appears to be killing a lot of women and children," Mr Roberts said. The report comes just days before the US presidential election in which the Iraq war has been a major issue. Mortality was already high in Iraq before the war because of United Nations sanctions blocking food and medical imports. But the researchers described their findings after the war as shocking. quote:
Humans, to my way of thinking, start out with some silly little idea like "I want to kill him because he made fun of me". Demons can take these small ideas and turn them into "I want to kill every person in the world because they all make fun of me."
Why can't humans do this without demons?
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from that homocidal thought comes planning. Demons take advantage of people, thought it doesn't at all excuse the person's actions. I don not belive that it is in the human nature to commit such terrible things, but it is in the nature of sin.
Why isn't in human nature to do these things? Humans have waged war on each other for millenia. Wars invole the killing, by individual soldiers, of many hundrede and maybe thousands, of other individual human beings. Demons have nothing at all to do with any of it. Humans are responsible. If we just make "demons" responsible, then we can never hope to understand the violent sde of human nature. Tell me, do you believe mental illness has natural causes or are people posessed by demons?
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