Do you believe in God?

[homeforsummer]

We really should ask why to everything. People have been asking "why" to everything since the beginning of consciousness most likely. "Why do I exist?" "Why does the Universe exist?" "Why does there need to be a God involved in my existence?" "Why stop asking questions?"

All perfectly reasonable uses of the word "why". But as before, in theory, once you know the answer to the universe's existence then you no longer need to ask "why?". I'm not saying we know the answer to that necessarily, but do you see my point?

People who submit to God are perfectly fine with the idea of unquestioning faith, but bring up evidence of evolution for example, and they start asking questions of why it happens.

Again - totally fair enough. If there are answers, then they can be provided. It's been happening for the last few hundred pages in this thread.

However, if you ask a question like "why did cells appear?" you're making a fundamental misunderstanding in the way the world works. There's no reason why cells came into existence, they just exist because the conditions for their existence are right. Keep asking "why?" to the question and it makes you look like you're doubting the established scientific theory.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help that some atheists respond to this with something along the lines of "because that is how it works."

Much as it sucks, that's simply the answer to some things. It's like the "what's the meaning of life?" question. By asking it you're implying that life has to have a meaning, when it's likely not the case. Life just happens, and it would happen even if we weren't here to question it.

Which sums up the debate really. It's just arguing in circles.

Tell me about it.

So if you're going to argue in circles, at least get into the really juicy, philosophical stuff of the nature of God instead of bashing or defending the bible. That stuff is way more interesting IMO.

I'm more than happy discussing philosophy, but this isn't the thread to do it in.

 

[shmogt]

Ugh here we go again you people have forced me to defend all the none important things and gotten away from the whole point. Forcing me to debate over not important things.

A theory no matter how thought out it is means nothing since its not the answer. Simple. At literally any second someone could find New evidence to prove it wrong. Stephen Hawkins was the one who developed the big bang theory and someone found new info to cause it to be impossible. He came out to the science community and said I worked years on this and it's what made him so famous, but it's wrong and we need to move on.

Not saying they are not important, but they could be dissolved in seconds by a small detail someone left out or didn't think of yet.

I ideally would like to discuss your own theories maybe basing them off of previous theories. As to how it all started. No debating, no fighting simply sharing thoughts. For sure you won't know the exact answers, but that's the whole point. No one does. The creativity of your mind allows it to have endless possibilities of answer than narrow it down to more logical ones. Apply facts and previous knowledge to back it to make your own opinions.

 

[Azuremen]

This is relevant how to the discussion? I don't like going into details about my life or ask others to give that information out because if I said I was 17 and working as a garbage man even tho my points and comments would still be right or informative everyone would naturally think less of them. If I said I am 52 and a scientist suddenly people would not question what I say as much. Either way I don't want that as I want people to use their own brains and think for themselves with no prior "knowledge" to cloud their judgment.

Well, I'm not going to go into why your comments and points aren't right, because, well, they aren't.

That aside, your posting style, truncation of words, misuse of some very easy ones to keep track of, etc would indicate you are younger. And your continual dismissal of counter points or just flatly ignoring them to continue to preaching about how no asks why.

According to you, no one is taught to think for themselves, no one asks why, science is just some guy's opinion, and you can't be bothered to read anything because of that.

Honestly, being younger would play to your favor because at least your complete pigheadedness could be written off as youthful ignorance. If you were a 52 year old scientist you wouldn't be spouting the rubbish you have been.

Honestly, it looks like might just be a nihilist because you can't get an answer you like from anyone and when they do attempt to provide some proof, you just ask "why" and then say you can't believe that because they can't tell you why gravity does what it does.

Ugh here we go again you people have forced me to defend all the none important things and gotten away from the whole point. Forcing me to debate over not important things.

I think you might want to reconsider what is important when all the people you are talking with seem to be valuing other bits more than you are. Perhaps those are the important parts and you are stuck on the trivial elements.

A theory no matter how thought out it is means nothing since its not the answer. Simple. At literally any second someone could find New evidence to prove it wrong. Stephen Hawkins was the one who developed the big bang theory and someone found new info to cause it to be impossible. He came out to the science community and said I worked years on this and it's what made him so famous, but it's wrong and we need to move on.

The the love of god, at least Google before you start talking about things. Hawking did not develop the Big Bang model, and it has not been invalidated. Hell, the notion is even the terms Big Bang is older than Hawking. Honestly, at least try to pretend you are just pulling things out of your ass.

Not saying they are not important, but they could be dissolved in seconds by a small detail someone left out or didn't think of yet.

Wrong, a theory can not be dismissed that easily. Perhaps a hypothesis, but what makes a theory more than that is the testing behind it. For example, Relativity dictates time dilation from massive bodies, and we've tested and verified this. It isn't just going to go out the window because of some new discovery.

I ideally would like to discuss your own theories maybe basing them off of previous theories. As to how it all started. No debating, no fighting simply sharing thoughts. For sure you won't know the exact answers, but that's the whole point. No one does. The creativity of your mind allows it to have endless possibilities of answer than narrow it down to more logical ones. Apply facts and previous knowledge to back it to make your own opinions.

People have been providing you with their opinions and thoughts, supported by evidence. And your responses have consisted more or less of "no, that isn't an original thought or creative." You also insist we need to have our own thoughts and theories. And you tell us to build this on previous ones. Which you just told us aren't the answer (whatever the hell that is) because they can just magically be invalidated according to you. Your logic and requests aren't even consist within a single post, so I want you to take some deep breaths, read what people have been writing, and actually put some thought into your post because you hit that submit button.

 

[huskeR32]

Ugh here we go again you people have forced me to defend all the none important things and gotten away from the whole point. Forcing me to debate over not important things.

A theory no matter how thought out it is means nothing since its not the answer. Simple. At literally any second someone could find New evidence to prove it wrong. Stephen Hawkins was the one who developed the big bang theory and someone found new info to cause it to be impossible. He came out to the science community and said I worked years on this and it's what made him so famous, but it's wrong and we need to move on.

Not saying they are not important, but they could be dissolved in seconds by a small detail someone left out or didn't think of yet.

I ideally would like to discuss your own theories maybe basing them off of previous theories. As to how it all started. No debating, no fighting simply sharing thoughts. For sure you won't know the exact answers, but that's the whole point. No one does. The creativity of your mind allows it to have endless possibilities of answer than narrow it down to more logical ones. Apply facts and previous knowledge to back it to make your own opinions.

Quick, bring back that jaw-dropping smiley...

EDIT:

Thanks dylansan

 

[Famine]

Ugh here we go again you people have forced me to defend all the none important things and gotten away from the whole point. Forcing me to debate over not important things.

If they're not important, don't say them. That way, if they're codswallop, no-one will have to bring you up on it.

A theory no matter how thought out it is means nothing since its not the answer. Simple.

No, you're still getting confused between what you think "theory" means and what a theory actually is.

At literally any second someone could find New evidence to prove it wrong.

For a theory to be wrong, every single previous observation must also be wrong. That's a colossal amount of new evidence.

Let's go back to gravitation. Newton's gravitational theories are correct. They explained every single piece of observed evidence over hundreds of years. Later observations proved inconsistent with Newtonian gravity. These new observations didn't prove Newtonian gravity wrong, rather showed that at extremely small scales it didn't explain all known evidence. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity covers both this and Newtonian gravity into one, unified theory of gravity.

Newtonian gravity explains the strength of gravitational attraction. It isn't wrong - you can still calculate gravitational attraction using F = G (m1m2/r^2). Special relativity explains how the movement of masses bends space-time. General Relativity is a unification of these two.

There are new observations that General Relativity - nearly 100 years old now - doesn't cover, specifically the unification of the three fundamental forces (Strong, Weak, Electromagnetism) with the fourth (gravity) at a quantum level. This is called Quantum Gravity and it is not yet advanced enough to be considered a theory.

I repeat, for emphasis... "not yet advanced enough to be considered a theory."

Stephen Hawkins was the one who developed the big bang theory and someone found new info to cause it to be impossible. He came out to the science community and said I worked years on this and it's what made him so famous, but it's wrong and we need to move on.

Stephen Hawking never worked in that field - his area of study is black holes. To my knowledge, no-one has yet proven the Big Bang to be "impossible". You appear to be mixing up Hawking's famous bet about the nature of information absorbed by black holes with... something else.

 

[shmogt]

Well, I'm not going to go into why your comments and points aren't right, because, well, they aren't.

That aside, your posting style, truncation of words, misuse of some very easy ones to keep track of, etc would indicate you are younger. And your continual dismissal of counter points or just flatly ignoring them to continue to preaching about how no asks why.

According to you, no one is taught to think for themselves, no one asks why, science is just some guy's opinion, and you can't be bothered to read anything because of that.

Honestly, being younger would play to your favor because at least your complete pigheadedness could be written off as youthful ignorance. If you were a 52 year old scientist you wouldn't be spouting the rubbish you have been.

Honestly, it looks like might just be a nihilist because you can't get an answer you like from anyone and when they do attempt to provide some proof, you just ask "why" and then say you can't believe that because they can't tell you why gravity does what it does.

See that's what everyone has been saying that they just know I'm wrong and provide zero facts. I am wondering how it all started. How the first cell was made, why it was made, all the other questions as to what happened. I have read a lot of science theories and I have never read one that shows the origins of the very first creation to a cell or a universe. String theory shows that there may be multiple universe and those universe have universes etc, but it doesn't say "and here is how all the universes started". It shows the end is infinity and that infinity may be an actual number, but not the first. Like always I am talking about the first of it all.

Than I get people telling me something I mentioned about theories is wrong, how my caveman reference is wrong, the word How should be used for this and not Why. IT DOESN'T MATTER. I don't want to talk about those things. If I said Why in a sentence I also mean How, etc. It took me like 10 pages just to get peoples minds off of strictly religion vs science debate. If I say society needs to be more creative and children are being "shut up' more than they should be that is how I personally feel and am not saying that every single person is like this.

Science whether you like it or not was started by a few people trying something out. They than passed that knowledge to others and those people began trying new things or trying to better the first experiment to learn more. I said religion the same general thing happened as someone came up with this whole God thing and they rolled with it. Religion is all about searching for answer in yourself instead of the universe since they feel God created all and have no need to investigate further. Not saying clearly that is true, it's THEIR way of thinking, not mine. I am not trying to debate about this.

For the ten thousands time any spelling or strangely placed paragraphs etc is due to I type 99% of the time on my iPhone threw the app. It auto corrects words and always looks nice and perfect since the screen is small and vertical. I try to correct as much as I can, but sometimes miss something and have no time to correct it after since 5 more people have quoted it and complained already. Please excuse any mistakes like that in the future. I am trying to make it as clear as possible and am sorry for any confusion there.

Edit: Famine in that case yes the theory was not wrong which happens all the time. The world is obviously flat based on I don't fall off of it and eventually the we will reach the end and fall off the edge. That made perfect sense back in the day when we didn't have as much knowledge about how the world works, but than the whole gravity thing came along and showed it was false. The world is round and has a gravitational pull to hold us down. From what I hear it was that one single apple falling that sparked the idea that gravity was a real thing proving the previous theory wrong. The small idea to cause the man to work on gathering more evidence to prove wrong the old theory is what I meant. So someone with a crazier theory right now that is not as main stream could stumble onto something so small like that apple falling and cause them to stumble onto a whole new way of thinking of it and gather new information rather quickly proving any theories now wrong. Only one right now is right no matter how thought out it may be to this point.

The Big bang thing I may be mixing up I heard him come out and say a big theory he had was wrong, but can't remember exactly what it was. I will try and find some reference to that.

 

[Grand Prix]

All perfectly reasonable uses of the word "why". But as before, in theory, once you know the answer to the universe's existence then you no longer need to ask "why?". I'm not saying we know the answer to that necessarily, but do you see my point?

Even if we did reach the point where we understood why the universe exists, I would still ask "why do we know this?", because to me it would seem to be a pretty strange universe if we ever did.

The problem is the context of the question. "How does the Universe exist?" is a completely different question from "why does the Universe exist?"

However, if you ask a question like "why did cells appear?" you're making a fundamental misunderstanding in the way the world works. There's no reason why cells came into existence, they just exist because the conditions for their existence are right. Keep asking "why?" to the question and it makes you look like you're doubting the established scientific theory.

Depends on the context. The person could be asking why cells appeared from replicating DNA. Which can be answered with a "how" explanation. (It's not brilliant grammar but it probably gives them the type of answer they wanted.) If they really were asking why the cells appeared, that would be pretty interesting.

Much as it sucks, that's simply the answer to some things. It's like the "what's the meaning of life?" question. By asking it you're implying that life has to have a meaning, when it's likely not the case. Life just happens, and it would happen even if we weren't here to question it.

Yeah, and that's a perfectly good explanation for how life exists. Why life exists, again, is a different question that we just don't have the answer to. We just "don't know."

 

[homeforsummer]

How the first cell was made, why it was made

I literally give up. Someone let me know when the thread gets back to talking about God. I miss the fella.

If they really were asking why the cells appeared, that would be pretty interesting.

As you can see above, I think that's literally the case.

I've run out of different ways of saying whats wrong with it so I'm out on this one.

 

[Famine]

See that's what everyone has been saying that they just know I'm wrong and provide zero facts. I am wondering how it all started. How the first cell was made, why it was made, all the other questions as to what happened. I have read a lot of science theories and I have never read one that shows the origins of the very first creation to a cell or a universe. String theory shows that there may be multiple universe and those universe have universes etc, but it doesn't say "and here is how all the universes started".

If you're looking for all the answers right now, you won't be satisfied with science. Science gives the right answers, we just don't necessarily have all of them. Yet.

Than I get people telling me something I mentioned about theories is wrong, how my caveman reference is wrong, the word How should be used for this and not Why. IT DOESN'T MATTER. I don't want to talk about those things. If I said Why in a sentence I also mean How, etc.

That's extraordinarily vague. Language is highly important and the difference between the mechanism for something happening (how) and the purpose of it happening (why) is huge.

Ultimately, what you described as "theory" is "guess". That's not what "theory" is. We're not going to let misconceptions like that go because they traditionally underpin any uninformed argument against whatever branch of science is inconvenient today. If we leave things like that floating about unchallenged, people will believe them.

Science whether you like it or not was started by a few people trying something out. They than passed that knowledge to others and those people began trying new things or trying to better the first experiment to learn more. I said religion the same general thing happened as someone came up with this whole God thing and they rolled with it. Religion is all about searching for answer in yourself instead of the universe since they feel God created all and have no need to investigate further. Not saying clearly that is true, it's THEIR way of thinking, not mine. I am not trying to debate about this.

But again, the gulf is as big as the gulf between "how" and "why". "How does x happen? A deity did it." is so far away from "How does x happen? I don't know." that it doesn't even deserve being mentioned as part of the same thought processes - largely because it isn't.

If you're trying to resolve the debate by putting out misconceptions and incorrect anecdotes, you won't get very far. In fact you won't get very far trying to resolve the debate at all. Theists want to believe that a deity created all we see (either literally or by poking the universe) because the universe needs to be started somehow and the deity doesn't. Atheists want to know how the universe started and, for now, not knowing is just fine so long as we get it right at the end.

 

[Tic Tach]

The "why" question comes from how our brains work. We seek patterns & meaning in our environment. This has been looked at extensively in this book.

(Faces in the Clouds)

 

[Azuremen]

Science whether you like it or not was started by a few people trying something out. They than passed that knowledge to others and those people began trying new things or trying to better the first experiment to learn more. I said religion the same general thing happened as someone came up with this whole God thing and they rolled with it. Religion is all about searching for answer in yourself instead of the universe since they feel God created all and have no need to investigate further. Not saying clearly that is true, it's THEIR way of thinking, not mine. I am not trying to debate about this.

You do realize there is a large difference between a problem solving process and faith, right?

Please tell me you do or else this is all just pointless.

Edit: Famine in that case yes the theory was not wrong which happens all the time. The world is obviously flat based on I don't fall off of it and eventually the we will reach the end and fall off the edge. That made perfect sense back in the day when we didn't have as much knowledge about how the world works, but than the whole gravity thing came along and showed it was false. The world is round and has a gravitational pull to hold us down.

People knew the world was round for a long time, back during the Greeks and such. The popular belief is was flat was maintained in Europe in large part because of the politics of the Church. Which is also why Galileo ran into the problems he did with his model of the Solar System - Politics.

 

[Joey D]

Since my questions weren't really answered I would like to post them again:

So I'll ask my questions again to anyone that wants to answer: Why, as atheists, do you feel the need to try to convert the deist to the idea of no God? Isn't that exactly what atheist can't stand? Trying to be converted? Also why is it that many atheist feel superior to deist?

All I want to know is if, as atheist, you get anywhere from annoyed to flat out angry when a theist tries to convert you, then what right do you have to try an convert a believer?

I've seen so many disrespectful comments towards believers in this thread, it honestly makes me question the integrity of the opinion forums. If you acted this way while in a GT5 v. Forza discussion you would probably receive infractions, so I'm a little puzzled why debates can get down to playing the man instead of the ball in the opinion forums?

I agree you have every right to question a person on why they believe the way they do, but there is a tactful and respectful way to do it. I by no means paint everyone with the same brush as there are plenty of respectful replies with sound arguments. I understand that some of you think deists are glancing over important evidence and believing in "fairy tales", but there is absolutely no reason to dive into belittling the person's intelligence instead of calmly constructing respectful rebuttles.

I guess my biggest quandary is that I just don't understand the anger towards deists. Is it really that infuriating?

 

[Grand Prix]

Since my questions weren't really answered I would like to post them again:



All I want to know is if, as atheist, you get anywhere from annoyed to flat out angry when a theist tries to convert you, then what right do you have to try an convert a believer?

I've seen so many disrespectful comments towards believers in this thread, it honestly makes me question the integrity of the opinion forums. If you acted this way while in a GT5 v. Forza discussion you would probably receive infractions, so I'm a little puzzled why debates can get down to playing the man instead of the ball in the opinion forums?

I agree you have every right to question a person on why they believe the way they do, but there is a tactful and respectful way to do it. I by no means paint everyone with the same brush as there are plenty of respectful replies with sound arguments. I understand that some of you think deists are glancing over important evidence and believing in "fairy tales", but there is absolutely no reason to dive into belittling the person's intelligence instead of calmly constructing respectful rebuttles.

I guess my biggest quandary is that I just don't understand the anger towards deists. Is it really that infuriating?

I'm only guessing here, but I suppose for some people it could be because they feel like they've been "lied to" by their Church, school, relatives etc. for so many years.

Have you ever seen a kid after they realized that Santa Clause was a sham, and it was their parents eating their milk and cookies every year? Most people can go through this fine but I suppose some might get really angry for being lied to.

 

[huskeR32]

Since my questions weren't really answered I would like to post them again:



All I want to know is if, as atheist, you get anywhere from annoyed to flat out angry when a theist tries to convert you, then what right do you have to try an convert a believer?

I've seen so many disrespectful comments towards believers in this thread, it honestly makes me question the integrity of the opinion forums. If you acted this way while in a GT5 v. Forza discussion you would probably receive infractions, so I'm a little puzzled why debates can get down to playing the man instead of the ball in the opinion forums?

I agree you have every right to question a person on why they believe the way they do, but there is a tactful and respectful way to do it. I by no means paint everyone with the same brush as there are plenty of respectful replies with sound arguments. I understand that some of you think deists are glancing over important evidence and believing in "fairy tales", but there is absolutely no reason to dive into belittling the person's intelligence instead of calmly constructing respectful rebuttles.

I guess my biggest quandary is that I just don't understand the anger towards deists. Is it really that infuriating?

I like how you completely ignored this:

And I will pose the same question to you that I did to Tic Tac:

If they [deist scientist] believe in God and can manage a groundbreaking discovery that changes the way science thinks then what is the problem? If you some how think these people are inferior I challenge you to tell me what you have done for the advancement of the world lately.

Sorry to bring pack a 5-page old post, but I'm just getting caught up on the last 12 hours or so of posting. Joey, you've brought this up several times now, and it's a ridiculous thing to say.

People needn't have done anything to "advance the world" to engage in a rational debate. That demand is so arrogant.

Finally, let's set this demand of yours against your repeated denouncements in the last few pages of atheists as being "condescending." It just reeks of hypocrisy, doesn't it?

You demand that atheists atone for their "disrespect," yet when I called you out for yours, you didn't make a peep. Good work 👍

 

[Strittan]

I guess my biggest quandary is that I just don't understand the anger towards deists. Is it really that infuriating?

I don't really see this anger, from neither side of the debate. All I see is people trying to figure out how other people think.

 

[shmogt]

Since my questions weren't really answered I would like to post them again:

All I want to know is if, as atheist, you get anywhere from annoyed to flat out angry when a theist tries to convert you, then what right do you have to try an convert a believer?

I've seen so many disrespectful comments towards believers in this thread, it honestly makes me question the integrity of the opinion forums. If you acted this way while in a GT5 v. Forza discussion you would probably receive infractions, so I'm a little puzzled why debates can get down to playing the man instead of the ball in the opinion forums?

I agree you have every right to question a person on why they believe the way they do, but there is a tactful and respectful way to do it. I by no means paint everyone with the same brush as there are plenty of respectful replies with sound arguments. I understand that some of you think deists are glancing over important evidence and believing in "fairy tales", but there is absolutely no reason to dive into belittling the person's intelligence instead of calmly constructing respectful rebuttles.

I guess my biggest quandary is that I just don't understand the anger towards deists. Is it really that infuriating?

This is originally why I started posting in here. All I read was people like tankass (funniest name for a church goer) say they love god and it's helped them in their life. All the comments were about how weak they must be and how dumb they are since science is so superior. I tried to show them that science doesn't know how everything started either so you can't hate on others views. Of course they only picked apart everything I said and hated on me too.

I personally wanna know why, what, when, where, how about the first of everything. Day 1. All I get is people saying how they don't give a **** about why and it's about how. Good for you this is my views. Just like any church person has their right to believe in anything they want to. You do your thing they do there's. Stop hating on everyone cause you do not agree.

 

[huskeR32]

I personally wanna know why, what, when, where, how about the first of everything. Day 1.

Why? Because the conditions were right. Period.
What? If you're asking, you already know this.
When? 13 billion years and change.
Where? Everywhere. I suspect this won't make sense to you. Oh well.

There's your answers. Now, if you don't like them, tough.

 

[Strittan]

I personally wanna know why, what, when, where, how about the first of everything. Day 1. All I get is people saying how they don't give a **** about why and it's about how. Good for you this is my views. Just like any church person has their right to believe in anything they want to. You do your thing they do there's. Stop hating on everyone cause you do not agree.

Which part of this...

If you're looking for all the answers right now, you won't be satisfied with science. Science gives the right answers, we just don't necessarily have all of them. Yet.

...did you not get?

 

[Danoff]

Since my questions weren't really answered I would like to post them again:

So I'll ask my questions again to anyone that wants to answer:

Even me?

All I want to know is if, as atheist, you get anywhere from annoyed to flat out angry when a theist tries to convert you, then what right do you have to try an convert a believer?

I've never understood why people get so irritated by theists trying to convert them. If someone truly believes that you are going to hell to suffer for all of eternity, you'd think they'd lift a finger to try to prevent that no? Seems like the polite thing to do.

Likewise, it's a community service to try to help someone not spend their entire lives delusionally. I think it makes sense for everyone to speak and advocate for the truth as much as possible. Socially that becomes difficult in certain circumstances, and there aren't many social circumstances (aside from the internet) where religious discussion is even appropriate. But where it is (like the internet), I say advocate and discuss as much as possible.

You'll never see me bothering people at their front door to try to convince them though. Like I said, when appropriate.

 

[Joey D]

I like how you completely ignored this:


You demand that atheists atone for their "disrespect," yet when I called you out for yours, you didn't make a peep. Good work 👍

I apologize that I overlooked it, there were many posts between 7am this morning up until about an hour ago. I do work all day and no entirely on top of every post. I would love to be able to sit on the internet all day, it would certainly make the day more entertaining for me.

But where is the disrespect? He was claiming that religious scientist weren't out search for the truth but rather ways to prove God. Being an atheist himself, with the absence in the belief in God, thus nothing to prove, I was wondering what he had done to advance the human race since religious scientist couldn't. I believe it was a fair question.

I have not belittled anyone's intelligence, only responded to the claims they have made. I don't claim atheist's and non-believers to be wrong either, but rather someone who's views of the world around them differently.

Even me?

I've never understood why people get so irritated by theists trying to convert them. If someone truly believes that you are going to hell to suffer for all of eternity, you'd think they'd lift a finger to try to prevent that no? Seems like the polite thing to do.

Likewise, it's a community service to try to help someone not spend their entire lives delusionally. I think it makes sense for everyone to speak and advocate for the truth as much as possible. Socially that becomes difficult in certain circumstances, and there aren't many social circumstances (aside from the internet) where religious discussion is even appropriate. But where it is (like the internet), I say advocate and discuss as much as possible.

You'll never see me bothering people at home to try to convince them though. Like I said, when appropriate.

I apologize if I missed that too.

And I do believe that is a fair point and one that I can agree with. However, I do think there is a polite and impolite way to broach the subject and advocate...even on the internet as hard as that is to believe. You'll often get people to listen to you more if you don't go around calling them idiots for their views, if you just have a pleasant discussion then you should receive a pleasant discussion back.

 

[Villain]

So I'll ask my questions again to anyone that wants to answer: Why, as atheists, do you feel the need to try to convert the deist to the idea of no God? Isn't that exactly what atheist can't stand? Trying to be converted? Also why is it that many atheist feel superior to deist?

I don't feel the need to convert anyone to anything. I come to this thread to pose questions and try to understand the logic behind people's beliefs.

It's interesting to me that a simple question "What is the basis for your belief in God?" can only get one real answer from one person. It makes it seem like the faithful haven't put much thought into why their faith exists in the first place.

 

[huskeR32]

I apologize that I overlooked it, there were many posts between 7am this morning up until about an hour ago. I do work all day and no entirely on top of every post. I would love to be able to sit on the internet all day, it would certainly make the day more entertaining for me.

No worries. If it wasn't my day off, I'd be missing a lot of it too.

But where is the disrespect? He was claiming that religious scientist weren't out search for the truth but rather ways to prove God. Being an atheist himself, with the absence in the belief in God, thus nothing to prove, I was wondering what he had done to advance the human race since religious scientist couldn't. I believe it was a fair question.

To me, his statements about religious scientists don't lead naturally to your question in any way at all. It seemed like a petty shot taken at somebody you didn't agree with. "Oh yeah, what have you done lately" ranks up there with the all-time great ways a third grader ends an argument that they don't know how to successfully navigate. But if you meant no disrespect, then I'll leave it alone.

EDIT: To try and elaborate:

I'm not a huge fan of LeBron James. So let's say a LeBron fan hears me disparage LeBron in some way. And let's say Mr. LeBron fan shoots back at me: "When was the last time you played in the NBA?" That question would seem to serve one purpose: To make me look like a nob in front of anybody who may be listening, and implying that because I wasn't good at basketball, I'm not entitled to have an opinion on it. In reality, the only reason he would pose the question was because he couldn't knock down the point I had made, and resorted to the aforementioned petty challenge of my skills. Now apply this to your exchange with Tic Tach. See what I mean?

 

[nitrorocks]

Why does everyone keep replying? It's an on going argument. Let's just respect eachothers beliefs and be done with it

 

[Villain]

Why does everyone keep replying? It's an on going argument. Let's just respect eachothers beliefs and be done with it

This is a discussion forum. This is what we do. We discuss things.

 

[shmogt]

Why? Because the conditions were right. Period.
What? If you're asking, you already know this.
When? 13 billion years and change.
Where? Everywhere. I suspect this won't make sense to you. Oh well.

There's your answers. Now, if you don't like them, tough.

Billionth time not talking about the earth I'm talking the universe in general. For condition to be right? What created those conditions as in the actual space dust to make the planets? Those are what I'm asking.

Which part of this...

...did you not get?

I wasn't looking for answer or a debate I just said I want to know those things, but non stop got people explaining useless stuff or points I made that we're irrelevant to begin with. I just responded to what I thought would make it clearer, but people didn't understand still. Whatever choose your thoughts and ways of living just don't judge others on what they do or think is right.

 

[huskeR32]

Billionth time not talking about the earth I'm talking the universe in general. For condition to be right? What created those conditions as in the actual space dust to make the planets? Those are what I'm asking.

Yup. That's why my answers were about the universe. 👍

Billionth time not talking about the earth I'm talking the universe in general. For condition to be right? What created those conditions as in the actual space dust to make the planets? Those are what I'm asking.

The Big Bang. Study it if you want to know more. Or, just keep completely missing the point of what everybody is telling you and continue blabbering on. Either way.

 

[Villain]

Billionth time not talking about the earth I'm talking the universe in general. For condition to be right? What created those conditions as in the actual space dust to make the planets?

Oh my goodness you're right! Since science doesn't know what triggered the big bang it must've been God! That's the only logical explanation!

 

[huskeR32]

Billionth time not talking about the earth I'm talking the universe in general. For condition to be right? What created those conditions as in the actual space dust to make the planets? Those are what I'm asking.

For the record, anybody who had a modicum of knowledge of the topic at hand would have immediately known my answers were about the universe because of my answer to "When."

The fact that you didn't make that connection shows you are fantastically unprepared to be a part of this debate.

 

[nitrorocks]

It gets pretty annoying though

 

[huskeR32]

It gets pretty annoying though

I'm sure you can figure out a very simple way to avoid being annoyed by this thread.