Yes, time to make a cuppa instead I think, now where did I put Russel's teapot?

"hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age"

thats exactly what happens to me i HESITATE to believe what im told as truth since if god existed being good would be intolerable

Can anyone tell or prove to anybody but himself whether the mind is a creation of the universe or the universe a creation of the mind?

Mine creates universes every night!

No lerts, you shouldn't go to a psychiatrist because you don't believe in god, but because you are completely bonkers.
Actually, NOT believing in god would make you a tad more sane in my eyes, if you didn't do it for such a strange reason.

Just like god, "good" and "evil" are abstracts that don't exist, and are dependant on your point of view.

Over £82,000 raised (and still rising by the minute...). Looks like this will become a national campaign.

http://www.atheistcampaign.org/

Following a link throuigh that page, I found a quote that pissed me off.

Quote :

Christianity is for people who aren't afraid to think about life and meaning.

Sorry what? Think? I believe that almost exclusively, al of 'your' ideas are just impounded upon people and the fact almost every Christain believes the same thing, where's the 'thinking'?

I dunno actually know for sure what does "believing" in god actually means, does it mean an absolute faith in something that you know you don't understand, or is it something conjured in your brain from pieces of fact that leads to a probable explanation?

"is it something conjured in your brain from pieces of fact that leads to a probable explanation?"

for example:

my believe in an staged world is factual:

when alonso won his 1st cahmpionship being from my city there was a huge celeb right by my house

i was watching it on tv and suddenly when people went live on tv they started yelling at hell, i could hear them right by my house

i asked my mother how do they know they go live she didnt know then the presentator appeared live right by my house on tv saying i dont knwo how they know they go live

i went out looking for something like a giant screen but could find no explanation

then i would ask my friends and all of them knew there was a giant screen

it was not so giant since i didnt see it even looking for it nor the presenatator knew

so should i consider this an hallucination or as a proof that SHOULD any normal person be suspicious of being cheated by the world

so i have a solid proof that the world maybe staged with wich god might posibly exist because extreme evil might well be staged

ummm okay???

You dont need a giant screen to go live, you need a van. Outside broadcasting units are usually built into a van and are small, mobile, and via satellite can broadcast from one side of the world to the other with a delay of about 2 seconds.

The technology is fairly rudimentary - just a reasonably high bandwidth satellite link.

You dont need a giant screen.

Besides, if I where you - somebody put here to convince me the world isn't a stage by saying how you think the world is staged around you rather than me - that's exactly what I would say in order to try and convince me that the stage I see isn't just a stage... So er, no. The world still revolves around me

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Personally I feel religion is just a money maker.

Live in USA? Watch TBN

As a Christian. I know for sure that most Christians work like hell to get to heaven.

no becky i can bend to a solid a argument

my point is people knew they went live on tv with no posible way to having known, even the presentator was cluelless to this point

this is just a tiny example of the many suspicious things that the world is not what it seems

my suspicious is that when you try to do something horrible like slaying a child god just doesnt let you to by limiting your free will

i give this a chance of being of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

but still posible and for me the posibility of poor evil humans having a free limited will and god existing is this same extremely small posibility

if god allows sexual abuse of children he can count on me fighting him forever but god=bad is a contradiction it would just be a beatable demiurge with amazing powers for us just ants but still human

my experience is of a pleasent life with mild sorrow but no suffering i have no direct prove god allows extreme evil just what the news tell

but waht if news are faked the world staged and theres nobody suffering famines

what if i dare to be trully agnostic and give the slight cahnce of a just god existing which for me implyes so many horrible things we hear are false

Quote :

my point is people knew they went live on tv with no posible way to having known, even the presentator was cluelless to this point

I'm affriad you've lost me in the translation. The presenter did not know he was going live? Or they had somebody at Alonso's house ready to interview his family whether he won or lost the championship that night? I'm very confused.

As for why a God would allow bad things to happen. Have you considered the possibility that God is a saddist? It is entirely possible, indeed probable, that if Jahweh (the Christian God) does exist and care about Earth then in order to tolerate the things we do in this world he would have to be just a little bit kinky, probably into latex and oiled rubberwear, and very much a sexual deviant.

haha im willing to admitt god is a sadist in fact yavhe is but that would make him a lesser fightable god and i have no fear of eternal damnation and willing to fight a nazi that exterminated the giants with the deluge just cause they were ugly not to mention nuking sodoma

i think you are pretending not to understand:

5000 people right by mi house

they appear live on tv and exactly at that moment they yelled as hell as they knew they were appearing live on tv

how did they know if i searching for it could find no way they could know they went live?

usually having a guy shove a camera in your face with the red rec light on is considered a fairly good clue as to whats going on

Quote from lerts :

haha im willing to admitt god is a sadist in fact yavhe is but that would make him a lesser fightable god and i have no fear of eternal damnation and willing to fight a nazi that exterminated the giants with the deluge just cause they were ugly not to mention nuking sodoma

i think you are pretending not to understand:

5000 people right by mi house

they appear live on tv and exactly at that moment they yelled as hell as they knew they were appearing live on tv

how did they know if i searching for it could find no way they could know they went live?

EDIT: Never mind.

Lerts', I don't mean to offend you but this was a pretty intelligent discussion until you turned up.. please just learn when and how to express your ... 'different views. Either that or I have failed to understand anything.

Everyone believes what they're told.

If you grew up in a Christain family, it's more likely than not that you become Christian in adulthood, same goes for a non religious family.

Really, religion is just a methord of excaping the unknowns that face us all.

"What if you die?"

Normal person : "Nothing or you become a ghost etc etc"
Religious person : "God will reincarnate you into a beautiful white dove resting on a gently swaying oak tree" etc, you get my point.

Quote from pinoykid13 :

As a Christian. I know for sure that most Christians work like hell to get to heaven.

i agree, you christian? I am! and i'll keep yelling it out even if i got shot. you athiests (idk how to spell that, cause i dont care) should be ashamed. but, God forgives. thats the cool part about him. God takes you, and helps you. so yeah, idc if you make fun of me. i m christian.

Quote from GrIp DrIvEr :

i agree, you christian? I am! and i'll keep yelling it out even if i got shot. you athiests (idk how to spell that, cause i dont care) should be ashamed.

Why?

Quote :

i agree, you christian? I am! and i'll keep yelling it out even if i got shot. you athiests (idk how to spell that, cause i dont care) should be ashamed. but, God forgives. thats the cool part about him. God takes you, and helps you. so yeah, idc if you make fun of me. i m christian.

That's a little irrational. Quite a lot in fact. Firstly, i'm not an aethiest, but most importantly you seem to have some perceived ideals of what God is like - so you are not just believing in something without evidence, but also imposing your own world view on the outcome of your own make-believe fantasy.

How do you know God forgives? Has he provided evidence of this? How do you know God helps me, has he provided evidence of that too?

If anything Lerts has raised one very good point, God - should he exist - clearly doesn't forgive Humans. That of course is a subjective view based upon all that is wrong in this world and the pain and suffering of the vast majority of subjugated Humans in lesser developed countries.

Further, according to your good book the only thing that isn't forgiveable is not believing in him, meaning that heaven is full of born again rapists and paedophilles.

Not exactly a just God is he?

By all measure of reasoned ethics, he's a bit of an arsehole.

Quote from pinoykid13 :

As a Christian. I know for sure that most Christians work like hell to get to heaven.

Isn't that a bit selfish?

Quote from GrIp DrIvEr :

i agree, you christian? I am! and i'll keep yelling it out even if i got shot.

I doubt it. (The yelling, I mean.) I once watched a documentary about the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the heaviest battles in WWII. A Japanese veteran told that he'd seen many soldiers die, Japanese as well as Yanks. Guess what was the most common thing they said as they died? It wasn't cursing, or heroic/nationalistic shouting. Wasn't calls to their deities.

They called for their mother.

Quote from GrIp DrIvEr :

i agree, you christian? I am! and i'll keep yelling it out even if i got shot. you athiests (idk how to spell that, cause i dont care) should be ashamed. but, God forgives. thats the cool part about him. God takes you, and helps you. so yeah, idc if you make fun of me. i m christian.

Why should I be ashamed for not believing in God? Should Muslims be ashamed for believing in the same deity as you? Or Jews be ashamed for not liking the New Testament an awful lot? Where do you draw the line?

If you can tolerate these different religions (I do, it's their thing, if it makes them happy then that's great), then I would think you should be able to tolerate people who don't believe in any God.

I don't believe in God, I try to live a good and moral life (and I'm doing OK there I think, but it's not up to anyone to tell me otherwise), it's your choice if you want to tell us we should be ashamed, likewise it's my choice if I want to tell you you're talking out of your arse.

I'm of the opinion that I don't mind what God(s) people choose to believe in, if they would just please not knock on my door every week trying to get me to believe in what they do, I'd actually like them more! I'm very tolerant of whatever people choose to do, spiritually,sexually, whatever, as long as they don't hurt others, and keep it out of my face, it's fine.

P.S. I'm surprised (and maybe a little disappointed) - where are the Jedis? Does no-one believe in the force anymore?

Live long and prosper

Quote from GrIp DrIvEr :

you athiests (idk how to spell that, cause i dont care) should be ashamed. but, God forgives. thats the cool part about him.

I'm not sure what I should be ashamed of, but it's cool that God forgives me for being an atheist. However, I expect he won't keep forgiving me if I stick to atheism until I die.
(Is conversion when arriving at the Pearly Gates an option? I guess not.)

In comparison, atheists are uber-cool. It's OK with them if christians stick to their faith. They even don't see believing in a deity as a sin, so actually there is nothing that ought to be forgiven. Best of all, the atheists have no fickle deity who might overrule the humans.

Quote from GrIp DrIvEr :

i agree, you christian? I am! and i'll keep yelling it out even if i got shot. you athiests (idk how to spell that, cause i dont care) should be ashamed.

You are exactly the sort of American who shouldn't be in power.