Atheists..... throwing the baby out with the bath water ?

by snare&racket 403 Replies latest jw friends

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  NewChapter

  EDIT: To Fulltime.

  :) I'm just trying to illustrate that certain emotions that are often attributed to a religious experience are simply within our capacity to experience with or without spirituality. The emotions I went through were inspired by mental clarity. Had I been inclined to look to the spiritual, I would have thought god was talking to me. But since the epiphany was actually the realization that god didn't exist, that was impossible.

  Often believers talk about such experiences as confirmation that god exists. I don't doubt they have the experiences, I just doubt the source. They seem to think that atheists are incapable of strong and overwhelming emotion. But this is part of being human. These moments would exist with or without religion. In a sense, there is absolutely nothing special about them. So when someone tells me they had this emotional moment, I'm not impressed enough to consider that their interpretation of such a moment is accurate. They seem to think that these feelings came to them externally. But if that were true, and I was being sent a message, and that message was there is no god, then how does that support their subjective understanding of the spiritual world? It doesn't.

  I don't follow atheist rules. I don't downplay my experience. What happened, happened and some atheists would find it distasteful to express such a moment. I don't care. That was the moment when I understood myself better and got to be me without the constant inventory. It was significant. The atheist life is not without it's thrills.

  And the moment alone debunked the myth that such experiences are spiritual. They are emotional and mental.

  NC
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  NewChapter

  Thanks COC.
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  N.drew

  Where to begin with that train wreck? Anybody got the energy?

  You know it!

  I enjoyed your post witnessdater. It's not a train wreck.

  The one problem with what you wrote " It implied a beginning, and therefore a cause, or an uncaused cause. Everything has a cause. " Meaning God was not caused therefore is not real, since everything has a cause.

  I believe this. There was cause upon The God. It was a waking up. So really The God could not know if The God was ONE or if something/someone came before.

  Thus God woke up. God does not have an end, for God is Love and also Energy. In case this science is true " Energy is neither created nor destroyed."

  Because time is nothing to The God He or She if it makes you comfortable has had forever to find the something thatcame before. It has not been found.

  "Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other." Deuteronomy 4:39

  I can also explain how atheists are not wrong about their belief. " Your house will be abandoned. I can guarantee that you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!'" Luke 13:35
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  NewChapter

  That sounds like the makings of a lovely novel NDrew. Quite poetic.

  NC
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  poopsiecakes

  ok I'll bite - what field of science do you study, witnessdater? :)
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  witnessdater

  To New Chapter:

  You said: "This god character has done nothing to show his presence to us. He has done nothing to indicate that we have an accounting, or that he will help us in anyway. I would think that a personality that could cause the big bang could at least do that much for humanity. But since it didn't, I conclude it either doesn't care or doesn't exist."

  I would say he has done everything. Look around you. And be thankful for the happy life he has given you with wonderful friends. Your last post seems to run from science. The mathematics and physics show that there was nothing the instant before the big bang. You ask how something so beautiful and wonderful come from nothing. It didn't come from nothing, it came from whomever created it. There was a cause, an uncaused cause. Like it or not, that is cold, hard science. Cause and effect. Otherwise, it came from some machine, a self-manufactured machine that nobody built. You tell folks that they should look at science and reason. Well, that is what I am doing. Of all of the belief systems, atheism is the easiest to disprove. The basic fallacy of atheism is that it is positing an absolute negative - which doesn't stand to reason. To say "I am absolutely positive that there is absolutely no creator of the universe - otherwise known as God" is a logical conundrum. And if this is not what you are saying or what you believe, then I wouldn't lump myself in with people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins and call myself an atheist. Because that is the definition of atheism.

  How could all of the matter in the universe exist in a point infinitesimally samll, so dense with all of the matter in the universe? That's what the scientists, the greatest ones in the world say happened. And right before that, there was no matter at all. That is what I meant by something coming from nothing. One instant - matter. The next - everything in the universe, and it exploded. There had to be an idea behind it. With no matter, and no ideas, and no willpower by any intelligent being, there is no big bang. If you can't trust that reasoning, you can't trust any reason or logic.
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  witnessdater

  Bohm:

  I won't answer every line in your last post, though I could, but will concentrate on the heart of the matter. You stated basically that since the laws of physics break down around the time of the big bang, that somehow this has something to do with cause and effect. Cause and effect are concepts that can never go away. Were there a different set of rules of physics at anytime, cause and effect still exist. It just plays by a different set of rules. And all of your typing can never disprove this. With no cause and effect, it is basically a system of chaos. But where did the chaos come from? Atoms and quarks and the tinier particles didn't self-manufacture themselves. Period.
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  bohm

  witnessdater -- Your post has the same errors as your first on this page, and i have allready answered it. you make a misrepresentation of what scientist believe in general about the big bang and cause and effect, and you use that to build an argument which does not lead to god.
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  bohm

  witnessdater: But as i wrote, even if i grant you that cause an effect must hold eternally (apparently a statement which you think we should accept only based on our intuition, how scientific!), how does this proove god? It would only prove the universe had a cause -- so what? where is the evidence this cause is god, and not some other yet undiscovered physical principle?

  "see the lightning? they must have a cause. Why? everything has a cause. so they must have a cause. it must be thor".

  now that you tried to impress us with mentioning your credentials as a scientist, i wonder what field you are in, it sure does not sound like it has much to do with physics...
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  poopsiecakes

  But where did the chaos come from? Atoms and quarks and the tinier particles didn't self-manufacture themselves.

  I'm not sure how you can pat yourself on the back for coming up with this piece of logical fallacy. Because I'm sure, you know, that nobody who studies physics has ever come up against THAT one before. Hint: the god you claim is a first cause, by your logic, has to have a first cause as well.