Paul Walker on Atheism: How could anyone not believe?

by Joliette 24 Replies latest jw friends

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  THE GLADIATOR

  These 2 clips dwell on the best aspects of life and earth and ignore the horrors of existence. This still takes us back to the fundamental question: Where did a god come from with the power and intelligence to create?

  If such a god can pre-exist without a creator of its own, then why can't nature develop over billions of years of trial and error? It's estimated that 96% of all creatures that have lived are now extinct. Those that have survived on this small planet have survived against massive odds; so natural history shows a pattern of mostly failure. If a god is responsible, should we not expect a higher success rate?

  Its easy to talk about beautiful flowers and sunsets but that is not the whole reality. The strange assortment of creatures that have survived are a long way from ideal. Take the blind mole, the ostrich that cannot fly, the fish without eyes caused by living in dark caves for millions of years. We have poisonous snakes, insects that eat their prey alive. Then there is the fearsome Komodo dragon, which has a mouth so foul that it bites its prey and then waits for it to die of infection after a few days; the creation of a god-of-love?

  Then there is the brutality of human history, including gladiators - lets not even go there! Why stop at one god? Why not have a few hundred as did the Greeks and Romans?
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  Seraphim23

  I have found Frazzled UBM that some atheists often say that something came from nothing also, in the form of a quantum vacuum which is something. Mysterious!
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  Simon

  If such a god can pre-exist without a creator of its own, then why can't nature develop over billions of years of trial and error?

  Why do we need a creator at all? If people are willing to claim that an almighty being, the most complex and powerful in the universe, created the universe so must be more powerful and complex than it has just "always been there" then why not simply believe that the universe (much simpler, less powerful) has just "always been here" too ?

  It's actually a sounder argument and less of a stretch because you've toned down the complexity and power a notch or two ... but it's equally fanciful and illogical.
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  THE GLADIATOR

  Simon Why do we need a creator at all?

  This is rational thinking. If a god can just happen from nothing, then creatures just happening from nothing and then evolving into humans, seems a lot less far-fetched.
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  adamah

  Seraphim said-

  I have found Frazzled UBM that some atheists often say that something came from nothing also, in the form of a quantum vacuum which is something. Mysterious!

  The origins of the Universe is NOT a question of atheism per se, but a matter for physicists. Einstein felt that time began at the Big Bang, so it's pointless to ask what happened before, since time didn't exist (or if it did, the "clock" of time was reset, kind of like reformatting a hard drive).

  Physicists define 'nothing' quite differently than the layperson does (the complete absense of matter), i.e. the physicist allows for "stuff" in their 'nothing' (although the world of quantum physics allows for particles to seemingly pop into and out of existence on their own).

  Generally speaking, as you see from the video of Ray Comfort and the theist caller on the Atheist Experience, the ones insisting that atheists believe that something can come from nothing are usually theists, just so they can say how absurd that belief is to them.
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  Seraphim23

  Simon complexity and simplicity are strange issues because the evidence shows that simple things cause complex things and sometimes the other way round. So God doesn’t necessarily have to be viewed as complex anyway.

  The evidence also shows that the universe has an age and a beginning. Logically something must have been around before, that wasn’t itself the universe, because getting something from nothing is an issue. Infinity is problematic as well.

  I agree adamah that theists often believe that something came from nothing but so do physicists then by the sound of it. Yet the mocking tone that “you believe in magic” gets thrown across the room. I find that fascinating even with the issue of scientific definitions of some words being used differently notwithstanding.
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  Simon

  Simon complexity and simplicity are strange issues because the evidence shows that simple things cause complex things and sometimes the other way round. So God doesn’t necessarily have to be viewed as complex anyway.

  I'm going off the religious view of a god and their typical argument that the maker of something is more complex than the thing they make.

  If a god can just happen from nothing, then creatures just happening from nothing and then evolving into humans, seems a lot less far-fetched.

  Exactly - the religious argument for a god can be applied equally well to anything else and are stronger because the thing that happens from nothing is always much simpler.
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  144001

  With all due respect to his fans, I never looked to Paul Walker for guidance on anything. His recent demise corroborates the maxim, "speed kills." He's not the first speed-lover to die in an exotic sports car, and he won't be the last.
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  prologos

  The 2 theories of relativity assign values to

  the MOVEMENT through TIME, a movement that STARTED for space/energy/matter after the big bang singularity.---

  A movement THROUGH time that varies with your neighbourhood's gravity and your speed. zero time movement at maximun "c". zero movement through time going into the black hole.

  There must have been a lot of time, through which nothing moved before there was a universe IN the Cosmos.

  Everybody is the center of the universe, because

  we all were (one way or another) IN the Big Bang Beginning, how would we be here otherwise?

  so looking around, planets, stars, galaxies, clusters, Backgound radiation everywhere.

  the same picture as seen from anywhere in the Universe.

  A Universe that expands into time that was there before everything got rolling. (roiling)
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  Seraphim23

  Simon I’m not sure that the argument that God is super complex is all that common with people who believe in God. I’ve never heard it in any church I have attended or from friends of mine who believe. I also don’t recognise that believers generally think that God made himself or that he was ever made at all. It is known that the universe started however, which is why many think it was started by something or someone.