My letter to an Atheist

[lightgigantic]

#1 and #2 may not be correct. Things pop into and out of existence. The Universe may have always existed, in one form or another.

Following the same argument:

1 everything that comes into existence needs a cause
2 God didn't come into existence
3 therefore God doesn't need a cause.
4 because God doesn't exist.

but you just attest that #1 & 2 may not be correct

[(Q)]

BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!....

My questions are; what is imagination...

Clearly, believers aren't interested in annoying little things like facts and answers to hard questions, but would much rather ponder as to where their gods came from...

[(Q)]

It is as if you aren't prepared to accept even the possibility of God.
This means you are being (dangerously) emotional...

Poor believers, they just can't seem to get their myths and superstitions fitting into the explanations of reality without forcing the square peg into the round hole. And of course, they'll instantly shift that burden of responsibility onto someone else when it fails.

[Michael]

but you just attest that #1 & 2 may not be correct

maybe I should have added

AKA: I was being funny

[Michael]

My questions are; what is imagination (in material terms)?

CNS

Where can it be found in matter?

Association neocortex of humans.

[lightgigantic]

maybe I should have added

AKA: I was being funny

that's fine then

we can also entertain the same humour in your picture of a godless universe

[lightgigantic]

CNS

The chinese news service?

Association neocortex of humans.

no evidence for that ... although there is the suggestion that this part of the brain is responsible for providing a foundation for the host of higher functions that contribute to the complex social structure of mammals in general

I mean this explanation of your isn't capable of determining whether someone is imagining something or whatever. or whatthe raw substance of imagination is ... like say the raw substance of water can be indicated

[Michael]

The CNS is the substrate of conscious thought, including imagination. Actually, what you are reading now is "imagination". Jan probably forget everything taking place is doing so in the mind.

A small almost nondescript damage to the association neocortex and a person losses the ability to recognize faces, or to read Latin, or perceive motion, produce language, or comprehend language. Some of these areas we know well. Other's we're just beginning to learn about. But, make no mistake. The brain is the substrate of the mind.

[lightgigantic]

The CNS is the substrate of conscious thought, including imagination. Actually, what you are reading now is "imagination". Jan probably forget everything taking place is doing so in the mind.

thats the theory sure ... problem is that the evidence to back up the claim is still waiting to come tot he table ... at least as far as hard science is concerned

A small almost nondescript damage to the association neocortex and a person losses the ability to recognize faces, or to read Latin, or perceive motion, produce language, or comprehend language. Some of these areas we know well. Other's we're just beginning to learn about. But, make no mistake. The brain is the substrate of the mind.

make no mistake, there is a huge difference between life and the chemicals that life utilizes
localizing where something occurs is miles away from isolating what actually occurs there
By the same logic one could say that the source of water is the faucet in the kitchen, since that is where one locally retrieves water from

[Alan McDougall]

Poor believers, they just can't seem to get their myths and superstitions fitting into the explanations of reality without forcing the square peg into the round hole. And of course, they'll instantly shift that burden of responsibility onto someone else when it fails.

Man!! you all knowing Atheists do get hot about something that in your very frail and tiny minds does not exist.

Give me one sound case that will prove to we poor little believers that god does not exist. Oh!! you say you have done so already, abject nonsense you have not done so because it is impossible to prove the non- existence of God

[spidergoat]

It's easy to prove there is no Judeo/Christian/Islamic God. Prayer doesn't work.

[786]

It's easy to prove there is no Judeo/Christian/Islamic God. Prayer doesn't work.

I don't see a scientific way to test this with all the variables being controlled.

Peace be unto you

[lightgigantic]

It's easy to prove there is no Judeo/Christian/Islamic God. Prayer doesn't work.

its not so easy to prove that establishing god's primarily role as that of a vending machine however ....

[iceaura]

I don't believe it has been blown apart years ago, and it certainly hasn't been
blown apart in this particular thread, or any thread which I have read since my time here.

Well, it has been. I was there. You were there. Your 'beliefs" are what keeps the stuff coming back, and it's long past time the reasonable simply greeted it with ridicule. Monkeys and typewriters, for chrissake - that was never in shape to be blown apart to begin with. Crass ignorance of high school level math and introductory physics or biology, pretending to be serious argument, is not something that needs counter-argument on a forum like this - it needs mockery.

What does the evolution theory have to do with this?
So, we'll leave out the monkey/typewriter stuff.

Please do. Just quit posting that stuff. Quit agreeing with it. Quit telling the latest spammers with the same old crap that their posts are well put, quit greeting them with respect as they make yet another fling of the same moldy old shit. Please do that, starting with the OP of this thread and extending to all its repeats and duplicates to come.

Do you have to take stuff so seriously?

If you are joining me in recommending mockery, welcome aboard.

If, on the other hand, you are instead setting up to make nasty, twisted little posts like this:

Why stress "No need for God then"?
It is as if you aren't prepared to accept even the possibility of God.
This means you are being (dangerously) emotional, which is why folks of your
particular world view and mindset, aren't to be taken seriously, IMHO.

then the reasonable will often be tricked into taking you seriously in your arguments,

which they will supply (you have none you can state clearly) based on careful hints in your deceptions and dishonesties and bad faith posting,

rather than seriously as a darkly motivated threat to argument itself.

[786]

its not so easy to prove that establishing god's primarily role as that of a vending machine however ....

Nice way to put it

Peace be unto you

[Alan McDougall]

When it comes to the day you die, you will be thinking about the possibility of a living go, because there are no atheists in the trenches

Wikipeia



Arguments for the existence of God

• The cosmological argument argues that there was a "first cause", or "prime mover" who is identified as God. It starts with some claim about the world, like its containing entities that are caused to exist by other entities.


• The teleological argument argues that the universe's order and complexity are best explained by reference to a creator god. It starts with a rather more complicated claim about the world, id est that it exhibits order and design.

• The ontological argument is based on arguments about a "being greater than which can not be conceived". It starts simply with a concept of God. Alvin Plantinga formulates this argument to show that if it is logically possible for God (a necessary being) to exist, then God exists.[18]


• The mind-body problem argument suggests that the relation of consciousness to materiality is best understood in terms of the existence of God.

• Arguments that some non-physical quality observed in the universe is of fundamental importance and not an epiphenomenon, such as justice, beauty, love or religious experience are arguments for theism as against materialism.

• The anthropic argument suggests that basic facts, such as our existence, are best explained by the existence of God.


• The moral argument argues that the existence of objective morality depends on the existence of God.


• The transcendental argument suggests that logic, science, ethics, and other things we take seriously do not make sense in the absence of God, and that atheistic arguments must ultimately refute themselves if pressed with rigorous consistency.

• The will to believe doctrine was pragmatist philosopher William James' attempt to prove God by showing that the adoption of theism as a hypothesis "works" in a believer's life. This doctrine depended heavily on James' pragmatic theory of truth where beliefs are proven by how they work when adopted rather than by proofs before they are believed (a form of the hypothetico-deductive method).

• Arguments based on claims of miracles wrought by God associated with specific historical events or personages

Arguments against belief in God


Each of the following arguments aims at showing either that a particular subset of gods do not exist (by showing them as inherently meaningless, contradictory, or at odds with known scientific or historical facts) or that there is insufficient reason to believe in them.
[edit] Empirical arguments
Empirical arguments depend on empirical data in order to prove their conclusions.

• The argument from inconsistent revelations contests the existence of the deity called God as described in scriptures -- such as the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible, or the Muslim Qur'an -- by identifying apparent contradictions between different scriptures, within a single scripture, or between scripture and known facts. To be effective this argument requires the other side to hold that its scriptural record is inerrant, or to conflate the record itself with the God it describes.

• The problem of evil contests the existence of a god who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent by arguing that such a god should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. The theist responses are called theodicies.

• The argument from poor design contests the idea that God created life on the basis that lifeforms exist which seem to exhibit poor design. For example, many runners get a painful "stitch" in their side due to poor placement of the liver.

• The argument from nonbelief contests the existence of an omnipotent God who wants humans to believe in him by arguing that such a god would do a better job of gathering believers.

• The argument from parsimony contends that since natural (non-supernatural) theories adequately explain the development of religion and belief in gods,[25] the actual existence of such supernatural agents is superfluous and may be dismissed unless otherwise proven to be required to explain the phenomenon.

• It is impossible to prove, or disprove, the "pot of gold at the end of a rainbow's" existence, as it is impossible to actually get to the end of the rainbow and check, due to the (circular, and hence "endless") nature of a rainbow. This "inability to check" is taken by most to be proof that the "pot of gold" does not in fact exist (there is no end of the rainbow for the pot to be at.) For God, this lack of proof, and the similar lack of ability to check it, is taken by some to be "proof of existence." A case of "absence of proof is not proof of absence." Some see this to be proof that "God must exist, as he/she/it can't be disproved." The absence of proof is taken by others to be the same as the "pot of gold". If you can't get to a place that does not exist, then it's obvious that there is nothing there.

[Dywyddyr]

there are no atheists in the trenches

That is a banal, unthinking lie.

[James R]

Jan:

Why stress "No need for God then"?

My only point here is that there are explanations for the universe that do not require the postulation of any supernatural creator being. The argument for God as a "first cause" is not a watertight one, because it is quite possible that a "first cause" either doesn't exist or is not logically required.

It is as if you aren't prepared to accept even the possibility of God.

I accept the possibility of God. And I'm sure most atheists do too.

This means you are being (dangerously) emotional, which is why folks of your particular world view and mindset, aren't to be taken seriously, IMHO.

I think you're making assumptions about my worldview and mindset.

Why do you think emotions are dangerous, by the way?

[Alan McDougall]

That is a banal, unthinking lie.

You are lying because you have never been put to the test yourself, If you were you would have wined like a frightened baby

Get off my case or I will exercise the ignore option on you

[Dywyddyr]

You are lying because you have never been put to the test yourself, If you were you would have wined like a frightened baby

Another assumption. And I know quite a few people who have also been "put to the test" and still remain atheist.
But I certainly like to be "wined" (and preferably dined as well).

Get off my case

Stop posting lies and then I won't have to be "on your case".

"I thought [combat] would change them, because there's that saying that there are no atheists in a foxhole, and I find that's not true. Even in a battle zone there's still a fairly large number that's not practicing a faith, . . ." Army Chaplain Joe Angotti - Tikrit, Iraq

http://www.mindspring.com/~alutiiq/a...-foxholes.html

Notable counterexamples

A number of prominent individuals have been both atheists and combat veterans. During the coverage of his death and subsequent cryonic suspension, Baseball Hall of Famer and combat fighter pilot Ted Williams was reported to be an atheist by his former teammate Johnny Pesky[14][15]. Richard Tillman, in giving the eulogy for his brother, former NFL player and soldier Pat Tillman, stated that Tillman "wasn't religious."[16] In his 1988 book "Intellectuals," Paul Johnson states that writer and WWI veteran[17] Ernest Hemingway "not only did not believe in God but regarded organized religion as a menace to human happiness."[18] Philip Paulson, plaintiff in several of the lawsuits in the Mount Soledad cross controversy, was an atheist Vietnam combat veteran.[19]
[edit] Monument
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison, Wisconsin, based organization, has erected a monument to "Atheists in Foxholes" because of its opposition to the statement of "no atheists in foxholes." The monument reads:
In memory of ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES and the countless FREETHINKERS who have served this country with honor and distinction.
Presented by the national Freedom From Religion Foundation with hope that in the future humankind may learn to avoid all war.”[20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_a...ts_in_foxholes
Tell me, do actually think before posting?

or I will exercise the ignore option on you

Good luck attempting that.