Is atheism logical?

Servant of Jesus said:

My hypothesis on the suicide bombers is that they are soldiers of the devil- their acts are so barbaric, so unexplainable that only satan could have devised them.

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DeathMagus said:

Fixed it for you.

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Thanks- I agree.

Suicide bombers, in my opinion, represent the utter depth of depravity- anyone that can somehow justify walking into a crowded market place, or flying into a building, and blowing themselves up and indiscriminately killing and maiming as many people as possible- men, women, children, young, old, of any political or religious affiliation, has lost every stitch of morality.

Certainly, Christianity could never justify such an action, and I don't think Islam can either, which is why I think that the suicide bombers who claim to be Muslims are only using that religion as an excuse for their actions. Their true leader is satan- who always acts completely contrary to what God preaches, and is always trying to steer us away from embracing God and leading a Godly life.

Morcova said:

Oh please, that's the lamest excuse ever.

"The devil made them do it"

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Hey- I can have my hypothesis, and you are entitled to yours.

Both are valid.

Servant of Jesus said:

So does a lion pouncing on a tourist display empathy; in other words, if empathy is evolutionary, do animals have it?

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Animals for which empathy is useful evolve it. Why would it be useful for a lion to be empathic towards its prey? However, it is useful for lions to be empathic towards their young, and so they do.

Moreover, humans feel empathic towards other humans because it is useful for them to. Notice how we don't feel empathic towards parastic worms in children's eyeballs: it isn't useful for us to.

Servant of Jesus said:

So does a lion pouncing on a tourist display empathy; in other words, if empathy is evolutionary, do animals have it?

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In order to empathise, self-awareness is required; you need to be able to think what it would feel like to be someone else, and that requires understanding that you and someone else are separate entities, and that they, like you, have feelings.

Few animals are self-aware. Those who are, I suspect may display some small degree of proto-empathy.

Empathy is useful because it helps us to co-operate with one another, to protect our kin, and so on. It's not hard to see how it's socially rathter handy to be able to see things from someone else's point of view.

Servant of Jesus said:

Actually, when I think about it, maybe my cat does recognize when I'm getting pummeled here on CF and tries to provide comfort.

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Hurrah for your cat

Servant of Jesus said:

Hey- I can have my hypothesis, and you are entitled to yours.

Both are valid.

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If "Someone thought of it" constitutes validity, validity is a useless measure of the worth of a hypothesis.

Servant of Jesus said:

Hey- I can have my hypothesis, and you are entitled to yours.

Both are valid.

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Not at all, yours is as valid as if you said that the tooth fairy made him do it.

You've simply provided an excuse for a persons action.

Servant of Jesus said:

Thanks- I agree.

Suicide bombers, in my opinion, represent the utter depth of depravity- anyone that can somehow justify walking into a crowded market place, or flying into a building, and blowing themselves up and indiscriminately killing and maiming as many people as possible- men, women, children, young, old, of any political or religious affiliation, has lost every stitch of morality.

Certainly, Christianity could never justify such an action, and I don't think Islam can either, which is why I think that the suicide bombers who claim to be Muslims are only using that religion as an excuse for their actions.

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I agree

Their true leader is satan- who always acts completely contrary to what God preaches, and is always trying to steer us away from embracing God and leading a Godly life.

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Dang...and we were so close too! Why are all our actions being dictated by some kind of deity or pseudo-deity? Why can't a suicide bomber just be a miserable, deluded excuse for a human being? Why do you have to make excuses for them? Why does this concept of Satan have to appear? Can't people be bad on their own?

cantata said:

In order to empathise, self-awareness is required; you need to be able to think what it would feel like to be someone else, and that requires understanding that you and someone else are separate entities, and that they, like you, have feelings.

Few animals are self-aware. Those who are, I suspect may display some small degree of proto-empathy.

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Actually, I must disagree here. Empathy - at least in its primitive forms - is a very primitive and easily evolved trait. We see it in almost all mammals and even birds. Take wolves, for example - fighting within the pack rarely results in serious injury, because wolves will not attack a fellow wolf displaying submissive behaviour. They have instinctive barriers to prevent that, because it has helped the species survive.

Similar behaviour can be seen everywhere in the animal kingdom. Rhesus monkeys will refuse food - even starve themselves - if accepting food means that another rhesus monkey is subjected to pain as a result. This behaviour is so basic and advantageous that it has even been evolved in artificial agents (see this for reference).

So in conclusion, we do see empathy and compassion throughout nature, just as we would expect from an evolutionary perspective.

Hnefi said:

Actually, I must disagree here. Empathy - at least in its primitive forms - is a very primitive and easily evolved trait. We see it in almost all mammals and even birds. Take wolves, for example - fighting within the pack rarely results in serious injury, because wolves will not attack a fellow wolf displaying submissive behaviour. They have instinctive barriers to prevent that, because it has helped the species survive.

Similar behaviour can be seen everywhere in the animal kingdom. Rhesus monkeys will refuse food - even starve themselves - if accepting food means that another rhesus monkey is subjected to pain as a result. This behaviour is so basic and advantageous that it has even been evolved in artificial agents (see this for reference).

So in conclusion, we do see empathy and compassion throughout nature, just as we would expect from an evolutionary perspective.

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Well, I used the term 'proto-empathy' because empathy is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of others". I would not say that most mammals or birds have that ability.

However, I agree with you that proto-empathetic behaviour is frequently observed among non-human animals.

DeathMagus said:

Dang...and we were so close too!

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What? Me stop trying to convince you to do more to embrace Christianity? But I like to share good things.

Why are all our actions being dictated by some kind of deity or pseudo-deity? Why can't a suicide bomber just be a miserable, deluded excuse for a human being? Why do you have to make excuses for them? Why does this concept of Satan have to appear? Can't people be bad on their own?

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No they can't- for reasons I have given before- we are all born with a very strong internal sense of being able to distinguish right from wrong, of morality- we call it conscience. Of course, I happen to believe that conscience can come only from God, and is evidence of God's existence.

But never mind, even if our conscience is a product of an initial perturbation in the human mind that developed through evolution into the complex and amazingly universal ability to distinguish right from wrong that all human beings have, I think we can agree it is real.

So if a suicide bomber didn't have that conscience, they would be "bad" from the moment of birth, and throughout their lives. But that doesn't seem to be the case- the evil traits we see in a Hitler, or an al-Zarqawi, or a suicide bomber, develop later in life, suggesting they are a product of some outside influence- in my opinion, the workings of satan able to exploit the free will that God gave us to make choices- including the choice to embrace evil, rather than good.

My hypothesis (see, I'm learning) is that all of us are vulnerable- we all are capable of being exploited to do evil things. The reason most of us, most of the time, don't succumb to those evil desires is because of a complex number of societal and other (see below) factors that suppress those evil desires, and keep them in check.

Of course, again, as a Christian, I maintain that one of the most powerful factors that suppresses evil desires is the presence of God's Holy Spirit within us.

How effective these natural checks and balances are becomes very evident when social order in a nation breaks down during times of war or revolution- and individuals are completely free to do whatever they want.

When that happens, it seems that a significant percentage (my guess maybe 20%) of the people in that society- mainly males, who make up the majority of any armed force, become monsters. They think nothing of murdering, raping and pillaging. Horrible- Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and- yes- Iraq, are all recent examples of where this happened.

So to me, this suggests several things: if we are to maintain a civilized, morally upright society, we must:

1. maintain or establish the rule of law. This is a fundamental requirement if a nation is to aspire to greatness. So, for example, the presence of United Nations forces in Afghanistan is crucial, in my opinion.

2. promote democracy and free speech. Dictators and tyrants hate both because they are capable of exposing and thwarting their evil plans.

and- you know this is coming-

3. use the power of God's Holy Spirit working within us, and resources, such as the Bible, to help us live in peace and with respect and harmony with our fellow human beings.

Try it, you might like it.

Servant of Jesus said:

even if our conscience is a product of an initial perturbation in the human mind that developed through evolution into the complex and amazingly universal ability to distinguish right from wrong that all human beings have, I think we can agree it is real.

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You don't have it quite right. Empathy is innate (except in certain people we would label abnormal, such as psychopaths); conscience is acquired. We are not born with a moral code which says "Don't kill people" or "Don't commit adultery" or "Don't wander around naked" or "Don't blaspheme against the Holy Spirit". You have to learn those specific moral applications. It is empathy, and empathy alone, that we are born with - and that empathy is moulded by society.

If your empathy is moulded by various rather mundane influences not to include Johnny Foreigner, or if you never get close enough to Johnny Foreigner to recognise that he is a real human being like you, your circle of empathy will not include him. Inevitably, if you then see people who are within your circle of empathy - other Muslims, for example, or your family - suffering at the hands of Johnny Foreigner, your empathy might, if it is coupled with certain kinds of political indoctrination, a somewhat disturbed psychological state, and a particular sort of upbringing, cause you to blow up a plane full of Johnny Foreigners.

The outside influences which cause people to behave in vile ways are very mundane and down-to-earth. They are trauma, suffering, the pressures of family, peers, leaders, or society, psychological disturbance, and so on. Why invent a weird supernatural force to explain things when we have a real explanation right here?

LonesomeTexan said:

How can you justify existance without a divine Creator? How did the heavens and the earth come to form out of a vast expanse of nothing? Surely there was a divine beginning and initial creation set in motion by a higher power.

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how can you justify the existance of a god without a another god making it?

surely there was a god that made the god that made the god... repeat ad absurdum...


Or we can look at evience and science.
No evidence of a magical being poofing things into existance.

Servant of Jesus said:

There is no such thing as an aethist- only a person of God who tries hard, for a multitude of reasons, to maintain themselves in a state of denial- despite the obvious.

We are born with a conscience- how can that possibly come to us except through God?

Also, each and every one of us can directly trace our very existence back to a common origin. I happen to believe that the origin was the created Adam, but even if you believe it to be the first cell, it still had to be created by God from the material of the earth and given, at exactly the same instant, the breath of life and the ability to reproduce itself.

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wow ignorant much.
conscience is explained throught science.
and at worst i dont know is a much better answer than making one up unsupported like "God Did IT"
as for origins of life, we are still working on it, but we have much more evidence supporting abio than you do of god didt, heck due to evolutoin we have evidence that contradicts "adam"

ranmaonehalf said:

wow ignorant much.

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I appreciate your opinion, but do you have to include the first line with your comment? Does that make your opinion somehow more valid? An edit would be nice.

I feel that the evidence supports the case for agnosticism towards a creator, however towards a God it seems like you almost have to rule him out, on the issue of omnipresence alone. Because people claim God has omnipresence, and all you got to do is look around you and know to absolute certainity there is nothing there but thin air and cosmic rays. The notion that there are invisible demons or angels all walking or flying around, is not believable, and there is no evidence for those things, there is no sane reason to believe those things are just walking around us. They would be like ghosts and they would violate Newton's third law of motion if there were these invisible angels that could walk through walls, or what not. It is when religios people make these absurd claims, that God, loves you and will burn you if you don't believe the right story, tha you just got to stand back and say wow religion is total superstion, these guys don't know what they are talking about. It is not even a close guess, but dead wrong.

So if the creator cannot have omnipresence, is that really a God? The religious people always say, he has omnipresence, and they just can't be right about that, so frankly, you got to rule out God, what other choice do you have, when you look around and know in your heart and your mind, there is nothing there but thin air and cosmic rays.

DoubtingThomas29 said:

I feel that the evidence supports the case for agnosticism towards a creator.

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Yes, this is good.

A creative force cannot possibly be ruled out. I absolutely concede this, and hence I too maintain an agnostic stance towards the notion of a creative force. We don't know how things began, if they began at all; and since we have no experience of universes beginning, we can't completely deny that a force might exist at the beginning of universes that doesn't exist afterwards, for example. Perhaps there is a creative force that starts universes off. We'll never know.

However, the step from creative force to personal god is enormous, and I do not think that the former, even if you accept it to be the best explanation for the phenomenon of the universe's existence, is necessarily required to be the latter.

Good post Cantanta,

I like to think that if God is going to crate things and make them exist, if he is not stupid, he will make sure they can go back to not existing, before he creates them. I feel certain we do not have immortal souls, and that is part of the reason. Death to me, is like Life's insurance policy to end life when the quality of it goes to pot just incase that happens.

DoubtingThomas29 said:

I feel that the evidence supports the case for agnosticism towards a creator, however towards a God it seems like you almost have to rule him out, on the issue of omnipresence alone. Because people claim God has omnipresence, and all you got to do is look around you and know to absolute certainity there is nothing there but thin air and cosmic rays. The notion that there are invisible demons or angels all walking or flying around, is not believable, and there is no evidence for those things, there is no sane reason to believe those things are just walking around us. They would be like ghosts and they would violate Newton's third law of motion if there were these invisible angels that could walk through walls, or what not. It is when religios people make these absurd claims, that God, loves you and will burn you if you don't believe the right story, tha you just got to stand back and say wow religion is total superstion, these guys don't know what they are talking about. It is not even a close guess, but dead wrong.

So if the creator cannot have omnipresence, is that really a God? The religious people always say, he has omnipresence, and they just can't be right about that, so frankly, you got to rule out God, what other choice do you have, when you look around and know in your heart and your mind, there is nothing there but thin air and cosmic rays.

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Ok serious, sorry but that makes no sense. Just because you can see something, it does mean it's not there. You even pointed out cosmic rays yourself. It isn't an easy thing to know that there are light rays shooting everywhere; if you asked someone who was never taught about light to look at the sky and tell you what they saw, they would never in a million years say light rays everywhere. Yes, science now knows that, but it wasn't obvious for a long time and so cannot the same be said of God. Just because you look at the air and see no God, it does not being nothing is there; there is a lot of stuff there, God included.
People claim to have seen spirits and talk to God, etc, there is your evidence, if you don't want to believe it, that is your choice, but you cannot say there is no evidence.
I am very sorry, but the 100% fact of reality is that there is a God.

solarwave said:

Ok serious, sorry but that makes no sense. Just because you can see something, it does mean it's not there. You even pointed out cosmic rays yourself. It isn't an easy thing to know that there are light rays shooting everywhere; if you asked someone who was never taught about light to look at the sky and tell you what they saw, they would never in a million years say light rays everywhere. Yes, science now knows that, but it wasn't obvious for a long time and so cannot the same be said of God.

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Most definitely. God could exist. There's just no reason to think he does.

Just because you look at the air and see no God, it does not being nothing is there; there is a lot of stuff there, God included.

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Perhaps. Perhaps not. Regardless, declaring "God exists!" without evidence is rather foolish.

People claim to have seen spirits and talk to God, etc, there is your evidence, if you don't want to believe it, that is your choice, but you cannot say there is no evidence.

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I suppose you could say it's evidence. Then again, their evidence is on par with "evidence" of alien abduction, "evidence" of ghosts, and "evidence" that the voices in my head belong to Ulysses S. Grant and Robert De Niro. That is to say, such "evidence" is anecdotal, and thus completely useless.

I am very sorry, but the 100% fact of reality is that there is a God.

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Right. "We can't see God. Therefor, it's certain one exists."

A logic class would do wonders.

Servant of Jesus said:

So logically, there is a universe, there are flowers, there is life.

I submit that the very existence of the universe, flowers and life means they must have been created. I also submit that the order inherent in these items means they must have been created by an intelligent universe maker, flower maker, life maker.

I call that intelligent universe, flower, life maker God. I submit acknowledging the presence of God is the beginning of wisdom.

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and i call that arbitrary creator Papa smurf. now next provided evidence.