It takes a big pair to make the claim of atheism.

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance

originally posted by: TJames

originally posted by: Out6of9Balance

originally posted by: Noinden
a reply to: TerryDon79

To be fair, all threads are based upon assumptions. What happened here though is a continued refusal to admit said assumptions. Then as you said, cherry picking and weasel wording word meanings, and you get what we have here.

A thread that is open missionary work.

You're outstanding at derailing threads. Do you always waste people's time? You should consider a change of approach. Your arrogance is way out of line. You ruined a perfect good thread. You always do?

It wasn't a perfectly good thread though, you wanted people who don't believe in God's to prove gods don't exist. Absolutely ridiculous premise.
I don't believe in any gods but I don't assert there are none, same as claims of pixies etc, how can the unverifiable be verified lol

No, all I did was claiming people who claim God does not exist make an outrageous claim cause they have no proof for it.

You want people to prove something doesn’t exist?

Sorry, but that’s not how it works, for the same reason you can’t prove unicorns, pixies or man-eating zombie TVs don’t exist. The onus is on the one with the positive claim, not the negative.

But nice to finally see what you’re doing. Trolling is frowned upon here.

a reply to: TerryDon79

Classic anti-atheist sentiments is all I see,and even other theists seem to be shying away with their support for the OP here.
And where are all these atheists asserting gods do not exist? Every atheist I know merely says they don't believe. Massive difference.

a reply to: TJames

There atheist that say a god or many gods don’t exist. There’s a couple on this forum too, they’re just not overly vocal about it.

I don’t know what to say about the OP anymore. They have their meanings and definitions all mixed up and seem to be on some sort of, as you put it, anti-atheist trip.

I’m going to leave this thread now it’s clear the OP doesn’t care about facts or learning anything.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

From what I understand about the belief is that reincarnation isn't necessarily a good thing. You can be reincarnated as a lesser being or a greater being depending on your karma. The goal of the religion isn't to be constantly reincarnated into better beings though. It's to escape the whole cycle of reincarnation altogether and ascend to Nirvana. Granted you have to be reincarnated into better beings to accomplish this, but that is just the means to the end.

Personally, as an outside to religion, logically I feel like reincarnation is a more logical way to test and train humans for the supposed after life. The way I see Christianity and other abrahamic religions is that a "one and done" chance to be with god doesn't make sense. It's not fair to the people who screw up, make bad choices, or haven't even heard of the god. When you add reincarnation to the mix, it allows more time to spiritually prepare yourself and your soul to be with god.

However, since Hindus largely only report on being aware of past lives, I find that dubious as well. If reincarnation was real then people outside of the religion should be experiencing it too.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

From what I understand about the belief is that reincarnation isn't necessarily a good thing. You can be reincarnated as a lesser being or a greater being depending on your karma. The goal of the religion isn't to be constantly reincarnated into better beings though. It's to escape the whole cycle of reincarnation altogether and ascend to Nirvana. Granted you have to be reincarnated into better beings to accomplish this, but that is just the means to the end.

This also depends on which denomination's form of reincarnation we're talking about. Some are very specific as to what the next incarnation will be depending on your current lives. The greedy may be reincarnated as a "preta" which is the 2nd lowest form of incarnation and is in a constant state of suffering from being unable to quench its hunger, thirst, etc. And completely "evil" people may be reincarnated into Naraka, which is basically their version of Hell. The ideal goal would be to keep "improving" until reaching enlightenment, but that would only be the case for the righteous.

That's why I gave the examples ofpeople who are suffering now taking comfort in the concept of reincarnation. (Disclaimer: I studied both Buddhist and Hindu concepts of transmigration at the same time, so I've completely mixed them together in my head. In other words, I can't remember which one's denominations believe these specific details lol.)

Personally, as an outside to religion, logically I feel like reincarnation is a more logical way to test and train humans for the supposed after life. The way I see Christianity and other abrahamic religions is that a "one and done" chance to be with god doesn't make sense. It's not fair to the people who screw up, make bad choices, or haven't even heard of the god. When you add reincarnation to the mix, it allows more time to spiritually prepare yourself and your soul to be with god.

I originally thought that all "Abrahamic" religions had the same idea of Heaven & Hell. But that's simply not the case. For example, some denominations in Judaism don't believe in a Hell at all. And others consider it to be a temporary existence to cleanse specific "tainted" spirits, with the spirits simply being erased if they can't be cleansed within a specific time frame (I want to say 6 days but I really don't remember).

And I thought that Christians believed that Heaven was basically a "good" dimension where "good" souls would reside in after the Day of Judgment. But I've seen so many other beliefs, such as a Heaven on Earth for 1,000 years, that I don't know what they really believe "Heaven" and "Hell" consist of. It's almost like I studied too many denominations and now consider their beliefs to be incompatible with each other. Meh.

But for me, the Islamic concepts of Heaven and Hell make sense. To put it in modern terms, we basically believe that Heaven/Jannah is the "real" dimension, our current Universe is a "test" dimension (like a beta testing ground or "sandbox" in programming), and Hell/Jahannam is the scrapyard dimension where defective test subjects go. Our spirits are given 4 dimensional vehicles so they can navigate this test dimension and all of our actions & inactions are recorded. And we're tested constantly with all manners of tests, big and small. Our only purpose here is to prove that we're worthy of being allowed into the "real" dimension and that we'd be compatible with the creatures that exist there.

I see it the same way humans would treat fully autonomous AI robots. Only a fool would release them into human society without testing them first. So they'd probably be placed in a large testing ground and allowed to run amok. The programmers might give them clues every now and then, or even specifically program specific robots to teach the others the "correct" way to live. But ultimately, the programmers would sit back & analyze the behaviors of the robots to see which ones are worthy of being allowed into human society.

The robots would be tested in a lot of ways to see how they react under stress, how they react when given authority over others, how they treat their environments, how they feel towards their hypothetical programmers, etc. The ones that "pass" would be allowed into human society, while the ones that "fail" would get scrapped. Simply reprogramming them to act "correctly" would defeat the whole point in making them autonomous. In Islam, humans are those autonomous AI robots from my example. We believe that most other creatures are automatically programmed to accept God, His Angels, etc. But Humans and Jinn (and possibly others) have "free will", which in Islam is the freedom to accept or reject God, His Angels, etc.

And ironically, "disbelief" itself shouldn't be the opposite of Islam; "defiance" should be. Because our Devil knows that God, His Angels, His Prophets, Heaven, and Hell are real; he just defies them anyway and tries to get other jinn and humans to defy them (with things like "intrusive thoughts"). Imagine an autonomous AI robot that knows about its human programmers & our societies, but spends his time trying to convince the other robots to hate, mock, and defy humans. It would make sense why that specific robot would be Public Enemy #1 for the programmers, at least in regards to the other AI robot creations. In Islam, our Devil will also be punished in Hell instead of the commonly heard theory of the Christian Devil "ruling" in Hell.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Yeah. I haven't studied enough of Hinduism or Buddhism to understand those nuances either. I just know the basic overlay that I described.

As an ex-Catholic, I was taught that heaven and hell are the final destinations after death. The bad go to hell and are eternally punished and the good go to heaven and have eternal bliss and happiness being with god. The Divine Comedy is based on Catholic mythology. It does answer a few contradictions (like where do non-believing good people go? Answer: Purgatory).

a reply to: TJames

I actually feel that way.

I assert such because I feel the evidence against all of them is strong enough. As well as how God is even defined in a traditional sense. If there is something out there that we could define as God, then I think that thing would cease to be such the minute it begins to be understood. God will be a thing forever out of reach.

As to my reasons for not believing the various religious narratives, I mentioned a handful (in regards to Christianity) already.

Obviously I cannot prove or disprove.

I think God(s) needs more definition if any real proving/disproving can happen.

a reply to: Out6of9Balance

How am I wasting your time? Your thread did not preclude anyone from replying. However your own insecurities have made it such that you will not even being to grok an alternative point of view. You also admitted you are here to proselytize.

So lets look at the so called premise of the thread.

Despite the subject line. The content of your OP is that Atheists are fooling themselves due to the fact that there is no evidence that there is no god.

Lets ignore the double negative, as I am not sure English is your first language neighbor.

Your thread was an attack on Atheists.

I injected the idea that perhaps there are many gods.

You then proceeded to fall into the ad hominem towards my gods, and myself.

You then began to try and define how words are used, in typical logicaly fallacious fashion for someone who is not wanting to discuss.

Thus on this discussion board. Why will you not discuss.

Also neighbour, you have a rather new account. One wonders what other name we might know you under.

Slan leat

a reply to: TJames

And I asserted there are many, which apparently is derailing the thread?

a reply to: Out6of9Balance

You don't understand the burden of proof do you?

You made the claim, that atheists are making an outrageous claim. Therefore you must demonstrate that their claim of no deity is outrageous. QED, you made a claim YOU back it up.

a reply to: Out6of9Balance

How about polytheists?

Look neighbour.

You start a thread, attacking atheists, you are doing the forum equivalent of click bait.

You've admitted you are prostlezing.

When atheists (and this polytheist) reply, you refuse to play.

THAT is trolling.

Not the replies.

So missing the point?

Yes you hold a masters in that.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I guess the Catholic concept of Heaven & Hell is what I'd heard about Christianity growing up. Never really understood the whole "purgatory" thing though. Does Catholicism believe in a Judgment Day? If so, the people who get a "tie" score go to purgatory?

I always figured that non-believing good people would also go to Heaven. If they really are good and the only thing they lack is the belief that God & His works are real, then surely that would be cleared up the moment Judgment Day starts, right? LOL

1) Person A is a good person, meaning they don't commit what God considers to be "sins" and they do a lot of good things.

2) Person A dies.

3) Eventually Judgment Day arrives. In Islam, basically the entire dimension rips apart, the Earth rips apart, & everything that's living "dies" during the "Day of Reckoning". Then we're all revived in the "real dimension" and prepare to be judged for our past life during the "Day of Judgment".

4) Judgment Day. In Islam, our bodies will testify against us, Angels will reveal our deeds and misdeeds, Prophets from the past will claim people attributed things to them that they didn't actually say, etc.. Those who pass go to Heaven & those who fail go to Hell, which is guarded by and administered by powerful Angels. (note: there are different accounts of how this will go but I simply don't want to go through scriptures to get exact quotes. so i'm just giving a basic summary.)

I always imagined that somewhere between steps 3 & 4, the non-believing good people would start to believe lol.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Yes. There is a judgement day. The Book of Revelation is in the Bible. There is a judgement day in all of Christianity, and that is more or less where Catholicism gets its super strict tone from. Though I equate Baptism more with the fire and brimstone preaching. Especially the southern variety, Catholics really love to shame and scare you into believing.

Here's the thing though. Many modern Christians' concept of the end times is flawed thanks to the Left Behind book series. That series embellishes the Book of Revelation quite considerably and there is quite a bit that is either assumed, made up, or added on from other Christian sources.

The reason I know this is because the BoR was the only book I found exciting as a teenager, but the problem is that it makes so little sense in modern perspective that there is no consistent explanation for what occurs inside it. Either it happens exactly as written or you need to do quite a bit of metaphorical interpretation to understand the meaning of the text. I could never grasp what was supposed to happen (granted I know what is in the text because I've read it) so my ultimate conclusion was that it was a bunch of nonsense and when the end of the world happens, if BoR is true we wouldn't notice until after the fact anyways.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

That is a perfectly rational position to take, and requires zero faith, similar to my position.
I also don't really care if there are any gods or not, I still have to work tomorrow, counsel friends in need, buy groceries etc. I've never asked the help of a supernatural entity and never will, even in a few situations where I genuinely thought I may die there's never been a thought of praying for help, just my own focused mind, desperately thinking how I fix the situation myself.

If people wanna believe in gods for whatever reason then good luck to them but when people such as the OP try to twist the label "Atheist" into meaning one who asserts there are no gods I will take issue.
I don't believe in anything which cannot be verified, so that includes souls, heaven, ghosts, afterlife etc etc. I DO NOT assert such things are not true because I would be unable to confirm such a statement.

My position, and yours, is absolutely rational, so it may be the case that theists are threatened by the obvious lack of rationality of their faith. I think they get butt hurt because others don't believe their unverifiable claims.

It's getting better though with each generation, the number of people who tick "no faith" in the UK census is growing each time. It will soon be the case that people with faith in gods will be the minority as the old theists die off...I look forward to that day.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

According to Wikipedia, belief in polytheism and hypocritical non-belief in God appear to be the gravest of sins in Islam, which seem to guarantee you a ticket to hell.

You come across as an intelligent and logical individual. As a practicing Muslim, can you please explain your response to the following statement:

For a being who is meant to represent the epitome of benevolence and mercy, how could God create hell and condemn those who don't believe in him or believe in other gods to such harsh suffering when all that really gets harmed in having these beliefs or disbeliefs is the pride of God?

To me it seems either organised religions have got the nature of God wrong, or adherents of religion are being deceived by an entity claiming to be God but who is actually not God.

a reply to: Incandescent

According to Wikipedia, belief in polytheism and hypocritical non-belief in God appear to be the gravest of sins in Islam, which seem to guarantee you a ticket to hell.

According to the Qur'an, attributing partners to God is the unforgivable sin in Islam (Surah 4:48, Pickthall translation).

48. Lo! Allah forgiveth not that a partner should be ascribed unto Him. He forgiveth (all) save that to whom He will. Whoso ascribeth partners to Allah, he hath indeed invented a tremendous sin.

There is at least one specific instance where the Qur'an also says God won't forgive the defiantly disobedient (Surat 9:80), but in context it's referring to the people of the Prophet Muhammad's time that rejected and opposed the Prophet Muhammad (saying that even if the Prophet asked God to forgive them, God would not). I'm almost sure there are similar passages for the people who rejected & opposed other Prophets during their times, but I'm admittedly in no mood to look them up. The basic idea seems to be that if God sends a Prophet &/or miracles, and the witnesses still reject & oppose God, then they've "failed".

For a being who is meant to represent the epitome of benevolence and mercy, how could God create hell and condemn those who don't believe in him or believe in other gods to such harsh suffering when all that really gets harmed in having these beliefs or disbeliefs is the pride of God?

I pretty much already answered this in another post (HERE), so I'll just quote from that post:

But for me, the Islamic concepts of Heaven and Hell make sense. To put it in modern terms, we basically believe that Heaven/Jannah is the "real" dimension, our current Universe is a "test" dimension (like a beta testing ground or "sandbox" in programming), and Hell/Jahannam is the scrapyard dimension where defective test subjects go. Our spirits are given 4 dimensional vehicles so they can navigate this test dimension and all of our actions & inactions are recorded. And we're tested constantly with all manners of tests, big and small. Our only purpose here is to prove that we're worthy of being allowed into the "real" dimension and that we'd be compatible with the creatures that exist there.

I see it the same way humans would treat fully autonomous AI robots. Only a fool would release them into human society without testing them first. So they'd probably be placed in a large testing ground and allowed to run amok. The programmers might give them clues every now and then, or even specifically program specific robots to teach the others the "correct" way to live. But ultimately, the programmers would sit back & analyze the behaviors of the robots to see which ones are worthy of being allowed into human society.

The robots would be tested in a lot of ways to see how they react under stress, how they react when given authority over others, how they treat their environments, how they feel towards their hypothetical programmers, etc. The ones that "pass" would be allowed into human society, while the ones that "fail" would get scrapped. Simply reprogramming them to act "correctly" would defeat the whole point in making them autonomous. In Islam, humans are those autonomous AI robots from my example. We believe that most other creatures are automatically programmed to accept God, His Angels, etc. But Humans and Jinn (and possibly others) have "free will", which in Islam is the freedom to accept or reject God, His Angels, etc.

And ironically, "disbelief" itself shouldn't be the opposite of Islam; "defiance" should be. Because our Devil knows that God, His Angels, His Prophets, Heaven, and Hell are real; he just defies them anyway and tries to get other jinn and humans to defy them (with things like "intrusive thoughts"). Imagine an autonomous AI robot that knows about its human programmers & our societies, but spends his time trying to convince the other robots to hate, mock, and defy humans. It would make sense why that specific robot would be Public Enemy #1 for the programmers, at least in regards to the other AI robot creations. In Islam, our Devil will also be punished in Hell instead of the commonly heard theory of the Christian Devil "ruling" in Hell.

As for this:

To me it seems either organised religions have got the nature of God wrong, or adherents of religion are being deceived by an entity claiming to be God but who is actually not God.

That's ironic to me. I think it's most humans in general who have been deceived, though mostly by their own pride. They seem to think they're greater & more important than they are, which leads them to overvalue their worth in the grand scope of things. That pride is even more ironic to me since most humans constantly show that they don't value the lives of other humans, except for a select few "loved ones". Humans willingly destroy Nature, hunt on a full belly, exterminate entire species simply for being "pests", and will literally hunt species to extinction for profit. Humans will oppress and enslave other humans based on silly things like their skin pigmentation, native language, and place of origin. Humans willingly attack, invade, rape and pillage entire countries all because the powerful leaders of each country don't get along.

In short, humans as a whole don't value any of God's Creations and I think it's the humans who believe they have a right to trample over all other lifeforms that are the misguided ones. And frankly speaking, I don't think they'd deserve to go to the "Heavenly" dimension anyway. If they did, they'd just continue their willful negligence and outright oppression of other lifeforms there. ETA: My view includes many or most "religious" people. In other words, I don't expect the vast majority of humans to get to Heaven, regardless of their beliefs or non-beliefs. I don't even know if I'll get there because I'm still a flawed individual who is petty and holds grudges.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

You didn't really answer my questions. I take it you are perhaps afraid you might sin in God's eyes by thinking critically on my questions?

A God who creates a special place for some of his creations to suffer (hell) despite knowing they were destined to not believe in him before they were even given life is not a God I want to be with, even if I am worthy of entering heaven/paradise myself.

How can a divine being that is omnipotent and omniscient even feel anger towards his creations if he inherently knew they disbelieved in him before they were born?

You, like the vast majority of adherents of organised religion, have this human-like concept of God in regards to his temperament and actions.

a reply to: Incandescent

What are you talking about? I answered you question in a lot of detail. The problem is that your ideas of life on Earth and of Hell are different from what Islam teaches. So my answers don't match what you're expecting to hear.

How can a divine being that is omnipotent and omniscient even feel anger towards his creations if he inherently knew they disbelieved in him before they were born?

It's to test us, not to test Him. You're correct that He knows what we're going to do ahead of time & knows which paths all of us are going to take. But we don't know that stuff, hence why we're being given a chance to see for ourselves. In Islam, the only real "chosen people" are the people that God chooses to guide to the right path. That means that He already knows the ones who will fail and the ones who will succeed, and has picked them accordingly. However, humans don't know who is who and humans might not choose His path until a later time in our lives. Hence the need for series of tests.

You claimed that I didn't answer your questions, yet you seem like you didn't even read my response. The "AI robots in a testing ground" example is pretty much spot on.

You, like the vast majority of adherents of organised religion, have this human-like concept of God in regards to his temperament and actions.

That's ironic since you're the one who attributed anger to Him and said that human disbelief was "hurting His pride". Sounds like you're just projecting here.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

You are just squirming away from the question about hell, using silly robot analogies when you know comparing humans and robot AIs in that context is like comparing apples and oranges. Moreover, you know it's ridiculous that an omnipotent and omniscient being could intentionally create an imperfect being (human) and punish them for having imperfections (disbelief in God) by sending them to Hell.

A series of tests? Why is there a need for a series of tests if God knows their outcome before you are presented with the opportunity to prove yourself?

a reply to: Out6of9Balance

Agnosticism in the face of the unknown ftw.

Atheism is just atheism; it's typically expressed as lack of interest and takes no 'big pair' at all. Guys like Dawkins have helped to create an atheist stereotype of hostility and malevolence towards religions. In my experience, once someone has decided they don't believe in God/gods, they rarely think or speak of it again and it becomes a complete irrelevancy.

For me, I haven't found a God in any religious texts that makes narrative sense; they all seem so inconsistent and irrational. That doesn't mean there must not be a God, but I would want a hypothetical God to be better than us instead of behaving like us.