Topic: Why do Atheists Hate Religion? - page 416. (Read 901367 times)

I had already referenced it as the typical arrogant theist declaration of 'knowing' WhatGodWants (WGW) which is ironic considering that intellectualised atheists generally are the first to be willing to state that they do not know something unless there is good reason or evidence to consider such yet are frequently accused as being arrogant by theists.

This is meaningless. By which metric do you consider faith as being 'the same'?


Do you see what you did there? You ascribe characteristics to a God by way of your definition of 'knowing' WhatGodWants(tm). Let's take a look at what you claim the basis for your 'knowledge':

So you spoke to a bunch of people who base their reality on 'knowing' WGW(tm) and decided that your reality was going to be defined by you asserting that WGW(tm) is for everybody to worship *any* god because then they would be worshipping 'Him' and would not be as evil as those terrible atheists who simply refuse to believe in gods of any kind.

You clearly understand very little of the extremely contradictory nature of the many gods people believe in. Extremely.

Simply declaring that a belief in any god is sufficient is to absolutely deny the reality of what that actually entails in terms of how each person then defines their morality and boundaries in life, which constitutes how they define themselves and their behaviour in this life. Take a look around you, it doesn't work the way you are claiming it does in terms of theism being the preferred method of defining 'good'.

Your logic is grossly flawed and your assertion is simply word-salad with no actual substance.

The only possible solution to Pascal's Wager, in terms of what you described as the 'optimum' choice, is the lack of belief and, by default, lack of worship, of any god.

What is WGW? White girl wasted, wtf?


I don't know what is WGW, but I didn't ever think about what various scriptures tell. Ultimately, they are irrelevant (and so are irrelevant all your arguments thereby), since internally the faith is the same for all people (as well as the lack thereof). Therefore, if there is God, he wouldn't care much about whichever name people refer to him (since any name would be no more than a product of human imagination). In this aspect, if we proceed from the assumption that he does care whether people believe in him or not (which is what actually relevant in Pascal's Wager), the answer to the choice of optimal strategy becomes pretty obvious...

Essentially, that's what I got from my experience by talking with people of different religions and confessions

You are the one declaring to know WGW in terms of your assertion that, according to you, Pascal's Wager is best settled by believing in God.

I merely pointed out that, according to the various 'Holy' scriptures which claim to document knowledge of WGW, it is far worse to worship another god than it is to not believe in them, leading to the correct conclusion that Pascal's Wager is actually better settled by not believing in any of them.

You, however, then claimed your personal experience led you to assert otherwise and I asked how come you lay claim to knowing WGW above your 'Holy' scripture which clearly states that worshiping another God is *the* single worst thing a human being can do, that's why it is Number 1 on the list of Ten.

If you call that logical inference that your logic is rather skewed, I dare say


Strictly speaking, it is you who is talking about the opinion of gods. As I said before, I just followed your course (when you started citing scriptures), but it would be a mistake on your part to think that you somehow narrowed my scope of reason thereby...

"Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me"

Number 1 on the list. Number 1.

So it is pretty clear that worshiping another god is *the* worst thing above all else.

From your own experience? What is that meant to mean? We are talking about the opinion of gods, here, something only found in their respective 'Holy' scriptures, preferably dictated by illiterate goat-herders, then refined, edited and generally cherry-picked over hundreds of years to add to a collection of mismatched fables according to the goals of whichever Church was producing it, of course.

How come your experience matters? Citation please Mr God-Like.

That would be why, exactly? Social norms are dictated by human beings, refusing to pray would single you out as a potentially dangerous free-thinker and not likely to be controlled like the rest of the sheep. You have failed to make the connection to WhatGodWants(tm) and are only referencing cultural norms of the time, which is irrelevant in terms of Pascal's Wager.


Be honest, you don't want to answer this because you *know* your god is the 'right' one, amirite?!!! LOL.

Actually, you are trying to distort the facts. The passages you cited do not prove your words. From my own experience (without reference to scriptures and all that) I can tell that atheists and their kind are considered sinners of higher magnitude for being such than followers of another religion for being that. Even in Ancient Rome it didn't matter which gods you offered prayers to as long as you did pray...


You won't buy me with that. It was you who began citing scriptures in the first place. I just followed your course and showed that exactly these scriptures promise "the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people". By no means this wrath is directed towards people who believe in another God. It is directed against pagans before all, since declaring himself an atheist back then (by whatever name) inexorably entailed punishment...

I know that's what you said, I just pointed out that it is false to claim that it is more 'optimal' to believe in a god than none, considering the actual fact that most 'holy' scripture for the many gods claimed to be real tend to *really* emphasize the fact that worshiping any other god is usually *the* worst sin you can commit against 'Him'.

Hence the logical response to that dilemma, which is to not believe in any of them.

You, however, insist that *your* god is real because you cited scripture from your particular 'Holy' book-of-choice and I asked you how I could trust that your god was the 'right' one, given that all the other religions claims their god is the right one and you all have exactly the same level of evidence supporting your claims towards your particular god being the coca-cola of gods. (just so you know, that 'evidence' is known as circular-reasoning because you all claim that your books say your god is real and your god wrote those books so, you know, he must be real because the books he wrote say he is real which means . . . do you see the problem there?)

 

It is up to you. I just said that believing in some Supreme Deity is more optimal strategy than believing in none (or disbelieving in any). Besides that, any human is still a caveman deep (or not so deep) inside with his inborn fears and terrors (regarding "God has made it plain to them")...

Except one small point, given that this is just *your* god, the Muslim god and the Jewish god and all the others say pretty much the same thing about worshiping them, too, so who should I believe and why?

So with regards to "because God has made it plain to them", no, 'He' hasn't at all, clearly, otherwise we'd all know there was just the one god and we'd know exactly what he wants of us with no uncertainty or doubt or room for human interpretation, right? You know, human interpretation, like the process you go through when you read your religious scripture and it perfectly aligns with your own world-view, only, here's the problem, that very same scripture is also believed to say something different to pretty much everyone else who cites a level of 'understanding' which, too, happens to align perfectly with their personal world-view.

Psalm 14:1 - The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good

Romans 1: -  18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

So beware, you are without excuse, ever!

By which authority do you cite such a thing?

Because, for example, worshiping a 'false idol' is very clearly described as being one of the worst possible sins you can commit.


So, I've produced the goods to prove that it is actually less of a 'sin' to not worship a god than it is to worship a different god.

Care to actually back up your smug yet uninformed position about 'sincere ignorance'?

BTW 'downright defiance'? Prove it, prove how an inability to believe in a god, due to their being no justifiable reason to do so, could be considered as being 'downright defiant'? You can't force yourself to believe once your brain sees the man behind the curtain, the logical fallacies, the special-pleading demands. etc.

Religious debaters are usually very smooth and well prepared. The reason is not that their arguments are so persuasive but that they generally have spent years polishing the same old arguments….

By any means, sincere ignorance is more forgivable than downright defiance, so you won't get away cheap when the reckoning starts...

Fail.

Which God are you supposed to believe in? If you choose the wrong one, which would be a high probability given the many thousands and thousands of possible gods from historical myth and legend, you'd be punished more for worshiping a 'false idol' than you would for electing not to worship any of them. This we know from the numerous 'holy' scriptures that magically dictate WhatGodWants(tm), something which is conveniently in complete alignment with the person professing a claim to such knowledge.

God is generally a needy bastard who doesn't take kindly to his ignorant minions worshiping the wrong deity.

Quite simple. If you believe and God exists, you'll be rewarded. If God doesn't exist, you lose nothing. Therefore believing is more optimal strategy in life (and beyond), which atheists simply can't agree with and humbly resign themselves to...

Possibly. BADecker is on some thing about how all you have to do is challenge the jurisdiction of the court by telling them to define certain magic words and then you COMMON LAW VICTORY WIN or something wholly ridiculous. (While I am intentionally making it sound dumb, ask him for the official logic of it, and then you'll see my intentional misrepresentation isn't actually more absurd, and has the added benefit of humor, whereas the people who believe they have discovered a magic 'get out of jail free card' are entirely serious.)

Is this related to that "Freeman on the Land" garbage I've seen when people make complete fools of themselves in court and post it on YouTube as a win?

When you post garabage about your common law fantasy, you look even sillier than when you're trying to keep all your religious nonsense straight.

From http://www.unkommonlaw.co.uk/:
So then in my common law court, once I have the judgement for the man [cop] to pay me his bond for all the orders he gave me and I filled, he won't be able to afford a new bond, so he will lose his job.

They'll still let him go to church. After all, his wife will pay his tithes out of whatever earnings she gets.

 

I'll just repost this for the giggles:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.10754502