God (or gods) do not exist

OK guys.. I'm at work, and bored. So I want something fun to help me pass the time between calls..... and anyone that knows me knows I enjoy nothing more than argueing with the religous people.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy for you to believe and worship whatever you want, be it 'god', aliens or even your sofa - so long as your belief in that doesn't affect me in a negative way - but that does not change my opinion that you've been mislead and are in fact wasting your time)

So here is the deal, I'm going to set you a challenge, and I want you to do the best to complete this challenge. The challenge is, as I'm sure you would have gathered now, is to try and convince me that your god (or aliens, or sofa) is real and worthy of worship.

So... good luck!

 

You enjoy reading endless bible quotes from forumbots that live for this type of shit or what?

 

I'll start..

"everything in the bible is proven true, there are thousands of prophecies...hahaha I can't continue

 

I just want to see what they come up with.... weither it's ream upon ream of bible quotes, or if they have something a bit more interesting.

 

no one can convince anyone but themselves of anything. the choice ends up being our own to agree or not, and if that is not true to you, then it is not true.. for you. I give my views, and expect nothing, other than the hope for each of us to accept the responsibility ourselves to make up our own minds. The attempts and desires to change any mind but our own is imho vain, disrespectful, and does more harm than good. One prominent psychologist states that is the source of all misery, and that controlling others is not possible anyway. So the saying 'he made me so angry', is just like saying 'he has an absolute and irresistable control over me, and can force me to feel whatever he wants me to feel, whether I want him to or not. I am his puppet and his power over me is beyond my ability to escape, my freewill is gone, and it is futile to try to get it back, so I give up and surrender to it, and openly admit that he controls my emotions.'
If a religious zealot warns me that I must agree with his views or else I will not achieve salvation, my chances of agreeing with him drop to virtually zero. I am averse to such judgemental, self-assured pronouncements about what I must think. I let others think for themselves, and I will take the responsibility for, the consequences of, and/or the blame for the result. If I don't agree, I will never change my mind just because someone says I must. Even if that person is Carl Sagan, The Pope, or the smartest person alive. I will only change my mind if I decide the information I receive is closer to what I imagine to be most likely. The credit for the change is mine alone. The choice is mine.
I believe in a spiritual world that is real, that science is self-admittedly ignorant about many things, and has not nearly figured it all out. I believe in magic, miracles, and angels. I don't care if anyone else does, and if they do not, I believe that they are just as right as me, and we can all differ, and still all be right, and all that should ever mean is that the world is diverse, thankfully. If we all agreed, no one would ever talk, and if we disagree that does not mean someone has to be wrong.
Convinced? I hope that at least you now know how much I care whether or not you are. I care about my beliefs, and will leave yours for you to care about.

 

Why you gotta pick fights, Dan? You aren't going to be convinced, because a) you already are prejudiced against such a belief, and b) there is no way anyone can convince another that god exists. How can something beyond language and thought be told through languange and thought? God isn't provable via logic, reason, and argumentation. To some, that means God (or gods) can't exist. To others, it means it's a more fundamental type of existance. These two opinions cannot mesh. So, you will never be convinced this way. The only ways you'll change your ways is if you experience something to turn your opinions. My telling you why I believe will mean nothing to you, just like Campbell or JDFU telling me why they believe means nothing to me. My experiences differ from theirs, and thus so do my beliefs.

This thread just seems like your baiting the believers into an argument that will go nowhere but still irritate all involved.

 

aw come on trippinbtm. maybe someone will have come up with a new argument since the last time the existence of god was debated. lol

if not though, it'll be the same old wringer, ending up with,
believer: "my experiences tell me to have faith in god."
non-believer: "i haven't had any experiences showing me god is real."

religious experience. how can i argue with a person who "felt jesus' love wash over me as i fell asleep"? hypnagogic hallucination? artificial, imagination? i wasn't in their shoes, and they're not in mine. until religious experience becomes something other than subjective, there's nothing i can do to prove him or me that the experience was or wasn't god.

even if you want to argue that religious experience differs so widely that there can't possibly be one christian god. (ie. "i felt krishna's love wash over me" etc), if a person truly believes in the validity of their religious experience, what can you do?

plato said, "all learning has an emotional base"...
don't kid yourself about how you learn, and why; you are human.
(for both believers and non-believers)



peace

 

therefore, to dan:

dan, my sofa is god, and so is worthy of worship. i know this because last night when i was sitting on it (horror!),
i thought i saw the sofa legs moving on their own. i then heard a voice. it spoke to me, saying,
"my child, i love you, do not fear. this is god, upon which you rest your rear."
obviously, i was shocked that my sofa was speaking to me, not to mention that my sofa was god. and you may argue that it was my imagination, or a hallucination, or a direct result of the moldy food i ate for dinner, but to me, it was real.
(what is "real"?)

i cannot prove to you that my sofa is god. you cannot prove to me that it (he?) isn't.
the only advice i can give you is, talk to the sofa.
(i'm building it a temple;
i hope that in a few months it'll be open to the public.)

*shrug*

 

seriously, can't he just dig this outta the archives?

no, what he wants is for someone to cuss at him so that he can feel euphoric. i did that earlier, it WAS satisfying, but ultimately useless.

 

ok lets put it this way a word is realy only a hollow sound filled by your own personal connection to the meaning of that word,example when some one says the love love you think of it the way your mind connects to it,the person who said it might think of love like something totaly different,sence belive or religion or what ever is just a hollow word/meaning its filled by what you belivie there for that meaning can only come from you, you can understand a belife but to actuly belivie thats a totaly different thing there for no can convince you off shit you can only convine yourslef, like no one else can say exactly how love feels even if they discribe it, becasue the word they discribe it with also mean something totaly diffeernt to you....make sence cause i just confued the hell out of my self thinking that,if someone gets what im saying and can make it clearer please do.....

 

I'm not picking a fight, I'm asking a question... Just because I don't believe in, or even like, religion, doesn't mean I don't find it highly interesting... This is all part of my learning provess.

True, but as above, I'm not doing this so much to be converted, but rather to find out what ways people use to try and do this.

Still.. that doesn't stop people from trying.

Again, it might look that way... and sure, that might have an element of truth to it, but truly, i'm just looking to see *what* people do to try and convert me (because, as I said, although we both accept it's next to impossable to convert anyone, that does not stop people from trying).

PS nitemarehippygirl: can I sit on your sofa?

 

belief is something that most people biologically cant change easily until their life falls apart. thats why lots of people are 'born again' when for some reason their prior life was not satisfying to adequite living standards.

other people have truelly 'open' minds, whereby their belief is open to change and adapt when new information comes along.

the need for sustained belief is a survival mechanism which helps people stay away from dangers that are unnaparent in the immediate environment. its all about protecting yourself from things. if you believe that there is a tiger outisde your bedroom, then you dont need any stimulus from your environment to alarm you to its presence, for you have already thought about what your situation is and planned your life accordingly.

there is nothing wronghowever with being too safe, for survivals sake.

my brain is my god. it controls my universe, but moreso, it is what i believe. eerything i believe physically resides in my head. its real because without it, this response and all my other ones on this forum would be impossible.
its worthy of worship caus.. it generates ME, isnt that worthy of worship?

 

This thread has been done, many times. Half the Christian forum is about this, same for the Atheist forum. We know why people believe (aside from the individual details): it's a feeling, an experience they have, as well as upbringing/indoctrination.

And it doesn't stop it from being annoying. Why give them an opprotunity? You won't be convinced, likely nothing new will be offered, and the thread goes nowhere, with lots of arguing in the process.

The only honest attempt that a believer can give for trying to convince you would be to say "I can't convince you, you can look into it if you want, read the scriptures, pray or meditate, try it yourself, but my words, even my emphatic belief that I am right won't convince you". I can respect that, and may even attempt what they're saying.

I just don't see the point to this thread.

 

Well you might not, but I do... If people choose not to post in this thread, that's up to them, but I am hoping that some people at least give me their 'pitch'.

 

...see:

i don't see anything wrong with this thread. sometimes a good old-fashioned "is there a god" debate is a good way to pass a dull afternoon.
...like a hoe-down, or competitive mud wrasslin.

anytime, hooooney.
not that one, though. i don't think sofa god wants your ass on his face.


.....

 

Dan!

How can you not be convinced that our God and our Gods are not real when we all spent centuries and even millenia creating them.

How can you not worship a real creation that relieves the real stress of so many of our real psychological fears.

God's better than Valium.

 

To be honest, seeing as I'm the person that's responsable for my life, the way that I live it and the choices that I make.... if I'm going to worship anyone... it'll be MYSELF!

 

Maybe I can sit on your lap then? or maybe you on mine... hehe

 

Ok heres my pitch

Eternal Life Or Three Times Your Money Back!

now, tell me thats not a steal...

 

LOL, yeah.. I've heard that one before