If you could prove there is no god...

No, he is what motivates them to give in the first place,

his providing a means just increases the simplicity of following "god's will"

 

Seeing the suffering on TV was enough of a motivating factor for me, and you can't get any easier than pushing 6 numbers on a cell phone or a few clicks of your mouse.

 

It is not governments, atheists, or churches that give. It is empathy for suffering that inspires donation.

 

I think there are far, far too many people on this earth who believe that God is the only real reason to live and love one another. While I agree that it causes much fighting on the planet, I also think too many people would completely lose their sense of self and their will to live and love if they found out that God did not exist and that everything they believe is wrong. Ignorance is bliss I guess, and while it's not perfect I think yanking so many peoples' beliefs out from under them would possibly do even more damage and kill even more people.

 

The 1.2 billion people on Earth who don't believe in god and live and love one another at this moment might prove this to be incorrect.

 

Probably wouldn't matter if I could prove it. People wouldn't believe the proof.

Then again, if the proof was so indisputable that even the weakest minds would have no choice but to accept the truth there would no longer be fear of hell and for that reason alone many more of us would descend into utter selfishness. Though religious conflict would end, anarchy would begin to erode every culture until totalitarianism becomes the only workable model.

 

In order to reach that conclusion you have to disregard the facts. The most Christian nation, the U.S., has among the highest crime rate, while the most atheist, China, has one of the lowest crime rates. Americans are some of the most greedy people in the world, while the Chinese are some of the least selfish.

What about preachers like Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Jim Baker who lie, cheat and steal? These people are the cream of the crop, yet they don't practice what they preach. What about preachers, deacons and youth ministers molesting children? Then, the mass murders like the Crusades, Inquisition, genocide of the Native Americans, enslavement of the Africans and entire cultures exterminated throughout South America and the Caribbean.

 

China is already a totalitarian state - hence the law and order. The U.S. has a win/lose - have/have-not culture that breeds selfishness and bitterness, hence the high percapita rate of violence, crime, incarceration, selfish pursuits. The thing that stops the anarchy from reaching a tipping point is the tradition of 'belief' that most citizens are still indoctrinated. Take away the God/hell control factor and totalitarianism will become necessary to bring order back from the ensuing anarchy.

So, it's a good thing that God's non-existence cannot be proven. As Voltaire put it 'if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent Him'.

 

It's clear that you have no understanding of human behavior, so, I'll leave you with this thought.

In some countries in the Middle East the punishment for theft is the loss of a hand. This is done in public. At these public "mutilations," one-handed pick pockets work the crowds. Totalitarianism is not a deterrent to crime.

Voltaire was a Deist. Most Deists of his day were actually atheists, since atheists were often put to death.
"Voltaire's focus was instead on the idea of a universe based on reason and a respect for nature reflected the contemporary pantheism." Wikipedia

 

Okay, so long. If you don't think totalitarianism is extremely effective at controlling the activity of most of the citizenry I find that you're naive. A little reading beginning with George Orwell is recommended. And if you think that I misunderstand the God/hell effect on human 'nature' (read conduct) you may want to consider the truism 'there are no atheists in foxholes'. It's a fairly indisputable fact that people tend to become more religious when their own death begins to have a sense of imminence (eg: another poster's reference to death row religiosity).

PROVE there is no God and watch the accelerating difference it makes in human conduct. It wouldn't be pretty. Some force (the wealthy and powerful) would need to restore order with an iron fist.

 

Interesting response.

Didn't George Orwell write fiction? And, just because something is in print doesn't mean it's accurate.

I've been close to death twice plus a cancer scare and not once did I give god the first thought. My wife suffered with ovarian cancer for 4 years before she died and never once thought of god, despite one of her Christian friends constantly nagging her to go to church. That "atheists in foxholes" fallacy is used by preachers to "keep the flock in line," it simply isn't true, though, it may be true for agnostics. (and, most people in U.S. prisons are Christians)

Pat Tillman, a famous football player who was killed by his fellow Christian soldiers, remained an atheist through several tours of duty in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In my lifetime, I've been insulted, called every veil name in the English language, threatened and even assaulted once, all by Christians, simply because I am an atheist. The history of my ancestors, Cherokee, is one of genocide by Christians. And more recently, the KKK, a Christian organization that hung people because they were dark skinned.

I just don't see how anyone can look at the history of Christianity and see something good after they've destroyed every culture they have encountered.

 

Oh hey! Thought you were leaving (after giving me a 'final' thought to consider)

a) just because something is a work of fiction doesn't mean that it isn't inspired by 'truth' or that 'truth' cannot be found in it. Even Jesus used parables for the purpose of teaching - as do most other teachers, philosophers and theologians.

b) don't remember saying that every word ever printed is 'accurate' but I still recommend reading anyway. It's educational, ay.

c) at my age I too have seen much death and been close to it myself. So what?

d) I don't believe there's a single unretarded adult who has NEVER thought about God, Anyone who says such an absurd thing is lying (even if to themselves)

e) why bring Christianity into the discussion? The discussion is about proving there's no God and the effects of that. All religions believe in God and an afterlife, not just Christianity. And bringing in world history tends to prove my points om human 'nature', not argue against them.

 

Don't remember that

already read it, many years ago.

So Christian of you to insult me. You evidently have no understanding of atheism.

It also proves that religion not only does nothing to change "human nature," but sanctions it.

But hey, what do I know, I'm just a retarded, lying atheist.

 

~

 

I have to say I agree with Jackflash on several points. The 'no atheists in a foxhole' thing is definitely bogus. I've met several people who were in combat, and some who came very close to death and they are atheists. Many people become atheists because of just such an experience.

Worldsofdarkblue, you are probably right that most adults have considered god but that doesn't mean that we have considered god seriously. For many people, myself included, the existence of god is a silly unimportant question and if there weren't so many theists in the world making such a fuss about their omnipotent imaginary friends we would probably never give the idea too much attention.

As for statements about human nature that is where I have something to say as my studies are in the behavioral sciences. There is a universal human nature. The cognitive mechanisms underlying human nature were shaped by natural selection. The human brain is adapted for life in our ancestral environment, during the Pleistocene. As a result humans posses a complex behavioral repertoire consisting of capacities for good and bad such as love, anger, aggression, murder, coalitional exploitation, stigmatization, dyadic cooperation etc.

People are capable of living relatively peacefully in organized societies without organized religions. Morality is not dependent on god, and in many ways morality has improved in spite of religion. Without religion we would have good people doing good things, and bad people doing bad things, but to get good people to do bad things takes religion. I think Bertrand Russel said that last bit.

 

I apologize for making the assumption that you're a Christian. Your circular "Christian logic" and your posts in the topic "Sanctuary For Christians ONLY!" must have played with my retarded mind.

There's a tad bit more to it than that. Now I'm sure that you have no concept of atheism.

I've given a lot of thought to the concept of god, but have never entertained the thought one might exist. When I was introduced to the idea of god as a child, I didn't believe it then, never have and still don't. If you read about "The Trail of Tears" you might see why my parents didn't teach me about god.

 

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion."
a speech in 1999 by Steven Weinberg.

I'm partial to Experiential Psychology, the study of human experience.

 

Yes, and I would give them philosophical messages of hope that don't rely on crusty old documents in place of them.

The first clip in this is my personal favorite.


In fact, I've listened to it many times, but it's hit me hardest today (after watching a video about a tobacco-caused death despite smoking today when I've been trying to quit) and I am crying as I am typing this.

 

I think I know what's happened. My posts have been intended to be legitimate discussion points, yet seem to have caused offence and been taken personally. I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes and while I know what I'm trying to say and tend to say it in as literate a way as possible, I sometimes forget that some words can have a certain buzz with some people. In this discussion I made the claim that every unretarded adult has thought about God (in response to the claim that one's dying sister never once thought about God). This was read as an insult because of the buzzword aspect. This wasn't my intention at all and I now wish I had phrased it as 'every adult with the capacity to think about God has done so'.

It's what I meant and I'll have to be a little more careful to steer away from certain words in future.

Also, I didn't quite catch on that my opinion was being disputed precisely because the disputer is an atheist and seems to feel that my 'everything would get worse with the God/aftetlife punishment concept removed from the world's belief systems' was a slam against people who claim to be atheistic. But I still believe that such wide-spread beliefs are operating as a control mechanism on human behavior. Even with the current trend of more people proclaiming atheism, true absolutely-sure-about-it atheists are a very small minority.

I'm very pleased that a student of behavioral science (emanresu) has added to the discussion and would be interested to know the answer he would give to this question:

Why is it that every single 'nation' (group of people) in every single part of the planet from the very beginning of recorded history and probably long before that developed some form of belief system involving a deity and/or deities of some kind? I mean, we could discover a heretofore unknown people in the unexplored depths of the Amazon even today and we'd probably find that they have some form of religious belief. And that such belief exerts certain behavioral control upon them.

 

I can answer that question from a psychological/existential standpoint. People are afraid of the unknown and feel they must have meaning and value to their lives for life to be worth living, so they attempt to rationalize life through things like religion and philosophy.