Tag Archives: Belief

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what has your god been doing for you?

What other gods are doing.
  1. Does your god beat your business competition?
  2. Does your god advise you to become an entrepreneur?
  3. Does your god send you clients?

If your god isn’t doing any of the above, it is time you chose a new god. Gods are outta here blessing people and you are there sulking, praying to a god who will not send you clients, or even tell you when it is the right time to quit an employer.

As for me, I will continue to talk nicely to my clients.

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The things we hear

The author of this post says “We must continue to read the Bible and strive to discern what is truly from God” without telling us what tools we are to use to differentiate between the two. To their credit, they admit, contrary to many fundamentalist believers, that the bible is just made up by people who believed in God, but some of the Bible really does contain a message from our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ. I am sure Ken Ham and his ilk wouldn’t agree.

The author then tells us, without citation

God never told humanity that he would give us a perfect book, so it is not as though God is being dishonest. Rather, God is testing us, finding out if we will seek him regardless of imperfections in the Bible.

Citation needed.

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There are bad arguments

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?” The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.” The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.” The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.” The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.” “Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.” The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?” The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.” Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.” To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.” May be this was one of the best explanations to the concept of GOD.

LinkedIn post

And then there is this one. What’s shocked me is how everyone who has made a comment on the above post believes it is the best specie of argument they have come across. This is making a virtue out of ignorance and faith. It is not right to ask people to believe things without evidence.

The brain is not a truth generating machine, rather a pattern recognition machine. Therefore, listening to our imagination doesn’t bring us closer to truth. Pure reason, as Kant told us many years ago, doesn’t bring us closer to determining whether there is a god.

Unless I am missing something.

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What do you believe in?

Is a question I get asked occasionally when I say I am not religious. Generally, depending on what I am doing at that precise moment, my response will be drawn from it. For example if we were having beer, I would jokingly say I believe beer is good.

But I don’t think this is the answer they are looking for. The question seems to me to be a loaded one. It does seem, in some sense, that to the believer, my lack of religious belief and by extension god belief, I am devoid of beliefs.

The other implication is, for the believer, all their other beliefs can be explained by their belief in god. That is to say, to the believer, any question would be answered by god and that would seem to be a sufficient answer.

But there is a problem. Whereas we hold beliefs to the degree we believe them true and no more, it is possible we hold unexamined beliefs, false beliefs and so on. And where there is true knowledge, we generally (in common usage) say we know 1+1=2 except for catholics where 1=3, but that’s a debate for another time.

Therefore, in answer to the above question, whoever should want an answer should be specific. I hold many beliefs depending on the weather and what side of the bed I wake up from.

To those who get asked this question, how do you respond?

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Question for non theists

Since it appears this site is not theist friendly I have a question for non theists but theists are welcome to contribute if they so wish.

Can one believe there is a god and not be committed to that belief? The corollary is of course obvious, it seems to me likely that people can be committed to the belief in god even though the existence of gods is doubtful at the least and their non existence highly likely.

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Apology for atheism

Hoyt wants to insist there is a standard definition of atheism, which he defines as

atheism entails a belief about the existence of deity

and any other definition incongruent wth his definition is incoherent or absurd. And one wishes he was right, but it does seem that is not the case. If one were to read Stephen Bullivant’s The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, they would discover, quoting Stephen, that

THE precise definition of ‘atheism’ is both a vexed and vexatious issue.

In fact, he (Stephen) goes so far as to give 5 definitions of atheism from scholarly works that show no consensus in the definition of the term.

Theists are interesting people. And Lyle Duell is no exception. In his recent post he is defending an absurd position that atheism involves three basic assumptions. But he doesn’t just stop there, no, he tells us atheism is a faith. How is it a faith?

it is a faith because it is an ideal that exists in the human mind and is supported by other human beliefs. The idea that it is a non-belief is nothing but atheistic sophistry. Call it a non-belief is like calling it a non-idea.

I have no idea what that means.

Over to the assumptions.

1. The first is that there is no God.

And he says this is absurd. To prove there is no god, one would have to be omniscient. In his words

No one can prove that there is no God for in order to do so they would have to be everywhere in the universe at the same time and also outside of the universe at the same time for the very place that they were not, might be the very place that the Uncreated one is present.

which if you ask me is such an absurd demand. The theist says god is everywhere. One need only to point one place where they don’t see god to show the argument of the theist is false or incompatible with reality. This argument against the first assumption, assuming there is such an assumption, is easily defeated.

2. The second assumption that I have found in most atheists is the belief that they are smarter than those that believe in God.

Against this 2nd assumption, he tells us William James had a higher IQ than Einstein and also

The most intelligent living person is Christopher Langan. He is considered by many to be the world’s smartest living person with an IQ of over 200 and he is a believer.

Assuming for a moment that the second assumption is held by many atheists is true, listing two individuals believed by the author to be intelligent is no evidence for god. In fact he admits as much. Anyone who believes donkeys can talk, snakes walk and zombies have roamed the earth can not claim honestly that he is smart when it comes to religious questions. This is not say the said individual cannot replace a flat tyre, far from it, it only means that in one area of their lives, they have opted to abandon their reason. I would think that is what is meant in that second assumption.

3. The third assumption is that science has proven that there is no God

I would ask for citation for this. From what I have read, it is argued science has reduced the sphere of operation for god[s]. No scientist has gone to the labs to prove the [non]existence of god. What would be the variables to be tested?

I know many of the atheists who land on this spot have been wondering whether or not they have faith. Worry no more. I finally have the answer to this question.

What is faith? Do you put your trust in someone? Something? Then you have faith. We are told

Faith is the result of placing our trust in something (e.g. an idea, a person, in God, etc), and that “something” reassuring us that our selection (or placement of trust) was correct.

He continues to say

For example, the atheist who places their trust in a scientific theory feels good about their decision, and many times will encourage others to feel the same way. In the end, I believe that that feeling of “reassurance” is, in essence, faith.

Then we come to the critical question of whether the faith of the atheist and theist are similar? The answer, dear friends, is a resounding no. It is only in appearance. ANd why is this so? The bible has answers

The reason these types of faith are not the same is because there are in fact different degrees of faith. The Bible speaks of “. . . a measure of faith,” that is given to all men (Romans 12:3). However, the Bible also speaks of great faith (Matthew 15:21-28), unwavering faith (Romans 4:20-21), and also faith without works (James 2:18). Although there are other types of faith, these are the main ones reference in the Bible, some on multiple places.

In conclusion, the atheist just has a measure of faith. You need to believe in god to have great faith. What are you waiting for?

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Had JJR

Stuck to

The faith of children and the faith of many men is a matter of geography. Will they be rewarded for having been born in Rome rather than Mecca?
(..)when a child says he believes in god, it is not god he believes in, but Peter or James or jane who told him there is something called god

And left out the soul bs, he would have made a good teacher to his student, Emile

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I know I will regret this

We have mentioned Cornell here before. He is my neighbour in the hood, I thought with knowing yours truly, his writing will become more sensible. It appears he is gone off the racks completely.

In this post he is writing about punishment and the part of god in the matrix. On this blog we have said we oppose to punishment and are in support of rehabilitation. Society has every right to protect itself. In this case, though the removal from society of offenders, we propose that they should not be stripped of their dignity. Revenge doesn’t make society better.

The question Cornell is asking

Then why do people have a problem with a God who punishes evil in the world? Why do people have a problem with a God who sends people to hell for their sins?

is one which misses the point entirely. It absolves god, whatever they are, from blame. Cornell must first demonstrate that a god exist and show how this god is not complacent in the commission of evil. And to ask  why we have a problem with a god who sends people to hell is inhuman, a parson devoid of feeling and capricious.What would god want to achieve when he has these people in hell?

We are not in agreement on this

One thing we can all agree on is that people do not have a problem with a God who punishes sin.

for no god has been shown to exist.

I don’t know who agrees with him on this

no one is saying that there shouldn’t be a hell.

Many humanists have written against the concept of hell. Maybe he should spend time out reading different authors. I don’t want hell to exist. Don’t misunderstand me, am not saying hell exists.

If the believer holds it that god created man, there is nothing man can do to beat the wishes of god. The believer will have to prove that the offender’s behaviour is not what god intended for him/her and then to show why they should be punished for mistakes that rightly belong at god’s doorstep.

In this other post, he has expressed sophistry as I have not seen in a while.

He argues

[…]Do these examples disqualify the Bible? Many people believe so. Yet what such arguments against the Bible reveal is the arguers’ ignorance of what the Bible is and what the Bible does. The Bible is not God’s Word because it contains novel (new and unique) ideas about God. In fact, the reverse is the case, all true ideas about God that exist outside the Bible only prove that God is the author and owner of all truth. It is the reason R.C. Sproul has popularized the phrase: “all truth is God’s truth.”

and with one stroke of Oogity Boogity he has secured the bible from any criticism. I wish this were the case for him but alas, no, reality is different from this. How do we know an idea is true about god? Is something true about god if it gets mentioned in the bible and by secular author? What about those writings that are in direct contradiction with the supposed word of god? Do they also express a truth about god? And what truth is this?

I don’t know what truth is. Jesus, if he existed had an opportunity to settle this matter before Pilate [John 18:38] but he didn’t. When Cornell writes

Truth is truth, wherever you find it

I can’t for the life of me say I know what he means.

He ends his post with the sophistry with which he begun

The availability of truth apart from the Bible is actually an argument for God, not against Him. It is proof of His sovereignty — that  God is God over all people and all things, not just the Jews and the Christians. It is proof that those who will never encounter Christianity will not be judged unfairly, because “what may be known about God is “plain” to them (Rom 1:19).

There is a lot more to say about this fallacious argument. I hope not one of his many thousands of followers believe these nonsense he is selling to them. Any reasonable person who has read the bible and read some science book will be able to notice the several contradictions between the bible and what we have found out about nature and at the same time this person shall have seen the internal contradictions in the bible itself. The question then that we must ask is which is truth when we have two contradictory stories in the bible about the same event?