More of Younger Generation consider themselves religiously unaffiliated

• eersandbeers

  Strapping Young Lad wrote: It just requires a little faith. But if you mistakenly put your faith in Allah instead of God, you're headed to hell for eternity.
  
  Sounds like a wonderful, loving, and just God, doesn't He????

  
  It's even funnier because they are the same god.
• bigmanbt

  krazie45 wrote: My point is that I don't know, and neither do you, so I'm not going to rule anything out. The difference between our views on this is that my approach is open-minded. There's really no way to know for sure and there probably never will be. Sure we discover things and make educated guesses based upon that information, but to say that it's ludicrous to even debate the topic is being closed-minded. Many different scientists have many different theories. One may be true, they all could be true in some way, or none of them may be true. That's why they are THEORIES and not LAWS.

  You would be one of those people, that if science proved there was a god, would be celebrating in the streets. Science doesn't matter cause it doesn't fit my position, but if it did I would sure use it. You aren't as open-minded as you think, you are actually pretty close minded.
  
  Classic religion argument as well, I don't know and neither do you. LOL. Just because we can never give a definite answer does not mean the chance of one or the other is 50/50. Just like a detective arriving on the scene, you put the clues together to find the best possible answer for who committed the murder. In the case of is their a god, the evidence is surely against it, just that nothing is 100% certain.
• HitsRus

  

  bigmanbt wrote: In the case of is their a god, the evidence is surely against it, just that nothing is 100% certain.

  
  What evidence? You have none.
• bigmanbt

  The fact that an all-knowing, all-powerful god defies the laws of science. Your turn, name any evidence for a god? This should be fun.
• I Wear Pants

  krazie45 wrote: My point is that I don't know, and neither do you, so I'm not going to rule anything out. The difference between our views on this is that my approach is open-minded. There's really no way to know for sure and there probably never will be. Sure we discover things and make educated guesses based upon that information, but to say that it's ludicrous to even debate the topic is being closed-minded. Many different scientists have many different theories. One may be true, they all could be true in some way, or none of them may be true. That's why they are THEORIES and not LAWS.

  Something being called a theory doesn't mean it isn't proven.
• Strapping Young Lad

  

  HitsRus wrote:
  
  Strapping Young Lad wrote:
  "If God were THE hand, why is the one true God so different depending on where you go in the world??? "
  
  The notion of a 'true god' does not deny God's existence or presence as it may be more of a man made competition. In reality, you can find common themes throughout all of the religions of the world. Almost all religions have a notion that happiness is union with the creator...a concept of seeking/working towards oneness.

  
  Of course they all have common themes. All religions are invented by the human psyche to help man's attempt to overcome the human condition. But it seems if there were really one true God he'd be consistent throughout.
  
  I'll bet Satan has something to do with the confusion, huh???
  
  Then you actually ask "how else would God work than science, Magic?"
  
  Are you serious???
  
  "God's miracles" defy science and are far closer to magic than they are science. Give me a break.....
• majorspark

  

  Strapping Young Lad wrote: I remember it being explained once like this. You're looking for a suit that fits you perfectly. You can go into a tiny store and look through a limited selection, and you may find a suit that fits you just right.
  
  Or you could go into a huge store w/ a very great number of suits and you're much more likely to find that suit that's perfect for you.
  
  The universe is that large store. The universe is so big that life was bound to form somewhere and now here we are and of course we're going to wonder where in the hell we came from.....

  The thing is all those suits were designed by intelligent beings.
  
  The simple fact is you can't get something from nothing. Matter can't just appear in space. This is an undistputable law of science. Something had to infinitely exist. You argue it was an unintelligent mass of matter that by means of an explosion and a massive amount of time fell by chance into an intelligent sequence. I on the otherhand argue that what has infinitely existed is an intelligent creator who by design ordered the sequence of the universe. Which is more logical?
• eersandbeers

  majorspark wrote:

  Strapping Young Lad wrote: I remember it being explained once like this. You're looking for a suit that fits you perfectly. You can go into a tiny store and look through a limited selection, and you may find a suit that fits you just right.
  
  Or you could go into a huge store w/ a very great number of suits and you're much more likely to find that suit that's perfect for you.
  
  The universe is that large store. The universe is so big that life was bound to form somewhere and now here we are and of course we're going to wonder where in the hell we came from.....

  The thing is all those suits were designed by intelligent beings.
  
  The simple fact is you can't get something from nothing. Matter can't just appear in space. This is an undistputable law of science. Something had to infinitely exist. You argue it was an unintelligent mass of matter that by means of an explosion and a massive amount of time fell by chance into an intelligent sequence. I on the otherhand argue that what has infinitely existed is an intelligent creator who by design ordered the sequence of the universe. Which is more logical?

  Actually I think science is working on proving that matter can just appear under certain circumstances.
  
  And believing that an all powerful being, who supposedly always existed, created the whole universe is somehow more logical than the big bang theory?
  
  Both theories are equally absurd.
• Strapping Young Lad

  

  Right. Who created the creator??? We can do this forever. No need to get up early on Sunday's when science will produce the answer in due time.
• HitsRus

  

  Strapping Young Lad wrote:

  HitsRus wrote:
  
  Strapping Young Lad wrote:
  "If God were THE hand, why is the one true God so different depending on where you go in the world??? "
  
  The notion of a 'true god' does not deny God's existence or presence as it may be more of a man made competition. In reality, you can find common themes throughout all of the religions of the world. Almost all religions have a notion that happiness is union with the creator...a concept of seeking/working towards oneness.

  
  
  
  Of course they all have common themes. All religions are invented by the human psyche to help man's attempt to overcome the human condition. But it seems if there were really one true God he'd be consistent throughout.
  
  I'll bet Satan has something to do with the confusion, huh???
  
  Then you actually ask "how else would God work than science, Magic?"
  
  Are you serious???
  
  "God's miracles" defy science and are far closer to magic than they are science. Give me a break.....

  
  
  Look, you asked the question why they were so different, and I gave an example how they are the same despite arising independently from each other.
  
  I appreciate your OPINION that religion was 'invented by the human psyche etc etc"...but I don't agree.
  
  I'm not sure what Satan has to do with this discussion, but I can appreciate the attempt at creating a strawman.
  
  I suppose I could have talked about miracles but you would have dismissed them as stories. I don't interpret the Bible literally anyway.
• Strapping Young Lad

  

  What the hell is with this strawman??? It seems to be everyone's fallback when someone makes a statement they can't deal with.
  
  If you're talking about what I think it is, then nobody around here understands what the hell a Strawman Argument really means.....Every single argument that doesn't agree with yours is not a strawman.
  
  It becoming the most overused and misused phrase on this portion of the site. Give it up...
• HitsRus

  

  ^^^case in point...
  But forget the strawman and just tell me what the fuck Satan has to do with anything and then address the rest ...IF YOU CAN.
  
  
  I'm going to bed....don't forget to say your prayers.
• BoatShoes

  Discussing the cosmological argument is a non-starter...the non-theist will always counter the syllogism by saying that it follows that the creator must have a creator and it must go on infinitely and there's no reason to stop at one God creating the universe.
  
  I think a specific version of this argument is a little more interesting.
  
  1. If X doesn't "begin to exist" X doesn't have a cause
  2. God did not "begin to exist" (God's eternal)
  3. Therefore God doesn't have a Cause.
  
  AND
  
  1. Whatever Begins to exist has a cause
  2. The Universe began to exist
  3. The universe has a cause.
  
  If those premises are true, the conclusions both follow and we can have a world wherein, the universe can be caused by a God and not have an infinite train of causes undermine the position.
  
  But, you will never come anywhere close to getting any reasonable amount of evidence to accept the truth of the second premise which involves accepting first the truth of the missing premise that there is indeed a God and that two, It's eternal. Any non-theist will always say "why does God not have a cause when everything else does...why didn't God begin to exist?"
  
  I suppose you could try with an ontological argument but no atheist ever accepts that you can prove the existence of an infinitely powerful being that which no greater can be conceived whom we'll call God, a priori, with a logic syllogism on a piece of paper.
  
  I used to think about this stuff a lot but I've pretty much resigned myself to some kind of agnostic fideism and would rather be concerned with trying to make people on Earth, who are thrust here of no choice of their own, try to experience more happiness than sadness with the limited power we have as humans rather than wait on some supernatural being who may or may not be there regardless of our deepest convictions.
• Strapping Young Lad

  

  What does Satan have to do with Christianity??? You really are bad at this aren't you....
  
  I just figured an easy answer to why the world has different monotheistic religions may have something to do with Satan planting ideas of false gods in people's heads causing people to stray from the one true God and worship these crazy sand-people gods or those whackiy Indian gods....Those one's are just silly.
  
  Satan will do that kind of stuff you know...
  
  He fucked around with the fossil record so I wouldn't put anything past him.
  
  Why look, here he is protesting God's presence in California.....
  
• BoatShoes

  bigmanbt wrote: The fact that an all-knowing, all-powerful god defies the laws of science. Your turn, name any evidence for a god? This should be fun.

  As I've tried to point out...this is a waste of time because there's no reason to suggest that a god the theist wants to believe in couldn't be beyond the grasp of science. All he has to say is, "it's beyond our understanding."
  
  If you accept that there are limits to human reason and knowledge...then the theist can get you with this lame and boring reply every time and not be logically inconsistent.
  
  But just for funzies...you've asked for any evidence hard evidence that God exists. Some have tried to prove it with a purely logical argument. If the premises are true, the conclusion follows. This is one based on Modal logic.
  
  1. It is proposed that a being has maximal excellence in a given possible world, W, if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and
  2. It is proposed that a being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world. (The being wouldn't be maximally great if it didn't exist in every possible world).
  3. It is possible that there be a being that has maximal greatness.
  4. Therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists. (In modal logic, it's been widely accepted, though not universally that when X is "possibly, necessarily true it is necessarily true).
  5. Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
  6. Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
  
  And then, from there, in order to rationalize this being being perfectly good with our imperfect world with famine and disease, you'd have to appeal to some kind of "divine command theory" that suggests that any action that God allows to occur or anything God creates is by definition "good"...hence things that go against our moral intuitions such as allowing millions of people to starve to death is "good" because any action the omni-god does is good.
  
  Hence, if you accept the premises in the ontological argument and a divine command theory of the good, you can find yourself in a universe where there is an all powerful and almighty God but you'd still have a long way to go to reconcile this God with the idea most theists have of their God.
  
  But, many philosophers have found problems with the ontological arguments premises...but as Bertrand Russell points out, it's easier to "feel" the fallacy than point it out. Have at it.
• HitsRus

  

  Laddie wrote:
  "I just figured an easy answer to why the world has different monotheistic religions may have something to do with Satan planting ideas of false gods in people's heads causing people to stray from the one true God and worship these crazy sand-people gods or those whackiy Indian gods....Those one's are just silly."
  
  
  
  You just "figured"....and you say that I'm bad at this. LOL.
  FYI...regarding 'wacky Indian gods'... The Navajo believe in an orderly and interconnected universe, and that the purpose of their life is to live in harmony with nature and their creator. This is a religion arising independently from both western and eastern traditions. I don't see anything at all Satanic about it.
  You obviously have a problem with elements of Christianity, which does not disprove god or spirituality.
• HitsRus

  

  Boat shoes wrote:
  
  "As I've tried to point out...this is a waste of time because there's no reason to suggest that a god the theist wants to believe in couldn't be beyond the grasp of science. All he has to say is, "it's beyond our understanding."
  
  If you accept that there are limits to human reason and knowledge...then the theist can get you with this lame and boring reply every time and not be logically inconsistent."
  
  It is not lame, nor boring....and only 'beyond our understanding' to verify empirically. One has only to take the causality argument one step further. The end of the arguement is not that 'God has always existed'...but that God has always existed within our universe. We have always looked upon the universe as being all that there is. But there is growing scientific evidence that there is a multiverse, multidimensions within that, theories that space and time curves back upon itself, edges to the universe, etc etc. If you can concieve that there is more than our universe, then it is easy to take causality another step...that is...that the prime mover is from beyond our universe. If he is from beyond our universe and 'started' the universe with a will and purpose then he necessarily exists within all time IN OUR UNIVERSE.
  
  This is a much better 'arguement' than the non theist's assertion that stuff always existed and then came together by random chance.
• majorspark

  

  eersandbeers wrote: Actually I think science is working on proving that matter can just appear under certain circumstances.

  If this were possible, "under certain circumstances" would indicate exterior forces. Therefore matter is not being produced out of nothing.
  
  It it not scientifically possible for matter to spontaniously appear in a vacuum. That would be a supernatural occurrence produced by a supernatural force.
• BoatShoes

  HitsRus wrote:
  It is not lame, nor boring....and only 'beyond our understanding' to verify empirically. One has only to take the causality argument one step further. The end of the arguement is not that 'God has always existed'...but that God has always existed within our universe. We have always looked upon the universe as being all that there is. But there is growing scientific evidence that there is a multiverse, multidimensions within that, theories that space and time curves back upon itself, edges to the universe, etc etc. If you can concieve that there is more than our universe, then it is easy to take causality another step...that is...that the prime mover is from beyond our universe. If he is from beyond our universe and 'started' the universe with a will and purpose then he necessarily exists within all time IN OUR UNIVERSE.
  
  This is a much better 'arguement' than the non theist's assertion that stuff always existed and then came together by random chance.

  So let's suppose that there has been 20 billion universes...and our universe is in the nucleus in some cell within someone's fingernail....what does it matter if the chain of causation is infinite??? Both the nontheist and the theist have to say, at some point there was something that didn't have a cause and was always there...and it makes no more sense to believe the thing that wasn't caused was something with some kind of intelligence than some entity with no conscious experience and pure lifeless matter.
  
  I don't see how it matters whether God is in our universe at all and it definitely doesn't follow that even if there is an intelligence or power out there that it necessarily permeates the whole of our or any of the 20 billion universes we're encapsulated in.
  
  You say "just take the next step in causality" and see that God is outside and started our universe" Do you not see that there is no reason to stop at any point in this causality without being totally arbitrary....it's totally arbitrary to say at the end there is an unmoved mover...and it follows from the initial premise that things need a cause...
  
  The version of this argument I provided tries to sneak around this by accepting that God is eternal and needs no cause (which I've said could maybe be justified with an a priori proof)
  
  But otherwise You have to see that neither your position, nor the atheists can answer the ultimate question of why there is something rather than nothing. Whether the naturalist says..."it's just always been here, the universe, matter" the theist's answer is really not any better, "It's just always been here, God,"
  
  But let's suppose that your argument is better for a minute. Is it really worth the fight? What do you really gain? That there's some kind of power out there capable of putting the wheels of nature into motion? It in no way has to be any power coinciding with any kind of future. It doesn't follow that this intelligence is even "intelligent" or in any way worthy of worship or reverence. It could be a baby out there throwing feces around which just happen to crash into eachother and make universes.
  
  Even if we accept that there's an intelligence out there...we're hardly more than a centimeter closer to a world wherein this intelligence has any care for or aptitude for design or any semblance of morality we consider virtuous here on earth or that our conscious experience carries on into some ethereal plane marching on with our souls.
• HitsRus

  

  You do not need to take causality beyond the edges of our universe, because being of this universe, all that CAN matter is what is in this universe. Being of this universe, all we can know is within this universe, and hence once we have established a prime mover of our universe that is as far as it can be taken in relation to our being. Causality, is not necessarily a 'law' outside of our universe.
• Strapping Young Lad

  

  I meant Indian as in the country of India (Hindu and Buddhism). Native Americans are something else.....
  
  Why does the first thing have to be God??? Answer: it doesn't....
• Strapping Young Lad

  

  And I didn't just "figure" Satan may be an excuse, it's been used by Christians as to why things in nature may seem to not embrace the idea of a god.....
• eersandbeers

  majorspark wrote:

  eersandbeers wrote: Actually I think science is working on proving that matter can just appear under certain circumstances.

  If this were possible, "under certain circumstances" would indicate exterior forces. Therefore matter is not being produced out of nothing.
  
  It it not scientifically possible for matter to spontaniously appear in a vacuum. That would be a supernatural occurrence produced by a supernatural force.

  The scientists at CERN are working on creating the conditions that existed during the Big Bang. So I'd say yes, it may be possible to recreate that event.
  
  It's also not possible for a supernatural being to always be without first becoming.
• krazie45

  

  bigmanbt wrote:

  krazie45 wrote: My point is that I don't know, and neither do you, so I'm not going to rule anything out. The difference between our views on this is that my approach is open-minded. There's really no way to know for sure and there probably never will be. Sure we discover things and make educated guesses based upon that information, but to say that it's ludicrous to even debate the topic is being closed-minded. Many different scientists have many different theories. One may be true, they all could be true in some way, or none of them may be true. That's why they are THEORIES and not LAWS.

  You would be one of those people, that if science proved there was a god, would be celebrating in the streets. Science doesn't matter cause it doesn't fit my position, but if it did I would sure use it. You aren't as open-minded as you think, you are actually pretty close minded.
  
  Classic religion argument as well, I don't know and neither do you. LOL. Just because we can never give a definite answer does not mean the chance of one or the other is 50/50. Just like a detective arriving on the scene, you put the clues together to find the best possible answer for who committed the murder. In the case of is their a god, the evidence is surely against it, just that nothing is 100% certain.

  So what I gathered from this is that you've taken everything I've said, ignored it, and created something I said to fit your argument. I mean that's cool, but not so much if you're trying to use logic to win an argument.Where do I say I believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful God? Care to quote that for me? Anyone can make up stuff so that their argument sounds better, it's been done a million times and it's really just a sign of a poor debater. Where do I say whether I care whether science can or will prove that their is or isn't a God? Care to quote THAT for me?
  
  Another thing I never say, but that you insist on making up for me, is that it's 50/50. Really there are four possibilities. I'm right, you're right, we're both right, or neither of us is right. I never limit it, that's you putting words into my mouth. My point is that I personally think it's ridiculous to believe that something so complex happened by chance. That's my opinion, and really it's not that illogical of one. You think differently and that's ok. However you act like somehow what you believe is fact when it isn't. It's an opinion based on certain facts that you imply are correlated to your belief. That doesn't prove your case nor disprove mine. I just believe that theories are subject for open debate provided they haven't been proven one way or the other. This is something that hasn't been proven one way or the other and probably never will until we are all dead and know for sure. You can LOL all you want but that doesn't give you the right to put down what I believe when science doesn't prove me wrong or right.
• krazie45

  

  I Wear Pants wrote: Something being called a theory doesn't mean it isn't proven.

  That's true, but it doesn't mean the theory is infallible either. Both scientific theories and scientific laws have been proven obsolete over the course of history with new evidence. What we do as humans is take what we know or discovered and try to use that information to explain something that is unknown. Sometimes it can be empirically tested, sometimes it cannot. Just because we don't have the means or technology to test something doesn't mean it can never be tested.
  
  For instance, ancient philosophers had theories such as the Earth being at the center of the universe, the Earth is flat, etc. These people took what they observed and what they proved and made their best possible prediction based upon that information. It was not until better technology was created (telescopes, boats) that these theories were falsified.
  
  We say that the divine cannot be empirically tested and therefore is automatically false. I argue that because we can't test that sort of thing right now doesn't mean we never will be. I guess I'm just more open-minded which some on here feel is bad or incorrect. Who knows? Maybe one day we WILL be able to say for sure that a divine power does or does not exist and look back hundreds of thousands of years to this time and say how certain theories were false. Just because we've reached our current technological limits doesn't mean we'll never exceed them.