h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Not it isn't. It's a complete non sequitur and a failure of imagination.<<


Sorry Clive, I don't follow you ... how's that?
Peace

<>

it is fantastic to be alive, even if people lable you atheist

before the war i prepared for death, i did not die, death holds no fear for me now, life...no one gets out alive

do unto others as you would have others do unto you

there is no god, what other reason do you need to be labled an atheist

i have stared into the void and i say unto thee

yae though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i shall fear no evil for i am the meanest son of a bch in the whole damn valley

Ignoring for a moment warner's repetition of his silly syllogism that god must be immaterial . . .


'some have more accurate knowledge about God than others'


What do you mean by 'knowledge', warner? I suspect you have a very different understanding of that word than, for example, I do. What do you mean by knowledge? Can those who have less accurate knowledge of God go to a school somewhere? conduct experiments? do double-blind trials? find a way to hold a piece of God in their hand and show it to their children that those children may touch it, see it, feel it, weigh it?

To me, if it can't be pulled up with a hook, it isn't known, by *anyone*.

What do you mean by 'knowledge'? What your priest/rabbi/imam tells you? An idea that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling?

>>...there was nothing like our universe before the Big Bang<<

Indications are everything, including time, originated at the singularity inaccurately referred to as the 'Big Bang'

It is therefore meaningless to infer any characteristics, or lack thereof, to a possible 'prior' universe or existence.

Just as the superstitious notion of the immaterial contains no coherent referent, neither does the term, 'before the Big Bang' possess any substantive meaning.

Taliesin - you are spot on, only you explain it better than my limited English allows.

"
>>If God, the Most High, created the material universe, then it's logical to assume that He's NOT material<<

Not it isn't. It's a complete non sequitur and a failure of imagination."

If god created the material universe, that implies the material universe did not exist before god created it. Therefore it IS the only logical conclusion that this god is not material.

'If god created the material universe, that implies the material universe did not exist before god created it. Therefore it IS the only logical conclusion that this god is not material.'

No.

God's creation of the material universe does not imply God's creation of material, therefore, it is not logical to conclude that God is not material.

And, of course, the claim that any existent entity is immaterial is incoherent anyway, so why are we bothering with this train of illogic?

Or, to put it another way:

the claim that God's creation of the material world necessarily and logically implies that God is immaterial is exactly equivalent to claiming that God's creation of the material world necessarily and logically implies that God does not exist.



Pass me another Babel Fish, please.

the arguments are moot

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GOD, ITS A HUMAN INVENTION

?

Well, yeah, Taff. Obviously.


I think I'll go to bed.

sorry to shout but

the thread is titled atheists

and the god squad are trying to hi-jack it with the same old tired crap arguments, that they use on the god threads.


this is a celebration of atheism and how much better we are than you!!!!!!!!!!!

Amusingly, I was watching Star Trek yesterday, and there was a quite topical quote by some ST philosopher:

"Nothing unreal exists."

I always wince whenever the ST philosophers misuse Descartes, for example - 'You can't deactivate me' says the android - 'I think therefore I am': Totally not the point Descartes was making.


Was watching some very interesting BSG yesterday about death and dying (the President's cancer) and about human need (the black market episode with Bill Duke from predator who appears not to have aged at all....)

anhaga
>>God's creation of the material universe does not imply God's creation of material<<

OR

>>God's creation of the material world necessarily and logically implies that God does not exist.<<
Your reasoning, IMO, is total utter nonsense!

All those statements imply is that anything immaterial doesn't exist, which as toybox pointed out (didn't you?), is only true 'by definition'.
ie. If immaterial is defined as 'not existing'

Pathetic indeed!
Peace

I remind you about the quote I made earlier:-

"Modern science depends upon the presumption that there is a rational explanation for everything that exists and that this explanation will be understandable to humans. A mathematical universe, understandable to humans, points to a logical creator of which our rationality is a reflection."
I notice with interest the new rings discovered around saturn, which until very recently we couldn't 'see'.

So, just because you can't 'see' something, doesn't mean that it's not there!!
Peace

'If immaterial is defined as 'not existing''

You have been asked a number of times on a number of threads to define your terms, warner, and the closest you've come to doing so is to remark that 'if you knew that then you'd be God!' If 'immaterial'
does not mean 'not existing' (by logical implication rather than by definition, BTW) you tell us what you mean by 'immaterial', including an explanation of how the immaterial interacts with the material in such a way that precludes your immaterial from being described as just another bit of material.

Oh just ignore him anhaga. Why do you keep dancing to warner's tune. He probably ranks to it.

This thread has nothing to do with superstition, so just leave it.

I'm with Taff

does it matter

argueing with warner is like planting fog

and yields just about as much

this is immaterial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uwtzINMDCQ

>Absolute certainty is not required. Just the honesty with oneself to admit what one believes. If you ask yourself "do I believe in gods?" to really answer back, "I dunno" is absurd. You either believe or you don't, whether or not it is knowable is another question entirely.

This is, to be blunt, completely false. The question of "god" is like a box that someone says has an apple in it. If asked "do you believe there is an apple in this box?" the only completely rational answer is "I don't know because I've not opened the box" which is clearly not "absurd". It's possible to follow a scientific inquiry that determines the unlikelihood of the apple being in the box for various reasons and an explanation of why people might think (or want to think) the apple is in there and for someone to declare the likelihood so small that their own position is to assume that it isn't. However, until the box is opened (ie until we actually understand the universe and its creation in their entirety) then we can't say with 100% certainty whether the apple is in there or not. Agnosticism isn't people who "can't decide" or who "aren't honest about what they think" they're simply taking scepticism to its logical conclusion.

Your argument is more pertinent with regards to religion (which isn't the same as the "god question" despite people wrongly assuming it is) the question of "is there a god" is not the same as "is Christ the son of God who died for our sins?".