The Asmo will come to play, will He not? Or is He too busy driving diesel-powered vehicles through the no-diesel zone?
...He wonders...
EDIT: Yep. He shalt play.
Hello, all.
This post is for the purpose of addressing some common questions often raised by atheists such as, Who or what is God? Why doesn't God prove his existence to me? Where is the evidence for God's existence?
Except for the last one, I doubt these are common questions atheists ask. "Who is god" is invalid, since gods are not
whos, they are
whats. Mythical beings. We don't need to ask about that. "Why doesn't God prove his existence to me" is irrelevant. If such beings existed, I would not expect them to prove anything to
me, nor would most serious people regardless of their religious affiliation, I think. The third question starts off on the wrong foot. I don't care
where the evidence is - it can be in the pope's ass for my part; I care
what it is. That aside, and as implied before, yes, many atheists do ask one version of that third question or another when debating theists.
The Bible is a very good place to provide a good answer. In fact, one Bible verse covers it very well. In 21st century English, the passage reads...
The Bible?! It doesn't even make for good toilet paper. It's a rather poorly made piece of ancient fiction. To expect it to provide any sort of answer pertaining to reality is foolish. It can indeed be interesting for a variety of cultural and/or literary reasons, but not as a tool in understanding the Universe.
Thus perception plays a very important part in trying to offer an explanation concerning the Creator.
This alone should be enough for most people to put the idea of real gods in a trash bin.
Many, perhaps most, atheists would accept as proof of the existence of God only evidence they can see, feel, touch and take apart and reassemble in a laboratory setting. And, of course, that lab would have to be only where they would have unfettered access.
Sorry, but this is just bullshit. Seeing (/hearing/feeling/touching) is believing will get you a fail in your quantum mechanics course. Observation is an important part of science, but the Universe does not conform to the senses of creatures who evolved on a tiny planet in an unremarkable solar system on the outskirts of a galaxy just like billions of other galaxies.
Human senses, you say? Do visualise a five-dimensional space for me, will you? Too hard? How about two-dimensional? (No, not as a sheet of paper floating in three dimensions - that's not what I'm asking here) How about just visualising space-time then?
So, let us reason a bit.
An exercise in logic, then? I can't fly. A rock can't fly. Therefore, I am a rock.
How would I liken the Creator? Perhaps by looking at the problem in reverse. Let's look at the problem from God's point of view.
Weeell... That assumes gods. In fact, that assumes one specific god. Are you allowed to do that in this thought experiment?
Could you rightly expect a grasshopper to fully explain a human or human accomplishments like the Hubble space telescope? Or would you be humble enough to learn grasshopper speech and befriend them? Sounds foolish, correct? That is the dilemma.
What is the dilemma, exactly? Also, the point and relevance of the above? You do realize that a creature's nervous system needs to be of a certain complexity to
understand things?
Further on this line of thought is the difference between humans and chimpanzees is about one percent of DNA. On that scale what would a creature be like who was one percent greater than humans in their DNA? If their intellect would follow the same scale, could we ever hope to understand them? Much less be on par with them? And yet God is orders of magnitude greater than chimpanzees or grasshopper-like humans.
Ah! Well... Yes. You see, you started off so well with a truly fascinating question, and then you went off and ruined it. Yes, of course we would be able to understand them. They would be physical systems just like we and the chimps are. If you are talking about
their motives, which I suspect you are, then the answer is simply irrelevant to their existence or the lack thereof.
And here is one item we all see without any understanding. Something so basic it has no record anywhere in the Bible as having been created. And that even though many think it is listed among the creations attributed to God. And what is that? LIFE.
Without any what now? We have gathered VAST knowledge about life, if I understand your point correctly. To say we have no understanding of it is ignorant at best. We do, it is of high quality and constantly improving.
Science today admit every star fulfills a purpose. Did you know we ourselves are star stuff? And even the super heavy elements seem to come from the collision of neutron stars. So not even a single star is missing.
Nono, TV-scientists deliberately misuse the word "purpose" and then beat themselves up about it because the dumber sort of gentleman never fails to take that word and put it out of context and blow its meaning out of proportion. The stars have no sentient actor purpose. However, in order for us to exist, generations of stars before us had to explode. They did not explode so that we could exist, but we do exist because they exploded. (Note that this is a shameless simplification of a star's life cycle. There are reasons leading to those cosmic explosions and yes, we understand those too. They more or less boil down to gravity and nuclear fusion)
...Why do I get the feeling that you've been watching Nova, but doing it poorly? If you are indeed interested in understanding the life cycle of stars, I can post a fine wall of text about it, or recommend some nicely popularised TV shows.
Science also tells us eventually the universe itself will run down. Over 3000 years ago the Psalmist spoke of an immense maintenance project needed to fix the universe itself. Read for yourself Psalm 102:25-27. Makes for very interesting reading.
No, it will not run down. The prevalent hypothesis of today is heat death, I believe? It has to do with entropy. That one is pretty much the reason why time appears only ever to move in one direction. In heat death, the Universe will get continually less ordered until the concept of time becomes irrelevant and the Universe is static and... Cold.
Oh. And DNA; Look at Psalm 139:16. "Your eyes even saw me as an embryo; All its parts were written in your book Regarding the days when they were formed, Before any of them existed.' Written more than 3,000 years before we had amassed enough knowledge on our own to understand, how would you explain that passage?
Sigh... You are quoting people who had NO understanding of molecular biology why..? To try and impress me with the knowledge they did not possess?
So, for a lowly human to define in human terms a being vastly more complex with knowledge and the ability to make and use forces beyond our comprehension, is at best an exercise in futility.
Bullshit. I already gave you a reason or two for
why it's bullshit, so do let us move on.
But a few things I do know. The Bible provides compelling evidence that God exists. It encourages us to build faith in God, not by blindly believing religious assertions, but by using our “power of reason” and “mental perception.”
It's not compelling and it's not evidence in the sense in which you want to use the word here. Furthermore, it's not at all encouraging. It's more full of nasty than a bad horror movie.
The existence of an orderly universe containing life points to a Creator.
No. Again, if you asked "So why is the Universe orderly then?" then we could have a nice discussion with me telling you about entropy and the Big Bang and the different forces at play and you telling me about Jesus and how gays are abominations unto the LORD, but... You didn't, so we won't.
Although this logic is simple, many well-educated people find it to be powerful. For example, the late astronomer Allan Sandage once said regarding the universe: “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery, but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.”
Appeals to authority mean little to me. I will say no more, although I'm tempted. You see, my work day is over and I'm going home.
Bible writers had scientific knowledge that was beyond the understanding of their contemporaries. For example, in ancient times many peoples believed that the earth was supported by an animal, such as an elephant, a boar, or an ox. In contrast, the Bible says that God is “suspending the earth upon nothing.” (Job 26:7) Similarly, the Bible correctly describes the shape of the earth as a “sphere,” or “globe. or circle (Isaiah 40:22) Many people feel that the most reasonable explanation for such advanced understanding is that Bible writers received their information from God.
Appeals to stupidity of others and the ancient so-called "wisdom" mean even less to me than the above.
The Bible answers many difficult questions, the type of questions that when not satisfactorily answered can lead a person to atheism. For example: If God is loving and all-powerful, why is there suffering and evil in the world? Why is Religion so often an influence for bad rather than for good? See Titus 1:6 Could it be the unsatisfactory answers to questions has caused you to be where you are?
I was bloody well born an Atheist. Being born and staying alive until this very moment is what caused me to be what I am.
So yeah... There you go. One atheist's perspective, which I expect is shared by quite a few. If you are game, I'm game. After I get my ass home, though.
