Dear Atheist...

[charlou]

I like Dawkins' style, it's very clear, pleasant and easy to read, a bit like his dialogue I suppose. I don't agree with every word, but at least he gives his reasoning in a clear manner. That's why he sells a lot of books I guess.
.

Good summary ... I've read a few of his books and pretty much find him as you do.

In his first book, The Selfish Gene .. while he explains his ideas and knowledge very well (I thank him for it!), he includes opinion relating to dogma that jar in the context .. In The God Delusion that (discussing dogma) is the premise, but in his science books? IMO ... David Attenborough did well to leave it out.

[tattuchu]

I prayed for a longer penis. My penis has in fact gotten shorter over the years. Wherefore art thou, loving and compassionate god

[mistermack]

I prayed for a longer penis. My penis has in fact gotten shorter over the years. Wherefore art thou, loving and compassionate god

You should have more faith, my son. The Lord gives me a longer penis whenever I need one.
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[Lion IRC]

I think if you are going to try and prove God does not exist you need to focus on the reason why we even talk about God - at all.
There is a great big gap.
Forget about death, the soul, the afterlife...atheists can have beliefs which arise about these matters too.
Even if you were completely ignorant about your own future mortality and totally unaware that you were (or were not) an incarnate soul you would still find yourself walking around on a planet wondering who, why, when....
Theres a reason the expression is..."God of the Gaps"
Why do we even think there are Gaps in the first place?
Lion (IRC)

[Feck]

I think if you are going to try and prove God does not exist you need to focus on the reason why we even talk about God - at all.
There is a great big gap.
Forget about death, the soul, the afterlife...atheists can have beliefs which arise about these matters too.
Even if you were completely ignorant about your own future mortality and totally unaware that you were (or were not) an incarnate soul you would still find yourself walking around on a planet wondering who, why, when....
Theres a reason the expression is..."God of the Gaps"
Why do we even think there are Gaps in the first place?
Lion (IRC)

So humans are curious and like to have explanations for things and if we don't know some thing we try and find out (or just make something up )...most of us don't talk about god much .
Unicorns (seemingly over and over again ) I do not have to prove unicorns don't exist ,I do not care that children's stories have unicorns in them ,the fact that everybody has a concept of unicorn in their heads makes no difference. When atrocities are committed , peoples lives limited and stunted, and money that should be spent on food, water and medicine is spent on special Unicorn worshipping places ......THEN I might be bothered to ask some one to show some fucking evidence of unicorns.

I don't know everything about EVERYTHING therefore there is a god WTF !

The God of the gaps as you well know is getting pretty small as those gaps get smaller and smaller ,indeed god is pretty much hiding in the Philosophy forum
having crawled under a Meta -rock.


Oh and maybe a derail, but would you like to list list the characteristics of the soul ? specifically which bits of you are material and which bits are immaterial ?
Because yet again we cannot talk about this as I know the bloody Goal posts will move .

[hiyymer]

I think if you are going to try and prove God does not exist you need to focus on the reason why we even talk about God - at all.
There is a great big gap.
Forget about death, the soul, the afterlife...atheists can have beliefs which arise about these matters too.
Even if you were completely ignorant about your own future mortality and totally unaware that you were (or were not) an incarnate soul you would still find yourself walking around on a planet wondering who, why, when....
Theres a reason the expression is..."God of the Gaps"
Why do we even think there are Gaps in the first place?
Lion (IRC)

I was having that discussion with my 14 year old son yesterday. I came right out of the blue. What do you think about this and that dad? He says he doesn't believe in a god, but he can't imagine that he would stop thinking when he died. That would do just too weird. He might not know who he was when he is reincarnated, but it would still be him thinking; just thinking about a different life.

I pointed out to him that him thinking is just an experience that his brain creates. If his subconscious limbic loop were damaged (like some real neurological cases*) his mind would go blank. You mean I'd be like dead, he asks. You'd be dead if you think being alive is the illusion of being animated by your conscious thoughts, I replied. That's way too complicated, he says.

We talk about god, because our brain creates the conscious experience of god; just another representation created by the brain, like me thinking. Neither one objectively exists as the self-caused intentional agent we experience. Both represent something, or they wouldn't be there.

* Athymhormia and Disorders of Motivation in Basal Ganglia Disease
Michel Habib, M.D.

[A Monkey Shaved]

God is an extremely ambiguous concept he/she it could denote many things from the personal Yahwehistc god of the bible to the god described of the scientific pantheist which is no more than the personification of the laws of nature. If one defines god as just merely the laws and principles which created the universe and the universe is self made then the universe - according to many theoretical physicists - created itself then the universe itself is god. That is the god of the scientific pantheist which is an un-intelligent non conscious entity where god and the universe are one of the same things - certainly not the imaginary friend kind of kind of god. It is a stupid mute god of cosmological holism which could not care less whether we exist or not or whether we are in pain or not and does not even deserve a capital letter any more the universe deserves a capital letter. That is the only expression of a god which appeals to me.

[hiyymer]

God is an extremely ambiguous concept he/she it could denote many things from the personal Yahwehistc god of the bible to the god described of the scientific pantheist which is no more than the personification of the laws of nature. If one defines god as just merely the laws and principles which created the universe and the universe is self made then the universe - according to many theoretical physicists - created itself then the universe itself is god. That is the god of the scientific pantheist which is an un-intelligent non conscious entity where god and the universe are one of the same things - certainly not the imaginary friend kind of kind of god. It is a stupid mute god of cosmological holism which could not care less whether we exist or not or whether we are in pain or not and does not even deserve a capital letter any more the universe deserves a capital letter. That is the only expression of a god which appeals to me.

I grew up in a deist church. Jesus was a very non-divine very great prophet, and god was the thing that started it all in motion and then left for an infinite vacation. I don't remember too much of what was said, although the minister wasn't a bad speaker. When I got a little older I decided that it was more like a social club than a religion, and a terrible waste of a Sunday morning. If you're going to go to church, then go to church for cryin' out loud.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

God is an extremely ambiguous concept he/she it could denote many things from the personal Yahwehistc god of the bible to the god described of the scientific pantheist which is no more than the personification of the laws of nature. If one defines god as just merely the laws and principles which created the universe and the universe is self made then the universe - according to many theoretical physicists - created itself then the universe itself is god. That is the god of the scientific pantheist which is an un-intelligent non conscious entity where god and the universe are one of the same things - certainly not the imaginary friend kind of kind of god. It is a stupid mute god of cosmological holism which could not care less whether we exist or not or whether we are in pain or not and does not even deserve a capital letter any more the universe deserves a capital letter. That is the only expression of a god which appeals to me.

So... the only god that appeals to you is one that is not even needed - it is merely a synonym for "how things are". So why call it god, or anything at all? To be any kind of a meaningful, worth-considering-in-any-way, kind of god, it at least ought have an impact on your life, oughtn't it?

[A Monkey Shaved]

God is an extremely ambiguous concept he/she it could denote many things from the personal Yahwehistc god of the bible to the god described of the scientific pantheist which is no more than the personification of the laws of nature. If one defines god as just merely the laws and principles which created the universe and the universe is self made then the universe - according to many theoretical physicists - created itself then the universe itself is god. That is the god of the scientific pantheist which is an un-intelligent non conscious entity where god and the universe are one of the same things - certainly not the imaginary friend kind of kind of god. It is a stupid mute god of cosmological holism which could not care less whether we exist or not or whether we are in pain or not and does not even deserve a capital letter any more the universe deserves a capital letter. That is the only expression of a god which appeals to me.

I grew up in a deist church. Jesus was a very non-divine very great prophet, and god was the thing that started it all in motion and then left for an infinite vacation. I don't remember too much of what was said, although the minister wasn't a bad speaker. When I got a little older I decided that it was more like a social club than a religion, and a terrible waste of a Sunday morning. If you're going to go to church, then go to church for cryin' out loud.

I would be all for turning all churches into public scientific lecture halls where ALL people not just a privileged elite few in universities can be better informed of the latest scientific discoveries like what is going on with the Large Hadron Collider and what is going on with the so called "god" particle AKA Higgs boson.

[hiyymer]

God is an extremely ambiguous concept he/she it could denote many things from the personal Yahwehistc god of the bible to the god described of the scientific pantheist which is no more than the personification of the laws of nature. If one defines god as just merely the laws and principles which created the universe and the universe is self made then the universe - according to many theoretical physicists - created itself then the universe itself is god. That is the god of the scientific pantheist which is an un-intelligent non conscious entity where god and the universe are one of the same things - certainly not the imaginary friend kind of kind of god. It is a stupid mute god of cosmological holism which could not care less whether we exist or not or whether we are in pain or not and does not even deserve a capital letter any more the universe deserves a capital letter. That is the only expression of a god which appeals to me.

I grew up in a deist church. Jesus was a very non-divine very great prophet, and god was the thing that started it all in motion and then left for an infinite vacation. I don't remember too much of what was said, although the minister wasn't a bad speaker. When I got a little older I decided that it was more like a social club than a religion, and a terrible waste of a Sunday morning. If you're going to go to church, then go to church for cryin' out loud.

I would be all for turning all churches into public scientific lecture halls where ALL people not just a privileged elite few in universities can be better informed of the latest scientific discoveries like what is going on with the Large Hadron Collider and what is going on with the so called "god" particle AKA Higgs boson.

I take it you've never witnessed a really good gospel choir.

[Trolldor]

That's assuming there is one.

[hiyymer]

That's assuming there is one.

Well given the choice between that and a lecture on the Higgs Boson, I know what I would choose.

[Trolldor]

Oh, so you'd take the dull whining of religious rhetoric over the beauty of the natural world.

Fair enough.