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Goodbye Jesus

Proof


Freed

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This is for both Theists and Atheists alike. What proof does either side have that God exists or doesn't exist? What evidence would either side need to gather? How would that evidence be proof? 

Sorry I just don't know? I'm agnostic here so I'd enjoy hearing from both sides. 

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Proof is a concept that really only applies in the strict sense to mathematics.

 

What we really mean when we talk about 'proof' in the colloquial sense is evidence that is sufficiently compelling to a person. 

 

First: What evidence is there that God doesn't exist? Depends on the God. If it's the bible God then the fact that the bible God is logically contradictory, clearly man made, and the bible is wrong on so many things all count as evidence that the bible God doesn't exist.

 

If you are talking about a very general deistic God then talk of evidence is rather pointless. Saying you can't prove that a non material God that exists outside our capability to understand is pointless. You cannot prove my transcendent immaterial invisible pink unicorn doesn't exist either. The point is that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant belief in such a God.

 

I won't bother speaking for the theist. They can come up with their own evidence.

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When one says they are an agnostic, it means they don't know. Atheists believe that gods don't exist by definition. Theists believe in the existence of a God or gods of some kind. The burden of proof is always on the person that claims the existence of something rather than the person who says I don't believe it exists. One can never prove the non-existence of something. All you can say is, show the evidence for its existence and we will judge the quality and likelihood of the evidence presented.

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Proof is essentially double the amount of ABV.  So an 80 proof bourbon would be 40% ABV.  From my own experience, I would not recommend 200 proof laboratory grade ethanol.  I hope this helps.

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Thanks guys. I guess I'm asking because I wish someone could show me a loving creator exists.

 

And that is obviously NOT the Bible God! That God disgusts and terrifies me. The main cause of my suffering? Least I think so? I don't know? 

 

I don't know what would be proof to me either?

 

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9 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

.............From my own experience, I would not recommend 200 proof laboratory grade ethanol. ...........

 

Oh, you forgot to mix it with distilled water, carbonic and citric acid before you drink it.  I recommend it. Women can add some fruit juice too.

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8 minutes ago, Freed said:

I don't know what would be proof to me either?

Proof is reasonably easy to calculate by measuring the specific gravity prior to fermentation/distillation and again upon completion of the process.  The difference between the two measurements is the ABV.  Double the ABV and you have your proof.

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1 minute ago, pantheory said:

 

Oh, you forgot to mix it with distilled water, carbonic and citric acid before you drink it.  I recommend it. Women can add some fruit juice too.

I wouldn't say I forgot, per se.

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54 minutes ago, Freed said:

Thanks guys. I guess I'm asking because I wish someone could show me a loving creator exists.

 

Why do you need a loving creator to exist?

 

I mean clearly one doesn't exist - we can tell because we are here with all this suffering, ipso facto a loving creator does not exist.

 

Perhaps it is the need to be loved by someone? In which case I'd suggest that instead of looking to some magical all loving sky daddy, seeking out real meaningful human relationships is time better spent.

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4 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Why do you need a loving creator to exist?

 

And how do you think your life would be different if he/she did exist?

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17 hours ago, Freed said:

Thanks guys. I guess I'm asking because I wish someone could show me a loving creator exists.

 

 

Okay. Do you have a mother? Does she exist? (She created you)

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That's a good question. In my mind an infinite creator would be the only one who could love me unconditionally.

 

But I do need to grow up and be strong. This infinite creator or so to speak most likely doesn't exist, or doesn't care, or is a sadist?

 

As for you atheists, I respect you all so much for your inner strength. I wish I had that. 

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I should be ashamed of myself!!!

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2 hours ago, Freed said:

That's a good question. In my mind an infinite creator would be the only one who could love me unconditionally.

 

But I do need to grow up and be strong. This infinite creator or so to speak most likely doesn't exist, or doesn't care, or is a sadist?

 

As for you atheists, I respect you all so much for your inner strength. I wish I had that. 

 

Just take a minute and think through this. Maybe have a glass of 80 proof alcohol. 

 

Forget external parties for a moment. What is wrong with you yourself being THE loving creator of your own life??? You loving yourself unconditionally??? Whether or not some external source exists is sort of besides the point to the living of a human life. Regardless of the existence of deities, you have to truck through life based on your own thoughts, feelings, and decision making. Maybe try and start acting as though there isn't any external force at work and it's all entirely up to you yourself to pave your own way, find your own happiness, and make life what you will make of it. 

 

Most people who have transitioned from being generally unhappy to generally happy in life had to do so based on personal change in perspective and practice. The very idea of wanting or expecting some outside savior to do everything for you is a recipe for failure and defeat, in my opinion. No other person can do it for you. No deity can do it for you. You have to find it within yourself to make it happen. Or it likely will not happen. And you'll carry on more or less miserable and grasping at phantoms and shadows to save you, from yourself. 

 

Inner strength is where it's at, if you ask me. 

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1 hour ago, Freed said:

I should be ashamed of myself!!!

 

Being the "good person" that you are is certainly one of the most important qualities anybody can have.  My advise to you is: study more, worry less, and learn to be happy. It can be done. Cheers :)

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22 hours ago, Freed said:

Thanks guys. I guess I'm asking because I wish someone could show me a loving creator exists.

 

And that is obviously NOT the Bible God! That God disgusts and terrifies me. The main cause of my suffering? Least I think so? I don't know? 

 

I don't know what would be proof to me either?

 

 

When I first realized that what the Bible says and what believers believe are two very different things, I started to try to figure out what was real. (Briefly, I realized one Sunday morning in church that Genesis 3, the story of the serpent and Eve, doesn't involve the character "Satan" at all. It's just a snake! And I looked around and realized that absolutely nobody there that morning believed that an ordinary snake tempted Eve because snakes are just sneaky and no other animal could or would do such a thing, yet that's exactly what the Bible says! "The serpent was more subtle than the beasts of the field.")

 

So my next thought was that "liberal Christianity" might have it right. Maybe a lot of the Old Testament is just myths and legends, but they help us understand this god. But the more I read, the more I realized that the whole thing was just speculation, and that the speculation about what a god or gods were like changed a lot from beginning to end. At the beginning, there's a "Most High God" with sons, and Jehovah is one of those sons.

 

So if it's myths and legends at the beginning, why would I think that it became real by the time you get to the stories about Jesus? And considering how inconsistent the whole thing is, to me that's actually convincing proof that the god called Jehovah is just the product of ancient people's imagination. Proof that it's all speculation is the same as proof that it isn't real.

 

I have to admit that I didn't thoroughly investigate any other religions. Judaism and Islam are obviously out because they believe in the same god. Hinduism teaches the Trinity on steroids, that there are many, many gods but that they're all manifestations of the Brahman (if I understand correctly), which is really just the highest universal principle. It really just seems like a bunch of "thoughty" words that don't actually have any meaning. Not that there's no good to be found in Hinduism (I'm sure there is, as well as bad), but the supernatural stuff just seems made up. We humans have vivid imaginations, and we have language, allowing us to develop ideas to the extreme.

 

So, although I would say it's not impossible that there are such things as minds without bodies (which gods would necessarily have to be), I think what we know about the various religions constitutes proof that they aren't real. Lacking any other evidence for minds existing outside of brains, I'm going to have to come down on the side of hard atheism. If there are any such things as gods, they clearly don't have any interaction with us, nor do they care to. That's an agnostic thing to say, but it's so completely doubtful that I'm still calling myself an atheist.

 

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11 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Being the "good person" that you are is certainly one of the most important qualities anybody can have.  My advise to you is: study more, worry less, and learn to be happy. It can be done. Cheers :)

🤗 Thanks.

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11 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Just take a minute and think through this. Maybe have a glass of 80 proof alcohol. 

 

Forget external parties for a moment. What is wrong with you yourself being THE loving creator of your own life??? You loving yourself unconditionally??? Whether or not some external source exists is sort of besides the point to the living of a human life. Regardless of the existence of deities, you have to truck through life based on your own thoughts, feelings, and decision making. Maybe try and start acting as though there isn't any external force at work and it's all entirely up to you yourself to pave your own way, find your own happiness, and make life what you will make of it. 

 

Most people who have transitioned from being generally unhappy to generally happy in life had to do so based on personal change in perspective and practice. The very idea of wanting or expecting some outside savior to do everything for you is a recipe for failure and defeat, in my opinion. No other person can do it for you. No deity can do it for you. You have to find it within yourself to make it happen. Or it likely will not happen. And you'll carry on more or less miserable and grasping at phantoms and shadows to save you, from yourself. 

 

Inner strength is where it's at, if you ask me. 

I never thought of that. I have a low self esteem. That's probably why I need a loving creator. To love me because I can't love myself?

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8 hours ago, Lerk said:

 

When I first realized that what the Bible says and what believers believe are two very different things, I started to try to figure out what was real. (Briefly, I realized one Sunday morning in church that Genesis 3, the story of the serpent and Eve, doesn't involve the character "Satan" at all. It's just a snake! And I looked around and realized that absolutely nobody there that morning believed that an ordinary snake tempted Eve because snakes are just sneaky and no other animal could or would do such a thing, yet that's exactly what the Bible says! "The serpent was more subtle than the beasts of the field.")

 

So my next thought was that "liberal Christianity" might have it right. Maybe a lot of the Old Testament is just myths and legends, but they help us understand this god. But the more I read, the more I realized that the whole thing was just speculation, and that the speculation about what a god or gods were like changed a lot from beginning to end. At the beginning, there's a "Most High God" with sons, and Jehovah is one of those sons.

 

So if it's myths and legends at the beginning, why would I think that it became real by the time you get to the stories about Jesus? And considering how inconsistent the whole thing is, to me that's actually convincing proof that the god called Jehovah is just the product of ancient people's imagination. Proof that it's all speculation is the same as proof that it isn't real.

 

I have to admit that I didn't thoroughly investigate any other religions. Judaism and Islam are obviously out because they believe in the same god. Hinduism teaches the Trinity on steroids, that there are many, many gods but that they're all manifestations of the Brahman (if I understand correctly), which is really just the highest universal principle. It really just seems like a bunch of "thoughty" words that don't actually have any meaning. Not that there's no good to be found in Hinduism (I'm sure there is, as well as bad), but the supernatural stuff just seems made up. We humans have vivid imaginations, and we have language, allowing us to develop ideas to the extreme.

 

So, although I would say it's not impossible that there are such things as minds without bodies (which gods would necessarily have to be), I think what we know about the various religions constitutes proof that they aren't real. Lacking any other evidence for minds existing outside of brains, I'm going to have to come down on the side of hard atheism. If there are any such things as gods, they clearly don't have any interaction with us, nor do they care to. That's an agnostic thing to say, but it's so completely doubtful that I'm still calling myself an atheist.

 

Thanks for sharing. I don't know how to get over this Theophobia?  It makes dying terrifying! 

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8 hours ago, Freed said:

Thanks for sharing. I don't know how to get over this Theophobia?  It makes dying terrifying! 

 

For believers God instructed them to  "fear not." For believers and non-believers alike, fear can push us into wrong actions or freeze us into inaction, so live, love, laugh and be happy -- as the song goes :)

 

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8 hours ago, Freed said:

Thanks for sharing. I don't know how to get over this Theophobia?  It makes dying terrifying! 

I gotta say I don't. I never had that problem. While I believed in Heaven and Hell, it was more of mental assent -- I believed the Bible and the NT talks about those places and people going to one or the other, so I thought it was true, but I never actually pictured myself in either place. I wasn't excited about Heaven, never thought about seeing my grandparents again or anything like that, and I never imagined how awful it might be to wind up in Hell. Maybe I don't have a very good imagination. (I sometimes say that even the world around me doesn't seem that vividly real!)

 

I hope you'll find a way to get over it. That must be awful. I know that there are a lot of people who go through that.

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14 hours ago, Freed said:

Thanks for sharing. I don't know how to get over this Theophobia?  It makes dying terrifying! 

 

To lighten your mood and theophobia I have a couple of jokes for you.

 

The first story is true and concerns a little corner food market I used to frequent while going to college. There was a young married woman that worked there who I sometimes talked philosophy and religion with, concerning the lighter sides of them. She asked me what I thought heaven was like. I did not tell her that I was an atheist so explained what I thought the religious version of it was. I said I thought you could meet your friends and family there that have passed away and that you were free to move about and talk to others and view people on Earth below that you knew and loved. She asked me if I thought there would be sex there. With maybe a ten second delay, I said, that is not discussed in the Bible or the religions that I know of. She said, if they don't have sex I don't think I want to go there. She seemed like a sweet young married woman (maybe 30, I was 19) so that statement didn't seem to fit with her other conversations. Was it a hint to me? I doubt it. I didn't consider any outside motive to her question at the time so I responded assuming she had no other motive. But since then I sometimes wondered. ---- Not a great story but maybe some humor in it.

 

Considering hell: The second story is about a joke I saw written up in the newspaper funnies section. It showed a bunch of people standing around in excrement waist high with fire overhead, walking around and talking to each other. The caption said. This is hell. This will be where you can find many your friends and family that have passed away,  and make new friends. But it said there is a "downside to it" (pun intended).  Then out-steps a devil with a whip who said, OK, coffee break is over, everyone back on your heads, while wielding his whip.

 

---as I try to make light of the belief in both heaven and hell 🙃 -- I also am trying to encourage your enthusiasm for the beauties, wonder, and humor of life.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Freed said:

I never thought of that. I have a low self esteem. That's probably why I need a loving creator. To love me because I can't love myself?

 

You can, it just depends on a re-think and new approach. It takes work and self discipline.

 

But any one can do it. Just look at all of the people here who once thought like you and have since transitioned into newer ways of thinking. I think that your thoughts touch on some of the reasons why so many people are involved with christianity, and religion in general. These are very common thoughts and feelings.

 

Those of us who moved on, for the record, are in the minority in this world. 

 

One of the ways that we develop self thought and independent thinking comes from 'putting effort' into trying to be more objective. I don't mean dump all subjectivity, I just mean try to think things through objectively to the best of your ability. Try and be as fair minded as you can manage.  With both yourself and others. I've noticed that a lot of non-theistic people turn out to be a more moral people than they were even as theists. Not everyone, of course, but a great number do turn out that way as a natural outcome of thinking objectively and being as fair minded as they can manage. It sets you up on an admirable course. Doing your best to try and be as correct as possible in terms of logic and objectivity. 

 

The first example of how to apply this new way of thinking is what several members have already explained to you about the theist versus atheist debate. 

 

Objectively, there's no evidence for a creator god that stands critical thinking and scrutiny. Subjectively, many people very much want such a thing to exist. But objectively, it's exremely unlikely based on the evidence and opposing arguments. You're balancing things back and forth in your mind. If we say that we know a god doesn't exist, we crossed a line that can not be substantiated. So the balance is off. We must move back from the left towards center. If we get off thinking that a god does exist, but realize that the evidence isn't there, then we have to move the balance back towards center from the religious right. 

 

 

(non-religious left) I know god doesn't exist ------- I don't know if a god exists ------- I know that a god exists (religious right)

 

 

Objectivity hinges around the middle of a right and left religious belief spectrum. And I would like to explain to you why so many of us here consider ourselves, "agnostic atheists." 

 

It's because no one can know whether or not a god exists, not honestly. And agnostic has to do with knowledge. We acknowledge that we don't know. 

 

Belief, is a separate issue. Regardless of knowledge. While we don't know or claim to know absolutely whether a god exists, based on the evidence we are not convinced that a god does in fact exist. That is "atheism." It means literally, "not+god+belief." 

 

When you combine agnostic in terms of knowledge and knowing, and atheist in terms of belief and believing, you come up with "agnostic atheist."

 

This is a highly objective based mind set and position to take on. It's very centered, it's very fair minded and level handed in terms of considering the ramifications of the facts on the table. And it's become rather popular during the 30 years that I've been out of christianity. Especially over the last decade. It took me a while to find my way there on my own. But I just kept deducing logical position taking and that's where it led me. Now it's broadcast all over the place through debates and forums and easily to come in contact with. 

 

That's just an example to get you started. Ground level for transitioning towards self thinking or freethinking if you will...

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22 hours ago, Freed said:

I have a low self esteem. That's probably why I need a loving creator.  To love me because I can't love myself?

Bingo!  Somehow you got "programmed" that way.  It often times happens when there is a lack of nurturing, or some kind of neglect or abuse as a child, and can be hard to overcome.   But it can be improved.

 

On 11/10/2020 at 12:13 PM, Freed said:

 

But I do need to grow up and be strong.

 

Are you setting yourself up to fail by telling yourself that?  We can't be "strong" (what ever that means to you) all the time.  Humans are not perfect.  Allow yourself to be human.  Laugh if something is funny.  Cry when you are sad.  My guess is that you see that as being weak, but it is simply being human, and can be very cathartic.  And if you are angry a lot, it may even reduce those feelings.  

 

Give yourself credit for things you accomplish.  If you are functioning in society, you are doing more successful things, than unsuccessful things.  But which are you focusing on??  It takes effort, but like Joshpantera said, you can "reprogram" yourself.  HANG IN THERE!

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On 11/11/2020 at 5:13 AM, Freed said:

 

That's a good question. In my mind an infinite creator would be the only one who could love me unconditionally.

 

 

“We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes.“ ~ Carl Sagan
 

On 11/11/2020 at 5:50 PM, Freed said:

I never thought of that. I have a low self esteem. That's probably why I need a loving creator. To love me because I can't love myself?


You are enough. ❤️

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