Hi like minded people, I am new to this forum. Thanks cfi for providing me platform to speak my mind, which I cannot do in real world. I would like to start with describing my position. I am a freethinker and a humanist. This is my first post, in any forum. As English is my third language, I may not be that good at grammar. Apologies. I will start my post with a incident of my life.
One day I and my friends were travelling to a town which is 50 km away from mine. We were 3 people in a car. On the way, we saw a boy (probably 8-10 year old), lying on the road, with scar on his head and blood all over his body. Probably, he was hit by a bus/truck or some other vehicle. The boy was alive, and screaming in pain. There was no one around him, except us. He needed immediate treatment and nearest hospital was 10 km away. He kept on crying in pain, seeking help. But, no one was around except us. We were standing there, nearby and watching him suffering. For one hour, the boy continued to suffer, and ultimately due to heavy loss of blood, he died on the spot.
Now coming to my point. After reading this story (which is not a true incident at all and a mere imagination), what do you think about us? We were capable enough to save the boy, with all resources available with us, but still we did not. We stood there, beside him, for one hour, and watched him die slowly in pain. Are we not equally responsible for that boy’s death? Do we deserve to be called human beings? Will you ever make friend with us, or even talk to us, if you meet us in real life? But why?? We did the same thing that God does everyday. Still you praise him, worship him, celebrate in his name. Ain’t that hypocrisy?
Yes it is. If you think so, it is blatant hypocrisy. Everyday, many innocent lives gets killed in such incidents, many child/women gets raped, but God doesn’t care about them. He, being Omnipotent, is able to save them, but he doesn’t. Do you think such a God is worthy of worship? I don’t think so. Praising / worshiping such a Psychopath God would make me immoral too. Keeping logic / reasoning / critical thinking / science aside, even if such a God exist, there is no good reason to praise/worship him.
The concept of God and religion were created us humans, to control we humans. Fear and greed makes people to believe in hell and heaven. A sane human would never believe in such absurdities, so, the religious indoctrination starts from childhood itself. It is the responsibility of free minded people like us, to stop this indoctrination and allow them it think and decide by their own.
Welcome to the CFI forums, Yogi.
I’ve often thought the same thing about Christians and their god. If he is omniscient, as they profess, he is responsible for evil as well as good, which makes him a monster. I like your analogy of standing around watching a child die instead of driving him 10 km to the local hospital. When my brother was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago we saw a young child being wheeled through the oncolology ward. The kid cou;don’t have been more than eight or nine years old. He (assuming it was a boy) was completely bald and had IV drips lines and a breathing tube. Four adults, presumably the child’s parents and grandparents, were walking behind the gurney in tears. No god worth worshipping would allow such things to happen.
I’ve talked about this with some Christian friends, and they all fall back upon the trite non-answer of god’s plan being mysterious. Well, if that’s god’s plan he can go to Hell. I refuse to worship a god that allows children to die from cancer. I like your statement that worshipping such a good is an immoral act. I’m going to start using that.
Going back further, according the Christian mythology Yahweh created the universe with a plan for how everything would work out. This not only takes away free will, one of the linchpins of their myth and the need for a sacrificial savior, but it also makes their god a psychopath. Not one Christian has had an answer when I explain to them that their god knew he’s send billions of souls to Hell for eternity yet went ahead with his plan. That is genocide, not love. Some Christians try to justify this using the Garden of Eden myth, wherein a talking snake convinced a naive couple they’d be as smart as god if they ate a magic fruit. What this means is the Christian god created mankind without the ability to know right from wrong, then punished every person who lived because the original couple made the wrong choice. He may as well have flipped a coin.
There is no evidence at all that the Christian god exists. If he does, our best course of action would be an armed insurrection. What do we have to lose? if we’re going to burn in Hell anyway we may as well go down fighting. Besides, if Hell does exist (this is a thought experiment, and not an original one) the people there won’t have much more to do than plot their revenge. Those people will include the best military minds and many of the smartest scientists in history. Yahweh may think he is all-powerful, it give a bunch of geniuses eternity to plot revenge over a genocidal psychopath who is landing too torment them for eternity and they will devise a plan to defeat him. When we overthrow the monster we’re taking out the people who enabled them, too.
When anyone says is god this or that I often simply ask, which god. The reality is there are no gods so the simple answer to are they worthy of worship is NO. How can one consider worshiping something that does not exist?
When anyone says is god this or that I often simply ask, which god. The reality is there are no gods so the simple answer to are they worthy of worship is NO. How can one consider worshiping something that does not exist?Indoctrination and the inability to face reality without the aid of a comforting mythology.
When anyone says is god this or that I often simply ask, which god. The reality is there are no gods so the simple answer to are they worthy of worship is NO. How can one consider worshiping something that does not exist?Indoctrination and the inability to face reality without the aid of a comforting mythology. The problem is what is reality? We still live in a deeply mysterious universe and many people cannot find the answers they want in science. So is it any wonder religion is still going strong and will continue to do so because there will always remains questions that science has no answer to.
Webplodder, you’re right, people want easy answers. Science is hard. Dealing with reality is harder than believing babies who die of cancer will go to heaven and live in joy forever. People not only want easy answers, they want concrete answers. I’ve had people tell me they don’t believe in science because it keeps changing.
Webplodder, you're right, people want easy answers. Science is hard. Dealing with reality is harder than believing babies who die of cancer will go to heaven and live in joy forever. People not only want easy answers, they want concrete answers. I've had people tell me they don't believe in science because it keeps changing.I think this is both a strength and weakness of science. A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no 'ultimate' solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer.
Webplodder, you're right, people want easy answers. Science is hard. Dealing with reality is harder than believing babies who die of cancer will go to heaven and live in joy forever. People not only want easy answers, they want concrete answers. I've had people tell me they don't believe in science because it keeps changing.I think this is both a strength and weakness of science. A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no 'ultimate' solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer. That isn't a weakness of science, it is a personal weakness many people share.
Webplodder, you're right, people want easy answers. Science is hard. Dealing with reality is harder than believing babies who die of cancer will go to heaven and live in joy forever. People not only want easy answers, they want concrete answers. I've had people tell me they don't believe in science because it keeps changing.I think this is both a strength and weakness of science. A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no 'ultimate' solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer. That isn't a weakness of science, it is a personal weakness many people share. The problem is the universe is big, really really big. You think it's a long way down the block to the pharmacists, but that's nothing compared to the universe.
// A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no ‘ultimate’ solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer. //
Actually, there is nothing like “ultimate meaning of life”. The meaning of life varies from person to person, whatever he/she wants it to be. As Carl Sagan has rightly said, “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
Since meaning comes from life, not the other way around, asking for the meaning of life is like asking for the life of life. Meaning is within the mind; the mind is not within meaning.
from Dan Barker, with his italics
Webplodder, you're right, people want easy answers. Science is hard. Dealing with reality is harder than believing babies who die of cancer will go to heaven and live in joy forever. People not only want easy answers, they want concrete answers. I've had people tell me they don't believe in science because it keeps changing.I think this is both a strength and weakness of science. A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no 'ultimate' solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer. That isn't a weakness of science, it is a personal weakness many people share. I'm not quite sure what you're implying here. If you mean it is a weakness to worry about the unknowable then maybe you're right but then, isn't it only natural to think about these things from time to time? Philosophy has always been a human tendency.
Webplodder, you're right, people want easy answers. Science is hard. Dealing with reality is harder than believing babies who die of cancer will go to heaven and live in joy forever. People not only want easy answers, they want concrete answers. I've had people tell me they don't believe in science because it keeps changing.I think this is both a strength and weakness of science. A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no 'ultimate' solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer. That isn't a weakness of science, it is a personal weakness many people share. The problem is the universe is big, really really big. You think it's a long way down the block to the pharmacists, but that's nothing compared to the universe. Yes, unknownably big, however, I sometimes wonder if using a spacetime model of the universe is going to allow us to gain real insight into how the universe and reality is.
Since meaning comes from life, not the other way around, asking for the meaning of life is like asking for the life of life. Meaning is within the mind; the mind is not within meaning. from Dan Barker, with his italicsYou could argue it's all mind but I think this is a bit extreme.
// A strength because science is always open to revision in light of new information and a weakness because it can offer no ‘ultimate’ solution to the meaning of life for many people. I suppose this is why you can never reconcile the two since neither one on its own is a complete answer. // Actually, there is nothing like "ultimate meaning of life". The meaning of life varies from person to person, whatever he/she wants it to be. As Carl Sagan has rightly said, "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."Isn't discovering the universe really an excersise in discovering ourselves?
I refuse to worship a god that allows children to die from cancer.Well, everybody dies, and it's typically not pretty or fun. And, all of us come in to this world bloody and screaming, and we don't then declare birth to be bad. It's not rational to assume that death is bad given how little we know about it. It's also not rational to assume that death is bad given that all that accomplishes is to make us suffer. Check out the following thread for a science based exploration of the experience of death: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/19374/ I'm not claiming it proves anything. I'm just saying there are tools available which can help some people form a more positive relationship with death, tools which don't depend on any religion.
I refuse to worship a god that allows children to die from cancer.Well, everybody dies, and it's typically not pretty or fun. And, all of us come in to this world bloody and screaming, and we don't then declare birth to be bad. It's not rational to assume that death is bad given how little we know about it. It's also not rational to assume that death is bad given that all that accomplishes is to make us suffer. Check out the following thread for a science based exploration of the experience of death: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/19374/ I'm not claiming it proves anything. I'm just saying there are tools available which can help some people form a more positive relationship with death, tools which don't depend on any religion.I think you're putting the wrong emPHAsis on the wrong syLABle. It's not the death that's a problem, especially for children with cancer, it's all the suffering they go through PRIOR to death. No god worth their weight in salt would impose that on a child if they had the power not to.
Is God worthy of worship?Why would that question even occur to an atheist? And why would atheists want to discuss the merits of something that only exists in other people's delusions?
And why would atheists want to discuss the merits of something that only exists in other people's delusions?Well, studying religious delusions might give the atheist insight in to their own delusions.
Answering the title of your thread, even if it existed, no.