Originally posted by SamZED
Pretty much this. And since we know nothing about "what's out there" and it in no way effects our lives most atheists simply don't waste time believing it, let alone worshipping it, while rejecting very specific and unlikely man-made ideas of God. Seems like the most rational position to me.
Except he's saying my defintion of god has no meaning by taking liberties with my defintion and giving examples of things that don't fit into my defintion. It's like me saying that an alien is a lifeform that exists on another planet and then saying that this defintion is meaningless because it could be argued that anything wierd is an alien. I'm sorry that makes no sense at all if you agree that beings that could be called gods probably exist then you're no longer an athiest. Theism doesn't have to be about the worship of a god but the belief in it's existance.
Originally posted by SamZED
I don't dismiss that atheists have an agenda, but I don't see it as being deliberately dishonest or evil. If you're talking about the so called militant atheists or the"horsemen of atheism" I see them as a necessary opposition. We seem to agree on the key argument that "it is one thing to say that God exists it's another to say that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and you're going to hell if you don't accept that". The thing is noone of these atheists oppose individual rights to be religious or to believe in a deity. It's just people who actually say "Jesus died on the cross for our sins and you're going to hell if you don't accept that" have way too much power around the world. They get to dictate laws and sentence people to death based on their personal very narrow man made understanding of what God wants. Stopping that is those atheists agenda and imo it's the one worth pushing. There are too few outspoken atheists (compared to the number of religious people) in the position of power for them to be subtle about such things. That's why those atheist come of as arrogant dicks at times. They are vastly outnumbered and often shunned/descriminated against.
No it's deliberate dishonest and evil. First of all arguing that Christians have power is like people arguing that jews are behind all the conspiracies, life is never that simple. Christians are now actually the most persecuted group.
Oh and Obama deliberately choose not to help Christians who were being persecuted in the middle east.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/united-states-bars-christian-not-muslim-refugees-syria
But the numbers tell a different story: The United States has accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian. Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801. That is to say, one half of one percent.
Obama eventually did sign an act but this had been going on for years and as I have pointed out before General Flynn stated that the Obama adminsitration knew what ISIS was doing and choose to turn a blind eye and were actually helping them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOTiuszCl0c
Then we can talk about The Covington kids who were persecuted, and one of the reasons for them being persecuted was because they were Christian.
Bare in mind people were calling to not just hurt these kids but kill them. Then we can talk about Obama using the IRs to persecute Christians, prejuidice against Christians on social media etc.
THIS is about destroying Christanity and religon in general and anything spiritual.
https://thebestschools.org/features/rupert-sheldrake-interview/
Recently, summarizing your book Science Set Free at a TED talk, you addressed the problem of dogmatic materialism in science, only to have your TED talk banned because of pressure from, ahem, dogmatic materialists. The irony here is rich, with you becoming the victim of the very motions in science that you were criticizing. What's up with that?
I could also talk about Randi's prize a test which is supposed to be prove that the paranormal exists but you can see that it's rigged.
This is probably part of a liberal agenda. Liberals want to promote Communism and Socialism and in those systems the state is essentially 'God' but Christians and religous people can be a threat to that which is why Christians were slaughtered in Russia. What atheists want to do is create a climate where people hate Christians so much that people will accept killing them, an example of this is that people were trying to justify killing those Covington kids.
Also that there are some well meaning liberals but the people at the top are a bunch of psychopaths they pretend to be about human rights when it has nothing to do with that. It's about gaining control while pretending to be about human rights. For example liberals will talk about abortion and that it's about the rights of the woman when it's really about genocide and population control eg Margaret Sanger founding Planed Parenthood and wanting to exterminate blacks, abortion clinics targeting black areas and black abortion rates being grossly disproportionate so much that the abortion rate is highier than the birth rate.
The Westboro baptist church are probably created by Leftists in the intelligence agencies who want to make Christanity look bad and they are also probably behind these Satanic atheist groups.
Originally posted by SamZED
Also, if we're being truthful for those of us who grow up very religious the process of becoming an atheist involves a lot of anger and resentment. So it does come out from time to time especially during debates.
Imagine that for decades you've been told to climb up a 80 storied building every day to water some plants only to find out years later that those plants were fake the whole time. Something like that.
I don't think religion is perfect but I think this is just an excuse to push an agenda.
Originally posted by MythLord
Yeah, but again, you're going to have to stretch the definition of "God" if you want that to work.
Nope as I said Norse gods can fit into this defintion. An interpretation is that they're not immortal and all powerful.
Originally posted by MythLord
Also, how powerful would the "most powerful" being be?
It's all unquantifiable and arbitrary. So if you wanna use "God" to mean just really smart, powerful aliens then go for it but that still doesn't explain why we should worship them. And at what point in our evolution can we surpass them? Can we become "Gods" by that definition?
Possibly.
Well first of all in the Norse 'religon' it's possible to become a god and in Buddhism to. I can see where you're coming from though really what I'm thinking of is beings that are vastly more powerful than humans like an ant is to a human. Also kinda like 5D imps in DC comics where they're technology is so advanced it seems like magic. Beings that have an advanced view of time and space etc