question for athiests

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you remember all my other comments from other threads etc how come you fail to remember the answer to this?
I have never claimed to know the source of god, I have consistently said that I believe there is a creator (i call him god for th eprurpose of GC and debate, I use Allah normally), I do know from the quran (which I believe is the word of Allah) there is a promise that we will see

I don't remember the answer to this question because you never give one.
This is the first time that I can remember you admitting that you don't know that god has a source.

If god has a source, then how can he be eternal?


as i have said on more than one occassion, define your parameters, as otherwise time is lost in consistent nit picking and acts as deflection

Define my parameters for what?
A source that backs your interpretation of those passages up?
Use any source.
I'll be able to check how reliable it is once you've posted it.

and that is ok, you dont know. and you accept that. I need to know

You've just admitted that you don't know.
You don't know the source of god, so you don't know where he and thus we came from.

It seems to me athiests are all smug and aggressive and demanding proof for everything
yet have very little in the way of proof for their beliefs, but still get aggressive

You don't seem to understand why people ask for proof.
Think about it.
 
I can prove my way works, whereas we'll never know about your way. Therefore, I win.

We'll never know that nuclear fusion works? Wow, have I been misled. Ok, sky wizard it is for me then. <ok>
 
Maybe for me its in the definitions. I think for example that democracy, capitalism can be religions

They almost can.
They lack a little in terms of moral direction and spiritualism, though.

for me buddha was buddhists are not, buddha would be mortified in his 'disciples' imo

Not for me to say, really.
All religions are corrupted over time.
I doubt that Buddhism is any different.

maybe I need to clarify, I am muslim but I am interested in other religions and belief structures. In all honesty I probably know more about some peoples religions/beliefs than they do (IMO), as I love to study
In that sense I can accept/.understand your point. However in my experience the interest is not the same from the athiests I know. As i have mentioned previously on pother threads, most athiests i know are ex catholic, know nothing about 'religion' or 'god' pers se. Just hate catholicism. They to me are not athiest

But if they don't believe in any god, then they are.

I understand that you don't think they're making an informed decision about their atheism, though.

It was a question, as that was the impression I was getting
either that or you are avoiding/dodging

I love how its acceptable from your perspetive that 'various theories' have been put forward by 'various athiests'
yet you require hardcore proof, with references

I've clearly stated that I don't accept the current theories from science about any possible start to the universe, any more than I accept those from theism.
Until the evidence suggests that one of them is true, then I'll reject them all.
 
We'll never know that nuclear fusion works? Wow, have I been misled. Ok, sky wizard it is for me then. <ok>

I've just read a little on nuclear fusion and realise that my way is wrong. I feel so stupid - I wish I hadn't pulled my children out of school and brutally trained them to believe my theory.
 
anyhoo pnp early start tommorrow so will try and pop back

i think youre a bit tedious at times but actually enjoy the 'tussles' with you

its a shame its just over a internet forum, as i think things get lost

Things get lost in person too and you don't get a chance to compose and clarify as much.
It can be both a good and a bad thing.

Goodnight, TFWNN.
 
I've just read a little on nuclear fusion and realise that my way is wrong. I feel so stupid - I wish I hadn't pulled my children out of school and brutally trained them to believe my theory.

Well, that's Al Quaeda training camps for ye.
 
What I'm trying to say is that there are so many things in this world which can be analysed in so much detail and depth, yet people still seem to think that this world has happened by chance.

Nothing suggests that there was any design behind it.

Why are we here, PNP? Why were we created on this planet?
How? Are we not serving a purpose? Are we not being watched upon? If we just end up decaying when we're dead and nothing else, then we may as well not be on this planet at all.

The supposed futility of a godless existence?
I don't agree.

If we're actually being watched and this is all a test for some other existence, then this life is truly pointless.
Is this supposed to be a rehearsal?

Being able to create your own meaning and point in this world is a beautiful thing.

How can you see evidence for an afterlife?
You're not dead yet.

Then why believe that one exists?
 
Then when we die, Angels ask us three questions to our souls - who was your creator? who was the last prophet of God? what faith to you belong to?
Or something similar to that.:angel:
 
Let's rephrase that: nothing YOU'VE seen suggests that there was any design behind it.

There's no evidence to suggest that there's any design behind it.
Feel free to prove me wrong, though.

Sorry, but why is this life truly pointless?

I haven't said that it is.
I just don't think that there's any pre-ordained reason behind it.

I believe that this world was created so that God could test us as humans on the decisions we make and whether we follow the right path or not.

In which case there is no justice.
If god directly communicates with some people but not others and then judges everyone on whether they believe in him or not, then he's clearly not just.

God knows what a man's pleasures and desires are and God is seeing whether we can not give in to these resistances which we crave. If we can learn to discipline ourselves, we get rewarded, be it in the afterlife or in this life.

So god created us and gave us certain desires and compulsions and then he punishes people for following them?
Why give them to us in the first place, then?
If he knows everything and he gave us each of our traits, then he doesn't need to test us, because he knows the outcome and he's judging people based upon a characteristic that he's given them himself.
 
What's the point? You'll just dismiss it because I'll back it up with quotes from the Qur'aan.

The Quran itself isn't evidence, any more than the Bible or the Torah are.
If there's a correlation between something in any of them and reality, then it could be evidence, but it would depend upon what it was.

Err, what?
When did I allude to any of that? When did I say God directly communicates with some and not others?

You didn't allude to any of it, but your religion does.

According to Islam, Mohammed was visited by the angel Gabriel for his first revelation, for example.
That would put him at rather a big advantage when it comes to believing in god, wouldn't it?
It's like taking a test and being given the answers, when virtually everyone else doesn't have them.

With all due respect, you don't seem to be getting this.

I get it, but I clearly didn't explain myself clearly enough.

Take the Adam and the apple tree story, for example (if you've heard of it).

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
The story doesn't make sense.
If Adam and Eve didn't understand good and evil, then how could they know that they were doing anything wrong in the first place?

If god is omniscient, then he would know what was going to happen when he placed the tree in paradise, too.
He would've selected the traits of the original man and woman, known that they'd eat the fruit and the punished them for fulfilling a situation that was completely of his own creation.

God knows what we think, but he does not control what we choose to do or how we act.

But he also chooses who we are, doesn't he?
Every decision from the beginning of time would be down to him and he'd know every outcome of every event.
We would be predestined to make every decision that we make in life.
 
Being God is much the same as being a father, leaving power drills and stanley knives about when you have a toddler is not a test for the child, its negligence on the fathers part....
 
None of the books are reliable unless you have read the original, which I very much doubt. People have only read translations of translations of translations and so on of the Qur'aan, Bible, Torah and any other religious text. So to say that you have read any of them is wrong as with each translation the message changes.
 
The Qur'aan is more reliable than all the other books because it is the only book which has not been altered or corrupted over time. Whether it's within your agenda to not believe that, is up to you. But it doesn't matter what you think because the fact is - the Qur'aan has not been changed over time.

I don't have an agenda, whereas those making this claim clearly do.
I'm not going to argue this point with you though, as it's largely irrelevant to me.
If it contains the truth, then that truth should hold up to scrutiny.


Muhammad (S.A.W) had received that information and Angel Gabriel gave him the first revelation of the holy Qur'aan because he was the last messenger of God. He was God's final hope. Of all the other prophets, and with all the other religions, people had been led astray because they were told many, many lies and because the sacred books were debauched. People were fed lies. So, God had to put all his trust and faith into this man to get the message across.

And that doesn't change the fact that god directly communicated with some people and not others.
If belief in god is a requirement for entry into heaven or expulsion to hell, then this is clearly unjust.

How could god have a final hope, by the way?
He could write his name on the moon in neon letters if he wanted to, presumably.
I don't think that many people would miss that message.

Adam and Eve DID know the difference between right and wrong.

They clearly didn't, as that was the whole point in the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Perhaps the Islamic version of this story differs from the Christian/Jewish one, though.

God is very complex and as for being predestined for every decision that we make, I'm afraid that's not quite correct, as God has allowed us to have freedom and to make up our own minds.

However, if he's created those minds and every other element of existence and he knows the outcome of every event before it has happened, then our free-will is merely an illusion.
He would know the influence that every decision that he made about who you were would make upon your life and he would essentially choose it's outcome before it had started.

Omniscience, omnipotence and free-will are incompatible.
They cannot co-exist.

Goodnight, SNIAW.
 
Goodness me this looks like a fun thread.

Well I became an atheist back in 1975 when I was 7 and had to attend a Salvation Army run Sunday School. To me it didn't seem realistic that there was a God that created the world in 6 days and all of mankind descended from Adam and Eve.

When all these religious texts/ books were written (The Bible, Qu'ran etc...) well over a thousand years ago life was a lot more of a hardship than it is today and, as a result, people needed to have something to believe in whereby they would know they could end up somewhere better in the afterlife. Also peoples knowledge back then was rather limited (that is not to say they weren't intelligent). However over the last 100 years or so due to leaps in science and improved education has meant that there are significantly fewer people attending church services these days.

I know none of that answers the question raised at the start of the thread. In my opinion I believe in the Big Bang Theory and Evolution to explain about life evolving on this planet. Do I possess any evidence to support this? No I don't. I'm not a scientist, I'm a credit controller (well unemployed credit controller). Science is about pushing the boundaries of what we know. Religion (and I can only say what I think about Christianity as I've never read the Qu'ran or other religious texts) hasn't said anything different for 2,000 years or so.

If anybody who is religious wants to criticise me for that "obvious" answer would they mind answering this question for me. Who, or what, created God? (When I've popped that question to religious people in the past I've received abuse and been denounced as an agent of evil and actually not received an answer. On that basis I've always taken it that religious people can't handle being questioned/ challenged. Please prove me wrong)