1. I assume the argument by Hitchens is that there is no God? Apparently, you (and perhaps Hitchens is conceding here as well) are arguing that God is immoral for allowing evil to happen in the world and not intervening? Who here is arguing that her suffering is jusified because she will get a so-called better deal in another life? How simplistic, actually. 2. No, I've actually seen him in person, read his book, listened to his debates, etc. and, truthfully, his simplistic lack of faith bores me. I've seen and witnessed and experienced things that Hitchens has not and, apparently, cannot fathom. So, whatever. To each his own. Good luck.
... a refrigerator-sized diamond in your yard? Get serious. The Power of Flippancy-- you've mastered it!
For the same reason Patty Hearst donates to liberal causes. This analogy only works if you really think about how accurate and relevant it is.
I don't get your analogy at all, but, an interesting personal aside, my wife went to Catholic Girls Boarding School with Patty Hearst.
Nothing. What's wrong with trying to have a conversation with your showerhead every day even if you don't think it's going to respond... Nothing. Except it's just a bit crazy.
Kind of crazy analogy, prayer is a spiritual action not a physical action like talking to a rock or a tree. Spiritual activity includes a combination of conscience, free will, motive, attitude, personality and character. Talking to a shower head is just talking, a physical activity. Before you pray to a showerhead you would need to know it has capacity for spiritual communication. Where communication does not have to be a spiritual activity, spiritual communication requires capacity of conscience, will, motive, attitude and character- in other words spiritual activity comes from within the heart of a person or personality. It is what makes us human, it goes beyond reasoning, intellect, and instinct. Those are the traits of an animal. Humans have moral conscience, motive and attitude, which produces moral character such as humility, honesty, love, and forgiveness. Animals can exhibit traits like this as learned behavior or instinctive behavior but never from a moral basis, since they are instinctive by species. Moral basis depends upon right and wrong choice through exercise of conscience, motive and character.
I don't pray to a God, rather I kinda hope for destiny to be on my side. Umm, I'm not looking to god for help rather, hoping for my fate to be of one that is beneficial for me. I hope that made some sense.
I consider myself an atheist because I did not grow up around religion and now I see too much science, even if it is only theory, for me to believe that a God isn't necessary for existence. But my philosophy teacher brought up a good point the other day. What is God him/her/itself is/was mortal also? That could definitely be an explain to all the upheaval on the planet. But to answer your question..no, I do not pray.
Then he/she/it likely died a long time ago or hasn't been born yet. And I don't see how that explains the upheaval on the planet. Unless this mortal god was just a massive screw up.
Well God would have had to have been born already if science alone isn't enough to explain the creation of the universe. And if God is now dead, prayers aren't being answered, the evil aren't being punished, and hence, upheaval. One view out of 7 billion.
A mortal god would not be "God". I guess it all depends on the way you want to define "god". I stay away from the term due to the religious attachments. But if you want to call the first-amazing-whatever that led to life "god" and stick to it saying "god is real" then sure, go for it. Just realize you're talking about a different god than everybody else.
Why would "God" have to be mortal? Something had to create the Universe if it wasn't science. Why couldn't God be dead now? God doesn't necessarily have to take on a religious connotation. What's wrong with Philosophic? When Plato was talking about the Universe and reality, he wasn't talking about God as a religious figure. Maybe I'm not explaining it right.
You're explaining a non-personal god (a dead god is non-personal today). And that's fine. But that's just not the God that religious people speak of. I know my opinion won't change a thing, but I wish deists would choose a different term for "god" than theists as it would help clarify things (notably, the statistics on how many people "believe in god").
