Speaking of advertising your faith openly: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6892596.html I like how they put a token American flag in there, just for good measure, to show that God and Country are inextricably tied. I can't remember ever seeing any advertisement for atheism.
When I first read about this article, I immediately thought of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Interesting parallels.
Take it for what it's worth, but I personally think atheists get a lot of grief because a small minority absolutely do not understand why everyone isn't like them...and then they go defensive every time people mention religion (why are we so persecuted? woe is us!). I've met a lot of really cool atheists who do what the creed advertises; namely, being cool and not trying to stir s*** with religion. We have enough religious fanatics beating at the doors, we don't need more "non-religious" fanatics adding their yells. And while I am constantly annoyed by the few times people have tried to sucker me into their religion, on the whole, I find that the people doing so are more or less positive individuals. Whereas that small minority of atheist soap-boxers tend to be so negative and destructive...I just shut off. Their attacks on religion start to become personal assertions of arrogance as they question why "everyone can be so stupid." Case in point... Tell that to Georges Lemaître. You know, the priest who came up with the Big Bang Theory? And that tiny little snag known as the singularity? hmm. How about this gem? Basic science posits that something beyond its' laws must exist... Not exactly advocating that the God has to be Christian, Male, White God who bears a strange resemblance to Zeus but as it is, it is perfectly rational to assert that there is some force that is much more powerful then us and which we have never come close to unraveling. Whether or not that technically is a "God" is left up to your own definitions but I personally believe there is something out there far beyond the power of human reason to comprehend or to harness.
That has everything to do with it. Until the singularity mystery is solved (who exactly created the singularity that created the Big Bang?), the "absurdity" of religion is perfectly justified logically. How can a self-contained system that nominally cannot see the destruction or creation of the forces that sustain it be created in the first place...without external intervention? Big Bang theory was created to provide MORE evidence of the existence of some kind of Creator, ironically enough. And if one reads into it and analyzes it properly that is exactly what it does.
What's wrong about it? The fact you can't create energy or destroy it is pretty obvious. Or is it the whole using science to justify religion? hmm Well, there's two sides to this argument. I won't pretend that I am smart enough to understand all the angles, but the singularity does pose a particular challenge to those who believe that there can be nothing more then man. Of course others will argue because the singularity posits a world without laws it also implies a world with no God. Though, I can't help but note that this is the same kind of reaction a small majority of you (I am assuming you are all atheists) wouldn't help but jump on with glee. "this is so wrong, it's HERESY!"
The "perfectly justified logic" you mention for god would perfectly justify the need for an ubergod for god, and an uber-ubergod for ubergod....etc. "It's turtles all the way down!" :grin: However, I like your Spinozan argument for "god in the unknown complexity of the universe" (I've mentioned that here before) - but that speaks a whole lot differently to me than the traditional ideology of "god".
I don't think it's so off-base, myself. It's really the one question that prevents me from being a full-blown atheist (as opposed to agnostic): where did the infinitely small, dense mass that expanded to create the universe come from? A God perhaps? Religion, IMO, is silly and nothing but a human control mechanism that bleeds profits for many of its purveyors. However, it helps strengthen a lot of people out there, so I see its uses, but it also causes much destruction and death -- and personally, I think the cons outweigh the pros. I digress. Back to the question at hand: what created the mass that expanded in the Big Bang? The obvious retort to such a question is: what created the thing that created that mass? You can continue on like that ad infinitum. It's an unanswerable question, and the Big Bang Theory, while useful for crushing the ideas of creationists everywhere, doesn't prove or disprove the existence of some sort of creative force (also known as "God" to many). It's all unknown, thus, I don't make judgments on such a question. I do know one thing though: religion is destructive. The negatives outweigh the positives.
I don't mind that question, or that answer at all. But it's not perfectly justified or perfectly logical.
Answer: because they keep a thread going that must die. The sad thing is, why do people care so much about what happens when you die? God, no God, at least I can say at the end of it all I love my family and my girlfriend (hopefully then wife). Isn't that what's more important?
Not necessarily. For example, if we can accept that a "God" has capacities beyond our limits and that one of them is the ability to transcend time and space (which after all are mere dimensions of our own perception) and to create matter/energy, the chain could stop right there. That said, I also don't agree with the traditional ideologies that have sprung up around the strong possibility of a Creator of some sort. That's where for me the absurdity lies, how we can take a supreme Being and try to extrapolate it to our own limited viewpoint and I absolutely hate what religion has done for some people and some causes. Still, the fundamental premise that there is something beyond Man, a Creator of some kind, still holds true for me. Maybe he isn't white and he doesn't have a son who is pale as a dove despite being born in the Middle East and "He" probably isn't a he, but I like to think that there is something out there. And that's why I think some atheists fall flat sometimes...not everyone is stupid. Many people have spent a very insane amount of time and effort to pin their beliefs down. They have reasoned it through. They have good reasons. To dismiss them all in one shot...really grates on a lot of people. Broad statements like "I can't believe why everyone isn't like me, they must be so stupid because their beliefs are absurd." just goes nowhere.
I won't say your beliefs are stupid. I will say that they are of the same intelligence-level as beliefs in unicorns, etc.
I won't say you're being a douchebag when you're doing that. I will say that you are pretty much near the same level of classiness as Kanye West in a gala of Taylor Swifts.
You'd be a little off the mark, since your belief is as plausible as belief in unicorns based on the argument you provide. (token smiley!)
I believe that an invisible pink unicorn created me and the rest of the universe. Can I be proven wrong? edit: donny beat me - same point.
