Never forget Gregory the religious peddlers that will preach to you about the rewards you will receive AFTER YOU ARE DEAD!
Meantime you must comply with their instruction based on the claim that they are gods messengers.
Commandment number 1, their prime directive is your responsibility to support them, maintain their status/wealth/positions of power and be willing to give up your life in defense of them.
Also, you must donate some of your earnings to them, even if doing so means a poorer life for you and your family. Don't concern yourself with that! Your reward and your family's rewards will happen in f****** heaven!

An attempt at dramatic prose, not evidence of god. — universeness

Likewise are the equations in physics, in the even more dramatically prose of math, said to be a universal language but only spoken by some, under the guise of the scientific clothes worn by the new priests. Let me assure you, the language it not that difficult and it's used to impress and expresses just approximate non-existent features of reality. Math just breaks up, tears apart and divides. It's a silly idea the hominid gods played around with and since they were involved in creation too we're stuck with it. Most gods weren't aware of their wicked deceit during the development of creation.

repeat again, give Science the time and resources required to do this, meantime your are just engaging in panto talk. — universeness

And I repeat, who knows gods show up in the future.Or have already even....It's quite hard to reach us!

When you have a cosmological eternal model, one cannot do other than conclude intelligences created it.
— EugeneW
Pure subject opinion, the atheist position rejects this so more panto exchange. — universeness

Dumb matter, even eternal, can't bring itself into existence.

How do you know its woo woo?
— EugeneW
Do you really enjoy the panto exchange 'How do you know it isnt — universeness

The gods showed me.

Ok, contemplate your gods for me. Tell me about your feelings? — universeness

What is it you don't like about them? Im working on a short story to reveil it all. It can be read before not to long exclusively here on Teeee.. Peeee. .....ah WTF! :lol:

F****** heaven is actually a pretty good description!

I think though that your view of gods is pretty subjective here! With such a god (God!) I can understand turning atheist!

Likewise are the equations in physics, in the even more dramatically prose of math, said to be a universal language but only spoken by some, under the guise of the scientific clothes worn by the new priests......... — EugeneW

To me, you are just performing a sort of DJ-style mix of some labels used in science and some labels used in religion with the forlorn hope you will get a hit record. The resulting music hurts my ears.

I think though that your view of gods is pretty subjective here! With such a god (God!) I can understand turning atheist! — EugeneW

But you won't reveal any details of YOUR personal relationship with these entities you now claim to have a commlink with. Maybe you are talking to aliens or quantum fluctuations or just your own imaginings.
I suppose I will just have to wait in anticipation of your 'report.'
I personally think YOUR god(s) come from YOUR ID (as in Freud).
Your god playthings and your personal presentation of YOUR god(s) are harmless and at best, for me, 'entertaining,' but I was hoping for a more meaningful exchange with you on the premise of the OP.
I think there is no way to make progress for either of us on this subject.

The resulting music hurts my ears. — universeness

Of course. The music made by the god-dj sounds awful in the ears of atheists. How else can it be?

But you won't reveal any details of YOUR personal relationship with these entities you now claim to have a commlink with — universeness

The only personal relationship I have is that they made me see something in a dream and by the unusual amount of theist threads: in 2 weeks: (a)theism, good and evil, Christianity, why are things they are, omnipotency, creation, time, particles, etcetera. 20 threads related. Havent seen this before. Also you have a part in the game! Science demystifies. Which is good! But not in relation to the meaning of life and the reason for our being.

I suppose I will just have to wait in anticipation of your 'report.'
I personally think YOUR god(s) come from YOUR ID (as in Freud).
Your god playthings and your personal presentation of YOUR god(s) are harmless and at best, for me, 'entertaining,' but I was hoping for a more meaningful exchange with you on the premise of the OP. — universeness

Ah! Now you try to explain my thoughts about gods in a psychological framework. From my personal constitution or ID. That's the easy way out. I can explain your atheism in the same vain.

but I was hoping for a more meaningful exchange with you on the premise of the OP. — universeness

What kind of exchange you had in mind? It's about the invalidity of atheism. I gave reasons why it's invalid. You say it's psycho pant babble. It explains our fooking around on Earth. An explanation that sattisfies more than the scientific one. The explanation being that we just fool around like the gods did. And their fooling around was eternal and without ground. They just fooled around and got tired of it. Understandable, after eternity! And now? What are your reasons that it is valid?

Sean Carroll made an interesting argument about God. He said suppose we lived in a world where children never suffered. The priests would be saying "look, clearly there is a God because we see how he protects the young ". Yet we don't live in that world. This argument for me takes down teleological arguments. What do you guys think? — Gregory

I thought I would attempt a more philosophical style response to your point Gregory rather that my two more emotive ones. If I understand teleology correctly. Sean is suggesting that if such a rule existed that children were 'spared suffering,' until they reached adulthood then this would be evidence that god existed as such as rule would be 'fit for purpose' and make sense and be necessary as a rule towards that which is surely innocent of sin. I would imagine that a god would have to also prevent Lions from eating Lambs as well, until they became fully grown sheep. The fact that no such rules exist, suggests god does not exist. Such rules would be teleological (I think) as they function from their purpose rather than being formed due to the causality of the creation of the children or lambs.
A dog is not 'given' sharp teeth 'by' evolution, the teeth themselves were 'caused' by evolution.
Children would have to evolve as impervious to any kind of suffering until they reached adulthood to match the evolution of sharp teeth in a dog.
As, I said, I'm with Sean so yes, he does 'take down' teleological arguments regarding god with such examples.

I see no path forward for us on this topic.
There is no common ground to build on.

Sean Carroll made an interesting argument about God. He said suppose we lived in a world where children never suffered. The priests would be saying "look, clearly there is a God because we see how he protects the young ". Yet we don't live in that world. This argument for me takes down teleological arguments. What do you guys think? — Gregory

You shouldn't take Carroll too seriously. The argument he refers to is well known in philosophy. It's a fallacy, if p then no q. So p is true. Nonsense of the priests. Carroll is prejudiced as he wants to objectify his limited worldview.

I see no path forward for us on this topic.
There is no common ground to build on — universeness

The whole universe is our common ground.

Sean Carroll made an interesting argument about God. He said suppose we lived in a world where children never suffered. The priests would be saying "look, clearly there is a God because we see how he protects the young ". Yet we don't live in that world. This argument for me takes down teleological arguments. What do you guys think? — Gregory

How does he know the priests would say this. He just imagines that in an attempt to oppose theism while he doesn't even understand the workings of the universe.

Thus such "theists" themselves render God irrelevant.
— baker

Well, without them we wouldn't exist. So they give meaning to all life. Their reasons for creating us were selfish but understandable. — EugeneW

What you have isn't theism, it's a type of atheism, and of the worst variety.

Theism proper requires active membership in a monotheistic religion. Without that, one is just making stuff up to suit one's fancy.

Thanks Agent Smith - neither theism nor atheism are arguments but rather beliefs. If requests/demands are made for justification then an argument might follow. Theism might be partly justified by reference to empirical experience. Many people claim to 'sense' the existence of a God. This is not the kind of formal empirical evidence used to justify scientific propositions but nevertheless it is perhaps some kind of psychological evidence of something. On the empirical side, simply because atheists have not shared this religious experience, that would not justify the statement that there was no object to this experience. Just because I don't see it does not mean that it does not exist. There have been plenty of arguments for the existence of God, dating back to Aristotle and carried forward by Aquinas. Are any of them valid? Logical arguments can be less than valid without necessarily being invalid. They can be persuasive, plausible and intriguing. Descartes ontological argument is a case in point.

Most religious people however would argue that their beliefs were a matter of faith, not subject to empirical or rational validation. If they were validated there would be no basis for faith. If you want to understand the nature and importance of faith I would recommend two sources, the first, the gospels and teachings of Jesus, and the second Wittgenstein's book 'On Certainty' (as well as the Philosophical Investigations).

Letting the readers act as arbiters might be a bit like letting the blind lead the blind!

Theism proper requires active membership in a monotheistic religion. Without that, one is just making stuff up to suit one's fancy. — baker

It's the mono-freaks making things up. To be a theist one has to think one god only exists? Why? How do you know I make things up?

Are you grateful to your god/s?
Do you express submission to your god/s?
Do you acknowledge that they were there before you and that they contextualize you?

you grateful to your god/s?
Do you express submission to your god/s?
Do you acknowledge that they were there before you and that they contextualize you? — baker

Good questions bakerboy!
-Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The humanid gods are questionable little buggers!
-Off course they were there before me
-They contextualized the whole universe and all creatures evolving in it. For there own advantage. They watch us eternally. Without moral expectations or other bs.

Many people claim to 'sense' the existence of a God. This is not the kind of formal empirical evidence used to justify scientific propositions but nevertheless it is perhaps some kind of psychological evidence of something. — Mike Radford

Some people claim to 'sense' messages from dead humans, or what your future will be, or where water is under the ground or who is really an alien lizard person passing themselves off as a human. Do you rationalise them as 'psychological evidence of something?'

Just because I don't see it does not mean that it does not exist. — Mike Radford

I agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but it also follows that mere faith is poor evidence of existence.

If they were validated there would be no basis for faith — Mike Radford

This is normally called 'progress.' When faith becomes validated. Faith in the Higgs boson was validated at CERN's LHC.

Letting the readers act as arbiters might be a bit like letting the blind lead the blind! — Mike Radford

Perhaps you should try having a little more 'faith' in your fellow human beings.
You cite a good example of human tenacity and admirable if desperate altruism. When no one else is available blind humans will try their best to help each other. If their creator simply watches them bump into things then it does less than the blind at least trying to lead the blind.

I'm with Sean! — universeness

Connery? :smile:

Sometimes yes — EugeneW

Give me an example of your deference to them.

sometimes no — EugeneW

Give me an example of your defiance of them.

Explain your inconsistent relationship with that which YOU label god(s)

having a little more 'faith' — universeness

Serves dollops of faith to whoever the comment was directed to.

Connery? — Agent Smith

Well, if I was with Sean Connery Agent Smith then I would be dead!
Do you know something about me that I don't? :death:

Serves dollops of faith to whoever the comment was directed to — Agent Smith

Faith is merely a 'positive measure of confidence,' that an idea has merit.
The fact that some people see it as belonging exclusively to theists is their confusion not mine.

Give me an example of your deference to them — universeness

Deference is to much. I just like it that they created the universe.

At the same time I think that the homonoid-gods should have been watched more carefully, as their part in creation was, how to put it mildly, eeeh..., nosogood!

Explain your inconsistent relationship with that which YOU label god(s) — universeness

What inconsistent relationship?

I think that the homonoid-gods should have been watched more carefully — EugeneW

I take it by homonoid god you mean those who looked like humans as opposed to being all animal or some hybrid of the two but who was 'watching them?'

What inconsistent relationship? — EugeneW

You typed sometimes yes, sometimes no when @baker asked you:
Are you grateful to your god/s?
Do you express submission to your god/s?
Your own answer suggests an inconsistent relationship with your gods.

I find your claim that you believe in god(s) less and less convincing.

take it by homonoid god you mean those who looked like humans as opposed to being all animal or some hybrid of the two but who was 'watching them?' — universeness

I mean the gods of who we are mortal incarnations.

You typed sometimes yes, sometimes no when baker asked you:
Are you grateful to your god/s?
Do you express submission to your god/s?
Your own answer suggests an inconsistent relationship with your gods. — universeness

Why can't a relation be inconsistent? Exactly that yes/no inconsistency deepens the proof of gods. In my theology, that is.

I find your claim that you believe in god(s) less and less convincing. — universeness

On the basis of liking the gods and not liking them?