Atheists Need Not "Hope" For Me

Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me?
24th Oct. 2009 | philhellenes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyjNXdEGjO4

Jammsbro

I remember the moment I became an atheist after 20 years of religion. I was standing in work, it was 1:22 on a Monday afternoon and after two years of difficult questions and thoughts it suddenly came over me like a wave, it can all happen without any god. It was the most profound moment in my life.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I remember one night awake after a discussion, night to 24th August 2001, when I realised God could do the Universe THAT WE SEE without any Heliocentrism or ultramechanism.

Key concept : if angels can move stars (if they exist, by definition they can) how do I know the "parallax" and "annual aberration" of alpha Centauri (a movement of c. 20 arc seconds overall and 0.76 arc seconds compared to other stars around it back and forth each year) is only a double optical illusion due to Earth moving? I don't. Ergo, Earth need not be moving!

Atom Storm

Aye, but we have better explanations for almost everything that religions tell us must be real. Well, not almost everything, absolutely everything.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I disagree about "better".

Jammsbro

Really. Pick one.

Ammuanciatrai

im in that moment right now.

jursamaj

@Hans-Georg Lundahl 2 problems with the "God could have done that" argument:

1. Since God is defined as omnipotent, God could have done anything any way. That doesn't explain anything.

2. If all the evidence we see leads us to false conclusions, and that evidence is supplied by God, that makes God a massive liar. That's hardly a being worthy of worship.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@jursamaj 1) For moving a star, even an angel is adequate (though God's the one moving heaven around earth each day).

2) The evidence doesn't "lead" per se to false conclusions, it leads some people to false conclusions through their false preconceptions. Does NOT make God or His angels liars.

Kasperi Kandi

@Hans-Georg Lundahl God being omnipotent, omnipresent and loving, she would obviously make it so that NO ONE who loves him would be led astray.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Kasperi Kandi Those who are in a state of grace, that is truly love God, do get a protection.

Most do not. That's where the protection is denied.

Kasperi Kandi

@Hans-Georg Lundahl even if that was true, none would ever know if they were the ones chosen. That is ultimately a waste of time.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Kasperi Kandi We are, usually, excepting personal privilege, not meant to know in this life if we are the chosen ones.

We are meant to long for heaven and fear hell.

Kasperi Kandi

@Hans-Georg Lundahl you will one day not be able to realize you wasted all your days wishing for a divine dictator's favouritism to be towards you. The longer you hold these beliefs, the harder it is to stop throwing your life away. Good luck, keep an open mind! Best wishes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Kasperi Kandi I have my life de facto in more than one way wasted - not by my religion, but by people like you, trying to keep me back from making my money as a writer for my religion, and trying to keep me generally in a position of inferiority, as long as I refuse to apostasise.

But suppose I were wrong - and I'm not - at least I have lived a more fun life than some of you, like one ex-Pentecostal now atheist and now wasting his life an sucking up to his shrinks.

@Kasperi Kandi Not to mention the guys wasting their lives on masks, tests and other paraphernalia of Covid restrictions ... your profile picture just reminded me ...

Kasperi Kandi

@Hans-Georg Lundahl and now I have a little less hope for you than before this comment

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Kasperi Kandi I'd prefer people like you having no such hope at all.

Kasperi Kandi

@Hans-Georg Lundahl it is sad that the only way for you to realize what I mean is to open your mind, and every comment pushes you away from being open to new ideas. This is unproductive, bye!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Kasperi Kandi Oh, you are leaving - is that a promise?

By the way, Heliocentrism and Evolution are not new ideas to me, they are in my biography old errors I got out of.

Kasperi Kandi

@Hans-Georg Lundahl oh no constant regression. Soon your knowledge will match your world view - a bronze age one!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Kasperi Kandi Indeed, no constant regression ongoing ... or did you miss a comma or exclamation mark after "oh no" perhaps?

If you pretend someone should be ashamed of a bronze age world view, how about reading a post entitled "Bronze Age, the New Slur" on a blog entitled "Φιλολoγικά/Philologica" - it is from nearly nine and a half years ago, and some of you still don't learn that referring to early parts of the Bible as from the Bronze Age doesn't in the least make me ashamed of them.

... and Scientists DO Fear Hell, Some of Them

Why Don't Scientists Fear Hell?
philhellenes | 26.V.2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbrQI0r1B7w

0:48 So far you are giving a great reason why we shouldn't believe Galileo or Newton on heliocentrism either ...

Radioactivity and measuring the ages of rocks, as you said rocks and not their content, well, Ka-Ar dating is pretty sensitive to how fast the lava was solidifying and how much extra argon was trapped.

1:09 "that's only because nobody in the 1600's knew that our bodies are made entirely from non-life in the form of atoms"

In fact scholasticism considered our bodies to be made from exact same four elements as dead matter is made of.

Souls are NOT part of a body's composition and are NOT refuted today.

1:29 Now you are sounding like "the truth was just discovered yesterday and anyone who lived the day before was ignorant"

That is a fairly way out statement, if that is what you mean, and it's clear tendency to megalomania for the last very few generations gives a good moral ground for challenging the concept.

One of the questions being, were Galileo, Newton and Kepler right in being Heliocentrics?

2:25 Surveys, in US perhaps half of the scientists would be your way:

Scientists and Belief
November 5, 2009, Religion and Science in the United States
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

Ticked the box to keep mum happy?

Seriously, the surveys are anonymous, so an atheist who goes to Church to keep mum happy would be free to tick "no God" without hurting his or her mum.

3:25 "only a tiny microscopic proportion of qualified reputable scientists believe in what the believer would call God"

While there are scientists who are "Catholics" and who aren't fully Theist (think of Kenneth Miller here), the usual presumption when someone states his belief as Catholic, Evangelical, Mainline Protestant is, he believes in God.

The percentages for these three are: 10, 4, 16. And 30 % is not a microscopic proportion.



8:59 "if hell were real, we could watch TV or escape into fresh air"

Not if you are held firmly in place and your atoms wiggling too fast are continuously renewed so you are never killed by it, after resurrection.

That souls of the damned before resurrection can feel pain at physical fire, that is a minor miracle of a major punishment.

"if we go anywhere after death, we go there without our atoms"

But not necessarily to a place without atoms of combustibles and oxygen, for instance.

So, up to resurrection, when you get your body with atoms back, your soul needs a little miracle to feel that, just as the case is for the demons who don't have bodies in the first place.

Not quite so illogical that fires await the damned, after all.

9:19 And no, the threat is not mindless bullshit.

9:40 The flames do need combustible and oxygen and they are continuously renewed.

10:25 "You don't have to be a scientist to have a scientific understanding."

Goes both ways, for what you call "religious nutjobs" too.