Frustrating time to be an agnostic or atheist
 

I've been hearing ministers and priests the past few days speaking about the Newtown tragedy and now I'm hearing these public service Christmas greetings from ministers and priests on radio stations I listen to. It drives me nuts, these are not JohnnyClips type people but they unequivocally believe that there's a man in the sky running this show. You can throw all the science you want at them and it doesn't matter - they just keep repeating things as if they were true. It drives me nuts even though I am tolerant of anybody's beliefs but it just makes no sense to me, it's like having a mentally ill friend with anorexia who keeps saying they're fat when they look like a skeleton. 2 to 3 thousand years ago to primitive men in the Bronze Age I understand how they believed in this insane fantasy world.

I'm only an agnostic because I believe in science so much and I know that in another 2000 years science will discover so much more than we know now - so i keep an open mind, something God like could exist.

You keep an open mind? So there is also a possibility that unicorns exist? Or yellow half striped half dotted 168 legged 1.34 cm sized talking in 8 languages rhinos?
Just because we haven't found any doesn't mean they don't exist right?
No really, your god like argument is stupid.

I'm saying a God like presence/creator could exist, yes. I didn't say a bearded old man in the sky which is comparable to a unicorn. For you to say anything that we can't conceive of now in 2012 can't exist is as dumb as somebody 2000 years ago who was 100% certain the world was flat.

so a yellow half striped half dotted 168 legged 1.34 cm sized talking in 8 languages rhino could exist as well. Just because we haven't discovered any doesn't mean we should rule them out. Because that would be very dumb right?
Right?

Mutt, be careful when you go out today. A flying bike might crash land on your face. Don't think this is silly! Just because we never saw a flying bike before doesn't mean they don't exist. I mean there was a time when people thought the earth was flat!

Well there's your problem.

:1orglaugh

could an undiscovered animal/bird/fish exist somewhere in this world? yep, and if so the odds that it's a "yellow half striped half dotted 168 legged 1.34 cm sized talking in 8 languages rhino" are trillions to one.

you're hung up on the word 'God', that it has to mean a type of personified God that Christians/Jews/Muslims swear exists. i'm talking about anything other than random chemical reactions that created the universe and this planet.

Blah blah you're simply saying there could be a god.

When you step on an ant does it go to ant heaven?

and you're saying there can't blah blah blah :)

my issue is with the BILLION people on this planet right now who believe in not just a God in the sky but in thousands of supernatural events that they claim have already happened on this planet for which there is no proof, not even one teeny tiny bit of proof.

ANything is possible but extremely highly doubtful. And the word of god should bee frustrating to anyone with a mind for science or intelligence due to the fact you have to stop asking question to beleave in it.

You being agnostic is based on the fact there might be some kind of god. You might as well be agnostic based on the fact that there might be a tranvestite monkey with 4 heads. Stop talking about others and their silly beliefs because you are doing EXACTLY the same thing. Seriously, think about it.

I think he is just accepting the fact, that at our current tech level, anything is possible, we have not turned over enough rocks persay to come to any time of soft conclusion on god, although I swing majorly towards the "douche bag in the sky" does not egzist but I cant throw it all together.

no i am not saying the exact same thing at all, you want me to say there is nothing but what science at this time can prove.

you do know that millions of years ago there were flying lizards the size of a jetliner on this planet? and that if you and I were both alive only 200 years ago and I told you that there once were giant flying lizards on this planet you would have called me insane.

You're criticizing other peoples beliefs and saying that you are tolerant of them in the same breath? Are you serious? Try looking up the meaning of the word.

I'm not religious myself but the only thing I find frustrating is that at least they have a place to turn to for answers to tough questions and terrible incidents. Does turning to Nietzsche make everything feel better for you? Do you read up on some Planck to help you through the tough times in life? Do you read your children bed time stories from Hobbes so they don't get scared at night?

Sometimes a good story can help us get through and cope with the most horrible of things, do they necessarily have to be true to be helpful?

You are proving my point again. I'm not even gonna explain it anymore because you clearly have no idea what i'm trying to tell you.

Mutt is religious. It's that simple.

No you need to look up the meaning of the word, but I'll do it for you.

tolerant

1)Allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.

Does my being frustrated,flabbergasted,puzzled,upset by their belief interfere with their practice of their belief? If I was intolerant I'd be calling for the banishment of religion like Marxists do, I don't.

wow, you cut and paste it from dictionary.com and still can't figure out what it means. Pretty impressive display of ignorance. Bravo.

Imagine how it must be for someone who believes in God to come here and see their faith repeatedly ridiculed on a near daily basis.

For the record, I am a Christian (albeit not a very good one) and believe in God. Unlike many of the atheists who post here, I don't feel the need to shove my personal beliefs down other peoples throats. Turn the other cheek, and all that.

is there a better source for the definition of a word than the dictionary? Oh there is, it's you, bravo

Well then your a idiot, keep be-leaving your fairly tales, next time some dumb Christian quotes the bible Im gonna quote doctor SEUSS . No difference other than the age of the writing.

you're an idiot ;)

Before making a post calling someone else an idiot, you might want to double-check your spelling.:1orglaugh

Thanks for proving my point, though.

Just like it should be. People who believe in crazy ancient fairy tales deserve to be made fun of.
If i say i believe in blue unicorns people will mKe fun of me as well. And your belief is just as crazy as that.

I don't think mutt means "god" as was described in religious texts, but more of a higher being/force...

"god" doesn't necessarily have to be the creator, or be omnipotent, omnipresent, etc

For all we know, we could be like bacteria floating around in a petri dish, while a human watches them through a microscope... that human observer watching them above would be considered "god" to the bacteria living in a petri dish...

the idea that man has any real idea of what came before and what (if anything) comes after is laughable at best. pure ego.

Sure, understand that. That means anything is possible. That means that goldfish in livingroom might be the one who created the universe. So why not be agnostic about that?
Try to understand what i'm saying.

Yeah, I spell like a chimp

:thumbsup:thumbsup

Only an imbecile would rule it out. Humans know NOTHING about anything. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. God could be something different than your primitive brain can fathom. Or not. In the grand scheme of time, only a second has passed since humans KNEW the earth was flat and was the center of the universe. And idiots like yourself KNEW it to be true.

And only an imbecile would rule out blue unicorns that speak german with a french accent. Right?

bingo :2 cents: :2 cents: :2 cents:

if you don't believe in God blah blah, why care about people who do?

What do you think about blue unicorns that speak german with a french accent. Do you rule them out ir would that be an imbecile thing to do. Is there more reason to believe in a god than in blue unicorns? Is there more evidence for any if the 2 compared to the other? Should agnostics keep an open mind about blue unicorns?

It's a shame to see the son renounce his own father... :1orglaugh

I tolerate peoples religious beliefs, but I don't respect them.

I don't see the point in arguing with religious people, if they were willing and capable of applying critical thought to the subject, they would not be religious to begin with. And arguing with somebody who is not using critical thinking is little more than a shouting match.

There was a priest on MSNBC talking all of that fairy tale jibberish. I was making my breakfast and I actually said out loud to my iPad "will you shut the fuck up with that stupid shit?"

I don't know if it's possible for these people to know how idiotic they are -- considering the shit they believe.

?Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.?


― Shel Silverstein

:thumbsup:thumbsup

you spend this whole thread attacking open-mindedness with straw man absurdities. you throw words around like you have all the answers.

maybe then you can enlighten us as to what process formed the oceans. where does matter sucked into black holes go? how does an ape convert into a human? did a monkey just have a dude fall out of its vagina?

its the fact that there is so much still unknown that opens up the possibility of God & you have already rejected this as impossible, because, after all, who believes in purple horses with horns on its head...

dirty f and johnny think their gods. All knowing of the truth.

I say, let the believes believe, let the non believes not believe.

Josh your clueless, here is some websites to broaden your views since you don't even understand evolution which we can witness first hand. TED, Google Science News, and here is a good watch for you Religulous

50 agnostics...

science is great and there are answers to your questions, just do a little search :thumbsup

Ah the typical religious nutter blah blah. Sad.

we're a judeo-christian society. If you can't tolerate it, leave. :thumbsup

What we all know is something created life on our small insignificant rock floating in space. Everyone can agree on that. However, no one knows what that something is. That something, whatever it may be, could be called God. Life comes from somewhere. To ignore the possibility that it could come from something we do not know or understand is just moronic in every sense of the word because you simply don't know. No one does. When we don't know for sure, we have to say we don't know. It is unknown. FACT: God is currently unknown. His existence can not be proven or disproved. The physical form god may take, if any, is totally irrelevant.

However, everyone knows blue unicorns do not currently exist. Perhaps with some cross breeding and DNA tinkering it could, but it doesn't as of this moment. That is a scientific fact. It can not be argued. FACT: On planet earth blue unicorns do not exist.

That said, it could be entirely possible that "god" is a blue unicorn and our entire universe is nothing more than a single hair on its body. It could also be possible that god is so incredibly amazing and limitless that it can become to each living organism exactly what that organism thinks god is. We simply don't know. Like I said before, we just moved past the earth being flat and center of the universe. Imagine what a few billion more years of life will turn up in the way of facts. Someday there may be blue unicorns.

Someday in the not too distant future, the majority of people, not simply a vocal minority of atheists like today, are going to look back at all the religions and religious people of the world and shake their head in wonderment at how anyone could have been so gullible as to believe a bunch of fairy tales originally made up in the Bronze Age which were then modified and re-purposed into the religions that still somehow exist and have followers today.