God or Not?

>>Why are there literally millions of species of insects? To me, only God could have done that

You could very well appear to be confusing God with Nature.

Hello, Dr. Green -- I have no doubt that you've experienced the type of atheist that you describe.

I do hope that you don't project your limited experience too far. the type of atheist that clergy knowingly comes in contact with is already open to discussing their position with clergy. Many atheists are not like this at all. They are not often seen in churches. They have no interest in engaging a clergy person in a discussion about god. Please consider that many of those simply do not believe in God because they see no evidence for God.

Susan, I enjoyed your article, and basically agree with what you are saying. It's been my experience that sometimes what a supposed atheist is rejecting has less to do with God's existence and more to do with how God has been characterized. There is a lot of bad theology out there, and a protest that "your God is too small" or too judging or whatever needs to be voiced.

Hope all is well with you since Oxford.

Take care and God bless,

Hal Green, Ph.D.

"Even the staunchest believers doubt that God exists sometimes, and yet, it's all we have to hold onto."

really? God - an invisible supernatural being is all we have to hold onto?

What about each other? what about nature, reason, science, music, art, our imaginations? the promise of future generations?

How long have you been saying this kind of thing without being questioned?

We need something more than what we see, hear or feel on a daily basis in order to survive.
**********
And for you that "something more" is a magical sky wizard who grants wishes? Why not your own hopes, dreams, and aspirations?

You are like a prisoner serving a life sentence, believing against evidence that one day you will be free from the shackles of your very existence. If only you would realize that already you are free to build the life you want, without fear of retribution from the supernatural for making the "wrong" decisions. All the decisions are yours to make, and they are all "right."

"I would rather pray to God just in case God is really there than to not pray at all and miss God's presence.

Hats off to the atheists."
**************

But aren't you concerned you are praying to the wrong god? Do you pray to a different god every night in order to hedge your bet that maybe at least one of them is "really there?" How will Thor punish you when he finds out you've been praying to Bal?

Hats off to the hedgers.

my ancestors have seeded oak tree wherever they are. wherever i see an oak tree, i stand up on Earth and the Sun is with Me.

PAganPlace, have you pegged your laundry and placed the dry ones into the cupboard, what is your proposal for Shakespeare's To Be or Not?

Marilyn LaCourt - I googled your name and find you are a professional atheist.

I am not. If I were, maybe I'd use my real name too.

Susan K. Smith - you seem like a really nice lady who agreed to post on "on faith" without reading many previous posts. I say this because your points, as some others have already noted, are very basic, tried-and-true pablum-for-the-masses points that I suspect have served you very well in your ministry thus far.

The difference here is that people don't naturally offer the respect implicit in the pastor/parishioner relationship. Whereas in church, parishioners will nod pleasantly even when they disagree (I know I did), here people will speak up more straightforwardly.

I welcome you to "on faith" and hope we can all learn from each other.

The religious acquire their beliefs in the environment they grow up in.
Once acquired, it's sustained by groupthink and the comfort it affords;
especially regarding fear of death and dying. Believers of most faiths
expect everlasting life.
That the fear of death is a reason why believers believe is clear from
their claim that there are no atheists in foxholes. It says 'when you're
scared enough you'll believe,' which says that religious folk cling to
their faith out of fear of death, and that they see atheists as stupid fools
for pretending to be brave enough not to need God or religion.
To be 'god-fearing' is held to be virtuous, when it's just as irrational as being scared of ghosts.
I am not afraid of being dead one day. I was dead for billions of years before I was born,and it didn't bother me at all. So I say to believers, give up your fear. You have nothing to be afraid of. Give up your childish notions of gods and angels etcetra. Death is as natural as birth; and is our inevitable end, so you might as well get used to it. So stop panicking and praying to invisable skygods. There is nobody up there. Just enjoy life and be nice to people.

Gods are in the mind, not in the sk

" Marilyn LaCourt:

"Why do so many posters use pseudonyms?"

Cause.... My legal name would only be of use or meaning to people who either already know who I am, or are up to no good? And, it'd be just as easy to *fake* a real-*sounding* name as anything else?

"I stand by my words."

So do I. By using just one screen name all the time.

"I give my name. It's my real name"

Gather you're in the comfy majority whose members do most of the bullying in RL, anyway, but I still suggest that's not the best idea ever.

Can't do any good, and you wouldn't want to be unlucky enough to get singled out for harm. It won't strengthen your arguments.

"Well, I was confused.

"I thought atheists didn't believe in God, period, so the fact that some self-proclaimed atheists pray to God or some universal spirit, and some believe in heaven, caught me totally off-guard."

Considering your religion has a long history of calling people who don't believe in *your* God 'atheists,' no wonder you're confused if some people accept the terms and call themselves 'atheists' accordingly.

That's the problem with defining yourself as the only 'real' religion.

do You like the movies of Williams Bush, Mrs Smith, especially NOEL with Susan Sarandon?

what You did in Turkey is appropriate and You are experienced, You know, hydrogen and electromagnetics.

it seems as if their belly are soft, like jelly fish. they need strong covalent bonds.

videos in YouTube may be categorised according to entertainment, inspiration, medicine, wisdom for the soul, like Chicken Soup Stories the videos may be sorted.

BEARER OF ILLUMINATION
YEAR OF THE HAWK

Keynote: Illumination in Action
Truth in Action: Unity, Compassion, Freedom

Animal Totem: Hawk
Aquatic Totem: Jelly Fish

Bill Gates, your turn.

Mrs Susan Smith, something runs shortcut with You.

if there is God, we must be members of.
if there is not a God, we must be one.
if there is a God, thanks God we may be one.

"But I think it's OK to err on the side of caution. I would rather pray to God just in case God is really there than to not pray at all and miss God's presence."

Pascal's Wager? Really? How sad that even an academic theologian has nothing better than this tired chestnut to trot out.

As for atheists who pray, I think my own experiences may be representative. The rest of my family are theists, and whenever we get together for the holidays, we typically say grace before dinner. For the sake of family harmony, I'll join in.

Is that hypocritical of me? Probably, but I'm not going to worry too much about it.

Do I think that some supernatural deity is actually listening? Of course not, that's just juvenile silliness. I'd no sooner believe in Yahweh than I'd believe in Santa Claus.

An atheist who prays is not an atheist.
Atheists don't believe in gods, or anything supernatural, and think that praying is very silly because there's nobody up there to take your call.

I am an atheist and have atheist friends; we giggle at the idiocy of prayer and belief in superstitious mumbo jumbo.

An atheist who prays makes as much sense as a vegetarian who eats meat. The behavior cancels out the label.

Since you are a "Black Liberationist" and a shameless apologist for the racist Reverend Wright, is the God you believe in Black?

I don't believe in any god for the same reasons you don't believe in Vishnu, Mithras, or Ganesh. I don't believe in magic, like you do.

You can make all the wishes you want, and call them prayers, but you're still just talking to yourself.

Its only natural to doubt what hasn't been proven.

Like you , I choose to believe in God. I however cannot condone organized religion.

If we have no God to believe in, then we need to just kill ourselves now and get it overwith, as humanity would be without hope.

Without God, do we have or even need a soul?

Ive always belived that God gave us free agency to do whatever....then went on vacation till so called "the end". I dont blame him for humanitys flaws or problems.

What ever happens in our lives....we humanity have allowed it. Yes , we, have ALLOWED it.

God or Not?
lets talk about Godot, to adorn!

“So, I read a few definitions and I think I understand ... that atheists do not believe that the existence of God or gods has been proved. If that is the case, two things come to my mind: one, they're not much different from Christians, and two they are more agnostic than atheistic.”

I am really quite tired of people like you. It is possible to be an atheist and an agnostic. To be an atheist is to not believe, that is to not feel, that something is true. To be an agnostic is to not know that something is true. I will put the argument in the form of simple deductive logic.

P1: If I do not know that something exists, I do
not believe that something exists.
P2: I do not know that god exists.
C: Therefore I do not believe that god exists.

There, do you get it yet?

I am an agnostic and an atheist.

Why do so many posters use pseudonyms?

I stand by my words.

I give my name. It's my real name.

I invite criticism, and discourse, and discussion, openly.

But I do not hide behind some hidden identity.

Take responsibility for your stances, or state why you hide.

What do you fear?

Tell me.

Not.

Ma'am, you seem to be a nice person and that you honestly don't get it.

Your error is that you appear t be treating ALL atheists as one monolithic block of people.

Are all theists just alike???

If I think Jerry Falwell made an abominable right wing statement, is it fair of me to plaster all Christians as being identical to him?

Of course not. You recognize that theists on your side of the line come in all sizes and flavors.

Therefore please recognize it is the same with atheists.

I am sure there are some atheists that are uncertain there are not some powerful forces (although not likely human) at work.

But please get this straight: We're not all alike!

Simple. But it's amazing the posts I see here by religious folks that can't (or don't want to) get it.

Thank you.

I don’t know what to make of the poll that has yielded such ambiguous information.
Guess I’d have to know exactly what questions were asked, how the questions were asked, and what respondents were told about the purpose of the poll.

But I do know this. A-gnostic means without knowledge.

I agree with Susan K. Smith when she states that everyone is agnostic when it comes to the supernatural.

Anyone who says they know there is or is not a supernatural is either lying or delusional.

Knowing and believing are not synonymous. One believes something based on faith, or based on trust.

It takes faith is to believe there is a supernatural without evidence. It takes trust to believe there is no supernatural based on evidence and probabilities.

The Theist reasons based on faith. The atheist reasons based on trust, evidence, and probabilities.

Much of the evidence used by Theists to indicate the existence of a supernatural has been explained by science, and turns out to be natural – not supernatural.

I am amazed at Susan Smith's honesty, and find it refreshing.

She admits that the reasons she believes in God are actually based on 3 logical fallacies.

1. Argument from ignorance:

"Why are there literally millions of species of insects? To me, only God could have done that..."

2. Wishful thinking:

"though we wonder some times and doubt other times, we come back to the need to believe in something better, something higher, and so we pray."

3. Appeal to Consequence:

"I would rather pray to God just in case God is really there than to not pray at all and miss God's presence."

i am sorry for duplicates, it is becasue of traffic on internet.

in God we trust, madam, when we are out of God, someone should be in God to trust and heal to take us back in God.

allright, there are two ways, one is Scottish Irish French New Caledonia, PAsific, McCain way

the other is Endonesia, Portugal, Holland, Anduluz, Algarve Obama way.

was Paulo Coelho a MAyor in Algarve Concelho? Algarve "el garb el anduluz" west of anduluz". Paul was in Tarsus and Manisa, South and West of Anadolu.

was Paulo Coelho in NC, New Caledonia? was he in North Carolina? in Switzerland? in Brasil? in Davos? in United Nations?

in Black Sea region, Turkish Petroleum Company is in cooperation with Brasil.

Lisbon Treatment has been rejected by Ireland, later by Poland and Germany, France is on the way. President of France is in chief of European Union.

in God we trust, madam, when we are out of God, someone should be in God to trust and heal to take us back in God.

allright, there are two ways, one is Scottish Irish French New Caledonia, PAsific, McCain way

the other is Endonesia, Portugal, Holland, Anduluz, Algarve Obama way.

was Paulo Coelho a MAyor in Algarve Concelho? Algarve "el garb el anduluz" west of anduluz". Paul was in Tarsus and Manisa, South and West of Anadolu.

was Paulo Coelho in NC, New Caledonia? was he in North Carolina? in Switzerland? in Brasil? in Davos? in United Nations?

in Black Sea region, Turkish Petroleum Company is in cooperation with Brasil.

"But I think it's OK to err on the side of caution. I would rather pray to God just in case God is really there than to not pray at all and miss God's presence."

What if the gods hate people who pray and torture them eternally?