Something you'll need to procure in preparation for the impending zombie apocalypse?
Technically, I think it would depend on the actual time and place of their birth.. Age is most accurately calculated based on the current time of wherever one was born.
Depends on how you look at it, but the case could be made, I suppose.
God
gäd/
noun
noun: God; noun: god; plural noun: gods; plural noun: the gods
1.
(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2.
(in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
Obviously definition #2 is the most relevant here. So...
P1: Demons and guardian angels are superhuman beings or spirits possessing power over both nature and human fortunes, making them definable as "gods."
P2: Many Christians believe in the existence of guardian angels and demons.
C: Many Christians are polytheistic by definition.
Worship? No.
I would worship no deity whose moral decisions, actions, and overall outlook were not both intelligible and congruent with my own.
Basically, I would have to understand and agree with everything God does to even entertain the idea of worship. And let's just say I have more than a few questions concerning some of Gods exploits.
Impossible standards? Maybe. But then I'd imagine an omnipotent, omni-benevolent being should have no problems fulfilling them.
Since atheism is a position on a particular religious claim, I'd have to say that yes, atheism is inherently religious in nature.
That is not to say, however, that atheism is, in and of itself, a religion. More like an ingredient or a foundation for a religion, requiring at least a few more beliefs, rules, ceremonies, etc. to be fully realized as a religion.
Of course, this could depend on how you go about defining "religion." Just doing a quick search, I see that one definition on Merriam-Webster is "an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group."
Atheism could be a religion under that definition, but then again, so could just about anything. Is fishing a religion? Video games? Debating online?
If you take the position that the Abrahamic (or any other) god is a fictional character, then I don't see the problem. Lots of fictional characters are disliked.
"It has already been established that Atheists have a shorter life span than their religious brethren."
No, it has not been established that atheists have a shorter life span than their religious brethren, and it takes only a few minutes on Google to see this. Any study which leads to such a conclusion is narrowly short-sighted and fails to address the most important variable; society itself.
I'll demonstrate:
First off, lets look at the life expectancies of some of the most religious countries, and compare with some of the most non-religious.
demographics: WIN-Gallup International Poll
Religious:
United States: 78.6
Ghana: 64.2
Nigeria: 51.9
Armenia:73.9
Non-religious:
Japan: 82.6
Czech Republic: 77.9
Netherlands: 81.2
France: 81.7
With very few exceptions, the non-religious countries tend to beat out the more religious countries overall in life expectancy.
From this data, one might come to the opposite conclusion. It would seem atheists have the longer life span while theists live poor, uncivilized and rather short lives. Maybe theists shouldn't be allowed to spread their beliefs?
But, of course, this sort of comparison isn't exactly apples to apples here. Obviously members of a poor, uneducated society will have harsher, more difficult, stressful lives than those in richer, more developed ones. And, as most any health study will show, high levels of stress lead to higher rates of ailments such as heart disease and depression, which, in turn, lead to a shorter life span. To put it in simple terms, more stress generally equals shorter life.
This is important and becomes evident when you do an apples to apples comparison, looking at religious and non-religious people of the same country. Almost all of the data comes from U.S. studies but, in general, religious people have a health advantage when they are part of a majority (like in the U.S.) and lose that advantage if they are in a society where they are in the minority.
It is obviously more stressful to live life as an ostricized and hated minority than it is to live as a member of the socially accepted majority. As many studies have shown, atheists are the most distrusted minority in the United States; in some cases, distrusted even more than rapists. Atheists are also almost completely excluded from participation in politics in the U.S. with some states even having laws specifically prohibiting them from running for public office. Atheists receive little to nothing in the way of public support, and thus, it is not surprising at all to see that they have higher rates of stress and depression as compared to the religious majority. Studies concerning homosexuals will show similar results; I'd say for similar reasons.
The problem is that some societies are too concerned with social cliques and stigmas and not as supportive and accepting of diversity as they may think they are. Look again at places such as Denmark or The Netherlands. These cultures are not entirely atheist by any means, but they place almost no importance on religion at all in society. Religion is a private matter and is rarely mentioned in everyday talk. They're very secular societies and people simply don't care what religion you are; and I think it's no coincidence these countries tend to rank very high in terms of overall happiness and life expectancy. NY Times article on religious culture in Denmark/Sweden.
The issue is not just whether or not you are atheist or theist, the issue is how does society treat you for being atheist or theist, and how does that effect your health.
Sure, it makes sense. You know they are going to be offended and you wish to make it clear that your main intention is to inform, while acknowledging the offensive nature of the information.
You're not trying to prevent the person from being offended, you're just trying to let them know why you're saying what you're saying.
Whether this is useful or not depends on the individual I guess. Motive and intent are important to some people, and not so much to others.
"Matter cannpt be created or destroyed so something must have created it."
Wait, what? How can you assume something created it after just saying it cannot be created? And also, how do we know the universe even came from nothing? What if it didn't come from nothing? What if there is no such thing as nothing?
If it's perfectly reasonable for one to believe in an eternally existing complex deity, then I see no reason why another cannot believe in eternally existing simple natural forces.
Then if it is made up, then there is no point to be afraid of it and, therefore, cannot be scare tactic.
Agreed; but young children are rarely in a position to make that distinction. A very young child will be absolutely dependent upon its parents and will have unwavering trust in their words.
Parents would do well to choose their words carefully during a child's formative years, in my opinion.
"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."
~George F. Will
While some religions may be atheistic, atheism in and of itself, is not a religion. Likewise, there are many religions which are theistic in nature while theism in and of itself, is not a religion.
If you were to simply identify yourself as a theist when asked which religion you followed, one could only conclude that you believed in a god, at the very minimum. But which god? Maybe you believe in many gods? You could be a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, or maybe Wicca, or a practitioner of some Hellenistic beliefs. Maybe you believe in and worship the gods found in ancient Norse mythology.
If you identify yourself as an atheist, however, people have a tendency to assume they know exactly what your beliefs are. I suppose this is because religions atheistic in nature are less numerous and therefore are not as well known.
People create problems.
People create war.
People then use war in an attempt to solve the problems they themselves created.
War is like treating the symptom instead of the cause in medicine. You may think you've solved the problem, but at best, you've only managed to cover it up, temporarily.
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” ~Mark Twain
I believe that consciousness and the sense of self are dependent on the physiological functions of the brain. Once these functions are terminated, the sense of self ceases to exist. Death is non-existence, in the same way that one is non-existent in the time before their inception.
Believing in God is similar to a scientist believing dark matter and dark energy is present; we know it's there, we can test it, but we cannot see it, nor feel it (physically), nor taste it, [ECT].
So what's the problem?
The problem is the four words I bolded in your statement above. "We can test it."
We know that light can be bent in the presence of enough matter- this is called gravitational lensing. We can see several instances of gravitational lensing in many images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope. If we can see how much the light is being bent, and know how much matter it takes to bend light that much, then we know how much matter there is. But, when we look with all the different tools we have, we don't see enough matter to cause this bending of light. There must be matter we don't "see" causing it; and, since we can't see it, we call it dark matter. We can test it by observing it's interaction with things we can see, and we can measure it out to accounting for some 80% of the matter in the known universe.
Can you show me a test for "measuring" God? If not, then no; they're not similar.
Anyway, I feel one of the big problems with the application of "God of the gaps" thinking is that it's based on the premise that mankind (or, more specifically, science) currently knows all it will ever know about the universe. That we're at the apex of knowledge today, and we'll never ever learn anything new. That, a thousand years from now, none of the "gaps" will have been filled in.
If history is any indication, this is a very unstable foundation to base any line of thinking on. Just think of how many supernatural explanations have been superseded by scientific explanations. Now, try to think of how many scientific explanations have been superseded by supernatural explanations.
If you believe science knows only 4 percent, and will never know any more than that, I'd like to know how you come to such a conclusion. Conversely, if you believe science knows 4 percent, but eventually will learn more, then I'd like to know how you determine what the limit is. Will we ever know 5 percent? 10 percent? How about 50 percent? 75? How do you know where we'll stop? And how do you know none of the "gaps" God currently explains won't be filled in by that point?
And that's the problem with "God of the gaps" logic. Rather than supporting your hypothesis with testable evidence, you rely on the lack of knowledge from a competing hypothesis as being sufficient support. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. You actually have to show evidence that you're right, not just that the other person could be wrong.
Would you agree that they would see their child again?
If they were asking me for my honest opinion, the best I could say is "maybe."
Obviously ,it isn't a known fact one way or the other; but it's been my experience that whenever something sounds a little too good to be true, it's usually because it is.
As such, I'm a bit skeptical when it comes to the grandiose promises of infinite paradise some religions tend to make concerning the afterlife.
Simply offer my condolences for their loss; no reason to kick someone while they're down.
Now, if they specifically asked me for my thoughts, and were willing to engage in such discourse, I suppose I'd indulge them.
My opinion is that it really doesn't (or shouldn't) matter what your religious stance is on the afterlife. Losing a loved one hurts; a lot.
Let's examine why this is.
Firstly, it's not because you feel sorry for the deceased. If you believe they truly are "in a better place," then why should you. And if you believe they simply no longer exist as a conscious entity, the same applies. In either case, they cannot be said to be unhappy or suffering in any way.
The pain is because, irrespective of your beliefs concerning the afterlife, you still have to endure the rest of this life without them. That's what hurts. It's not that they won't get to experience certain things in life; it's that you won't get to experience them experiencing these things. The interaction with them is gone, and the hole it leaves is significant.
Believing you'll be reunited in the afterlife certainly has to offer some comfort; because it means the pain you feel in this life is only temporary. The same, however, is also true in an atheistic view. In either case, the pain is only temporary.
But it still hurts, and you don't have to share the same religious beliefs to have empathy for someone in pain.
Seem to have no issues with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity when trusting the accuracy of their GPS devices. Such accuracy is only possible by taking into account gravitational time dilation.
Seem to have no problems with the Germ Theory of Disease when getting their flu shots.
Mention the "E" word though, and they get all worked up over it being "just a theory."
I don't think so.
If a religion is truly peaceful, the more extreme a person follows it, the more peaceful they should become.
With religions like Islam, the opposite seems to be true.
Something like Jainism, I would say, is a religion of peace. The more fundamentalist or extremist a Jain becomes, the less likely they are inclined towards violence (accidentally stepping on an insect would be like committing a mortal sin to them).
So, how a field of virtual particles came to exist?
Given these particles appear to pop in and out of existence even in the absence of matter and energy, it's possible they have been doing so forever.
That's why said : "No one should deny the existence of God if the one is unable to prove the non-existence of God." Are you ready to prove that there is no God? If you are not able, why you say that, there is no God?
I think I agree with you here, in a sense. If you make the assertion that absolutely no god(s) exists, then you probably should be able to offer proof. Likewise, if you assert that a god(s) absolutely does exist, then you should also be able to offer proof.
I think there is a difference, however, between the following statements:
1.) I don't believe a god(s) exists.
2.) I believe no god(s) exists.
It's not so much I'm asserting there is no god; it's just that I'm not convinced there is. Sure, there's no slam-dunk super-proof that God doesn't exist; but I think there's enough evidence to at least justify a reasonable doubt.
And that's really all I'm advertising... a reasonable doubt.
When I was in school, I hated homework probably as much as students have always hated it.
It wasn't the concept I disliked as much as it was the application. In concept, as already mentioned, homework is really just practice. The more you practice at something, the better you'll generally become. It makes sense.
What I found most annoying was the disproportionate value homework had on one's overall grade; in many cases, completely eclipsing the value of quizzes and exams. I didn't see why a person who aced every test but declined to waste time on homework should face the proposition of receiving a failing grade. I mean, we're talking about practice here. (cue up Allen Iverson rant)
Conversely, there's no way it should make sense for a person to do poorly on every test, but receive a high grade in the class just because they did every homework assignment.
I'm not sure banning homework would be helpful, but it's application could certainly stand to be re-assessed
I said no such thing. But, I'll play along anyway.
The first thing we need to square away is what, exactly, you mean by "nothing." I'm going to assume you mean something along the lines of the absence of matter or energy of any kind; and maybe even the absence of empty space itself.
What if I argued that nothingness, in this sense, doesn't exist. That the universe didn't "come from nothing," because there is no such thing as nothing. What if there was always empty space, in which matter and energy could come into existence. And what if, in this empty space, there was a quantum foam or quantum field of some sort which also always existed (and still exists today). A field of virtual particles constantly popping in and out of existence.
The universe could be the result of random fluctuations in this eternally existing quantum field.
The point I was trying to make is that we don't know enough about such things to say with any certainty that the universe could be created in this manner. We also don't know enough to say with any certainty that it could not.
A conclusion can be logically valid, and still be false, if any of the premises are inaccurate. The variables regarding the creation of the universe are not known with any certainty, and so, using them as a foundational premise in an argument either for or against God means you can come to a logically valid conclusion and still be incorrect.
Such arguments aren't good enough evidence for me.
I would require hard data. Testable, measurable, scientifically verifiable evidence.
The evidence would have to be incredibly strong. I mean, there is evidence of people being abducted by extra-terrestrials; yet, a majority of the population scoffs at the idea.
There are mountains of geological, biological, and cosmological scientific evidence suggesting the Earth to be billions of years old; yet, there are plenty of people who believe it to be only a few thousand years of age.
I would need a little more than a few "How else do you explain this?" quandaries to convince me, unfortunately.
I would need to see some sort of observable, quantifiable, scientifically valid evidence, the likes of which would surely send shock waves through the scientific community. The kind that usually sees the discoverers awarded with a Nobel Prize.
The kind of philosophic arguments and logical proofs typically offered up as evidence are fun to debate over and all that; but, ultimately, they are not convincing enough. Most of the time they are based on premises and presuppositions that are far too speculative, and not nearly understood well enough to serve as solid foundations of convincing proofs.
So, hard evidence (testable, verifiable)... not soft evidence (philosophical argument) is, I think, what I would require.
Remember, other than lack of phsycial evidence, what else is there to support the atheist and similar mindsets.
I think it's already been mentioned, but there doesn't need to be any other reason to reject a religious claim (or any kind of claim, for that matter). To paraphrase Bertrand Russel: "If something is true, then you should believe it. If it isn't true, then you shouldn't believe it. If you can't tell whether or not it is true, then you should reserve judgment until you can."
What's the harm in believing something despite having no evidence? What's wrong with believing something simply because it makes you feel good?
I think most atheists would agree that, in the privacy of one's own mind, it's not much of a big deal. Believe whatever you want, however far-fetched it might be. The problems arise once these beliefs start having influence over people other than yourself. When important decisions start being made based not on empirical data and rational thought, but on fanatical religious beliefs and superstition.
It's difficult to make a good decision based on bad information. Without supporting evidence, a religious claim has a good chance of being bad information. How is this harmful? It depends on the decision being made.
