But to be fair, when someone asks where something I believe is stated, the Bible is my go-to book. One of the members on this site listed probably 20 books that apparently he has read or referenced to disprove God. Don’t think I’ll read those.
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No book can be cited as evidence for its own claims.
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I will give you this. It is very possible the emptiness of the universe could have always existed(without any suns, stars, planets, etc.) and that could go along with the eternal existence of God. Then in the creation story of the Bible all those things could have been added.
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A couple of thoughts:
The phrase “uncreated creator” doesn’t appear anywhere in your cite. Perhaps it would help if you explained the connection.
Citing a bible passage can sometimes make people think you aren’t thinking for yourself. That is especially true if you only cite the passage and don’t actually quote it or explain what you thnk it means.
And an aside: “Uncreated creator” reminds me of Thomas Aquinas’s “Unmoved Mover” proof of god and is just about as effective (defective?).and it was that proof that pushed me to examine my beliefs - and I wound up finding I was an atheist.
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Having your cake and eating it too; seems to be a common feature of magical thinking.
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An unevidenced and unfalsifiable claim. Are you going to continue reeling off these sorts of assertions, or engage in honest debate?
Is not just unevidenced archaic superstition, it is directly at odds with objective facts we know about the formation of the universe, our solar system, and the emergence of life on this planet, it doesn’t even get the most basic chronological facts correct.
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Why are you posting what is effectively the same question twice? Do yoy understand how ignorant that is considered to be on most forums?
UK Atheist
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For me, it is the lack of demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic, to support theist’s claims that gods exist.
I was a theist at one time, but I was also a skeptic. I knew how to use critical thinking for every other supernatural claim (UFO, bigfoot, Tarot, astrology, Jinn, etc, etc).
I never used that same skepticism and critical thinking to evaluate my religious beliefs. As soon as I did, it became clear that there were no good reasons to believe in gods.
Let me add, that my atheism is not a dogmatic position, it is a provisional position. As long as theists continue to fail to meet their burden of proof, my atheism will continue.
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I think religions have prevailed, precisely because they are designed to discourage and devalue objective critical thinking. I think this because it is manifest in every piece of religious apologetics I have ever encountered.
Religions “stack the deck”, it’s part of the indoctrination process. I vividly remember a confirmation class where I was 12, and was asked to leave by a priest in his late 50’s, for being facetious, he felt I wasn’t taking his claims for miracles seriously enough, he was right. Given what some children suffered at the hands of their priests, I feel I shouldn’t complain, but nonetheless it was a clear early example of religious indoctrination stifling critical observations of its claims. Of course I was too young to fully grasp the significance.
Indeed, it’s amusing how often visiting apologists try to pretend otherwise though. How often are we asked what evidence it would take for us to believe in a deity, but I have never encountered one who could offer anything that would make them abandon belief in their chosen version of their chosen deity.
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God has always existed. Just as you believe the universe has always existed.
The difference is you’re willing to make a glaring exception to your rule that everything has to have a creator.
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The universe exists as an objective fact, thus positing it might have always existed in some form is a possibility, there is no objective evidence any deity exists, or is even possible, as you’ve been told, but seem determined to ignore. Are you ever going to have the integrity to address these facts?
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And it’s in tray time again …
Ahem, just because your favourite Bronze Age mythology asserts this, doesn’t mean that this assertion constitutes fact. Not least because your favourite Bronze Age mythology contains numerous assertions that are known not merely to be wrong, but fatuous and absurd. Such as that hilarious nonsense about genetics being controlled by coloured sticks.
See above for why those of us who paid attention in class regard this as a troublesome approach to discourse.
I could, of course, launch into a long dissertation at this juncture, on the naive superficiality of mythology fanboy views of atheism, and mythology fanboy failure to understand what we actually think. But I suspect the effort in question would be wasted, especially as you’ve just admitted that you’re not going to expend any effort to address data that might force you to revise your views.
So you think that it’s plausible, that a fantastic magic entity could sit around for an eternity doing absolutely nothing, then suddenly decide “Oh wait, I’ll fabricate a universe and populate with with some puppets I can play with”?
The vacuity of mythology fanboy thinking truly is a unique spectacle.
Except that we know for a fact that Genesis is garbage. Its assertions have been utterly destroyed by modern scientific discoveries, and in some cases involve a level of absurdity that is positively Pythonesque.
Blind, unsupported assertion, and safely discardable on that basis.
And here we go again, with the hubristic presumption that [1] you know what our thoughts on this topic are without bothering to ask us, and [2] that we’re part of some amorphous and homogeneous hive mind.
First of all, we don’t other with “belief”, not least because mythology fanboys routinely demonstrate how useless “belief” is, consisting as it does of nothing more than uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions - the evidence mythology fanboys provide to this effect is voluminous. What we care about is whether or not a given assertion enjoys evidential support. If it doesn’t, then the assertion in question is safely discardable.
Second, those of us who paid attention in class, recognise that questions about the nature of the observable universe on the large scale are the remit of cosmological physics, and turn to that discipline for information. Because, oh wait, science has repeatedly demonstrated that it’s far more reliable than mythological assertions.
It’s at this juncture that I’m tempted to wheel out a favourite riposte of mine, namely “did you have a school to attend as a child?”
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My opinion of God, Sauron, the Ogdru Jahad, etc. are the same. And my advice is the same, “Don’t make shit up.”
Let me guess. Because a book written by uneducated superstitious fanatics says so?
Make it make sense.
Who believes the universe “always existed”?
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^ This, what @Gawdzilla_Sama said. @davidc.guthrie must be assuming that all Atheists are the same when some of us don’t give a damn about where, what, or why.
Too lazy to consider the facts they go with the tripe that gets thrown at them in church.
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Because there is not a single shred of evidence proving any sort of sky daddy is real.
The science can actually verify that multiple stories from the bible are objectively false.
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If one is religious one must automatically reject facts/evidence/reality to maintain that attitude.