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Forums - General Discussion - Why Ricky Gervais is an atheist

mrstickball said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

That is where you are wrong. There is an unimaginably small possibility that this will happen, and when it actually does it is often considered a miracle by believers. It wouldn't make sense if we noticed every single likely thing that happens, but the few extremely unlikely things that happens are so hard to understand that some people choose to explain them through an almighty deity, while others choose quantum mechanics or simply don't make up their mind and would rather remain unknowing than choose an unproven answer.

Then what is the percentage of it being possible through sheer chance? About 1 in 1 billion? I will admit that is a possibility, but then that also means there is a billion to 1 chance that it was indeed supernatural. I think I'd take those odds, which is why I believe supernatural events do occur.

If I took every story I've heard from people I trust - only people with sound minds and are trustworthy - I'd have more than a few of these "billion to one" stories. At some point, you stop trying to rationalize every situation and come to the conclusion that there may be more out there to believe in than no God existing, especially when the kinds of people that go through these events go through them somewhat often.


Bolded: Now you're making another mistake. If the chance of the event occuring is 1 in 1 billion, for instance, that still doesn't make it supernatural just because it's heavily unlikely.

If I throw a dice with one billion sides and number one ends out on top of the dice, it would still not be considered supernatural. But some people would become so stunned by the result (assuming that they placed their bet on number one) that they would like to thank God for the positive outcome. Throw the dice several billions of times and the result won't be shocking anymore.

Underlined: Of course you would. People does and sees billions of things throughout their lifetimes. At least a dozen events should end up unexplainable, which is where God fills their gap.

Italics: At some point, you start to ponder the fact that only religious people see these supernatural things. Do they (the supernatural events) hide once an atheist is nearby?



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IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
mrstickball said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

That is where you are wrong. There is an unimaginably small possibility that this will happen, and when it actually does it is often considered a miracle by believers. It wouldn't make sense if we noticed every single likely thing that happens, but the few extremely unlikely things that happens are so hard to understand that some people choose to explain them through an almighty deity, while others choose quantum mechanics or simply don't make up their mind and would rather remain unknowing than choose an unproven answer.

Then what is the percentage of it being possible through sheer chance? About 1 in 1 billion? I will admit that is a possibility, but then that also means there is a billion to 1 chance that it was indeed supernatural. I think I'd take those odds, which is why I believe supernatural events do occur.

If I took every story I've heard from people I trust - only people with sound minds and are trustworthy - I'd have more than a few of these "billion to one" stories. At some point, you stop trying to rationalize every situation and come to the conclusion that there may be more out there to believe in than no God existing, especially when the kinds of people that go through these events go through them somewhat often.


Bolded: Now you're making another mistake. If the chance of the event occuring is 1 in 1 billion, for instance, that still doesn't make it supernatural just because it's heavily unlikely.

If I throw a dice with one billion sides and number one ends out on top of the dice, it would still not be considered supernatural. But some people would become so stunned by the result (assuming that they placed their bet on number one) that they would like to thank God for the positive outcome.

Throw the dice several billions of times and the result won't be shocking anymore.

 

Underlined: Of course you would. People does and sees billions of things throughout their lifetimes. At least a dozen events should end up unexplainable, which is where God fills their gap.

Its all a matter of perspective on the likelihood of something happening, though.

To an atheist, something that has a 1 in 1 billion chance of happening is always a matter of fortunate probability with absolutely no external probabilities. To a Christian, there is the possibility of external influences. The issue of the dice is that you believe the dice is thrown a billion times, and it is right once. But in the cases I am talking about, the dice is usually thrown once and always lands. If you rolled a billion sided dice a thousand times, and it rolled on the number every time, in a row, you would still believe you were the one out of a number I can't put enough zeroes to that it was chance. At some point, you should believe that even the irrational possibility of external influence becomes more plausible, because you've seen it far too often.   



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

good read. I agree with alot of his points.



mrstickball said:
 

If they've seen undeniable proof of their God in some way, I will let Him sort that out when its all over. For now, I can only believe in what I've seen, experienced and have known forn a very long time.

How do I know they happened because I'm on the right path? I don't believe God would magically decide to answer an impossible prayer at exactly the right moment because He wanted to lead me astray. I mean, if I was going the wrong way, I don't think he'd decide to heal broken bones instantaneously because he decided to host an episode of "Punk'd"

That is really not convinvcing at all, what if he believes there is good in you and he is giving you another chance to live and convert to the right religion?

Miracles were always works that involved power, mercy, love and teachings to believers and non-believers. To suggest that you were answered by a miracle just because you are on the right patth doesn't agree with religions' point of view.



mrstickball said:

I would say that you're correct that we don't know what all is out there - with other dimensions, quantumn physics, and the like. That may play a part of it. But alternatively, what if God works supernaturally through such things, and that those realms are merely the conduit of how he works?

Yes, I believe some if not many "Miracles" can be explained by the scientific method - even if its through things we can't verifiy empirically yet. But the key is "many", not all. That is what makes empiricism useless in the argument of supernatural pheonmena. Even if 99% can be explained, you still have that 1% that is impossible to explain via science, which causes the scientific method to be flawed when people like Gervais require it to be able to explain and define God.

I mean, if someone walked up to you - someone you trusted - and said that he heard "God" speak to him, (this God being someone he trusted and believed existed), and God told this person audiably to find a phone directory call a specific business 10,000 miles away, only for the man to do that and find his long-lost daughter visiting that business for the first time in her life. Do you know what the probability of such an event happening is? The likelihood of such an event occurring is impossible - but with God, I've seen such people talk about these kinds of miracles very often.

This is what I meant when I said there's a gap in between that highly improbable event and believing it was an effect from god.

Multi-verses, aliens, some biological/familial/sub-conscious form of communication we're not aware of are all as equally valid as saying it was due to god. To jump straight from one event to god is a "leap of faith". All I'm pointing out is that there are many possibilities and interpretations then just a higher creator being.



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Omega_Phazon_Pirate. said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

And there we have it. You don't need to believe in God to reach Heaven, making the entire system collapse (keeping the ten Commandments in mind).

And if your answer that he ends up in Heaven is wrong, then he was born to end up wherever he did. Luck brought him to his final destination.


Not so fast there, mate, not necessarily.  Here's an article that essentially answers that: http://www.gospel.com/blog/index.php/2009/11/19/will-people-who-never-hear-of-jesus-go-to-hell/.  

 

Anyways, if you want to discuss this more, feel free to pm me =).

The only problem will be that you will be disscusing a question that has no basis in reality. Why not discuss whether Jesus appeared in the americas or whether thor makes lightning, all three questions have equal merit and an equal footing in the real world.

 





IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
ArnoldRimmer said:
What I don't like about atheists is that they always trying to convince others of their belief. ;)

And while that of course is a joke, there's actually a lot of truth to it. Because at the bottom of the glass filled with atheism always remains a tiiiiiny bit of skepticism. Just like the other way around.


Now, let's pretend for one second that no religion has done the same thing during the last thousands of years.

Holy Crap! I agree with you on this one, THE1. *Fan Girl Screech!!!*



and yet another religion thread gets choked up with irrationall debate points and faulty logic. sigh.



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mrstickball said:
pezus said:
mrstickball said:
What about those that say they've seen proof?

The ultimate problem with religion vs. atheism is empiricism. If you believe that everything must be empirical, then by all means, its impossible to prove gods or a God exists.

But if you don't believe that everything is ultimately empirical, it gives you the case for the possibility of the supernatural which is, by definition the antithesis of empiricism since you cannot validate it through scientific means.

If people like Gervais would one day look into the possibility of an irrational, non-empirical entity that defies the scientific method, you may be surprised. Those that hold to the Christian faith do not do so entirely out of pure blindness. There are people that have seen things - supernatural things - that are far and away from explanation or rationalization, but are certain they happen. Are any of these Christians nuts? Absolutely. Are all of them nuts? No. I know what I've seen and experienced in my life, and some of it defies logic and empiricism, but it still happened. That is why I will hold to what I believe irregardless of what Gervais and others believe. I won't reserve vitriol for them, I will respect what they want to believe in their own minds.

What did you see that defies logic?


Instantaneous healing of medically-verifiable broken bones, precognition, physical/visual phenomena, other types of healings, ect. I'd have to think a bit to come up with an exhaustive list of things I've personally seen.

If I expanded the list to family who wouldn't BS, that list to expand significantly to include things like the ability to spontaneously write in ancient languages with perfect prose, spontaneously talk in other languages unknown to speaker, shapeshifting,  demonic possessions (far beyond possible psycological diagnosis), prophecy, and so on.

Over the years, if you're in the right circles, you hear and see a lot, and I mean a lot of things inside or outside of specific kinds of churches. I try to throw out the things that are likely to happen naturally (e.g. "God saved me from a wreck because I clipped an extra coupon before I got into the car").

Then you have all the instances of people that have documented, at least among their family, impossible things to happen naturally such as the case of Todd Burpo. I am not saying his claim is absolutely real, but if it indeed is - and only his family knows - then even the first half of his story is far beyond the realm of what science or empiricism can explain.

Family and loved ones agreeing that miracles have taken place? This is nothing new anywhere in the world. Sadly, human eyewitness accounts aren't worth very much and are even taking a backseat in courts of law today since they are often faulty, obscured, biased or all of the above.

I'm not discrediting anyone's experiences with what could be percieved as extraordinary or even supernatural but anything that a small or large group or individual with a religious or otherwise similar conviction tells me or anyone else about miracles and happenings to support their faith isn't worth a whole lot. Perhaps even nothing. They're just words that anyone can say. "Why would people lie or convince themselves that this happened if it didn't?" The answer to that is obvious.

When I grew up and we started school at around age seven, the church gave us a book with bible stories in it. I liked the book, it had nice drawings and some of the stories were pretty exciting. But, even then, I understood that they were just stories and not recited, actual history.

To each his own I suppose but there is no chance of anyone swaying the other side into their belief (or lack thereof), which is fine by me. I don't need the world to be atheistic, not even one bit, I just need people to understand that fantastic claims will always be dubious at best, especially when absolutely none of them can be proven (take the James Randi test for one example).



sad.man.loves.vgc said:
mrstickball said:
 

If they've seen undeniable proof of their God in some way, I will let Him sort that out when its all over. For now, I can only believe in what I've seen, experienced and have known forn a very long time.

How do I know they happened because I'm on the right path? I don't believe God would magically decide to answer an impossible prayer at exactly the right moment because He wanted to lead me astray. I mean, if I was going the wrong way, I don't think he'd decide to heal broken bones instantaneously because he decided to host an episode of "Punk'd"

That is really not convinvcing at all, what if he believes there is good in you and he is giving you another chance to live and convert to the right religion?

Miracles were always works that involved power, mercy, love and teachings to believers and non-believers. To suggest that you were answered by a miracle just because you are on the right patth doesn't agree with religions' point of view.

I guess its hard to explain. When I talk to God, and I listen, He usually talks to me. I don't believe He's ever said "Hey, follow Budda or Mohammed instead" to me once in my life.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.