alwbsok

This is a follow-up on a question I asked yesterday:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201311...

Would it concern you more if the phrase "Merry Christmas" was being phased out with "Happy Holidays", making Christmas less politically correct, or if "Merry Christmas" was being used more generically for people of many different faiths, thus diluting the meaning of Christmas to having a more secular meaning?

I ask because Christians here seem more concerned with the former, meanwhile the latter has long since happened here in my country of Australia.

All we're trying to do is extend some goodwill. We can't read your mind and tell if you're Christian or Jewish, or any other faith that celebrates whatever else at this time. We just want to wish you the best in whatever it is you're doing this season!

And, imagine that you had unlimited power and could smite him! If any of it were true, wouldn't that just be an elegant solution to all life's problems?

Successful questions can be ones where you've learned a lot, or sparked interesting conversations.

Successful trolls involve a large number of bites, or maybe a few really juicy rants.

The above question is stupid. I wouldn't expect you to imagine such an impossible scenario. You could try to imagine such a triangle, but you'd typically either imagine a triangle with three sides, or some sort of quadrilateral. That's because a four-sided triangle cannot exist, and this is the only sensible answer you can give to such an absurd question.

With that being said, and this is my real question, why do Christians expect me to tell them what I would say if I found (after I died) an omni-benevolent being who, at one point, destroyed almost every living being on the planet? The only sensible answer is, such a being cannot exist.

Do you ever step back and realise that you're trying to minimise people's exposure to even concepts that don't directly support your faith? If you do, how do you not think to yourself, "Holy crap, I'm in a cult"?

... is it morally good or bad to commit some act that would send you to hell, for the purpose of sending of another person to heaven, who would have gone to hell without your intervention?

I've been meaning to ask this question for a while, and She Devil's "question" about Flirty Fishing reminded me. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but adultery is a sin, and so prostituting yourself repeatedly would probably send you to hell, but you could, in theory, sleep with hellbound men who would then be able to repent and go to heaven because of your intervention. Would your prostitution be evil adultery, or an ultimate act of self-sacrifice? Or, to look at it the other way, if you fail to prostitute yourself to save a hellbound man, is that an act of selfishness?

As a far, far darker example, imagine you're a mother-to-be living in a world where a person turning from God is practically inevitable, and you're one of the few remaining Christians. If you murder your child when they are born, they will not have the opportunity to commit sin (well, except for original sin; I still think that's incredibly unjust, but whatever), so they will go to heaven, but you yourself will go to hell. Are you committing an act of evil?

I know how I would answer as an atheist, but I'm interested to see what Christians think about this?

"How can anything exist without God?" -- Uh, easily. There could be other gods, we could be living in the matrix, or things might simply exist without having been created first. LACK OF IMAGINATION.

"The only way to prove God doesn't exist is to look everywhere in the universe." -- Sure, and the only way to prove no triangles have four sides is to manually check each and every one of them. LACK OF IMAGINATION.

"Why would you bother discussing religion when you don't believe in it?" -- Because it's interesting. It's not like Harry Potter fans literally believe in a Wizarding world; they just enjoy discussing fiction. That's exactly what we're doing here, except it's even more exciting, as certain people literally believe it to be true. LACK OF IMAGINATION.

"You worship [science, yourself, dawkins, darwin, satan, etc...]" -- You forget, just because worship is at the centre of your life, does not mean everyone worships something. LACK OF IMAGINATION.

... then how is it that we haven't banned factory farming? Think about it, which act is worse for the creature? Would you prefer to raped once (or even on a regular basis), or spayed, forced into a cage in which you can never stand or lie flat, from which you'll never be removed until hours before your death, with your bones deformed from the posture the cage has imposed on you, in what I can only assume is agony? I would choose to be raped (in no disrespect to the many unfortunate victims of rape) as lesser of two rather large evils.

There must be more behind the law than simply concern for the creature. I don't think we care about animals enough, as a society, for this to be the only concern.

(Inspired by: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArnBO... )

Since we all know God made the universe specifically for us, and fine-tuned it to support life, I'm going to make a conservative estimate of at least 50%, but I'm thinking probably around about 99%. Maybe 10%, at a real stretch.

Did you know that Easter Monday and April Fool's Day coincided on the same day earlier this year? How could something so perfect not be of divine origin?

(^v^)

(v v)

The universe has existed for all time, by definition, because time is part of the spacetime continuum, which is the universe. Why would something eternal require a creator?

Every single atheist out there knows exactly how wrong they are. I know for a fact that I, myself, am an atheist (even deep down on a subconscious level). What benefit is there in claiming something so obviously wrong?

I maintain a polite faith in humanity, so I'm going to assume it's not supposed to convert us, nor is it supposed to convey information to other theists about us. Is it just an effort to troll us?

... are there any criticisms of atheists as a whole out there don't rely on some kind of strawman? Or do they all rely on atheists being immoral, positively believing that no gods exist, believing something can "come from" nothing, secretly believing in the imaginary friend du jour, or something else false?

What nasty things happened when you changed it to refer only to Christian unions?

That is, is there anyone for whom any finite amount of torture (e.g. a trillion years of excruciating agony) would feel like an injustice had been carried out, and that people would not be properly dissuaded from repeating their mistakes? What did they do to deserve this? What crimes could someone possibly commit for a trillion years of agony to be considered getting off lightly?

Be warned, I've told this story many times here, but for some reason, the message doesn't seem to sink through.

When I was a child, I almost drowned at a beach. I was swimming alone, and I wasn't aware that anyone was watching me. I wasn't a particularly strong swimmer, and the waves were keeping me under the water. I was pretty sure I was going to die.

Clearly I didn't (and I was surprised when an adult arm jerked me violently from the water), but during that period of time when I was without hope, when my mind had no pride, only desperation, what do you think was running through my head?

Not much really. I think I engaged in some self-reflection as I continued to try for the surface of the water, but obviously it wasn't particularly memorable. I didn't regret being an atheist. I didn't pray to any gods. In fact, I completely forgot about religion altogether. It took me 10 years to realise what this actually meant in terms of me and my (lack of) religious beliefs. If I had any shred of belief hidden anywhere in my mind, it would have surfaced in that moment. But it didn't, so I am (or at least, was at that moment) legitimately a real, true atheist.

You must remember that I grew up without much religious influence. My family have been atheists for at least a couple of generations (but not the outspoken or anti-theistic kind). There was no-one pushing their religions on to me, as a child. This should show you guys that belief in a god is not something we are born with, rather something that is learned, often during childhood.

So, now that you've heard that story, I'm eager to hear how you will defend your untenable position. Will you:

a) Ignore the story and just quote your false scriptures at me,

b) Call me, and everyone with a similar story, a liar,

c) Simply advance the now meaningless assertion that I secretly believe in your god on a level so deeply that not even the face of seemingly certain death could cause it to surface, or

d) Change your mind, and actually learn things about the world around you?

...imagine what a lifetime of positive reinforcement in response to god-worship could do in a person's lifetime, *from birth*. Could this not account for the feelings of positive "spiritual connection" that people feel during prayer?

I've just been reading about the double slit experiment. I'm not really knowledgeable about physics in general. As far as I understand, at some point during the experiment, there can be an observation of the process, before observing the end result. Whether or not someone observes the experiment at this point greatly affects the outcome. How does someone perform this experiment-affecting observation? What instruments are used?

I'm finding these results profoundly counter-intuitive. I think the key issue is that I'm not clear on what constitutes an observation, capable of affecting the results. Does anyone here know what quantum physicists think would happen if:

a) Someone blind was to make the observation.

b) An animal were to make the observation.

c) Assuming the result is measured by some machine off which a person simply reads the result, a person looks does not look at the results before reading the photographic plate.

d) The machine is turned off.

e) One person looked at the photographic plate before someone else looked at the machine's results.

f) Another machine capable of performing the observations via a different method is introduced instead.

Help me out here. Thanks in advance!

It never used to happen. I don't get it. I'm not annoyed or anything, just confused. Why troll atheists then block them? My answers to these guys are almost never rude. They're generally flippant, with some kind of serious point attached of course. I mean, do make some fun, but not in a mean-spirited way.

If they're not looking for light debate, poking fun, or serious answers, then what exactly are they here for? Seriously, I don't get it. Can anyone enlighten me?