a challenge to those who feel intelligent

[slpntrx5]

yes. GO AGNOSTICISM!

[altagid]

No one can really prove that theism or naturalism is correct. There's evidence for both sides, it's what YOU choose to believe.

Would you state some of the evidence for theism?

If there really is evidence for both sides then you just dont know - "choosing to believe" one side is intellectually dishonest IMO


Sensei: When they die, the atheists will only get to find out if they are wrong and the theists will only find out if they are right - otherwise dead is dead and there will be noone knowing anything

[partyguy420]

well... i think so. when i pray to the creator, that i will be able to kill a deer, he grants me with a deer. and when i pray to the creator that i will be able to catch a fish, he gives me the fish. when i ask him to give me berrys he gives me them. and when i ask for cedar bark for my grandma, he gives me the bark for my grandma. so theres my proof that my religion is true.

[EternalEnemy]

can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your religious beliefs are accurate?

In fact, i believe i somewhat can.

Now, i myself believe in everlasting existance. I can only offer weak theories on what happens after life, how does the universum work, does karma exist etc..But im very certain that existance is eternal. Of course, the only thing i can be 100% certain of is that i, myself, exist, since i can perceive that by feeling. That should be the ONLY exact truth, not even wheter it lasts forever(which i believe it does, even if all its information and identity vanishes, the self still remains) or not, and i believe many people will agree with me on this one.
Ok, i dont like to blabber too much, so i will explain it briefly why believing that after you die, you just die and dont exist anymore is a very unrealistic way of viewing things:
First of all, as you can easily perceive, nature is built on this strange duality you see. Good and bad, warm and cold, happines and unhappines, order and chaos, man and woman etc...Also, im sure most of you will agree that, both empirically perceiving and philosophically deducting, they seem to be dependant on each other, and one does not exist without the other. Now if you ask yourself the question "do i exist?", you should come to the conclusion "yes" simply because you should feel that you are. It needs no excuses, you feel your conciousness, you are there. You may not be able to prove it to someone else, but you know it yourself. So, there you have the proof of the spiritual side, as in opposite to matter. It is both easy to perceive and easy to deduct that matter is the opposite of this spiritual side of yours, the side that is all the perceptions and feelings.
Now, we know this:
1. Yin and Yang need each other in order to exist, and as long as the other excist, the other does as well.
2.Matter exists
3.Spirit exists

Now, if you know anything about physics, you know that matter is eternal. You can destroy a furniture, it just goes into smaller pieces. You can destroy its atoms, but to be honest, atoms are not the smallest pieces in the universe. There are no smallest pieces, there is only one thing: MASS. So, if matter cannot be demolished into unexistence, why could spirit then? In other words, the so called 'death' is a very VERY unrealistic theory. Its a theory that you suddenly are, and then you arent. That is NOT how the universum works. The human mind has the power to believe that something lasts forever or doesent, in other words may believe there is no end. But in its feebleness, it cannot comprehend if there is no beginning, and the universum, i believe, has no beginning nor end. If not, what was before before there was anything to be?
So, believing that once you see someones body die, you think his/her spiritual side dies too, its similiar to when a caveman without better knowledge thinks that matter can disappear.

Now, i would like to see some christian or atheist unprove my point with other than "no, man, i just believe otherwise, you will know when you see Jesus yourself!" or "no!".

BTW, if someone actually believes what the bible says, then good luck. Historical fact for you: Jesus used to go to bordells, and this is true.
fact # 2: Bible used to have multiple versions, people just picked the most fitting one. They were, of course, not going well together.

[Fengzi]

There's this guy who believes he's a good Catholic. He goes to Church every Sunday. Avoids sinning as much as possible and when he does sin he goes to confession. He reads his bible reguarly and prays every night before he goes to bed.

Every night after his evening prayer he asks "God, I'm a good Catholic and a true believer. I always do my best to uphold the word of the Lord, and teach others about the teaching of Jesus. So, please Lord, just once, let me win the lottery"

The man does this for 20 years and then, finally, one day he says "God, every night I ask the same thing, just one wish I have, to win the lottery. Despite all the good work I've done in your name it's never happened. I no longer believe you exist, for if you did, surely you would have answered my prayer by now. I'll no longer go to Church and no longer worship you. From now on I'm an athiest"

Suddenly there's a deafening clap of thunder, the clouds part and a ray of sun beams down on the mans face, and a deep booming voice says "GO BUY A FUCKING TICKET YOU MORON!"

Just a joke but relevant to the thread

[altagid]

Now, if you know anything about physics, you know that matter is eternal. You can destroy a furniture, it just goes into smaller pieces. You can destroy its atoms, but to be honest, atoms are not the smallest pieces in the universe. There are no smallest pieces, there is only one thing: MASS. So, if matter cannot be demolished into unexistence, why could spirit then?

Well I do know a bit about physics - its my line of work. Quarks and leptons are the fundamental particles

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/th...ndamental.html

- if you can find one smaller then you are a shoo in for the Nobel and I would love to have your autograph or even a discarded kleenex from you. And mass can indeed be destroyed. For one thing it can be converted into energy and energy back into matter - remember E=MC^2 ?- thats the conversion formula. This is a routine operation in a big accelerator. Also, matter both appears and vanishes spontaneously in the vacuum - its a quantum effect due to the uncertainty principle - empty space foams with evanescent matter. Actually this is the basis of an important result by Hawking who showed that black holes will decay because of this evanesence on the scwarzchild radius. The particles appear in pairs matter and anti matter - sometimes one of the pair is sucked into the black hole before it can recombine with its anti pair and vanish. In this way the black hole slowly bleeds energy and turns "brown"

I dont see how you establish the existence of "spirit" sure you believe that the universe is constructed on a duality and that symmetry strongly suggests to you the existence of a spirit world - but this is all your opinion - the question was on proof

So where are we so far? Not one shred of evidence or proof - just opinions - which are ten a penny

[pixel]

ummmmmm, can ANYONE prove without a reasonable doubt that their religious beliefs are accurate? nope. there's a little concept called FAITH, it goes hand in hand with almost all religions.

[Adolf Smittler]

wait. You are saying he killed all of those poor jews because they were not intelligent?

you are an idiot. the only person regarded was hitler, not his victims.

[Adolf Smittler]

In fact, i believe i somewhat can.

Now, i myself believe in everlasting existance. I can only offer weak theories on what happens after life, how does the universum work, does karma exist etc..But im very certain that existance is eternal. Of course, the only thing i can be 100% certain of is that i, myself, exist, since i can perceive that by feeling. That should be the ONLY exact truth, not even wheter it lasts forever(which i believe it does, even if all its information and identity vanishes, the self still remains) or not, and i believe many people will agree with me on this one.
Ok, i dont like to blabber too much, so i will explain it briefly why believing that after you die, you just die and dont exist anymore is a very unrealistic way of viewing things:
First of all, as you can easily perceive, nature is built on this strange duality you see. Good and bad, warm and cold, happines and unhappines, order and chaos, man and woman etc...Also, im sure most of you will agree that, both empirically perceiving and philosophically deducting, they seem to be dependant on each other, and one does not exist without the other. Now if you ask yourself the question "do i exist?", you should come to the conclusion "yes" simply because you should feel that you are. It needs no excuses, you feel your conciousness, you are there. You may not be able to prove it to someone else, but you know it yourself. So, there you have the proof of the spiritual side, as in opposite to matter. It is both easy to perceive and easy to deduct that matter is the opposite of this spiritual side of yours, the side that is all the perceptions and feelings.
Now, we know this:
1. Yin and Yang need each other in order to exist, and as long as the other excist, the other does as well.
2.Matter exists
3.Spirit exists

Now, if you know anything about physics, you know that matter is eternal. You can destroy a furniture, it just goes into smaller pieces. You can destroy its atoms, but to be honest, atoms are not the smallest pieces in the universe. There are no smallest pieces, there is only one thing: MASS. So, if matter cannot be demolished into unexistence, why could spirit then? In other words, the so called 'death' is a very VERY unrealistic theory. Its a theory that you suddenly are, and then you arent. That is NOT how the universum works. The human mind has the power to believe that something lasts forever or doesent, in other words may believe there is no end. But in its feebleness, it cannot comprehend if there is no beginning, and the universum, i believe, has no beginning nor end. If not, what was before before there was anything to be?
So, believing that once you see someones body die, you think his/her spiritual side dies too, its similiar to when a caveman without better knowledge thinks that matter can disappear.

Now, i would like to see some christian or atheist unprove my point with other than "no, man, i just believe otherwise, you will know when you see Jesus yourself!" or "no!".

BTW, if someone actually believes what the bible says, then good luck. Historical fact for you: Jesus used to go to bordells, and this is true.
fact # 2: Bible used to have multiple versions, people just picked the most fitting one. They were, of course, not going well together.

this duality is a helpful way to explain things but not really a rule in the universe. cold is not a force like heat but an absence of heat. it doesn't really exist at all. just because you can feel something doesn't mean it's there the way you percieve it. gender wasn't evolved for billions of years after life, and after the sun's red giant phase has burned off all other life on earth, the last to die off will be the simple archaebacteria who are resistant to or thrive in extreme conditions. good and evil are complicated illusions based on what is favorable for a species. and though i'm pretty sure there hasn't been anybody that was continuously happy from birth to death, there have certainly been people who never knew happiness. oh, and way to go mr. physicist. you say there is no smallest piece of matter, yet have you ever even heard of a planck length (the smallest possible distance)? the smallest particle can be no smaller than this. matter has an opposite; it's called antimatter shitstick. and i can easily disprove yin and yang with the photon. do you know what an antiphoton is? just a photon. it has no opposite. though, according to the law of preservation of energy and matter, matter is never truly destroyed, it stays roughly the same for a while, then rapidly changes. therefore, if the soul could be proven to exist, souls would be inherited along with the genetics. and most importantly of all, you assume that the mind exists as an entity seperate from the body called a "soul", but it's just a process. how do you explain people whose brains were badly injured and repaired, but lost all memories and aquired personality traits? if you think these things are not part of the soul, then a soul would not be part of the person.

[Adolf Smittler]

well... i think so. when i pray to the creator, that i will be able to kill a deer, he grants me with a deer. and when i pray to the creator that i will be able to catch a fish, he gives me the fish. when i ask him to give me berrys he gives me them. and when i ask for cedar bark for my grandma, he gives me the bark for my grandma. so theres my proof that my religion is true.

the aztecs believed that they had to sacrifice people to persuade the sun god to raise the sun every morning. sure enough, after they sacrificed somebody, the sun rose for days on end. does this prove that their religion is fact? if god descended down to earth and delivered those berries to you in the form of a heavenly pie, that would be real proof. all you have to do to kill a deer is shoot it. all you have to do to get cedar bark is peel it off of a cedar tree.