Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

[mellonxcollie]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

God gave us free will not as a mistake but as a "gift", part of the human experience of freedom. Because without free will we would not be able to live our lives freely and would live on a completely pre-determined path our entire lives. Being able to choose our own destiny is a "gift" from god which he gave us so that we would be created in his image. It was also to test who will stray and who will follow god, you are right about that.

I am an atheist and do not believe any god gave me anything. However that is the view of the catholic church, at least as best as I remember it

[choof]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

god didnt give humanity free will, even if it's stated as such. there's a divine plan, which assumes that he knows precisely whats going to happen at any given time, implying that what we do is already predetermined. it may feel like free will but in the context of having an omnipotent all-knowing god, free will is a contradiction.

I'm pretty sure that's what mina was getting unless he's talking about the arbitrary restrictions that humans put on other humans, in that case "3edgy5me, my dude."

I dont believe in any god and if I did, it would be an unconventional personal idea of a god, so to me, there was no mistake on a grand designer's part. it's a coincidence that we're here and we have made plenty of mistakes as a species, some of which I think are unexcusable and if the christian god was real, we would have all been wiped out

[rushyrulz]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

IIRC people like to lock these threads really quick because religion is apparently too polarizing of a topic, so I'll get it in quick:

I was raised (indoctrinated) in the Catholic church. Went to sunday school, went to a private Catholic school from grades 1-8, mass every Wednesday and Sunday, yadayadayada. I don't recall a moment in my life where I ever actually believed a single word of it. I may have ignorantly followed along for a while, living under the fear that I'm to be damned to Hell for eternity if I go against what my dumb ass nuns for teachers are saying (and that's a seriously fucked up prospect to be shoving down 7-year-olds' throats...). I think the first reason I never really latched onto it was that there seemed to be an issue with the feedback loop on prayer.. a kink in the telephone wire if you will. So what, you say a bunch of magic words before you eat or before you sleep, and what? Life just goes on as normal. I never got voices in my head, I never experienced any "miracles", or had any of these out of body experiences people claim to have.

Atheism actually has varying degrees, of which there are a main two:
1) One who has no belief in God (or insufficient evidence thereof).
2) One who believes there is no God.

I fall into the latter category. Here is my explanation:

We as humans are always looking for answers. When we can't find them, we tend to make one up to "scratch the itch" of not knowing. Ask any politician, "I don't know" is an almost impossible thing to say in some situations. This is the traditional -God of the Gaps- opposition, which in a nutshell, attempts to fill in any gaps in our knowledge of reality with supernatural God claims. Whenever one is filled, two more are created (take evolution for example). Christians are constantly criticizing the Theory of Evolution (mind you, Scientific Theory vs. Definition 2), saying that there are missing transition species (see: crocoduck lmao), but whenever science discovers a new transitional species, it just creates two more "missing transitional species". At what point will everyone be satisfied?

Christianity and many other religious set themselves up in such a way as to be non-falsifiable which is really annoying to argue with (as I'm sure we'll see in this thread if it doesn't get the early shutdown).

So, yes, I believe there is no God. We just use "Him with a capital H" as a scapegoat whenever we don't know, or moreso, can't know something. There are more variations on Christianity than there are words in the Bible. So the question believers should be asking themselves is, "How do I know I have the right one?".

tl;dr: we made him up. childbirth is not a miracle. homosexuality isn't unnatural because it happens in nature lmao. Trees != God. We're all glorified monkeys deal with it. Yes, we are animals. There is no life after death, and if there is, it's crowded AF up there goddamn. I'm not afraid to say goddamn.

[mellonxcollie]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

Went to sunday school, went to a private Catholic school from grades 1-8, mass every Wednesday and Sunday, yadayadayada. I don't recall a moment in my life where I ever actually believed a single word of it. I may have ignorantly followed along for a while, living under the fear that I'm to be damned to Hell for eternity if I go against what my dumb ass nuns for teachers are saying (and that's a seriously fucked up prospect to be shoving down 7-year-olds' throats...).

I think the only benefit of being sent to a Catholic school is that it FORCES you to think critically about this bullshit at a very young age. I don't know anybody who came out of Catholic school still Catholic. After sitting down and actually reading the bible and realizing how fucked up it is, and how many contradictions there are, most people realize that it makes no sense in reality.

but I know a lot of people who went to public school, never really thought about it too much and still consider themselves "religious" even if it's only in name. None of my Catholic school friends say that... we learned our lesson about religion very early

It also taught me that feminism is still needed in the Western world and we have a long way to go. The amount of misogyny and body-shaming of girls that goes on in Catholic school is fucking absurd and the fact it's even allowed to go on in this country upsets me very much. And I can't even tell you the number of angry rants I had to listen from old men about abortion or gay marriage, issues that I didn't really care about until these people made me RAGE.

so I am grateful to Catholic school for igniting the fire in me. though I would never ever send any kid of my own, especially not if I had a daughter

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

I'm pretty sure that's what mina was getting unless he's talking about the arbitrary restrictions that humans put on other humans, in that case "3edgy5me, my dude."

no i mean the concept of free will is, even independent of the scope of religion- equally as nonsensical

it's interesting to me that while religion and free will boil down to basically the same argument one is steadily becoming rejected/villified/ridiculed while the other largely remains a self attributed cornerstone of humanity

[choof]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

no i mean the concept of free will is, even independent of the scope of religion- equally as nonsensical

it's interesting to me that while religion and free will boil down to basically the same argument one is steadily becoming rejected/villified/ridiculed while the other largely remains a self attributed cornerstone of humanity

I think I get where you're going with this and I think it's harder to reject the concept of free will in this context because instead of supernatural beings to point at, you have to point at the laws of the universe, which we still don't entirely understand and never will

at least I hope that's what you're getting at because if not then I don't fuckin know

[MinaciousGrace]

point at the laws of the universe, which we still don't entirely understand and never will

actually you pretty much nailed it here, shove away everything else on the topic and this is what you are left with

and this is what makes it so similar to religion, it's a concept that we use to explain our sense of self, our moral duty, and to define humanity apart from other organisms and ultimately we can't prove that it does or doesn't exist we can only provide arguments in one direction or another

and the arguments in favor of free will are shit

[choof]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

well hey it's not free will but at least the universe doesn't care about morality

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

along the lines of people getting really mad when you tell them they don't have free will i've also found that people get really mad when you cast morality as a human construct and not a constant of the universe that all beings must abide by

[devonin]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

I absolutely feel like I possess free will. I feel as though I can choose to do or not do actions as I will.

I'd argue that I either -have- free will, in which case I have free will, or I have the -illusion- of free will which is basically an illusion perfect in its fidelity, in which case even if I don't have free will I feel as though I do.

I'd argue that whether we have free will or not doesn't even matter because we perceive that we do whether we do or not.

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

i very much agree with you on that last point

i was going to write something to that effect as well but im lazy

[dadcop2]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

mina have u been reading some spinoza?

[Rapta]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

Free will/thinking is one of the perks of being a human, but if God is all knowing, would he have given us this? He has and it seems to have back fired, we seem to be the mistake of what has so far been a perfect humanoid entity.

iirc god didn't give us free thinking on purpose, people committed the first sin by eating from the tree of knowledge

idk im not fluent with the Bible

[thesunfan]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

rushy, whatever happened to saying a Hail Mary on your deathbed just in case

that was one of my favorite quotes

[rushyrulz]

Re: Humans: God's only mistake? Or the sign of no deity?

I don't remember saying that, but either that was 5 years ago or I wasn't being serious.