GOD IS NOT GREAT?

The existence and non-existence of God is unprovable. So what? People believe in Him. Whether "God is dead" or "God is dad" does not really matter: the crucial question is whether God is good. We need to know, more immediately than the secrets of the universe, whether the beliefs that many people have are good beliefs. Do these beliefs encourage self-determination, foster compassion and progress, or do they enslave minds, and sharpen differences?

God is not Great?

Yes, because... A Slave to God: in This Life and the Next

 

We are born sick and commanded to be healthy. Who but a masochist would want to have his emotional, financial, political and sexual life governed by a dictator? Who but a weakling, without the will to recognise the complexity of life, would wish to live by a book? Are there not better ones?

If you believe in the God of the Torah, the Bible or the Quran, then you have an allegiance to a group of people and a body of thought, that you did not choose. If you are Muslim, you do not belive in sexual equality in any meaninful sense. If you are Jewish, your duty is to support the aparthied Israeli State. If you are Catholic, revered exponents of your belief are peadophiles. What exactly could be the value of a belief in God in this world, Or the next?

Furthermore, you are a wicked person. If you have read the story of Abraham and Isaac, then you think that the most noble of acts is to demonstrate your love of God by intending to kill your own son. Nobody in their right mind would think this a noble act, would they? And yet religions, in purporting to delineate morality, tell moral tales, supposedly edifying, that go directly against the grain of current moral thought.

Believing in God opposes your thoughts when you are sure of them, and gives you certainties when the reality is complex. It is evil. Philosophy begins as Religion ends; which do you think is better?

 

"If you are Jewish, your duty is to support the aparthied Israeli State".

Untrue in the talmud it says a jewish sate must not exist until the times of messaih. Although there is no reason to protest against it or live in Isreal the statemet still stands.

As well as that G-d never intended Issac to die. If you will argue it is still a flaw in Abrahams character that is for a different discussion as this arguemetn is not about the patraichs.

Believing in God opposes your thoughts when you are sure of them, and gives you certainties when the reality is complex. It is evil. Philosophy begins as Religion ends; which do you think is better?

This is untrue as a religious person has someone to turn to in a time of distress.

 

Vote on this point: A Slave to God: in This Life and the Next

Absolutely Yes
Strongly Yes
Mostly Yes
Partially Yes
Neutral
Partially No
Mostly No
Strongly No
Absolutely No

God is not Great?

Vote on this point: -

Absolutely Yes
Strongly Yes
Mostly Yes
Partially Yes
Neutral
Partially No
Mostly No
Strongly No
Absolutely No

God is not Great?

Yes, because... ILLUSIONS ONLY

 

God has not been proven scientifically. This means the first copy of the bible, quran, and all other religious books were written by a man!

people who believe in religions are most likely because of one or two of these reasons:

1. They want to rely on something to comfort themselves when they don't have anyone to lean onto. I believe that religious believes has become stronger over a period of time because we get weak easily and because of other people's influence. Comforting can also simply be a person going to the church to interact with more people because that person's lonely.

2. They are just like children that believes in fairy tales such as snow white, cinderella, sleeping beauty. These were all written by a human being but children tend to think of it as something inspiring!

 

It matter's not whether or not God is an illusion; the point is, he means something to some people, which causes them to act in a certain way. God is an IDEA. He represents goodness and love. How many religious people end up hacking people to bits? How many more act with love and kindness to their kinsmen and neighbors? Christianity, one of the most powerful religions in the world, is the backbone of our society as we know it. It has guided naive science through rough times, and continues to do so, offering us guidance on the use of scientific ideas. We cannot prove the existence of God, but we can prove that the IDEA of God exists. He is defined by what His people do, and as His people are good, He, by association, is good also.

 

Vote on this point: ILLUSIONS ONLY

Absolutely Yes
Strongly Yes
Mostly Yes
Partially Yes
Neutral
Partially No
Mostly No
Strongly No
Absolutely No

God is not Great?

Yes, because... Evil God

 

Philosopher Dr Stephen Law[1] presents strong arguments that, if God exists, He is equally likely to be completely evil as He is to be completely good.

  1. ^ http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2010/02/evil-god-challenge.html

 

And St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with those arguments 800 years ago in the Summa Theologica.

Merely quoting somebody else isn't debate.

 

Vote on this point: Evil God

Absolutely Yes
Strongly Yes
Mostly Yes
Partially Yes
Neutral
Partially No
Mostly No
Strongly No
Absolutely No

God is not Great?

 

No, because... A Faithful Student: Because We Need a Teacher

 

A severely disabled boy will be born in seven months' time. He will not be able to walk nor talk. He will need constant help for the rest of his life, and he will not be the next Stephen Hawking. Why should this boy not be aborted? His survival is antithetical to that of the species. The sanctity of life cannot be proven, because man-made philosophies' persuasiveness will always depend on the political climate, among other things. Just as torture is considered in the wake of 9/11, our morals are subject to change. We are unprincipled without the concept of absolute truth.

The claim that philosophy begins where religion ends is simply false. Seven hundred years before Hume's discovery that causation is a mental construct (we could never KNOW if a fallen tree made a sound, unless we were looking), the Islamic theologian, Al-Ghazzali, was making the same point.

Further, religion is not static: scriptures are always subject to competing interpretations. A religion can modernise when it needs to, as we discover new things. That is the very nature of wisdom. And being a slave to wisdom is no bad thing.

As regards sexual slavery, there is a reason why things like homosexuality are prohibited. It is anti-survivalistic. And a Catholic paedophile’s existence does not impugn religion, it supports it. His act is sinful and if his belief in God were pure, he would not have acted as he did. Such a priest in fact illustrates that a belief in God does NOT take away your individuality, your free will.

A belief in God literally saves your indivuality when others would wish to take it away. It structures your thoughts in a way that is beneficial to you and the species.

 

Vote on this debate: God is not Great?

Absolutely Yes
Strongly Yes
Mostly Yes
Partially Yes
Neutral
Partially No
Mostly No
Strongly No
Absolutely No
22 February 2011