News Stephan Hawking Declares There is No God

Christianity, and for that matter all the major religions, are full of cliches like "everything happens for a reason" that are nothing more than lip service being thrown at something that is usually very serious. It is their way of saying, "I don't really give a fuck and I'm not willing to do anything of substance to help you but here is a token line that I heard at church....."

Myths, all of them.

 

There is no burden of proof. If a believer states his belief its up to the listener to accept or reject what he says. There are lots of people running around trying to convert others to their beliefs. None of them even try to "prove" anything. They try to convince you that you should accept it on faith.

 

I certainly applaud your efforts. For all the people who propose to be Christian here, you are the only person who took the risk to step forward and discuss when challenged.

That also is a cop-out answer that is very popular. Instead of these ridiculous, arrogant answers, people should just learn to say "I don't know". Humans feel this deep desire to have an answer for everything and when we don't have one, we'd rather make something up than admit that we don't know. I'm not ready to say for a fact that god doesn't exist, but rather I'm going to have to see some evidence before committing to what the religious texts ask. Until then, I'll just keep living free of the guilt and stress of religion.

 

I was on board early. At some point, you realize that it's not going anywhere.

I do find it fascinating that this thread has hit 24 pages now. Who woulda' thought?

 

exactly, and when an atheist asserts their disbelief the burden of proof rest on their shoulders also

 

the believer accepts their belief on faith. the disbeliever rejects the believers faith with faith of their own that the believers are wrong. neither has the goods to prove it one way or the other

 

I guess that, the older I get, I realize that folks who lean blindly on religion don't seem very smart. I believe in spirituality and faith, but I really don't care for organized religion--any of them. Most of the wars in history can be traced back to organized religion. It's ridiculous.

Another trite thing I hear is when people try to assuage parents who have children with disabilities or illnesses. "God picks out the parents to give the sick children to. He only gives them to the best parents."

Right...

When something is wrong with your child, you just have to man up and do what you have to do. It's not because God picked you to go through the misery of having a sick child.

My older daughter had a grand mal epileptic seizure when she was 9. It was the worst period of time in my life. I never knew I could feel such pain when I thought she was dying on the floor of a restaurant. It was haunting. I wasn't "special" because my child's brain didn't operate properly, and I did what I had to do to take care of her. Thankfully, she's been off of seizure meds (which were really awful) for over a year and is now statistically no more likely that anyone to have another seizure.

But I don't believe God thought I was more capable of caring for a child with a serious health problem, and I understand that the epilepsy was nothing compared to what some parents face.

 

For 99% of the crap you are spot on. Well, actually depending on perspective you could be 100% spot on. I will give you an example.

I know a couple that got pregnant a little over a year ago. Shortly into the pregnancy they learned that the baby has some sort of malfunction and without recalling the .50 name it sort of didn't have a skull. They were told the baby would either be still born or if born alive would not live for very long. It was going to die.

They were given the choice to either abort or she could carry it to term. They went through with the pregnancy (In my own private world I never understood this, I thought it was just a crazy thing to do) Well, she had the baby and it lived for a few hours before it just couldn't go anymore. What happened next was that little baby became the first infant organ donor in the state of Oklahoma, I'm not sure how much farther it reaches beyond that. The parents sort of became poster people for organ donation and had their babies either picture or a statue or something on a float in the Rose Parade as well as flown out to the Rose Bowl.

I agree, "everything happens for a reason" is a good way to get punched in the mouth, but it is also perspective.

 

well said, Stacey...spot on IMO