Original post I referred to:

DProDG:


Are you trying to say we cannot do without the concept of a God, whether man or yahweh/krishna/sango...?

Societies that have done away with ridiculous superstitions are the most successful and developed, eg Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Japan etc so your point is simply invalid.

DONE AWAY WITH? From the stats you posted does it seem so?

johnydon22:
NumberOne2 ok after you read the post above i hope you learn something which is reading through a link before citing it on a public forum....

Please understand CONTEXT before commenting. See the original post above. The dude said "Societies that have done away with ridiculous superstitions " ... From the polls you posted below, does that prove that?

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll of 2010,[5]
22% of Norwegian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
44% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
29% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
5% answered that they "do not know".

So 66% of the population believe in some kind of Higher Being. 5% Not sure. Is that not superstition? Does that mean the have "DONE AWAY WITH" it? If you are refering to the Christian God maybe, but to the God concept NO! (there is a difference).

NumberOne2:


DONE AWAY WITH? From the stats you posted does it seem so?



Please understand CONTEXT before commenting. See the original post above. The dude said "Societies that have done away with ridiculous superstitions " ... From the polls below, does that prove that?




So 66% of the population believe in some kind of Higher Being. 5% Not sure. Is that not superstition? Does that mean the have "DONE AWAY WITH" it? If you are refering to the Christian God maybe, but to the God concept NO! (there is a difference).

Superstition is not belief in a higher being. .
Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality —that one event causes
another without any natural process linking the two events—such as
astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts
natural science. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Superstition

That someone believes in a higher being (some form of agnosticism) does not entail superstition...

You are actually the one who mistook what he regarded as ridiculous superstition (e.g: belief in witchcraft, omens, prophecies, lucky charms) like we have here in Nigeria to be synonymous to belief in a higher being

johnydon22:

Superstition is not belief in a higher being. .
Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality —that one event causes
another without any natural process linking the two events—such as
astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts
natural science. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Superstition

That someone believes in a higher being (some form of agnosticism) does not entail superstition...

You are actually the one who mistook what he regarded as ridiculous superstition (e.g: belief in witchcraft, omens, prophecies, lucky charms) like we have here in Nigeria to be synonymous to belief in a higher being

Like I said, view CONTEXT before involvement.

This is MY ORIGINAL post DProDG referred to.

Yeah OP, in addition, the Atheist thinks that the World will be a better place without beliefs in God.
They fail to understand that there is NO VACUUM in NATURE. If we push God out, Man (or something) will become God.
We can see that evident in society today. Men playing God. [Animal Farm - George Orwell] lovely book.
Man himself is a Deity. A lack of belief in Deities (Man or God) is just absurd.

Hope this will help you see where I am coming from before you start posting links that are irrelevant to the CONTEXT.

In addition, you can see that you have proved my point. No vacuum in nature. Push God out, and have superstition.
Man always craves belief in higher beings. It is the way we are built. This is why Atheism is absurd.

NumberOne2:


Like I said, view CONTEXT before involvement.

This is MY ORIGINAL post DProDG referred to.



Hope this will help you see where I am coming from before you start posting links that are irrelevant to the CONTEXT.

In addition, you can see that you have proved my point. No vacuum in nature. Push God out, and have superstition.
Man always craves belief in higher beings. It is the way we are built. This is why Atheism is absurd.

First of all belief in a God doesn't fill any vacuum in nature because there is none there, the vacuum you are stipulating is an imaginary one so as to add your imaginary vacuum filler no wonder other animals are not that inclined.

Talk about Vacuums you talk about food chains where everyone participates and is vital to life on earth. . . Not concepts conceived in human minds that has no weight on natural world or reality... That a large amount of humans have this belief (indoctrinated/ passed on) does not in any way makes it real or to have any effect of nature talk more of filling any assumed vacuum.

Bolded, Its very good you are aware it is mere belief and not certainty, believing in imaginary concepts by a majority does not make it a certainty.... You do not have a belief that you can see, you know you can see and that is sheer certainty. .

Am sure if your deity concepts were certainties no one would need to believe, everyone would have known. . . . Lets Check again where the absurdity lies

NumberOne2:
Original post I referred to:


DONE AWAY WITH? From the stats you posted does it seem so?

Please understand CONTEXT before commenting. See the original post above. The dude said "Societies that have done away with ridiculous superstitions " ... From the polls you posted below, does that prove that?

So 66% of the population believe in some kind of Higher Being. 5% Not sure. Is that not superstition? Does that mean the have "DONE AWAY WITH" it? If you are refering to the Christian God maybe, but to the God concept NO! (there is a difference).

Why are you being defensive? In a hasty attempt to win an argument that hasn't even started yet, you've ended up looking silly. I'm not gonna go on about religious demographics in Norway and Japan anymore. We are looking at the exact same stats and everyone else can tell the irreligious are the majority. Rather than admit you were wrong, you're gonna claim that 22% of people who claim to believe in God and the <40% that adhere to Buddhism(religion/philosophy) in Norway and Japan, are as significant.

In case it wasn't obvious enough, my use of the phrase "done away with" did not mean every single individual.

My main question was whether or not the concept of a deity is necessary. Yes? Why do you thinks so? Must we have an arbitrary entity to worship?

wow...I've missed a lot on nairaland...another failed critique of atheism thread...

NumberOne2:
Yeah OP, in addition, the Atheist thinks that the World will be a better place without beliefs in God.
They fail to understand that there is NO VACUUM in NATURE. If we push God out, Man (or something) will become God.
We can see that evident in society today. Men playing God. [Animal Farm - George Orwell] lovely book.
Man himself is a Deity. A lack of belief in Deities (Man or God) is just absurd.

There are a lot of misconceptions in your argument...

god/gods have never been identified to play a part in natural processes(nature)...so how could one push or exclude what's not there from nature?...

It is the belief in this absent and unseen so-called "supernatural" entity that needs to be excluded... because it lacks any method of proving/disproving it...which is necessary if it has become a placeholder for people's actions and interactions with each other(or morality)...

I wouldn't want to base my moral perspectives or my thinking faculties on something that isn't based in reality,especially when it encourages one to accept it at face value...that would be gullibility and stup.idity..

And if you truly considered a lack of belief in god absurd then why carry only one belief?...isn't that special pleading?...
If you accept that a lack of belief in a supernatural entity is absurd why seclude yourself to one belief only?...what makes your lack of belief of other religions god/gods sane and not absurd?

And if you want to say I'm my own god for disbelieving in god/gods,then I'll be content knowing that I actually show and express more empathy towards fellow human beings than yours is described to be in the bible....

Easily demonstrated by me using my brain to ask a simple moral question like "why couldn't your god just forgive Adam and eve,sparring everyone suffering?"

And in this small question...the biblical story(if it's in any increment true at all)have been shown to be morally bankrupt..

davien:

And if you want to say I'm my own god for disbelieving in god/gods,then I'll be content knowing that I actually show and express more empathy towards fellow human beings than yours is described to be in the bible....

Good, now you get my point: Man is a deity. Some have been and are still been worship.

johnydon22:

Bolded, Its very good you are aware it is mere belief and not certainty, believing in imaginary concepts by a majority does not make it a certainty.... You do not have a belief that you can see, you know you can see and that is sheer certainty

Man is a believer irrespective of your views. Our daily lives requires beleif (conscious or unconscious).
Belief that your neighbour is NOT a serial killer, or your Doctors prescription will work. Belief that the plane pilot is NOT a psycho that will crash the plane.

DProDG:

My main question was whether or not the concept of a deity is necessary. Yes? Why do you thinks so? Must we have an arbitrary entity to worship?

I didn't speak of worship. The Devil is a deity, so are Angels as well as Man. I don't worship them. You need not worship them BUT you need not deny their existence (deities).
P.S: Leave your "Done away with" argument. It is a false claim. The stats YOU posted shows it.

Atheism is absurd because it doesn't believe in deities but there are over 7 billion of them on this planet.

NumberOne2:


Man is a believer irrespective of your views. Our daily lives requires beleif (conscious or unconscious).
Belief that your neighbour is NOT a serial killer, or your Doctors prescription will work. Belief that the plane pilot is NOT a psycho that will crash the plane.

belief makes nothing true. . . whether you believe something or not doesnt make it true. . that you belief your neighbour is NOT serial killer doesn't make your neighbour to a serial killer if he is one.

that you believe your doctors prescriptions will work still wouldnt make them work if they are not the right ones.

that you belief the pilot is Not a psycho that will crash the plane still doesn't make him not to be a psycho if he is one. .

so you see belief bears absolutely no weight on certainty...

NumberOne2:


Atheism is absurd because it doesn't believe in deities but there are over 7 billion of them on this planet.

Hahahahahahahaha if you are referring to humans as deities then thats good then (that now seems you are not forgoing the existence of the allegedly supernatural deity concepts horus, yahweh, osiris and co)

so for humans being deities, thats alright then but we atheist just like to live in reality so we would prefer calling them just humans

johnydon22:
belief makes nothing true. . . whether you believe something or not doesnt make it true. . that you belief your neighbour is NOT serial killer doesn't make your neighbour to a serial killer if he is one.

that you believe your doctors prescriptions will work still wouldnt make them work if they are not the right ones.

that you belief the pilot is Not a psycho that will crash the plane still doesn't make him not to be a psycho if he is one. .

so you see belief bears absolutely no weight on certainty...

Missing my point. Like I said... Man is a Beleiver (hence the need for the vacuum to be filled either by God or Man which are both Deities).

NumberOne2:


Missing my point. Like I said... Man is a Beleiver (hence the need for the vacuum to be filled either by God or Man which are both Deities).

1) define deity

2)what sort of imaginary belief vacuum are you trying to create exactly
so since you obviously think it is necessary for you to have belief in something why dont you just confine it to the natural examples you gave me like doctor not being a psycho, why cook up unnecessary imaginative concepts like god(s) because you need to heap your beliefs somewhere for which ever reason

johnydon22:

1) define deity

2)what sort of imaginary belief vacuum are you trying to create exactly
so since you obviously think it is necessary for you to have belief in something why dont you just confine it to the natural examples you gave me like doctor not being a psycho, why cook up unnecessary imaginative concepts like god(s) because you need to heap your beliefs somewhere for which ever reason

Didn't cook them up neither are they imaginary. Let me give you an example out of many.
There was a Jew named Jesus whose story is well documented. You can even check through history or google.
Is that also cooked up?

NumberOne2:


Didn't cook them up neither are they imaginary. Let me give you an example out of many.
There was a Jew named Jesus whose story is well documented. You can even check through history or google.
Is that also cooked up?

let me give you thousand other examples. .
There was a greek heracles (hercules) whose story was also well documented.

there was an egyptian God osiris who story is well documented in ancient egyptian papyrus.

there is also Zeus and other Olympian Gods whose stories appear too on homer's Iliad and other greek antiquities

we can go on forever. . . that is exactly the cooking up we are talking about..

You can tell me hercules and jesus are greek and jew respectively and lived somewhere in greece and isreal sometime ago. . i definitely have no problem with that.

but when you start telling me hercules was born when a god came and got his mother pregnant, helped atlas carry the earth, carried an over large stone up a mountain or jesus was born when a god came and got his mom pregnant, walked on water etc. . And ask me to believe it with faith. That is exactly where cooking up stories are

johnydon22:


let me give you thousand other examples. .
There was a greek heracles (hercules) whose story was also well documented.

there was an egyptian God osiris who story is well documented in ancient egyptian papyrus.

there is also Zeus and other Olympian Gods whose stories appear too on homer's Iliad and other greek antiquities

we can go on forever. . . that is exactly the cooking up we are talking about..

You can tell me hercules and jesus are greek and jew respectively and lived somewhere in greece and isreal sometime ago. . i definitely have no problem with that.

but when you start telling me hercules was born when a god came and got his mother pregnant, helped atlas carry the earth, carried a over large stone up a mountain or jesus was born when a god came and got his mom pregnant, walked on water etc. . . That is exactly where cooking up stories are

Hmmm, so Super Humans don't exist? Cos there are some well documented even alive today.

NumberOne2:


Hmmm, so Super Humans don't exist? Cos there are some well documented even alive today.

. . . Yeah we have some gods (from somewhere outside the universe) coming to impregnate human women to give birth to nice super babies. . . that help literally carry planet, walk on water etc..

example of these babies that are alive now please

NumberOne2:

Good, now you get my point: Man is a deity. Some have been and are still been worship.

To be "worshipped" does not relate to being a deity, and even then it seems you loosen definitions to fit anything you like into that category...

If a deity is all about being praised....then notable praiseworthy concepts like humanism,pragmatism,realism etc are also deities which we all "worship"

And since you agree to "worship" some notable concepts you have violated your christian commandment to not "worship" or "idolize" other things separate from the christian god.......shooting yourself in the foot

Man is a believer irrespective of your views. Our daily lives requires beleif (conscious or unconscious).
Belief that your neighbour is NOT a serial killer, or your Doctors prescription will work. Belief that the plane pilot is NOT a psycho that will crash the plane.

A belief is a positive reaffirmation, not a negative one....and it relates to believing things that have no evidence...

If there is no evidence of your neighbour being a serial killer then would you hold a "belief" he is one?...

And I'd like to point out that you're performing linguistic gymnastics as belief is synonymous to a host of other definitions not affiliated to faith like accept or a hunch(when used in certain contexts)...you are misusing the term....making it another equivocation fallacy...

I didn't speak of worship. The Devil is a deity, so are Angels as well as Man. I don't worship them. You need not worship them BUT you need not deny their existence (deities).

You can call them whatever you feel like as long as you give discrete reasons....now what is the definition of a deity that makes human beings fall into the same category with magically inspired entities?

P.S: Leave your "Done away with" argument. It is a false claim. The stats YOU posted shows it.

Atheism is absurd because it doesn't believe in deities but there are over 7 billion of them on this planet.

what "stats", did I post any stats?...arguing with x atheist and responding to y atheist is pure dishonesty and shows the depth of your position...
And to set the record straight....give us the defining bar that makes human beings deities...

johnydon22:
belief makes nothing true. . . whether you believe something or not doesnt make it true. . that you belief your neighbour is NOT serial killer doesn't make your neighbour to a serial killer if he is one.

that you believe your doctors prescriptions will work still wouldnt make them work if they are not the right ones.

that you belief the pilot is Not a psycho that will crash the plane still doesn't make him not to be a psycho if he is one. .

so you see belief bears absolutely no weight on certainty...

Still that's the field of epistemology to critically access and determine to what extent an ideal can actually be taken to be truth with maximum certainty.

please teach me how to become an atheist

sportsmaster:
please teach me how to become an atheist

lmao atheism is not a doctrine or religion that people can teach you.... it is just a name labeled on people who don't believe in god(s). . . so nobody is here to preach you or teach you anything because their is nothing to teach. only doctrines are taught and atheism is just a name not a doctrine.

what you believe or disbelieve is your business

johnydon22:
lmao atheism is not a doctrine or religion that people can teach you.... it is just a name labeled on people who don't believe in god(s). . . so nobody is here to preach you or teach you anything because their is nothing to teach. only doctrines are taught and atheism is just a name not a doctrine.

what you believe or disbelieve is your business

oya tell me the necessary steps

sportsmaster:


oya tell me the necessary steps

sir there are no steps habaaa... what you believe or disbelieve is your business and however you choose to do it is your business too.

what are the steps of not watching a tv

johnydon22:
sir there are no steps habaaa... what you believe or disbelieve is your business and however you choose to do it is your business too.

what are the steps of not watching a tv

Ok sir,taking ur advice asap