And now...

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Oh I'm not having any difficulty with your claim, I am simply having difficulty finding any valid reason for it.

It is up to you, the theist, to come up with rationals that support your position that a god exists.

For instance, the first statement, a god, by definition, is perfect and therefore does not need worshiping.

Tell me why a god would NEED worshipers.

Atheists are saying mankind make the rules, the rules you think came from a god actually came from men who needed to control their subjects.

Prove me wrong.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It is up to you, the theist, to come up with rationals that support your position that a god exists.

For instance, the first statement, a god, by definition, is perfect and therefore does not need worshiping.

Tell me why a god would NEED worshipers.

Atheists are saying mankind make the rules, the rules you think came from a god actually came from men who needed to control their subjects.

Prove me wrong.

You are saying that God NEEDS worshippers, not us. But if he chooses to have some of His handiwork worship His only begotten Son or Himself then that is up to Him.

Atheists are wrong about man making the rules instead of God. A good scientist will tell you man has discovered some of the rules in nature, but they certainly know that they did not make them.

We don't have to prove you wrong, because it is common sense that you are wrong. 😏

Originally posted by sonhouse
It is up to you, the theist, to come up with rationals that support your position that a god exists.

For instance, the first statement, a god, by definition, is perfect and therefore does not need worshiping.

Tell me why a god would NEED worshipers.

Atheists are saying mankind make the rules, the rules you think came from a god actually came from men who needed to control their subjects.

Prove me wrong.

You have missed the point entirely. The state of being perfect is not being offered as an inducement to worship. The act of worship is simply to enter into a relationship with God. God does not need it and infact the adherent enters into this through their own volition simply as an expression of love/appreciation for things/events they attribute to God. It need not be some great phenomena but simply a spirit of appreciation for life itself.

You keep repeating the same mantra over and over again but the fact of the matter is that for many people God is a reality. I do not need to prove you wrong, the argument is entirely futile. All that can be claimed is what appears to us to be reasonable. If you think that life has arisen through a prebiotic soup at the behest of unintelligent and inanimate forces then its your perspective, personally I find the proposition not only to be highly mathematically improbable but demonstrably false. You simply cannot get life from non life, Pasteur proved it.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Eh, i have a BA Honours Degree in Theology and spent half my life exploring religion and philosophy. Does that make me a lazy atheist, someone who has done zero to understand true knowledge?

The truth is, your own position is the lazy one; the ignorant one. Far easier to dismiss atheists with such an argument then to contemplate that they have arr ...[text shortened]... rstanding is laughable, as is your understanding of the 'randomness' of the big bang.

Turnip.

I am puzzled..................You are an atheist who has a BA in Theology (is this correct)

If it is correct how is it you are not a theist?

And how is the big bang not random?..................is it caused and who caused it.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
No i don't think that was enough after all there were many religious people willing to take up science for the sake of understanding their religion better, like Newton who sought in his science to get an insight into the workings of the creator. Historically also even after the so called enlightenment people were quite religious. It seems to have been a modern phenomena, I would say at the beginning of the 20th century.

It's an ongoing phenomena, it hasn't finished yet. [and hopefully never will]

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
My own thoughts are that the first world war must of had a devastating impact on the continuity of the handing on of religious values from generation to generation because in many instances entire communities were wiped out. Also that science became a kind of God for people in which miraculous things were made to happen and people began to trust sci ...[text shortened]... by the things they posses, what kind of car they drive, how many rooms their house has, etc etc

Actually trust in science has generally been going down since the world wars.

As science gets more complicated, harder to understand, and more powerful,
people have begun to trust science and those that study it less and less.

Hence the rise of phenomena like the anti-vax movement.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Actually trust in science has generally been going down since the world wars.

As science gets more complicated, harder to understand, and more powerful,
people have begun to trust science and those that study it less and less.

Hence the rise of phenomena like the anti-vax movement.

When Einstein published his famous theory how many people understood it? Not many I would hazard and yet he became a celebrity. Probably everyone has heard of E=MC^2 but how many people can actually explain it? Not many I would imagine. Thus science has taken on a kind of medieval church guise which is all powerful but not very well understood. One only needs to look at all those Apple corp consumerists to realise that technology is a religion for some people. Sport even more, especially football in the UK.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
When Einstein published his famous theory how many people understood it? Not many I would hazard and yet he became a celebrity. Probably everyone has heard of E=MC^2 but how many people can actually explain it? Not many I would imagine. Thus science has taken on a kind of medieval church guise which is all powerful but not very well understood. One ...[text shortened]... that technology is a religion for some people. Sport even more, especially football in the UK.

'Medieval church guise'? What's that when it's at home?

Originally posted by Dasa
[b]You are an atheist who has a BA in Theology. If it is correct how is it you are not a theist?

The same way that someone with a BA in History does not necessarily have to be a Historian 🙄

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
... technology is a religion for some people. Sport even more, especially football in the UK.

Religion is a "religion" for some people...

Originally posted by divegeester
The same way that someone with a BA in History does not necessarily have to be a Historian 🙄

That is not correct..............

Theology is about God and Self and the relationship between the two.

When a person embraces true theology his/her life changes radically and they certainly become a theist when they were an atheist before.(the KEY word here is True theology.)

I want to know why he was not changed (when in fact he totally embraced theology)........that he actually ended up with a BA. for his effort.

The answer is ....................the theology he was embracing MUST have been false theology..

BUT ................I need Hess to answer this.

Originally posted by Dasa
That is not correct..............

Theology is about God and Self and the relationship between the two.

When a person embraces true theology his/her life changes radically and they certainly become a theist when they were an atheist before.(the KEY word here is True theology.)

I want to know why he was not changed (when in fact he totally embraced theol ...[text shortened]... was embracing MUST have been false theology..

BUT ................I need Hess to answer this.

I understand that it is probably a challenge for someone with your pinhole perspective to comprehend the concept of academia. So now in an attempt to protect your world view architecture and reinforce your internal paradigm, you invent "real theology" and differentiate it from "false theology".

Originally posted by divegeester
I understand that it is probably a challenge for someone with your pinhole perspective to comprehend the concept of academia. So now in an attempt to protect your world view architecture and reinforce your internal paradigm, you invent "real theology" and differentiate it from "false theology".

What is wrong with you?

I gave a reasonable comment that pointed out a very acceptable phenomena.

That phenomena is call enlightenment.

So ..................Why wasn't he enlightened when in fact he embraced the theology so much that he ended up with a BA. for his arduous effort?

Originally posted by Dasa
That phenomena is call enlightenment.

So ..................Why wasn't he enlightened when in fact he embraced the theology so much that he ended up with a BA. for his arduous effort?

Because your understanding of enlightenment s flawed.

Originally posted by Dasa
That is not correct..............

Theology is about God and Self and the relationship between the two.

When a person embraces true theology his/her life changes radically and they certainly become a theist when they were an atheist before.(the KEY word here is True theology.)

I want to know why he was not changed (when in fact he totally embraced theol ...[text shortened]... was embracing MUST have been false theology..

BUT ................I need Hess to answer this.

As part of my degree, i also studied your religion. Does the fact that i graduated as an atheist mean that yours is also a false theology? (as it failed to either embrace or convince me).

To clarify for you, i began my studies with an open mind, and although i enjoyed the subject it wasn't a prerequisite to abandon myself to God. - As Dive said, you can study history and not end up as a historian. Theology was just a subject for me, no different than studying Biology or French. (Religion though, like politics, is a passionate topic that leads to lively debates, the main reason i went on to read it at University).