OrangeHound wrote:
Mitch wrote:
The president letting world choices be influenced by a belief in god pisses me off. I dont care what party he is.
I think i would deffinitly feel better if we had an Atheist president.
Perhaps we do ... in an interview a couple of years ago, I specifically remember a reporter asking Bush how much influence his Christianity had on the decision to go to war with Iraq. Bush said something like "it had absolutely no influence." So, if the biggest decision of his Presidency was not influenced by God, then perhaps nothing else of his presidency is influenced by God ....
I seem to recall Bush saying on several occasions that major decisions were influenced by what he believed God wanted him to do. Here's one, though, of course, the quote the article is based on was not direct. Even if you discount these quotes, which, admittedly, are rather shaky, I seem to recall Bush saying publically on more than one occasion that he believes God wanted him to perform certain actions in his capacity as the leader of the country. Medical professionals have prescribed anti-psychotics for less.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1586978,00.htmland
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/internat … 50,00.htmlNot to mention seemingly packing various parts of his administration with graduates of christian colleges. Colleges, I might add, that score among the worst in the country in terms of academics:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/hi … ol/?page=2There are many other examples of politicians basing political decisions on personal religious convictions, specifically on the issues of homosexuality, abortion and lesser issues like the ten commandments in public spaces, and in almost all of these cases there was no objective basis for their positions. (Homosexuality is a non-issue as far as all the pertinent medical authorities are concerned, life, vis a vis 'being human', does not start at conception as far as science is concerned, and the lesser issues like prayer in school are, for the most part, lightning rod issues that merely ensure the support of various gullible groups of voters).
In short: I, too, would feel much better with an atheist president.
Chaos_nation wrote:
What pisses me off is the lack of respect shown to others who do not agree with your view. Just because you do not understand the principles behind a subject such as religion (You don't understand the holy trinity even which is one of the simplest of concepts [from another thread]), it does not give you the right to disrespect the values that others hold dear in their lives by making the statements you have in this thread and by posing such unreasoned questions that show no thought or real argument. When I read the initial post, I saw one thing that was clear, you don't understand religion at all so you take the easy option of picking someone else's argument and then posting it here. This thread would be less disgusting if you had reasoned your arguments properly, but I doubt whether you have learned anything about reasoned arguments either....you sure know nothing at all about religion.
I will give you a very good example of how God exists. Millions of people around this tiny planet we live on believe in a God (whatever form they deem it to be), be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever their faith is. There is your proof. It is absolute... God exists for people who chose to follow God. No more proof is needed.
You cannot show me the science of gravity but since we can see its effects, we can happily believe in i. Why? because scientists have reasoned the theory and it is a concept we can believe.
We cannot prove the existence of God, but we can see the effects of believing in a God. And for millions of people who are far more informed than you are to argue the concept, that is enough for them.
Therefore....GOD EXISTS. Case closed.
For someone berating another for a lack of a properly reasoned arguement, this is one of the least convincing cases for the existence of God that I've heard in a while. In fact, the idea that every single culture on the planet has their own set of mythos and/or God(s) is pretty compelling evidence that there is no one God; if there was a single, all controlling God, it would be a relatively simple for Him/Her/It to ensure that every culture ascribed to (or was at least exposed to, so that they might have a chance to ascribe to) His/Her/Its particular set of beliefs, but that hasn't happened. Christianity, for example, arose in one geographical location and was carried from there in the typical fashion (word of mouth, missionaries, etc). Logically, If the Christian God did indeed love all of His creations and wished them all to have an equal chance of getting into the Kingdom of Heaven via faith in Him and whatnot, he would not have condemned people from every other geographical location on Earth for never having a chance to convert.
My point: If you ascribe to the Christian religious beliefs as laid out in the Bible, hundreds of millions of people have gone to hell for the simple reason that they were never exposed to christianity. It's hard to believe in Jesus Christ as your personal savior when Jesus Christ's believers never showed up on your small remote island and told you about him. Hence, it is highly unlikely that the Bible is literally factual in this regard, and far more likely that it was designed as a set of beliefs to better the culture(s) that were exposed to it. The same applies to pretty much every other religion, as they all generally set forth what are considered 'good ideas' from a logical standpoint (I.E: Don't kill people (killing people is bad for society) Don't have sex with anyone but your wife (society is more stable when everyone isn't sleeping around with everyone else, especially with concerns to raising children) and dont believe in anything but the religion that you already belong to (it's easier to coordinate the behaviors of large groups of people when they all share a common set of beliefs)). Thus, from an objective standpoint, it is far more likely that all of the varied religions arose as a means for their respective society's to operate more efficiently than it is that any one supernatural entity set them in motion.
Unless, of course, you were making the arguement that God exists as an idea and not as an actual entity, in which case you are entirely correct. There are billions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc, all with their own beliefs, and, to each of those individual groups, their particular God or belief system does exist, but not in a physical way.
LOl it could be a whole lot worse
