Abortion: again, it is not *life* we’re arguing about, but being human. what do you mean my argument is so lame? could you elaborate? then who draws the line on what constitutes human and what does not? god? how will we know where he drew i…t? how do you know he draws it at the sperm touching the egg? an apple tree is not an apple tree until it doesn’t look like one. until then, it is just a seed. if your morals prohibit the killing of trees, you can still go into the ground and remove the seed, because it is just a seed, and a seed by definition is not a tree. human “seeds” if you will are not human beings, hence doctors are not “annihilating generations of human beings”, because the fetuses were never human beings to begin with, and whether they are or aren’t is 100% subjective; or is there an objective, absolute, ultimate standpoint on that? what is it and why is it objective, and what is it based on? feel free to express why you think abortion is outrageous, answering these questions in the process.

i think the word delusional needs some explanation: it is someone who believes in something with certainty in spite of massive evidence showing the contrary. now, what part of this applies to doctors performing abortion? because you just called them delusional (and evil, but being evil is subjective here, because it is based on your opinions on this matter, while being delusional is not, so i’ll just deal with the delusional part).

you’re going back to your “everything around us screams of a designer” argument, which i dealt with a couple hundred times during our discussion. just because our limied human mind cannot comprehend the workings of the universe, does it mean that there surely is a creator? not in the slightest, so the “this is too complex to have been a coincidence” argument is null. i repeat, null. if you think it is not, explain why not, but please, stay away from subjective claims, such as “i as a human being think (thus it must be true) that the world is too complex to have been…” because this argument is based on comprehension of our human minds being in accord with the universe’s workings, and that our concept of “too complicated” can be used when defining why the world came to exist; and those are some seriously wrong suppositions.
you gave me no objective examples that even suggest that there is a designer. all of your examples can be explained via non-god-involving ways, but if i missed something, and you have something truly objective in mind, feel free to share.

you still don’t get why i’m not religious. it has nothing to do with me not wanting to be held accountable for my actions, but everything to do with me choosing not to believe in something that there is no evidence of.
of course i could be wrong! but that DOESN’T mean you’re automatically right!
person a: might be anything, i’m not sure, i might even be wrong.
person b: it was god. i’m 100% sure. i’m so not wrong.
which mindset is better suited to consider other possibilities other than what it currently believes? person a? you bet. imagine someone who believes in another, false religion so blindly that there is nothing to convince him otherwise. for me, you are that person.

“I and the millions of other TRUE believers in the world are completely out of our minds, wrong, and have been the cause of all the problems in the world today. THAT, my friend, is a rash, judgemental statement to make.”
did i say that? not exactly. religion itself is to blame for many problems today, however not for ALL the problems of course, and i never said that, neither that individual peaceful people mindig their own business are the cause. i said religion as an idea, as a way of thinking does that, not individual people. that’s why i have no problem with religious individuals, it’s just the effects of HALF THE WORLD being religious that i hate, because it sways the whole of humanity towards “not thinking”.

“When one loses connection with the Creator, he has to invent his own form of reality”
haha, there’s no way i’m going to be the one inventing a form of reality. oh, no. i have all the evidence i need to know that the world i live in is the actual world i actually live in. YOU and half the world are the ones who invent unseen, unknowable, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient beings. i only believe in what i am sure of, and i am only sure of what i can sense with my senses. i don’t “believe”, i “know”, and i “know” because i “experience”. you “know” because you “believe”, and that is a huge difference.

another thought: saying that through abortion, doctors “[annihilate] generations of human beings” is like saying i’m slaughtering puppies because i got my dog sterilized. preventing someone/something from being created is not the same as killing it.

Saying there is a standard of everything, of responsibility too, is in no way contradictory to anything i believe in, i’m just saying that its source is just simply not a creator, but the self-conscious beings around me, who figured it out …thanks to their intellect, which is the result of evolution, which is the result of chance. but yes, i conclude that on the whole, everything around me is pointless and meaningless (in a cosmic way that is, not in an everyday sense), and i conclude this based on the most probable explanations i can come up with while observing the word around me.

the inherent sense of morality which every living being seems to possess (not torturing one another for example) is coded into their dna (by evolution) to make sure their species survives. there is no such thing as absolute morality in the universe, but I think where there are self-conscious beings, there is morality, because otherwise their species couldn’t have evolved to the point it did. I think for us humans here on earth there are “hard-coded” immoral deeds, like baby-killing or torture for example, which make sure that out species survives, and there are “consciously learned” immoral deeds like adultery, which exist to fine-tune our society. none of these are absolute in a truly universal sense, but some of them are necessary for us to survive. morality is nothing else, but a self serving type of thing, which keeps us and our family alive, safe, and the respect that we have for others is at least partially driven by the respect and safety that we ourselves get. our sense of having, or even there being truly absolute morals is false, we only have it because we’re hard-coded with them so that we will survive.

morality: until there is no live entity in the universe, there are no moral standards at all. but. as soon as a living being emerges, which is intelligent enough to be self-conscious, it will start to find out for itself what morality is, because being self-conscious implies being intelligent enough to find out morals on one’s own. “as long as there is no designer, you do not have to live according to any standards whatsoever.” wrong. i have to live according to the society’s standards; the standards that have been evolving for thousands of years. the standards that, as a human being, i, too, possess, not because they come from a creator, but because human beings, as they are intelligent enough to be self-conscious, are able to figure out morals themselves. “the very fact that you choose to live by certain standards automatically” shows not that there’s a designer’s handprint on me, but that I, as a human being, partly possess these morals in my dna, and partly learned them automatically from everyone around me (more on this later).

about ultimate morality: now, I don’t know if I should include the bible here, so I have two separate trains of thought, one including the bible, and one not.

sans bible version: i think i covered this already before, but what the hell. you’re saying that because my ultimate morality does not come from god, i cannot truly differentiate between good and evil, because i have no ultimate standard by which I could make a decision. okay. your ultimate standard for morality is the creator, aka the christian god. why him? who told you that his way should be the ultimate morality? he himself, didn’t he. how do you know that he possesses true morality? how do you know it is not for example satan who does? well, based on what god says of course, because you have no other point of reference. can you be sure that god’s morality is indeed the right one? what if satan’s morality is the right one, god just makes us believe that he is good and satan is evil? what if it’s the other way around? we have to decide somehow. what is a valid way of figuring out which one of them to pick? on our own. there is no other way. “yes there is! god tells us directly!” sure, but how do you know that he possesses the true morality? a vicious, self-contradicting circle. the only way of figuring out which one of them to pick is to figure it out on our own. but if we can do that, we eliminate the need for a creator in the first place.

bible version: ultimate morality is included in the bible, for it is god’s word. i’ve mentioned some horrible examples of morality in the bible in one of my previous posts, like the execution of homosexuals, slavery, adultery, etc. these are all religiously based absolute moralities. if this is the case, I don’t think I want an absolute morality. if you look at the standards accepted among modern people, we don’t believe in slavery anymore, oppression of women, etc. but these are all things which are entirely recent. they have little to no basis in biblical scripture, they are things that have developed over history through consensus, reasoning, arguments, moral philosophy etc, but not religion, to the extent that you have to cherrypick from the bible to find acceptable bits of good morality. if you find them, you say “oh look, that’s religion!”, and you leave out all the bits going against today’s morals, because, I don’t know. now, I hope you don’t believe in this latter “the bible is the true source of morality”. i think being able to actually reconcile some of the obviously wrong morals written in the bible with today’s standards is one of the most deranged concepts of christianity.

Would it really be a huge stretch calling the term “love” simply “not specific enough”? i think not. both of them manifest spiritually as well as physically (wanting to hug your parents for example), so it is understandable that people see the two so closely together as to have given them the same name. still, i agree that they’re distinct emotions, simply because of, yes, different chemicals.

where do morals stem from. so what is morality? it is basically the differentiation between good and bad. now i assume you’re asking how we came to have an agreement on what good and bad things are. i also also assume you’re saying it could have only come from god, because human beings can not discover on their own what is good and bad (because if they could, there would be no need for god). okay. how could humans discover that god was good and satan was evil? if you asked god and satan which one of them was evil, how would you know which one to believe? on the basis of the standard god wrote down of course. wait, why not the one wrote by satan? what is a valid way of figuring out which one is which – without randomly picking one of course – without having an ability to discover it own your own? but then again, if people can do that, then there’s no need for god.
“but since god created everything, he decides what’s right or wrong” – and you know this because god told you that he was the one who did it. if satan claimed that he himself had created everything, and that god was his creation as well, how could we decide who was telling the truth?

the logical conclusion is that human beings are able to distinguish right from wrong themselves. no morals are absolute, you just have to simply “do unto others as you would have done to you” i think, and this sums up the whole idea. and just because this is in the bible, it doesn’t mean it stems from god himself, but that people who wrote the bible figured some great morals out themselves.

The term “divine” in a broader sense can be used to refer to concepts that exceed humans’ comprehension capabilities. that’s all well and good, but we’re talking about an actual self-conscious deity here (namely the christian god), and not the concept of infinity, timelessness, eternity, whatnot, which are in my opinion should not be considered divine just because we can’t comprehend them.

even before i read your comment, i knew that you were going to comment on the faith healer topic. what you’re saying is that your way of healing is basically placebo. you give nothing to your patient, but the belief that he would heal faster, and he does. the brain works in mysterious ways, and it can affect the body in lots more ways than you would think. still, the placebo effect is as factual and measurable as it gets. yes, it brings happiness, hope and stuff like that to people, but it doesn’t change why the healing happens, and that is not divine, rather a “mind trick” as you put it.

there is indeed love which is unlike the “mating type”. this one is instinctive. i’m not a neurobiologist, but i can assure you that if i was, i could conclusively state that there’s nothing divine about being attached to one’s parents. hell, animals do it. it is not a conscious decision whether to love your parents or not when you’re little. humans and animals alike instinctively love / feel affection towards their parents, which exists to make sure that the offspring stays alive until it reaches adulthood (or even after that). do you really think that just because there are multiple aspects of feeling love, one must come from a divine source? why is that?

what you’re saying about there being great morals in most religions is 100% true. i don’t think it’s a bad thing if someone believes in and lives by those guidelines, but we’re not arguing about morals here (for which there can be many sources and obviously not only religion), but mainly about the existence of the deity of christians, or any deity for that matter.

you’re making a huge mistake which is typical to religious folk. just because something has no scientific explanation (because we can and will never know everything) doesn’t mean that it must be divine. scientist: “i don’t know, might be anything, even something divine”. religious guy: “it was god. period. no doubt. if you’re in doubt you will burn in hell for eternity”. there has never been a *scientifically proven* miraculous healing of someone, or any proven divine intervention for that matter. period.

“Jesus healed people, trillions saw it!” – we don’t have any first-hand evidence of that, hearsay doesn’t count. would you believe me if i told you that my neighbour made my gallstones disappear, oh, and by the way, he’s the son of god?

“she started walking after 25 years of being confined to a wheelchair!” your brain can affect your body in truly amazing ways, it just needs a little placebo nudge.

“doctors said he was going to die, but his tumor shrank thanks to our prayers!” really? prayer? do i really need to go into the countless contradictions it would introduce if it was effective?

first, a question: how come god never healed someone with a visible physical deformity (for example growing back a severed leg or transforming someone’s burnt face)? now, my point: there is a reason why there has never been a well-documented miracle in recorded history. miracles do not happen. you could come up with a gazillion rationalizations, and i think you will, but it doesn’t change the facts, only reassures you in your belief, and you NEED to have miracles in order to have god, in order to keep having answers for everything.

the “if i believe it will be so”: of course if i believe in something, i know it won’t be like that. it might get me into the mindset of actually doing something other than “having faith” or “believing” that it can happen. but in the context of a believer, solely believing in something is supposed to help on its own, and supposed to help that something “come closer to existing”. what do you make of prayer? don’t bother, i’ll tell you what it is: another comforting concept, which makes you feel as if you had done something, while in reality, you’ve just been talking to yourself, hoping that a being which created THE CONCEPT OF EXISTENCE, THUS EVERYTHING THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS IN THIS WORLD is listening to you, and will alter his DIVINE PLAN to fit *your* liking. seriously?

now, coincidences: the lots of things which are nowadays seen as coincidence by science are rather seen as “probably coincidence but science is not sure; this is the best explanation we can come up with because of the lack of proof”, but religions says “it is our god. period.”. looking for something divine in the unknown is exactly why people created the concept of god in the first place. as i’ve mentioned, some people can not deal with “not knowing”, so they invented something to fill those holes to soothe their anxiety.

human qualities, different personalities, emotions, ergo EVERYTHING we feel are created by our very own brains. even creativity, even inspiration, even conscience, etc. the reasons are highly unlikely to be divine. of course there is a chance that the reasons ARE divine, but by the same rationale there is a realistic possibility that the tooth fairy exists; religion makes people believe something exists just because we can’t prove the opposite. that logic is simply dumb. also, if the tooth fairy was believed to be omnipotent, i assure you there WOULD be people genuinely believing it exists. having a divine “component” in the world is very tempting, because it seemingly has all the answers science will surely never have.

no matter how laughably ridiculous and obviously made up concepts are indroduced, like an actual talking snake or a magical granddaddy living outside of time and space, or any divine concept taken for granted for that matter, christians (or religious people in general) genuinely accept them, because they DESPERATELY need those holes filled. challenge: ask a religious person any question for which his answer will be “no one can know”. there’s no such question. god knows everything, deals with my petty “where’s my car keys” problems, helps me out or punishes me once in a while, and does things that feature my irrelevant, blink-of-an-eye-lifespan ass in his great, divine plan. self-delusion at its finest.

people of reason however can say “i don’t know”. we accept that there are a great deal of things which are out of the reach of our senses and intellect. yes, we will die not knowing what infinity is. yes, we will die not knowing how the universe came into existence; but we can deal with all this without, again, having to invent an imaginary, comfortig concept, which has all the answers wrapped up in a neat little package called god.

people around the world believe in SO many different gods, prophets, whatnot, and they are SO ignorant towards this painstakingly obvious contradiction. they all fail to see their error, thus miss out on seeing the world for what it really is: a miracle on its own, without any magical men high up in the sky.

i couldn’t answer everything again, tomorrow i’ll get back to you. meanwhile, a suggestion: read some Richard Dawkins, “the god delusion” for example. we both know you won’t, also that i won’t read your Christ-books either, so recommending books back and forth is futile.