People who talk to imaginary men in the sky are idiots. Regardless of their indoctrination and emotion.

Discuss.

rhY

A very flamebaity thread for the first post, rhy.

Idiots? Come on. Dial back your tone if you want to have productive dialogue.

Carl Jung did that and he was not an idiot.

I wouldn't call them idiots. I would call them strange

Idiots? Not necessarily, but likely.

Delusional? Absolutely.

Even moreso when they artificially imagine a conversation with a voice on the other end. There are only two things that can cause that- drugs or insanity.

I think anyone who relies on an imaginary friend for spiritual guidance is seriously lacking mental capacity. I wanted to say it that simply and strongly, and wanted to come out swinging. Find me a reasonable person who disagrees, and I'll go home and shut up.

One problem though: My definition of a reasonable person does not include any person who talks to imaginary people, or unseen and unheard beings that cannot be corroborated by another independent and skeptical observer.

What you described is what people call faith. So basically you don't believe in faith then, no big deal.

It's not necessarily the case that they are talking to an imaginary person ...

For example, a person who prays might actually be talking to a portion of their own mind ... something in the back behind a few boxes of ego.

Or perhaps it's a just a type of meditation, that lowers blood pressure, relaxes a person, so they can think more clearly.

What I mean is: even if the proposed explanation doesn't make sense, that doesn't mean there isn't some other real mechanism behind the scenes that's helpful for a person. This would make it a rational activity.

In other words, it's easier for some people to accept God than it is to accept responsibility.

Song lyrics aside, I think people fall back on religion because it makes them feel good about themselves. Like yaaarrrgg said, they could be meditating while praying - who knows, maybe praying really stems from a relaxation exercise before bed, and people started talking to an imaginary being just to make it easier to focus.

There are several problems with your opinions.

1. It's at least possible there's a God. In this case, people who try to talk to him are right, and you're wrong.

2. There is merit in meditation on the spiritual side of life.

3. There is merit in prayer. There are many who believe in God, yet don't believe he meddles in earthly affairs. Yet they pray to him, because they find that verbalizing their difficulties is beneficial to their own soul. So, if God exists and answers prayer, prayer is not idiotic. If God exists and doesn't answer, or if God doesn't exist, then prayer at least helps the person praying.

4. Personally, I find it odd that you completely determine a person's intelligence based on whether they agree with you on an unprovable statement! Odd, and immature.

when we are both dead

i will be able to prove i am right

you will not because we will just return to the earth

I get the last laugh

Are you willing to take the chance of ending away from a possilble(for you, i am smart tnought to realize there must be)creator


good luck

You are alive
obviously different from a rock
You have intellegence, i hope,
Different from a rock

Where did intellegence come from
Where did the universe come from
what was happening 16 billion years ago
or 300 trillion years or that to the 1000 power

obviously the universe had a beginning
even science will tell you that time came into existence with the creation of the universe

What caused the beginning

apparently for eternity a ball was sitting in spcae?? and then it became unstable/disrupted, this started the big bang

what caused the equalibrium of this ball(singularity) to change

wait wait wait oh oh big bang
for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
an object stays at rest until another force acts upon it

what could have caused this except the unmovable mover God?

until i can be proven that i am completely wrong
i feel i have good insurance

either i will die and go to heaven
or i will live as close to the good book as possible and lead a good life(the bible does teach valuable lessons regardless of authenticity)

if we assume for only one second that there is a god
a good man who has a relationship with god will have a better outcome that one who doesn't

if we assume that there is no god
then we both end in the same place

god
Me:01 You:00

NO god
Me:00 You:00

Prove to me that disowning god/ignoring/doubting/anything
is better than having a relationship with a GOd than does/doenst exists

I realize you may call me a fool/idiot but the same goes both ways


INSURANCE AT THE VERY LEAST

Theres several misunderstandings in that post, but im too lazy to reply to them. your score isnt fair either, you cant call game over if there hasnt been a point stated by both sides an equal number of times.

SOrry the first part was just a genral idea of what i see in the world and why i know that there is something more inteligent/powerful than I, whether it even be nature


This was my main point

Who is wiser?
a man with insurance (faith in god/relationship)
or a man without

when the eniviatable will happen: death

sorry but i cant understand the last port of your post

What you are describing is Pascal's Wager. It is a highly unpopular view today, for many reasons. Here are the reasons (from the article):

It assumes that God rewards those who believe in him (I happen to believe in God, but I don't believe that he would discriminate in such a way).

It assumes that Christianity is the only religion that claims you will be judged by God.

It's not real belief. What you are doing is essentially trying to "trick" God, and I don't think that the big guy will fall for it.

It assumes you can choose what to believe in.

There are other counterarguments in the article, and I can probably think of a few more. All in all, it's really quite an absurd claim.

Neither. The theist could have the wrong god, or there could be no god at all, in which case hes spent his whole life worshipping the wrong god, or a non-existant one! In this case the Atheist would have the upper hand, he enjoyed his life, and was not stopped by religous objections to mundane natural things he may want to take part in.

Edit: Ilya has hit the nail on the head with his post too