Quote from: CoinCube on March 08, 2019, 01:49:39 AM

Quote from: af_newbie on March 06, 2019, 07:13:40 PM

You have no proof that afterlife or any Gods exist, yet you somehow think you stand on the higher moral ground by having these irrational beliefs.

Goodness can also be brought by people who do not contemplate God and are convinced that belief in the supernatural is a bunch of horseshit. How would you explain that? LOL.

You are an enigma to me. You seem to understand what I am talking about, but yet have this mental block when it comes to your irrational assumption about the 'creator of the universe who influences the world through the actions of people who believe in him'.

How in the world can you prove that your God influences the actions of people who contemplate him? Aren't hardcore Atheists not God's children? Aren't billions of Hindus or Chinese Buddhists not God's children?

Its very easy to prove God influences the actions of people who contemplate him there are examples of this happening every day. Here is a personal one.

I am a physician. Yesterday I had a patient come in to see me who was very poor and on Medicaid. In my field most providers in my specialty do not take Medicaid because it does not pay particularly well. The patient in question was a candidate for an interventional procedure I do to help with her condition. Most private insurances would have paid for it Medicaid will not because well because its Medicaid and sometimes you get what you pay for when it comes to insurance. So I put her on my schedule and will do the procedure for free. Why, because I can, she can benefit, and she honestly has no way to pay for it. She is poor I am not. I would not have done that 5 years ago before I started to contemplate God. In fact I would not have seen her at all because business is business and it is certainly not good business to do things for free or for that matter to see Medicaid patients at all. Now did God do that or did I do that? Well it was certainly me but I only did so because at some point in my life I started to contemplate God. So God gets the lions share of the credit probably all the credit because it was ultimately God and my contemplation of him that led to the act of mercy.

Goodness can indeed be brought into the world by people who do not contemplate God. Hardcore Atheists and billions of Hindus or Chinese Buddhists are most definitely God's children. Undeniably many of them by our very lenient human standards are good. You seem to place a high value on charity and helping others. Perhaps you would have done the exact same in my shoes. Perhaps you would do far more good and for far greater numbers if you had the exact same resources and skill sets I do. That is not the point. Some people are innately taller, some stronger, and other are more inherently good or evil then others. I am somewhere in the middle not particularly good not particularly evil average overall, I'd say except for academics I was blessed to be above average in that area. These differences are often inherent some people are naturally compassionate other have no inherent empathy at all.

The question is how we exceed ourselves. How do we go beyond our build in default condition? What is the best way to become good if we are not naturally very good or become better if we are already good? The answer is two-fold: 1) we can in theory fundamentally change ourselves at the biological or mental level. We lack the ability to do this now but there is no doubt this kind of change is coming soon and will almost certainly go catastrophically awry if we are not much wiser by the time it gets here 2) We can accept a fundamental Truth and worldview that forces attention to goodness front and center and into every aspect of our lives and propagate that Truth into the future. This second option is transformative. If chosen on a large enough scale it may just prevent or more realistically delay our self-destruction once the first option becomes possible.

The mental block is yours as is ultimately the irrationality I understand your particular block well enough to know that you will translate all of this as my psychological need for irrational beliefs or God in order to "feel good" or "be good" or address my insecurities. In doing so you will entirely miss the point. I understand why you think the way you do because I once shared a worldview not all that different from your and then rejected it so it is not hard for me to slip into old habits and envision the world as you do. The reverse is probably not true hence the enigma.

CoinCube,

I still do not see that it was God who influenced you to help the lady. It was you, not your God. You might think it was God, but the reality is it was you and only you who made that decision. You could have done the same thing if you contemplated your own life, the life of other people around you, or humanity in general.

People think the God helps them because it is a useful psychological self-help. It builds confidence in your actions.

It is like people who in survival situations believe that everything will be ok and survive, will actually increase the chances of survival.

Same goes for sick people, those who believe that they will get better (believers or Atheists) will actually get better without medical intervention. Some religious people will scream 'miracle', but the reality is that the body's immune system is helped when patients reduce stress.

The use of your psychological help (aka God) is fine if you need it, but it does not make him or her real.

Like I said before, many people who know that your God does not exist do a lot of good in their communities. It is not God it is people who do good things. I hope you understand that much.

BTW, there are also many people who kill or start wars in the name of (your or other) Gods. Do you remember George W. Bush conversations with God? Did you see what ISIS is doing? These people are convinced they are influenced by God, but the reality is they are doing what they are doing.

People are responsible for their good and bad actions. Only people, there is no God involved because God does not exist.

God is the product of an overactive imagination. That is all.