Dear Bhagat Singh Ji and Tejwant Singh Ji and a.mother Ji,
Thank you for your replies!
It was a bit odd to see you disappear and become mum all of a sudden
or were you on some penance journey of Atheism? j/k.
Haha no I was being punished by the Flying Spaghetti Monster this time
for eating pasta.
I asked Seeker3k in post #'s 153 and 155 to be honest and read all 16
pages to prove what he claimed that I said and be honest about it. He
unfortunately disappeared and I ask you the same question as you agree
with Seeker3K to be honest about it. Take your time and do not
disappear as he did.
Yes I will be happy to go through what he claimed and will attempt to
go one by one through his points:
"People always do not want to explain their belief."
Basically he is saying that sometimes, people do not want to explain
their belief. I see this most often in christians. I talk of
evolution, and they talk of creationism. But they don't really
explain their belief, they just recite the bible and stop there. I
will grant of course that you are doing more than the various
christians I have talked to, as you are taking time to type up
responses to a non-believer (ie, me). But generally speaking it is
true that people sometimes (yes not always) do not want to explain their belief.
"There are few million Sikhs in the world they all don’t believe same.
Every one has their personal belief."
The religious almanac suggests at least 20 million Sikhs worldwide
right? The number may be off a little, but regardless there really are
a few million Sikhs in the world. I agree they all don't believe the
same thing. For example, some believe very strongly that
vegetarianism is a Sikh law, whereas others say that it is optional.
From my understanding, most Sikh scholars agree that it is optional
(correct me if I'm wrong). I however will remain vegetarian because
for me it's not an issue of what the scriptures say, it's an issue of
doing the right thing. I simply cannot justify a more palatable meal
at the expense of an innocent pig or cow. But this is a completely
separate topic.
Every one has their personal belief, he claims. I think that's true.
Take any two people, even on this forum. No two people have identical
beliefs. Even two atheists will have different beliefs (their only
commonality is a dis-belief in a god). My parents may believe that
eating eggs is wrong, however our family friend who has also taken
amrit believes that eating eggs is ok. Neither the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji nor any other
scripture definitively talked about eating eggs (again correct me if
I'm wrong and I will look up the passage).
"All religious people believe that God created man"
In medicine I like this saying: "Never say never or always, because
someone will always disprove you." So I avoid using the word "all" as
well. Now in this claim, it is suggested that if you are religious
you will believe that some entity was responsible for your creation
(ie, god created man). Even if you believe in evolution, the starting
point was still god, who made it possible for our creation (yes this
is sounding like a personal god, the god I was brought up with). Even
with a pantheistic god one can say that god created man, because if
god is the total sum of everything, and we came from that everything,
then we came from god and god created humans. Of course there may be
an exception lurking somewhere who is religious but thinks that god
did not create humans. I of course cannot talk for every religious
person.
"Man get angry at other man if the other man make a mistake. So men
also believe God also get angry and punish man who made the mistake"
People get angry all the time, which is at least in part why the Gurus
said anger is one of the 5 vices. I have seen mistakes in the
hospital and people get mad. Humans believe god gets angry and
punishes them? Yes, read the old testament and this is certainly
true. God is a jealous and angry entity. I digress but here is a
quote from Professor Richard Dawkins:
"The god of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; petty, unjust,
unforgiving, control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic
cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,
filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malevolent bully."
So yes humans do believe that god gets angry. Perhaps not all humans
but certainly the majority as is seen with the old testament. Does
god punish man? According to the mormons, the native americans were
punished and their punishment was dark skin. So people do believe that
god punishes people.
"Isn’t it true that man created God?"
Well obviously this is the whole point of this entire discussion. No
one on this planet can prove or disprove this claim, however the
evidence is highly on the side of humans creating god. See chapter 4
of The God Delusion by Professor Richard Dawkins for an exhaustive
review of this very question.
"Religious people worship God so that they don’t have to go to hell or
be born again."
Christians worship god to avoid going to hell, as is evidenced by
numerous conversations I have had with christians (and mormons). What
about to avoid being born again? A Hindu philosopher came to talk to
us once and told us a story of a Hindu Brahmin (if my memory serves me
correctly) who asks god why he continues to be born again, given his
last couple lives were sin-less. So clearly that person wanted to
avoid being reborn. The salok at the end of japji sahib says "some
gets closer and some get further," suggesting that via reincarnation
you either get closer to "breaking the cycle" of transmigration or further.
Throughout my life I have constantly heard "breaking the cycle of
transmigration" which shows that people want to avoid being born
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=29504
again. Who wouldn't? I'd rather have heaven than come down (or up
from China's viewpoint) again.
"Is the life is so bad here on this earth that we don’t want to come back?"
Well if heaven is pure 100% bliss as is described by every religious
person I've talked to so far (who commented specifically on it), then
yes heaven is better than earth. According to mormons, when you die
(if you are mormon) you become a god and have your own planet. What's
a better deal than that?
"God is figment of imagination"
This again is the whole point of this conversation. I think god, just
like santa claus, is a figment of our imagination. Again, cannot be
proven either way.
"In Japji Guru Nanak made it clear that God don’t have body, God can
not be seen God do not take birth. If God can’t be seen or heard nor
he speaks then chances are God is not real."
As far as I know god is formless, timeless, does not take birth, does
not die, etc. If something cannot be seen or heard and does not speak
it is difficult to conclude that it is not real. Gravity cannot be
seen, heard, and does not speak yet clearly exists. Same for energy.
I would revise seeker's statement because I don't think you can
conclude that god is not real BASED SOLELY on the fact that she/he/it
cannot be seen or heard from. I still of course agree that taking
everything into account that we know, god is not real.
"If God don’t have body then it is understanding that he don’t have
heart, “man” Ho can God bless some one or punish some one"
I don't know what he is getting at here...
"Many religious people asking the atheists to prove that there is no
God. One can not prove if nothing is there. It is the believer who
have to prove that there is God."
100% correct. It is impossible to prove negatives. You can't prove
that the flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist. But you would never
use that fact to believe that it DOES exist. Similarly I cannot prove
that god does not exist, but I would never use that fact to believe
that god DOES exist.
Quite simply the onus is always on the person
claiming that something exists, not the other way around. "There was a time when God did every thing. He makes fire he made
rain, he made the air.
Now we know that is not what God does."
What he is saying is that when we knew even less than we do now, we
would always say "god did it," as in god made it rain when the crops
were dry, etc. Now we know what causes rain and we have learned a lot
more. Slowly but surely there are fewer and fewer things that we need
god to explain. Where do babies come from? It was just accepted that
babies come from god, now we know how women get pregnant.
"Most people claim the ardas is heard by God. God has no body so no
ears. God can not hear the ardas. Lets say he can hear the ardas. When
we leave for the journey. We say the ardas that God protect us from
getting hurt. If it was meant to be that we are destin to die in the
accident then doing the ardas can God change what was already set by
him? Can judge who make the laws also can break the LAWS? So why do we
do the ardas? Are we trying to bribe the God by doing the ardas? Or
putting few penies in front of the Granth Sahib."
This is what a lot of atheists will agree to. My parents always told
me that god hears our ardas. But seeker makes a good point - if you
were destined to die in the accident then the ardas would not have
saved us. So if god decides that, why do ardas? This of course is a
separate issue that could take another forum to answer.
And lastly seeker is saying that atheists can be just as moral as
religious people. I am an atheist, and the head of the KKK is a
religious devout christian. I would hope I am more moral...
We will talk about the rest of your post later because you have been
dishonest in this one too. I never claimed Sikhi to be a religion or a
belief as you have claimed in this post, rather to the contrary.
Well that's quite a claim to say that I am dishonest. If I spoke a
lie then I ask for your forgiveness. If Sikhi is NOT a religion and
NOT a belief, then what is it? Certainly if Sikhi teaches the
existence of god (whatever definition you want to use) and
reincarnation and karma that it is a belief right? I mean it could be
much more than just a belief, but it would still be a belief
nevertheless right?
So , please take your time, read all the 16 pages of interaction
because honesty is not a belief or a non- belief. It is what Guru
Nanak calls- truthful living.
"Truth is highest of all...higher still is truthful living."
-Guru Nanak
Onto BhagatSingh Ji:
Atheist ji,
What kind of evidence would be sufficient for you? What would prove to
you that there is a God?
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=29504
I asked this to myself but could not come up with an answer. I
understand there is no evidence for God and so next step is to figure
out what kind of evidence it would take to show that there is one (or
more).
The answer: The same kind of evidence that would be sufficient to
convince you that jesus is the son of god, and the same kind of
evidence that would be sufficient to convince you that there is a
flying spaghetti monster.
You are right, there is no evidence. The only kind of evidence that
is sufficient is empirical evidence which of course there is none for
god (why would god want to remain so mysterious? He could end the
controversy instantly by intervening right.......NOW...but he didn't). If there is no
evidence, then I have trouble devoting my life to something based
solely on faith.
Onto a.mother,
I enjoyed reading your response and can tell that you are devoting a good part of your day typing up thought-filled responses. I can tell your genuine concern for me and I can't say I don't appreciate it. However, you must not think that I am "confused." I am not confused, just curious as to why other people believe in god. You explained why you do, so you answered my question. But I am not confused, I just realize that god & religion are based on wishful thinking (the theology bit). The philosophical side of religion is different...but we don't have to know that jesus was born of a virgin to appreciate the golden rule.
Cheers,
Atheist
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