Ah yes the indignant self righteousness of the believer.

See I lead my life the best way I know and I believe that I am a good person. Yet you have the gumption to tell me I will not find eternal happiness if I don't accept your way of thinking and your holy book and blindly worship your god.

The FSM is not a means to mock your belief, but to point out this blind hypocrisy that you willingly propagate.

Here we go again. You never learn... neither one.

No Wes, it is you that will never learn. To you, your rapture cult is the One and Obvious Truth (TM) but everybody else also says that about their religion. Neither your empty threats, nor your emotional pleading will every make us accept that you are party to some cosmic knowledge and proof of what happens after we die.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a parody religion but it is no less ridiculous than Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Scientology, Raelianism etc...

I have an honest question for you, Matt. I understand the idea that the burden of proof is on the believer and that one could come up some ridiculous example like belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster. But I mean we're talking about God here (and I'm not really talking about any one religion's idea of God, but just God in general). Don't you think that comparing something like the F.S.M. to God is a little over the top? I mean whether or not God is real is a rather big issue, it has been a question man has tried to answer for thousands and thousands of years. I guess my question is, is it really a good comparison when you're equating something obviously ridiculous and fake like a spaghetti monster and a creator of our universe? Isn't there a considerably better chance that matter was created by some type of higher power than there existing some random creature you made up to prove a point?

Not really. A case in point for how ridiculous concepts can grow to be big we need only look at Scientology. The founder is L. Ron Hubbard, a man who famously said (paraphrased) "there are two ways to achieve immortality. To write a bestselling piece of fiction and to invent a religion", he is also said to have had a bet with Robert A. Heinlein that he could start a religion. Hubbard did both and the fact that Scientology is quite an obvious sham doesn't really seem to affect its popularity, does it?

Cargo cults are another case in point and I believe this is how the major religions of the world have developed, not through some divinely inspired knowledge imparted to a few.

We can never really separate religion from the concept of god. Where we are born always has a huge influence on our perception of the metaphysical: Your post is a case in point "you're equating something obviously ridiculous and fake like a spaghetti monster and a creator of our universe?". Who says that only a single god created our universe? Many religions believe that a pantheon of gods were responsible or that there are many gods but the universe was created by a handful. How do we decide who is right? This is why the burden of proof is on the believer. Every religion has a different idea of what that creator is and what it expects of us. To only use the Judeo-Christian concept is as asinine as it is dishonest. A case in point here was when I gave an example of Raelianism at 1oldminer, he scoffed at Raelianism because to him it was ridiculous. Where do we draw the line between what is ridiculous and what isn't? Do we let intellectually destitute people like 1oldminer decide? No thanks. This is why I have dismissed all religions as absurd. And if the religions are absurd on the surface then it stands to reason that they are absurd to the core.


Not really, no. People who believe in this higher power must prove it. Appeals to emotion and threats of what will happen when we die does not demonstrate knowledge. They really only cover up the intellectual failings in the concept, gaping holes in their doctrine and sheer desperation. Any concept should stand on the evidence it presents, not enforcing nonsense through excommunication, heresy and blasphemy laws. You can't enforce your opinion as truth through emotional or physical violence either.

You speak very high of your intelligence,wisdom and education matt. Many many were those who were sought to prove or disprove the existance of God with thier natural eyes instead of thier hearts. Many sought for signs and demanded a demostration from God to prove his power.

Many people like you matt will never, never come to know and understand God until you humble yourself and do away with your pride and become teachable as a child is teachable to recieve instruction from his parent.

Those who harden thier and minds to the things of God will never truly understand His word. You can give me or Wes or anyone else all kinds of passages in the Bible in your attempt to discredit the book....yet you will never understand its spiritual message because you lack humility to recieve it in your heart.

I don't claim to be a highly educated person, and while it is always a good thing to get as much education as you can... but I found much greater wisdom from mentally challenged people than I have with many people with master's degrees and college/university education.

For God has decreed that His Gospel shall be taught and recieved by the weak things of the world; for they will understand what God wants them know for they have already prepared thier hearts to recieve His knowledge and instruction. For God's word shall confound the wise and mighty for they shall not recieve His word because they lack humility.

Though he is on my ignore list I had to toggle this post to see his response. And just as I predicted, it is full of vague threats and emotional blackmail.

The fact that he cannot and will not defend his beliefs with anything worth reading is indicative that he is fully aware that his beliefs cannot stand on the merit of their argument, and that they must resort to emotional blackmail. That may work on some people but for others it just pushes them further and further away.

No matt I have not defended my beliefs based on vague threats or emotional blackmail. I have repeatly given you examples of God's existence but you refuse to believe. I suspect even if Jesus Himself were to appear before you face to face and showed the imprints of His feet and hands, you'd still refuse to believe that He is who He is. Even if He showed His godly powers, it still wouldn't convince you, just like many of the ancient Isrealites.

You simply chose to not believe and have become spiritually blind. You have the right to follow whatever philosophies of man may be, for that very being whose existance you deny, gave you agency to choose to believe or not to believe. I have made no threats to you in my arguements. I can give my testemony of my faith, I cannot force you to believe what I say. But if I have to I'll defend my faith.

Okay Matt, fair enough, but I'm trying to look at this more from the perspective of a philosophical and general belief in God (or Gods- sorry if I implied that I'm opposed to that possibility) than I am from any single religion's view. I agree with you that a lot of religions are corrupt and are speaking for man rather than God. I don't really care to get into the problems I have with any in particular, because I think it distracts from the point. Just because mankind might be totally off the mark about God(s) doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. We should never to presume to limit God by virtue of man's understanding of the universe.

Regarding your last paragraph, I basically agree with you. But my question is don't you as an atheist have the burden of proof just as much as a theist? For example, I can beg the old philosophical question "why is there something rather than nothing?" Science tells us that matter cannot create itself. So if you do not believe there is a God, either a) you believe matter created itself or b) matter always existed. If you believe in (a) then you are accepting something contrary to the law of conservation of energy. If you believe in (b) then you accept that the time frame in which we live right now has been preceded by actual infinity, which seems to be a lot more confusing than a belief in God. So as an atheist aren't you accepting something in "faith"?

Let me ask you a question. If I claimed that carrots are sentient beings dedicated to overthrowing the human race, and their guise of being tasty vegetables was merely a ruse to make us underestimate them, would you still feel that the burden of proof should be shared equally between me proving my theory and you disproving it? No. The burden of proof lies with the person who claims something that flies in the face of common sense. And quite frankly, genocidal sky fairies fit that category.