"Socrates of R&S" and other atheists: My response to your challenge: Why does humanity seem to have an innate.

Question

desire and need to worship something, or someone?
Why is there such a universal religious sense within humanity?

2)Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA? Information doesn’t just appear by itself. Someone has to put it there. God.

3)What about the evidence of design in all of creation? It is obvious that anything that is designed has to have an intelligent creator. For example, a computer never came about by mere accident, but had to have been thought out and planned by an intelligent designer. It is the same with creation, and more so, as the natural world is far more complicated than anything humanity can create. God is the answer.

4)How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Jesus Christ?

5)Isn’t it a bit extreme to assert "God does not exist"?

I have more, but I will have to wait as I am running out of space and questions for the day.

I see Socrates has backed down

Answer 1

You don't know much about DNA do you.

http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/

Please read then answer

As for religion and God and Jesus

http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/transference.html


http://www.braungardt.com/Essays/Freud's%20view%20of%20Religion.htm#_Toc532416977


http://www.geocities.com/nephilimnot/horus.html

Answer 2

Hmm I guess I missed out on that "innate desire and need to worship something or someone" I feel no such desire or need in fact I hate the idea of that

2) It comes from mutation... nobody has to "put it there' as you say it can accumulate over time in a biological organism. Where do you think viruses get the information needed to become immune to vaccines?? they are exposed and they adapt. It's like learning.. you weren't born knowing everything were you?

3) Well if that is true then you have to admit that god is an incredible design and so must have a designer, then that designer must have a designer and so on into infinity ad nauseum... By the way a computer is not a living being it cannot change, it cannot adapt it cannot mutate. You are saying eveything came about instantly with all its complexities intact.. I'm saying life started out simple and became more complex by adapting to the information in the environment and discarding irrelevant information, in favor of useful information. It's like learning for DNA... except its in a school where if you don't learn the right thing you die and you never pass on what you learned... Ha look at the first computers compared to the ones of today, they didn't start out perfect we learned as we went and changed things.. discarded parts that didn't really add to the design and kept and improved upon others that did.. see? not so hard to imagine is it?

4) How do you explain all the other religions throughout history whos followers claimed the same thing? How do you explain the people who testify to a life changing experience with Zeus or Odin or the Goddess??

5) Isn't it a bit extreme to assert "God does exist"? How about admitting you don't know if God, Zeus, Anubis, Odin, Allah, Krishna or any other god/s exist you just have your own beliefs.. How about you look around and say I don't know but I am not going to claim I do?? Why don't we seperate belief from knowledge and pursue each seperately??

The only innate characteristic I can see that contributes to human belief in religion is our inherent fear of the unknown and our innate drive to try and explain it.. Religion gives you all the answers doesn't it? All the comfort you could want because it removes all unknowns... Sorry I prefer questioning and living with the trepidation of not knowing but being willing to learn and search for that knowledge.

Answer 3

1) Because it is easier to believe in someone else responsible for all, looking after us, and a death that isn't really death as there is an afterlife

2) Information doesn’t just appear by itself, that is called genetic changes due to external pressures. Darwin, Darwin, Darwin... By the way, we have much less genes than originally thought and some of it was added by viruses.

3) So who created the creator? And by the way, it is obvious that human made objects have creators, I am less sure about a blade of grass and the human body is so poorly designed that if there was a creator he should be ashamed of himself.

4) How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Buddha?
Or are you talking about the victims of the European religious wars? That certainly was a life changing experience for them.

5) Isn’t it a bit extreme to assert "God exists" without proof but blind faith?

Answer 4

1) a desire for easy answers. "God Did It!"

2) look up evolution. It has been gone through countless times before.

3) There is no evidence of design. Behe, the poster boy for Intelligent Design, admitted as such under oath at the Dover trial.

For a disproof of ID look up sickle cell anemia as an example of Bloody Stupid Design:
Why have a resistance to disease when that resistance can kill you? ID would produce a safe version of resistance.
Why do only Africans have resistance when lots of other people are exposed to Malaria?

4) How do you explain the devotion to the Hindu gods? They have been around longer so they must be close to the original true religion. How do you explain the devotion of Muslims. Islam is the latest main religion so is the most refined. How do you explain the devotion to the Greek gods? The Aztec gods? The Norse gods? What does it take to make your realize the inanity of this question?

5) No. I have the same evidence for unicorns, dragons and mermaids existing as I do for god (ie none except for some reports in old books). If you believe in god, why do you not believe in unicorns, dragons and mermaids?

Answer 5

2. So, where did the incredibly complex God come from?
3. So who created God? If he has always been, then not everything needs a creator, does it?
4. How do you explain the changed lives of all the Buddhists throughout history? I.e. change comes from within and humans are also highly suggestible.
5. Given the evidence (or lack thereof) it seems only logical to assert that "God does not exist."

And for #1, I don't see that humanity has an innate desire to worship something nor is there a universal religious sense within humanity.

Answer 6

"Why is there such a universal religious sense within humanity?"

Ever hear of atheists? They're part of humanity. As for the religious folks, they are attempting to explain things they don't understand with something unexplainable (gods).

"Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA?"

Have you taken a biology class? Read a biology book? If you don't understand DNA and really want to understand it, you should educate YOURSELF on the subject. Explaining the origins, functions, and processes of DNA is beyond the scope of this forum.

"What about the evidence of design in all of creation?"

There is no evidence for design. Matter and energy react in predictable ways. "Life" is one of the predictable ways.

"How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Jesus Christ?"

How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with [insert religious leader/prophet/deity here]? It's called "mass delusion," and is a symptom of brainwashing or mental illness.

"Isn’t it a bit extreme to assert 'God does not exist'?"

Yes. Many assertions are extreme. Like "God will burn you in Hell for all eternity if you aren't Christian."

Now THAT is extreme.

Answer 7

1) Humans from early on, before scientific research, came up with primitive ways to explain patterns in their daily life. Superstitions and religions and so on. I think its fairly obvious that people have a hard time letting go of tradition no matter how absurd it is.
2)God doesn't answer anything, to say "god did it" doesn't solve why or how exactly. The "god of gaps" gets smaller and smaller the more science figures out.
3)So in other words if something isn't simple then a magic man in the sky did it? Theres explanations of how complex living organisms came to be the way they are, and they are much more thorough than the creationists "god did it and thats it" argument.
4)How can you explain the millions of people throughout history who testify a life changing experience with the countless other prophets and mythological beings? Neuroscience is explaining more and more. Just because someone fully believes a magical being talks to them doesn't make it true. Look at people in mental institutions, they believe just as wholeheartedly as the pious christian.
5) Not at all, when there is evidence for a god then it is reasonable to debate it. Coming to the conclusion god exists because you can't disprove him is about as logical as saying the flying spaghetti monster exists merely because you can't disprove him.

Answer 8

I was busy working, jackas*. Incidentally, you posted this at 12:31 PST - right in the middle of my lunch hour when Im out having lunch with friends, not eating alone in the bathrooms like others....

Id like to thank whoever wrote me and alerted me to this question so that I could respond...

1)Desire and need to worship?? I dont seem to have this innate desire and need (and neither do any other atheists on earth), so obviously you are wrong on that point... And, after 50K years of humans telling stories and myth about Gods and religion, its become part of who we are - at least some of us.

2)So, complexity can only be created by a God? If complexity requires creation, then whatever created it would have to be even more complex. Seeing as this Creator is even more complex than its creation, then it too requires a creator. So, who created God? Oh, he always existed, right.... why cant the same be said for the Universe and life itself??? Why does GOD have to be the answer?

3)You need to learn the difference between an inanimate object and an animate one. Yes - all inanimate objects have been "created". But God is not the answer for how life arrived on earth (Abiogenesis might be, though.). Arent you curious to know the truth, or would you rather that we stop the search for how life came to be, because you think you already know the answer - God? Incidentally, if you would like a blow by blow account of how the eye evolved, I could provide you with that. Or, you could assume that your Perfect God created an imperfect eye that is backwards and upside down with light having to pass though acrimal cells and rods and cones prior to it reaching the nerve endings that detect the light... Oddly, the eye appears exactly as it should if it evolved from more simpler eyes - and looks nothing like it should if it were created by a perfect creator... Irreducible complexity is not an argument you want to start with me, as I shall tear it to shreds.

4)The same way I explain the changed lives of millions of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists - its a personal experience. If Buddha changes the life of a person, do you think your God should be given credit for that?

5)Isnt it a bit extreme to assert that God does exist?? I am no more arrogant in my beliefs than you are in yours.


Five for five, pal. All refuted, easily, I might add. Care to try again, or have you had enough?

Answer 9

1. It's a remnant from when we're children and believe that our parents are all-powerful. It's easier to make sense of a world if we believe there's a parental figure to protect us.

2. The claim that "information doesn't appear by itself" is a mistake. First, you would need a rigorous definition of information. Additionally, you would need to demonstrate that no natural process could ever form something that fits the definition of information. Without either of these, the claim that information doesn't appear is really impossible to evaluate.

3. The apparent design is the result of natural selection, in which organisms adapt over long periods of time to their environment. Read Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" if you don't get this concept.

3b. The claim that everything complex requires something more complex to design it leads to an infinite regression. (Who designed God?)

4. There are also millions of people throughout history who have had life-changing experiences through music. Should I worship music?

5. No. It's the best interpretation of the available evidence.


Why don't you like So-crates? What did he ever do to you?

Answer 10

Our innate desire to worship some authority comes from our evolution as social animals.

God wouldn't have put chunks of deactivated amphibian and reptile genes in the human genome, but evolution would have.

Species don't appear to be intelligently designed; in fact morphology is filled with rather unintelligent designs that have obviously been cobbled togther by natural selection.

People of all kinds of contradictory religions testify as to miracles. I met someone last month who claimed he was miraculously healed by the living goddess Kumari.

I find it extreme to assert supernatural forces exist in the absence of any evidence.

If you have more I'm sure I can respond point by point.

Answer 11

I believe it is a human need to invent a deity to answer our unanswerable questions, like where do we come from.

Testimonies are imaginations or brainwashing. Most likely brainwashing. Look at our president. He quit drinking because he found the will power to do so but he thinks God did it. Some preacher told him that and he believed it. Brainwashing.

I am a deist. I think there is a God who created our souls and was an intelligent designer. Evolution took over and He walked away.

I will never accept a religion that is based on an evil deity that is plagued with human flaws like jealousy. A deity would not murder it's creations. Fear of imaginary places is used to control people who cannot think for themselves.