Why do atheists think that religious people are delusional?

Unfortunately some creationists have this crazy idea that the burden of proof does not lie with the person making a Supernatural claim.

Fact is...it does.

AboveAlpha

 

I agree.
Where is your faith invested?

 

Fact is the person making such a claim has already received the proof necessary to compel his/her mind to accept supernatural claim (assertion or evidence) to be true. That person then does not need to justify his/her beliefs to anyone else. He or she has received the justification ... whether or not others accept that justification is irrelevant to that person who is the believer and claimant.

 

Yes fundamental questions that both Atheists and believers wrestle with. We don't really know anything about where we came from, why we are here, where we are or even how humans came to develop into highly sentient beings. What exactly IS life? Why can't we create it? Heck we could all be players in a game. We have no free will, we only have the 'freedom' to make choices in an already established structured Universe.

Scientific evidence of where or why that Universe came to be is known to no one. Believers rely on historical human history and story-telling some of which is thought to be accurate depictions of ancient life and incidents.

 

The name "Christian" itself leads to a lot of possible delusion. I think there are many people out there who call themselves "Christians" just because they like the teachings without bothering with all the supernatural stuff. I have never witnessed anything supernatural so I am a bit skeptical and tend to label those who buy into the supernatural as "delusional".

 

Yes, when something is wrong followers have to "re-interpret" it for it to make sense.

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If you had Jesus' magic super-powers, would you, Phoebe, have come down and cleared this all up for us (sometime in the previous 2000 years) - so that fewer people would misunderstand, so that fewer people would have to be tortured in Jesus' torture chambers in the supposed after-life?

 

There is an old adage which reads: 'experience is the best teacher'.

 

It doesn't matter if there were universes before our universe. Your argument that energy in and of itself is eternal automatically falls apart when we consider the fact that different forms of energy exist.

Kinetic energy is a byproduct. How could it possibly form if all that ever was and ever will be is energy in and of itself?

 

I've yet to hear an alternative besides:

1. Something from nothing.

2. God.

3. Energy always existing.

 

Again, YOU said it was "eternal", not me, so that you could attach "unchanging" to "always existed". So maybe your strawman falls apart, but that's what it was designed to do, right?

Kinetic energy is a byproduct of...energy. Which always existed. If the cause always existed, then so would the effect.

 

Duh, do you really think the universe owes you an explanation that you can understand

 

No, I'm still basing my argument on your assertion that it "always existed."

It's a byproduct of an object that is in motion- as you said, "derivatives of energy." It's not a byproduct of energy in and of itself.

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There cannot possibly be any other alternatives.

 

OK, so if you're NOT asserting that the energy was unchanging, then your argument falls apart.

OK, fine, since, as I said, a cause that always existed would have effects which always existed, then you can count those derivatives as also having always existed. Energy and its effects always existed.

What an arrogant statement. Like you know of everything that is possible.

 

I'm not asserting anything; I'm just going by what you say: that energy in and of itself always existed- and will thus always exist in and of itself.

How did those derivatives always exist, when only energy in and of itself only existed?

Like you said, the universe is all energy. What else are we left with besides 1) it always existing; 2) it coming from nothing; 3) God creating it.

 

The universe as we understand it is not a 'theory'. However you assert a speculation regarding the existence of 'other time/space continuums' in order to justify your speculation regarding the existence of kinetic energy having been in that imaginative location which you call 'other time/space continuums'. That is much akin to saying that God is the place where kinetic energy is derived. The secularists version of 'God did it'.

 

Those derivatives existed BECAUSE the thing which causes them (energy) existed. Those derivatives can be seen as forms of energy.

It could have been created through some other means of which we know not. I do not presume that just because I cannot think of other options, that none exist. I do not claim omniscience.

 

You have yet to explain how energy in and of itself always existing turned into different forms of energy. Derivatives of energy and energy in and of itself are not the same thing.

And we are then faced with the question of what created this "other means."

 

The physics of how "pure" energy transforms into other forms and derivatives is likely to be beyond either of us, and would no doubt be impossible to explain in a forum post, but require years of study to understand. Yet, we know that it DOES happen, because all that came out of the Big Bang singularity was pure energy, and it did indeed become all the different forms we see today. I couldn't explain to you every mechanism and technique involved in making an automobile run, but that doesn't mean that the physics behind automobiles are impossible. We know they are possible when we see them running.

I'm not even going to get caught up in that tangent.

 

You don't know, yet you are quick to reject what might be exactly what you don't know.

 

Hold on a second. You said energy always existed; it doesn't really matter how pure energy transforms into different forms on energy. You can't argue that energy in and of itself always existed; and later on claim that it didn't.

This is where your analogy of the automobile fails.

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That's because atheists don't want to believe in God.

 

Your entire argument hinges on the "in and of itself". I already told you that I see those derivatives as just different expressions of energy (and I did say at the beginning that I was talking about energy in different forms), so they would have always been around as well. You want to be exclusionary in your definition so you can hold on to the "in and of itself' argument, but that whole thing is a red herring.

Actually, it's more of a matter of preferring a non-magical explanation, because every time that people have learned about something that they previously did not understand, the cause has turned out to be NOT MAGIC. Some of us have started to take note of that pattern.

 

So what you're saying now is that different forms of energy always existed, correct?

Sorry, but just because you cannot observe God and draw your conclusions does not make Him "magic."

 

What I'm saying now? Have you been paying any attention at all? It's what I've been saying since page 50.

But of course there are other reasons to call him magic, such as the supposed performance of magical acts, like speaking the universe into existence, and making a woman out of a rib.

 

Uh-huh. Well, assuming different forms of energy always existed, how could (for example) kinetic energy always exist, when it is but a byproduct? Byproducts don't always exist.

Er, I honestly don't see what is magical about a perfect being bringing the universe into being. He is perfect, and creates as He pleases. He doesn't need magic.

 

Hmmm,...
Energy comes in seven different forms, like Electrical Energy, Mechanical Energy, Heat Energy, etc.
When energy in one form changes to energy in a different form, the content of the energy does not change,
It is just the same amount of energy, but in a different form.