Atheism is DEAD!

[GostHacked]

There are stories in the Bible fabricated by humans. Furthermore, the Church picked which stories would "make the cut".

Which is why I have no faith in the bible as being fact or true in any sense. It is all stories.

You don't know because you haven't really considered it, or read enough about it. Don't take this the wrong way, but that's why I say it's the lazy answer. Perhaps I should say it's the "I don't care" answer instead.

If I meant that I did not care, I would have stated that. I don't know is the correct stance I will take, because I don't know.

A creature the size of the Loch Ness monster could not possibly survive in those waters. The amount of food it would need to survive would be not even fit in that area. Furthermore, if there's only one, then it has no partner to mate with and will end up not existing very quickly. When it dies, because all living things die, the body should be easy to find. Sonar trawling in the loch have turned up nothing. There is heaps of evidence showing that the Loch Ness monster is not real. While the evidence supporting its existence are some doctored photos and hearsay. Once again, it's very easy to prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster. Find it. Until then, the chances are so incredibly remote that any reasonable person would conclude that it very likely does not exist. That's not to say they would hold that position in light of new information, like someone proving it. However, until then it's a pretty safe bet that it's not out there.

Again, in the end, neither of us really know. You might think it is a lazy approach, but it is the best approach to avoid looking like an idiot. Personal experience proves this.

The existence of aliens is a hell of a lot more likely than the existence of God. That I can agree about. That doesn't mean I think there's aliens out there. Intelligent life seems pretty remote; however, bacteria or other single-cell organisms are quite possible.

But at this point still about as provable for the existence of god.

The question is unknowable is a hell of a lot different than saying, "I don't know". If the question is unknowable then you must orient your life one way or the other. Either the question is unknowable and you have faith that there is a God and hope you're right, or you have faith that there isn't a God and hope for the best.

Well, how do you know something is unknowable without saying I don't know?

I'm not arguing that they're identical. I'm arguing that agnostics are weak atheists and in most cases they don't believe in God and just call themselves agnostics because they don't want to be bothered arguing, or they don't want to offend their familial or societal traditions.

Actually for the most part, atheists and agnostics don't really care about offending others. A good deal of my family is agnostic, some atheists, and very few theists (that's by marriage) And as an agnostic, I have been debating in this thread long before you came along! Kind of shoots your theory down. Maybe I am not your typical agnostic then.

[GostHacked]

I wouldn't know...I don't see why a god couldn't learn...I just happen to think a belief that is thousands of years old has more credibility than one dreampt up by a science fiction writer...

Issac Hayes is rolllin' in his grave !!!

[Oleg Bach]

Never met an atheist that was not a crazed and pushy zealot yet! Much like I have never met a homo-sexual lecher that has a sense of honour either! If these atheists had their way they would burn all opposers at the stake. My first contact with an atheist was an old friend with a hidden life. He had a degree in astronomy..He would look through his telescope and say that the universe was a mess and that HE would have designed it better.

He also believe that womanhood was more powerful than manhood - so he grew tits and dressed in shabby hippy drag while his dedicated and adoring liberal wife and offspring looked on. Eventually this young liberal woman when out back and shot herself in the mouth leaving the children and the man woman husband behind. Funny - this atheist drag queen quickly returned to being a male. When I first met this person we were eating dinner - If you so much as mentioned the word God - He would literally leap across the table and grab you by the throat.

What I found out years later is that this creep also molested his female children...This is a stange story but it's true - I would rather hang out with the God squad then trash like this - He was simply an evil man that was responsible for the death of not one but two females...one going back to his high school days that he seduced and then killed in a car crash..The beautiful young girl is buried beside my father...I simply don't like people who want to be god!

[cybercoma]

What exactly does any of that have to do with the conversation?

A black guy put a gun in my face and robbed me when I was a kid. That doesn't make all black people criminals in my mind.

[ToadBrother]

Never met an atheist that was not a crazed and pushy zealot yet! Much like I have never met a homo-sexual lecher that has a sense of honour either! If these atheists had their way they would burn all opposers at the stake. My first contact with an atheist was an old friend with a hidden life. He had a degree in astronomy..He would look through his telescope and say that the universe was a mess and that HE would have designed it better.

He also believe that womanhood was more powerful than manhood - so he grew tits and dressed in shabby hippy drag while his dedicated and adoring liberal wife and offspring looked on. Eventually this young liberal woman when out back and shot herself in the mouth leaving the children and the man woman husband behind. Funny - this atheist drag queen quickly returned to being a male. When I first met this person we were eating dinner - If you so much as mentioned the word God - He would literally leap across the table and grab you by the throat.

What I found out years later is that this creep also molested his female children...This is a stange story but it's true - I would rather hang out with the God squad then trash like this - He was simply an evil man that was responsible for the death of not one but two females...one going back to his high school days that he seduced and then killed in a car crash..The beautiful young girl is buried beside my father...I simply don't like people who want to be god!

Maybe atheists are nasty to you because, well, you're a rather nasty person yourself. This post seems to neatly some up everything that is wrong with you.

Edited December 17, 2009 by ToadBrother

[GostHacked]

Maybe atheists are nasty to you because, well, you're a rather nasty person yourself. This post seems to neatly some up everything that is wrong with you.

There are members in the God Squad that abuse children too.

[ToadBrother]

There are members in the God Squad that abuse children too.

I find a lot of his posts usually involve some sort of broad over-generalization, or blaming an entire group of people because of some person he knows (or maybe doesn't know, I suspect some times he just makes his little narratives up). At any rate, I do not abuse children, I am an atheist, and all I can say to him is "f--- you, f--- you very much".

[DarkAngel_]

Never met an atheist that was not a crazed and pushy zealot yet!

ok? i am an atheist and i may partition to madness from time to time but i am no child molester.... i cant count a sin i have done but against my own body by anyone's doctrine.... the truth is good and evil are on the same cliff edge, and that line is paper thin... madness is also close on this edge, i have not met a sane anybody! everyone's crazy, some are good at hiding it and others make it obvious but all of us need the will to overcome ourselves, is madness not an overcoming??? to a god or anything we believe its true our insanity is not our essence, but it can become who we are if we let whats seen to be true get twisted.... insanity is a conditioning.

i am Godless, i am sane?

i am Hindu i am sane?

i an Christian i am sane?

or more absurd... i am human- i am sane?!

this i will never believe.

to be sane first define normality to me.

[DarkAngel_]

I am an atheist, and all I can say to him is "f--- you, f--- you very much".

TB your breaking rules and seeming to rather enjoy it, please calm your wit. this is a friendly discussion. if not heated. i would love to see you continue to give input and I'm sure differences aside everyone would agree with me, please leave it to productive manners and points.

[ToadBrother]

TB your breaking rules and seeming to rather enjoy it, please calm your wit. this is a friendly discussion. if not heated. i would love to see you continue to give input and I'm sure differences aside everyone would agree with me, please leave it to productive manners and points.

There's nothing particularly friendly about some nutjob basically calling atheists child molesters.

[DarkAngel_]

There's nothing particularly friendly about some nutjob basically calling atheists child molesters.

though i agree, he may have met a child molester who was an atheist... by Nietzsche standards molestation is not just pointless but wrong, he considered men and women of this nature 'hot fiends' and 'savages of the garden' of which no bond or care for loves passions are tended.

so Oleg: everyone has the choice to be evil so note that atheism is not exclusive unless you have met every one of them, nor is Christianity or any other religion... though i agree the man you spoke of was off his nook, it was not due to atheism and from my time in psychology it sounds more like he had allot of self poisoning delusions around atheism.

in existentialism godlessness is a choice; by my regard it means even if a god exists i choose not to have him, it is the freedom to be a lone traveler and maker of ones own rules and world... it is true though some of us are evil, even insane, we have the choice to be, but at least an atheist is honest to that point. a good atheist takes values that further himself as a part of humanity, an evil one only takes from humanity or tries to form it into something monstrous...

atheism is no ill, it can't be cured as i said it is a choice... for me it was a choice to get over my humanity to better it, so that one day the world will be for this mankind that is the next step past us, this was called the 'overman' or 'superman' though i prefer the word 'overman' because it defines man as a bridge to cross over to whatever is the better, instead of crossing blindly we see the choices that make us what we are to become, for us usually the fate is not controlled by a god but ourselves and others. that is existentialism. to live of our own experiences and hardships.

THAT makes our essence, no confusing metaphysics, a science to learn from and gain power to share or sometimes hoard as some do, and no road to tell us of our destination. we are free...

[ToadBrother]

in existentialism godlessness is a choice; by my regard it means even if a god exists i choose not to have him, it is the freedom to be a lone traveler and maker of ones own rules and world... it is true though some of us are evil, even insane, we have the choice to be, but at least an atheist is honest to that point. a good atheist takes values that further himself as a part of humanity, an evil one only takes from humanity or tries to form it into something monstrous...

I'm an atheist simply because I see no evidence for any deity. It's not an absolute position, of course. I could conceivably change my mind, if evidence were brought to the table of a sufficiently compelling and convincing nature. Thus far, what I've seen is a lot of fallacious arguments and circular logic, as if prattling off the last 2500 years of justifications for the existence of Prime Mover is actually somehow evidence.

[Riverwind]

I'm an atheist simply because I see no evidence for any deity.

What you are really saying is you have seen no evidence which you find to be conclusive. Evidence is always subject to interpretations/preconceptions of the observer. Others do disagree with your interpretations.

[bloodyminded]

How do atheists handle Judaism, which is both a religion and a nationality?

They simply have no use for the religion part.

Any atheist Jew (who are legion) could tell you that.

[DarkAngel_]

I'm an atheist simply because I see no evidence for any deity. It's not an absolute position, of course. I could conceivably change my mind, if evidence were brought to the table of a sufficiently compelling and convincing nature. Thus far, what I've seen is a lot of fallacious arguments and circular logic, as if prattling off the last 2500 years of justifications for the existence of Prime Mover is actually somehow evidence.

that's weak atheism friend.

[ToadBrother]

What you are really saying is you have seen no evidence which you find to be conclusive. Evidence is always subject to interpretations/preconceptions of the observer. Others do disagree with your interpretations.

Please enlighten me, what evidence have I seen that I don't find conclusive.

[Guest TrueMetis]

What you are really saying is you have seen no evidence which you find to be conclusive. Evidence is always subject to interpretations/preconceptions of the observer. Others do disagree with your interpretations.

Name 1 piece of evidence.

[ToadBrother]

that's weak atheism friend.

Call it what you like, it's what I am. I like to think (maybe it's arrogant) that my atheism was arrived at by logic. One of the most important reasons, to me, to reject a belief in God is that the Prime Mover argument is completely circular, or at best a form of special pleading. If there is some necessity for an uncreated entity to wind the whole thing up, then, applying Occam's Razor, I remove unnecessary entities and declare the Universe itself is an entity that seems to answer the question admirably, without need of a Prime Mover.

[Riverwind]

Name 1 piece of evidence.

People who believe in a a diety get comfort from that belief. I realize that you are looking for explicit physical evidence but that is just because of the way you have defined the issue.

[Guest TrueMetis]

People who believe in a a diety get comfort from that belief. I realize that you are looking for explicit physical evidence but that is just because of the way you have defined the issue.

So you have no evidence. Would it help if I gave you a definition of what evidence is?

[ToadBrother]

People who believe in a a diety get comfort from that belief. I realize that you are looking for explicit physical evidence but that is just because of the way you have defined the issue.

So, in other words, you have no evidence.

[Riverwind]

So you have no evidence. Would it help if I gave you a definition of what evidence is?

We have to first agree on what a diety is before we could agree on what constitutes evidence for such a deity. The problem you will immediately run into is the definition of a deity is subjective and therefore all evidence is subjective.

[Guest TrueMetis]

We have to first agree on what a diety is before we could agree on what constitutes evidence for such a deity. The problem you will immediately run into is the definition of a deity is subjective and therefore all evidence is subjective.

Which basically comes down to meaning no real deity can exist.

Edited December 20, 2009 by TrueMetis

[ToadBrother]

We have to first agree on what a diety is before we could agree on what constitutes evidence for such a deity. The problem you will immediately run into is the definition of a deity is subjective and therefore all evidence is subjective.

A deity; a supernatural entity or agency that holds power over some aspect of the normal/natural world, or possibly over all of it. It gets hard to be more specific than that, because humans have created all manner of entities that fit some aspects of a God.

But I'm speaking more specifically of the notion of the Judeao-Christian view of God. If you wish to debate the existence of Thor or Quetzalcoatl, that could be interesting, too, though those kinds of deities have not really come under the microscope for some time, since most of their worshipers were either converted or beaten to death.

[Riverwind]

A deity; a supernatural entity or agency that holds power over some aspect of the normal/natural world, or possibly over all of it.

Not all definitions of a diety claim power of the natural world. Many just claim the diety exists and they can communicate with it.

But I'm speaking more specifically of the notion of the Judeao-Christian view of God.

Even there you see many different definitions. The evangelical christian notion of god is different from the catholic which is different from the united. Even within each church you will find different kinds of belief. Many do adher to the definition I noted above and see the church's teachings as a allegory rather than fact.

The bottom line is you could find a definition of diety that is held by some people and correctly claim there is no evidence to support that definition. But that does not mean there is no evidence to support any possible definition of a diety.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Riverwind