Thread: Question about atheists

"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not, but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men."

"Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books."


-Sir Francis Bacon(1561- 1626)


You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

-Joan Baez

Atheism, unlike Christianity, does not pretend to teach morals. Atheism is simply the absence of theism and nothing more.

-Cliff Walker

>Seems that Sunlight was the only agnostic besides me... *sigh*<

I'm agnostic. Had no idea you or Sunlight were. Or, for that matter, Cheez was.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

- Thomas Jefferson

>I believe in [X], therefore [X] must be true.

Insert "The existance of God" for religious people.
Insert "The absence of a higher being" for atheists.

Neither can prove their point using normal logic, because this is not possible. Both parties belief. Both call it the absolute truth.<

I agree with this to a certain extent. I mean I know a lot of believers that are very open and don't have the typical arrogance that comes with a large portion of Christians. Same with the atheists. There are a lot of them that don't have that arrogance.

I think when people try to prove either side, that's when "all hell done break lose." But hey, if you think you can, go ahead; there will be plenty of us in the bleachers spectating for pure amusement.

> didaskalos

I swear to whatever omnipotent presence is out there (for now I'll assume it's James Brown) that if you mention Mosaic Law I will do everything in my power to ban your entire island's worth of IPs from this board... AProg.

> What do you think that thelogists say

The numbers I've heard usually say that the earth is 6000 years old, as opposed to the several billion science indicates.

> Because, unlikekly whith Islam, where Allah determine how humans will think ( i mean, he don't let people think by their own, "he controlls their mind" ( if he existed ) )



> ( do you think that it is easy? .. i don't think so.. ),

As easy as praying to anything else:
"Hay God - sup d00d!"

> Off course and we accept that all organisms evolved - after they were created

Most creationists don't.

> science does not say that humans were created from a microorganism - probbably with one ceil

Really... What does science say, in your addled little mind?

> Because my English aren't so good, do you mean that you agree?

No.

> That's out of topic.

The hell it is. You say that atheists have nothing to prevent them from killing their neighbors, since they aren't bound by what the Bible says. Clyde and I are saying that it's possible to live by some rules and totally ignore the Bible.

> Christianity contains all moral virtues



> were mad?

Not necessarily - they didn't write the Bible. Some other guy did.

First of all, i am talking about Christianity, and not just any God, in the particular example. Because, unlikekly whith Islam, where Allah determine how humans will think ( i mean, he don't let people think by their own, "he controlls their mind" ( if he existed ) ) - that was just a mere comment to show you that we don't speak about any religion but for Christinity, the God of Christianity lets people think freely.
In the topic now, no, you are wrong, we have free will. It's us who choose what movements to do, not God. But, as God is prescient, he knows the future; but this doesn't mean that he is the one who controlls our will.

1) Muslim's do not believe Allah control's their minds, they too believe in free will.

2) We cannot have free will, and God know the future, the two are logically impossible.

If we have free will the future cannot exist, in the block-time sense, ie. you have "time" in which the past, the present, the future is all "there", and we merely have a psychological experience of it passing. If that were the case the future would exist, in a fixed tangible sense, correspondingly we would have no freedom to choose it.

Thus the only possiblilty of freewill (actually it's impossible anyway, because of physics and neurology etc, but we will ignore those for the time being) is if the future doesn't exist, all that exists is the present, a single point in time. If that is the case we can have free will because the future is not set but God cannot know the future because, it dose not exist, in the same way that God cannot know what colour the box i'm holding is, because i'm not holding a box. The best he can do is see all the different possible futures, without knowing which one will come true.

God made us perfet humans. God made us perfect. It's, we, people who made ourselves vulnerable to death. This is a very big topic, and just a quick note: God doesn't leave us helpless here in earth, but he gives us great help, with many ways.
Also, as you know ( i hope so.. ), we, Christians, can reach the level of God.

If we were perfect, there would not be the copious amount of bloodshed we see all over the world.

Our nature was given to us, by God, we don't choose it, if you had the choice between a kick in the groin and a million dollars which would you choose? Almost everyone would choose the million dollars, that doesn't mean you don't have choice.

Correspondingly if God existed, humans would simply not choose to do horrible things to each other. It would not be a part of our nature.

Of course if you think we formed via the blind forces of evolution then our behaviour makes perfect sense.

That's what you said in your previous post, and i answered to you that no, its we, people who made the wold as it is today, with our catastrophical choises

Right, and we make those choices because of our catastrophical nature which God gave us.

I can imagine a humanity with choice but who don't kill each other, why, if there is a benevolent all powerfull creator is that not the humanity of today?

Well.. that;s another huge topic, and i 'll try to be as brief as possible. First of all, you should know that before the Fall, there were no diseases, no deaths.
Now, we to have diseases?. First of all, it's because of our faults and we have diseases and we "suffer".

Are you saying we are being punished for the actions of our ancestors? Does that sound reasonable to you? Do you think it would be fair to punish you if your parents did something wrong?

Would an infinitely wise, infinitely just God, so something like that? Of course not.

Secondly, with these methods ( storms and othe catastrophics ), God challenge our faith. He is testing our faith.

Which again makes him sick, if you have children will you put them through hardships just to see if they pass? "Tom go and crawl through that glass" "Why daddy? It will hurt please don't make me" "I want to see if you can do it and still love me afterwards, CRAWL!!", yea again an infinitely wise, infinitely benevolent God would do this?

Plus once again it violates Gods omniscience, if God is capable of knowing the future then he would already know whether you would pass a test or not, correspondingly he is causing harm and pain for no reason at all.

So, all these are something like tests.

This whole idea is absurd. What about people who have never heard about Christianity? Amazonian tribes and such, why are they tested? How can they possibly pass the test? Once again God is just causing misery and pain for kicks.

And why is it, that God tests religious and non-religious people alike? If he already knows someone doesn't believe in him what exactly is he testing? Or perhaps that's punishment, perhaps God punishes people who use the faculty to reason he supposedly gave them, by making their lives crap.

But it could also be signs to make us come closer to him. Yes, that's another reason.

Do you think alzheimers makes people closer to God?

However, we should not complaign to Got for our sufferings, because He never forgets us and he gives us help,

When exactly does God give us help?

Its amazing, if something good happens it gets attributed to God, if something bad happens it gets attributed to man.

Someone falls off a cliff, its mankind being stupid, a doctor saves his life via a 12 hour long operation, that must God...... right.

Either if it had the power, either if it did not have it, it doesn't want to, and that's what counts

It doesn't want to!? Of course it wants to! How much research into evolutionary biology do you think would get done if the orthodox church could control science, how much neurological research that explains away the soul?

Precisely none.

No it doesn't! Off course and we accept that all organisms evolved - after they were created ( science does not say that humans were created from a microorganism - probbably with one ceil ).

Science DOES say that all life evolved from a common ancestor, a lot less complex than a modern single celled organism.

ecause Govetcheez said something about it, could you tell me what do you think that Christianity says, and what science?

Following a literal interpretation of the bible the world is about 6 thousand years old, from scientific investigation the world is about 4.5 billions years old. Slight discrepancy there no?

When you mean struggle, you mean fight/try hard to be what Christianity says, right?

What you don't seem to grasp is that different people think have different ideas over what Christianity says is right.

My Christian lab parter who helps organise all the Christian union events, and is reasonable serious about his "faith", doesn't struggle with ethics any more than I do.

Well, then you lose my point here, and to answer and to your question what i mean with "tue" Christian" - i though it was very obvious, these are not true Christians.

Different people have different ideas over what a "true" Christian is, and of course everyone is convinced that their version of the "true" Christian is infact the right one.

They are typically Christians, just because they were baptized Christians. So, a "tue" Christian, is ,simply, the man who does what Christianity wants them to do.

And how do they decide what Christianity wants them to do? Literal interpretation of the bible? So true Christians advocate punishing children and grandchildren of criminals, like it says in the bible?

Because interpretation of the meaning behaind the bible varies there is no such thing as a "true" Christian.

I am not going to to tell you now what Christianity tells you to do, go open the Bible and find out.

The question is how to interpret the bible.

Sorry, i sed wrong word.. eeeerr..
cunning/craft/craftiness/arch/sly/didgy/wiles
I don't know which one fits better.

Can you give me an example?

That's out of topic.

No its not, if you say Christianity is the thing that stops Christians doing bad things, then you have to account for what is stopping atheists doing them, otherwise you have no way of telling whether something entirely unrelated to Christianity is infact making Christians behave morally.

The human laws, didn't exist that time.

Human laws have always existed, they merely had a different form.

[/quote]
However, the laws of Christianity, did exist that time and from the beginning of the life.
[/quote]

Christian laws presumeably were handed down to mankind via Moses, how do you explain the existance of great civilisations who followed moral codes that had nothing to do with Christianity? Like the ancient Egyptians, or the Romans, or the ancient Greeks?

Also, what can an atheist say, is that,
since this is all we are gonna live, then let's just start killing all the people i find in my way, steel money, there is no way to worry about it. After all, we are all gonna die. What will i gain if i don't steel the food of the neighbour and be hungy?

But that doesn't happen does it? Atheists are no less ethical than theists, and the reason is because, fundamentally, ethics has nothing to do with religion.

Ethics are social rules that must exist for a society to exist, they have evolved to keep societies together, because societies benefit the individuals involved.

Social animals have social rules, we have the most complex social interaction correspondingly we have the most complex set of social rules.

At the end of the day most of us on the cboard are screwed, think about it.

If there is a god, which one is it? Ignoring the 'one god' idea - how can there be one if every religion has such a differieng theology on how he/she/it behaves.

All religious people who dont belive in the right god are screwed, and so are the atheists.

If there is no god, then all the religious have lived their life in vein following the ideals and teachings of something that never existed.

>1) There is no such thing as proof.

I didn't imply there is. Actually, that's my point.

>You cannot claim that I believe in X, and I don't believe in X,
>are equally valid when neither has any evidence to back them up.

Well, I do. You want me to believe in something, you better provide
proof or proof-of-concept ( i.e. examples ).

I don't believe in Santa Claus, because after my parents told me,
there was no source backing the story up. No source, no belief.

Imagine I'm sitting at McDonalds with a friend. My friend does not believe in China.
All I have is a man-made book (map) and if I'm lucky, an eyewitness. The same evidence I have for God's existance. So what does that mean ? Maybe I have a bad point of reference ( McDonalds doesn't help proving China's existance ). Maybe China exists. Maybe not. I simply don't have the means to finally decide. Both is possible from my point of reference.

My point is, you cannot prove your theory as religous people cannot prove theirs.
Both is belief. I'm sorry to say, but most Atheists are insulting religious people
because of their belief system and call them dumb. I have not yet seen a christian
to call a non-believer dumb. I don't like people imposing their view of the world on others without backing it up with proof. And as proof does not exist, cannot exist, neither religion should do this. As Atheism has the same base as every other religion ( no backup but strong beliefs ) I would call atheism a religious movement, too.

"If we followed your reasoning we would conclude that the man who believes in floating invisible kangaroos is as likely to be correct as the man who doesn't"

Well, I would call him irrational. Doesn't mean he must be wrong though. Unlikely, not impossible.

China exists ( for you and me, assuming we have never been there ) because all people around us told us so. If all those people were religious, would that mean God exists ? And why would God's existance depend on people's thoughts ?


( Clyde, we have discussed this on countless religion threads before, I don't think we will come to terms in this one )

>>> I have not yet seen a christian to call a non-believer dumb.

I was suprised to see you say that. After all, we've been through a huge number of these debates and the believers have frequently levelled all manner of insult at the non-believers, or believers of another religion. AProg, for example, did it all the time with his repeated rabid anti-islamic propaganda.

Well, I do. You want me to believe in something, you better provide proof or proof-of-concept ( i.e. examples ).

But since proof doesn not exist, that presumeably renders all beliefs equal in your eyes.

Are you suggesting therefore that the view that the Earth is flat, is as likely to be correct as the view that the Earth is spherical?

Neither can be definitively proved, since definitive proof is impossible.

I don't believe in Santa Claus, because after my parents told me,
there was no source backing the story up. No source, no belief.

No source translates into no evidence?

Imagine I'm sitting at McDonalds with a friend. My friend does not believe in China.
All I have is a man-made book (map) and if I'm lucky, an eyewitness. The same evidence I have for God's existance. So what does that mean ? Maybe I have a bad point of reference ( McDonalds doesn't help proving China's existance ). Maybe China exists. Maybe not. I simply don't have the means to finally decide. Both is possible from my point of reference.

This is exactly where your logic goes wrong.

You have something you know is true - the existance of China - and you have a scenario where for a given person there is no evidence to suggest it exists.

The China example is not particularly good because there is no satisfactory way of explaining the evidence pointing to China other than its existance whereas there is a satisfactory way of explaining belief in God other than his existance - anthropology.

You are imagining a scenario which you already know to be true and working backwards!

Consider, from your friends perspective and to improve the example lets imagine there truly is no evidence whatsoever for China, none at all. Imagine it was a few thousand years ago, before the West had any contact with China.

China still existed but there was no evidence available to support it.

What then is reasable to believe?

Consider the number of possible countries there are -a spectacularly huge number, varying in size position, culture, genetics, etc.

What is the chance of correctly guessing the right one?

So then is it reasonable for a person who lived back then to believe that there is a country at x latitude and y longditude, who have z culture, and w history, and ........ etc etc.

Of course its not!

It would be akin to believeing someone was going to win the lottery every day of their life, and then their children would win it every day, and their grand children....

The fact that they "might" have got it right is irrelevent, I "might" win the lottery for the rest of my life, and my children "might" and my great grandchildren "might", whether it actually happens or not it doesn't matter, its insane to believe it will.

Its the same as my invisible kangaroo or indeed Santa Claus, he might exist, but it is not equally as reasonable to believe in him as to disbelieve in him.

Think of it in terms of probability, if you say "I don't believe, in invisible kangaroos" then the chance of being right is so guargantuan, that its insane not believe it" Likewise the probability of it being right is so small as to make belief in it crazy.

You apply the same reasoning every moment of your life, why for example are you not terrified that you might about to be killed by a materialising elephant?

Surely if you are agnostic towards God for the reasoning you provide you are also agnostic towards everything that has neither evidence for it not evidence against it, materialising elephants included.

But you're not, people who are, really are insane. The reason you selectively apply this reasoning to God and not to materialising elephants is because its a socially acceptable idea to believe in God, and not in materialising elephants.

Actually i've thought of a better way of putting it: For every scenario like the China one, where something exists but lacks evidence there are a bazillion scenarios where something doesn't exist but lacks evidence.

The reason being is simple: The universe has a finite number of variables out of an infinite number of possible variables.

Damnit i'm not being coherent, there must be a better way of phrasing this, but unfortuneately at the moment, i can't find it. I'll see if i can find a better description.

My point is, you cannot prove your theory as religous people cannot prove theirs.
Both is belief. I'm sorry to say, but most Atheists are insulting religious people
because of their belief system and call them dumb.

But you see it IS dumb! Believeing in something that lacks any evidence is crazy, whether it be invisible kangaroos, materialising elephants, God, or even China a few thousand years prior to any knowledge about it.

When constructing a picture of reality the only way of not living in a fantasy world is to go on postive evidence not lack of negative evidence.

There is evidence for a keyboard in front me, hence i believe there is, there is evidence for a heliocentric solar system, so i believe there is, there is no evidence for invisible kangaroos or talking lamps, or God or an infinite number of other possibly phenomena.

As Atheism has the same base as every other religion ( no backup but strong beliefs ) I would call atheism a religious movement, too

Atheism is merely logic, not believeing in God is not different to not believeing in invisible kangaroos.

Do you consider non-belief in invisible kangaroos a religion as well?

Well, I would call him irrational. Doesn't mean he must be wrong though. Unlikely, not impossible.

Indeed not impossible, but possibility doesn't matter, only probability because thats all we ever have to go on.

China exists ( for you and me, assuming we have never been there ) because all people around us told us so. If all those people were religious, would that mean God exists ? And why would God's existance depend on people's thoughts ?

Yes but you see as i indicated to earlier there is no other feasable explanation for all the people who say China exists, and the books that show pictures of it etc. Hence that constitutes evidence for its existence. Because there IS another explanation for religion, and religious beliefs, the fact that religion and religious beliefs exist does NOT constitute evidence for God.

Whether God exists or not we would expect religion to exist. If china didnt exist we wouldn't expect millions of people to claim it did, and for there to be pictures, and tv. and etc. etc. That is why I modified your example to refer to a point in tim before any evidence of China existed.

Clyde, we have discussed this on countless religion threads before, I don't think we will come to terms in this one )

No! I can't believe that nvoigt because you're smart, genuinely intelligent and evidently not overly indocrinated, you are influenced by social view points which is skewing the way you're thinking about this topic but i genuinely think you could come around if i or someone else could explain with more clarity why your reasoning is flawed. Unfortuneately my mind is not what it was, damnit, and I wield the English language with all the finesse of a sledgehammer.

I'm going to try and find a passage that illustrates my point better than my incoherent ramblings.

>My point is, you cannot prove your theory as religous people cannot prove theirs. Both is belief.

>As Atheism has the same base as every other religion ( no backup but strong beliefs ) I would call atheism a religious movement, too


That is wrong. Firstly, atheism in general doesnt claim anything, therefore an atheist doesnt have anything to prove. Atheism is simply lacking a belief in god(s). So by what I understood from reading your post is that you too are atheist. Of course there are some atheists that say they believe that god doesnt or cannot exist, which of course would require evidence for their claim, but in general atheists make no claim about anything.

When you are born, you would say that you lack a belief in anything, including god. That is the general position of atheism, lack of belief. Just as the newborn isnt required to prove their belief (because there is no belief to prove), an atheist, or in general anyone who doesnt believe in something, isnt required to prove anything.

> theologists of Christianity doesn't say this.

Yes they do.

> Since you never praid you can't say that it is that easy.

Oh, thanks for reminding me. I forgot WHAT I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE.

> All those who lived the miracles of Jesus agrees with what the Bible said.

Um... I see. And you spoke with these people? What do you bse that statement on?

> Anyway, what you said is wrong.

Again, thanks for clearing that up.

ATTENTION PEOPLE OF CPROG - THE FOLLOWING IS AN APROG/DICKINTHEHOLE/MONEY?/ETC STYLE REBUTTAL OF EVERYTHING. I REFUSE TO BACK THIS UP WITH ANY SORT OF FACTS. I AM CORRECT BECAUSE I AM.

"You are wrong"