Atheism

Being that you can't begin, it's more likely that you are incapable of finding anything wrong with it. Instead, you'll surrender with simply asserting that the whole things was wrong, and it's below you to meet the intellectual burden to say how.

A
R
T

Exactly how do you equate ignorance levels in science and religion ?

I f Carl Sagan says it then it must be true. You are showing religious devotion again. You do know all those early astronomers were priests, dont you ?

Well I hope you lot are happy now....you've woken Mister Ed. Isnt there a corner you can sit in and suck your thumb while you feel terrified at the thought of your own death ? If you were religious you might not have all that worry.

SSShhhhh ! Dont you worry....go to sleep. People will do what they want to do...I have no uncanny mind powers.

Personal Gods ARE the dreams of men but what purpose does it serve to have the attitude of these atheistic fools like you **** for brains ?

Not knowing is a form of not knowing. Which means they do not know God.
I recognise a religious belief when I see one. The dislike of anyone different, the contempt for the opposing side, the strong arguments that they are right and others are wrong, the emotional level of sneering....atheists have a belief. They believe God does not exist and religious people are fools. Many have said as much on this thread.

If you dont know of the existence of the Empire State building but someone has told you it exists, then you dont know it exists. If you do not know in your soul that God exists then you are agnostic.

No, we need a term for someone who is convinced there can not be a God.

Anyone of rewasonable intelligence can see the emotion and faith it takes to be atheist. I think we have a switch and it is either turned to Yes God or No God. The same mechanism in our minds is used one way or the other. Atheist or Theist.
Agnostics cant have faith in God but they cant prove God doesnt exist either.

No, its more like you chose an atheist who shares your opinion and present him with all the triumph of immutable fact. Having someone agree with you doesnt make it right unless you are a staunch believer in the Lemming Principle.

Knowing and knowledge are not the same thing. I addressed this already.


I think rather you recognize the weakness in religious beliefs and are desperate to put atheists in the same weak state.


Atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief in unbelief. Being unconvinced by poor arguments in the existence of god is not a religion.


So the only way atheists can criticize others conclusions is to make atheism into a religion? If I felt a person made foolish conclusions on weak evidence, I'm not allowed to scrutinize how they came to their conclusion? I'm not allowed to evaluate their standards of evaluation?

I'm sorry, but you are incorrect on this.


If the Empire State building claim is made, I can ask the person to support their claim. Another person who may have a different claim about the ESB may come along. I can ask them to make their case as well. The important thing here is that at no point can I assume an agnostic stance on the height or location of the empire state building. The exact knowledge on this matter exists, and so all claims regarding the ESB can be given a clear agree or disagree.

If you don't know that god exists, then the case for god existance has failed to convince you. That's atheism. Agnosticism is saying there is not enough information. In fact the agnostic stance may be a large contributor to the individual's atheistic conclusion.

I.e. - There isn't enough information to evaluate a belief in God, so until then I don't believe God exist.


And who is that? I don't know a single atheist that can't come up with criteria that if satisfied would convince them in the existence of a god. Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet, et al all have these standards as well. Who exactly is this mythological atheist that CANNOT be convinced?


As I said before, you're desperately trying to make atheism into a religion. Atheism is based on skepticism.


Sure. We also have a switch for unicorns. We have a switch for Duckbill Platapi as well. The switch is off for gods and unicorns, but it is on for the duckbill. In a state of agnosticism, the switch still remains in the off position. Agnosticism is not a middle point.


Nobody has a burden to disprove god.

A
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T

I didn't say anything about fact. I directed you to his video because I felt it organized the point in a very nice way. You, who noted the etymology of "agnosticism," seem to struggle with releasing your incorrect definition of atheism.

A
R
That would be a good starting point.

Distraction reigns.

Not feeding the troll would help.

The thread is dead. I am off of it unless and until it becomes possible to revive it.

Oh, the poor, poor, longsuffering atheists. They just can't even have their own widdy biddy thread kept pure from those bad ole Christian/believer people who keep saying their opinions about stuff where they aren't even welcome!!!

Oh, the humanity.

It is to mourn.

Strange, though - I'd think they could run all of 'em off with the mighty power of their scoffing, smirking finite minds.

Is the thread dead? I spit on its grave.

I avoided your spiritualism thread to be polite, snood. Sorry you can't reciprocate.

You have motivated me to see it doesn't die as long as I post on a2k.

You're very pungently pathetic this morning. Is this an example of your christian virtue? Sneering at people with whom you disagree? Get a life.

To become a religion it is only necessary for a superstition
to enslave a philosophy.



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Religions are what dreams are made of.



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Like all religions, the Holy Religion of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both Logic and Faith. We have Faith that She is Pink; and we Logically know that She is Invisible, because we can't see Her.



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The masses are the opium of religion.



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Man is quite insane. He wouldn't know how to create a maggot
and he creates Gods by the dozen.



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All Gods were immortal.



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There is not enough religion in the world
even to destroy the world's religions.



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I must believe in Apostolic succession, there being no other way of accounting for the descent of the Pope from Judas Iscariot.



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For many, faith is a suitable substitute for knowledge,
as death is for a difficult life.



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In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as part of the latter.



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Christian humility is preached by the clergy,
but practiced only by the lower classes.



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Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan, spoiled.



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The Christian lives in a nightmare and thinks it is a pleasant dream.



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Reason is, of all things in the world, the most hurtful to a reasoning human being. God only allows it to remain with those he intends to damn, and his goodness takes it away from those he intends to save or render useful in the Church . . . If reason had any part in religion, what then would become of faith?



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To the philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy
are far less dangerous than their virtues.



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One religion is as true as another.



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Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: "Great God, grant that twice two be not four."
Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) Russian author



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"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous
as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."
Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615, during the trial of Galileo



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The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.



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We must accept the other fellows religion . . . to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful.



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All religions die of but one disease, that of being found out.



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A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there - and finding it!



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Faith: not wanting to know what is true.



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It's a happy bishop who hasn't got a saint in his diocese.



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It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook,
and the sign of an archbishop is a double-cross.



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It is of course always best to be led by god,
and have him personally whisper into your ear.
Only, when it is the devil talking he will tell you he is god,
for the devil is a crafty liar. So you never know
who is talking to you.
German-born Theologian Franz Bibfeldt



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The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.
Mark Twain



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So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the gospels
in praise of intelligence.



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Consider the ignorance of the average fundamentalist. Then realize that by definition fully half of them must be even dumber than that.



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Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.



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Beware when you take on the Church of God.
Others have tried and have bitten the dust.
Bishop Desmond Tutu. (Speech, April 1987)



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One of the earliest Christian heresies, which was quickly knocked on the head (sic) by the church hierarchy, was called Gnosticism, whose adherents claimed to "know" the truth about God by direct revelation.
Alison Cotes, Theologian, (In "The Courier Mail", 1996)

Yeah, Setanta - this is an example of my Christian virtue. You ever come with any new tricks? "Look, the bad ole Christian gets mad and fights mean! What kind of Christian is that? Nyah, Nyah!!"

You will always be nastier, so you might as well glory in what you can. Superlative dirtbag.

No one here attacked you, you came looking for trouble. That you tout christian "values," but don't practice them just makes you pathetically hypocritical.

The saddest part was the puerile nature of your comments this morning. Does that come from hanging around adolescents so much that you begin to act like one?