Rise Of Atheism

[Cottontop3000]

Jesus fucking christ, where do all you fucking religious morons come from? The bush's of the world?

 

[usp8riot]

So what is your beliefs/ideas/theories about the universe? I'm waiting so I can debate them. I step out to the edge and discuss my beliefs, theories, and ideas for sharing and discussion even knowing full well I will get meaningless responses like this. What are you going to contribute besides immature mocking and cursing? I came to this forum because I haven't seen any so far that have mature, serious discussion and was hoping I could find it here, of all places, in a science-based religious forum. Reasons such as this are why we need religion. What is your logical view of the universe cottontop? Any personal theories you care to discuss or are you a sheep as you probably claim the religious are. Step out and be a leader. Leaders face ridicule for stepping out with something new or unheard. Followers of others mock what is new and what they don't know. A leader can stand for himself, through thick and thin, and pave new ways. What areas have you paved or try to pave where no one will go cottontop? You have tested me, now I will test you. But I will only test your knowledge and self-reason, but I won't go so far as to test your temper by ridicule as you have me. Go ahead, take my test, tell me your ideas.

 

[geeser]

You are sooooooo wrong, I came to my belief in (we shall call it for arguments sake) God, something that interferes in my life that is unexplained, I was not taught or brainwashed, the belief manifested through personal observation and experience.

I love the words you've used!, so your saying absolutely no one or no external force, could have caused you to believe. you went from an indifference to the issue of God's existence, to a believe.
you say no accident or drug inducement happened.
it was through devine revelation, just like moses.
wow we are not worthy.
I'd go see a doc, you may have a bipolar disorder.

He is only one God and perfect.

is his name allah, well you seem to be on the same page as diamond, however you and he need to study up on the meaning of perfect.

matthew 5:48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

lets clarifying what we mean by "perfect". something that "contains all potentialities", "without flaw".

The idea of a perfect being creating the universe is self-contradictory. How can perfection be improved upon? To create is to indicate a lack, an imperfection. a flaw

If a perfect being needs to create something then it isn’t perfect. To be perfect is to lack nothing.

“A perfect being would not be troubled by anything, including the behavior of humans. Hence, the notion that a god would reward or punish us is absurd. To be perfect is to be unperturbed. The concept of perfection, therefore, requires that a god be indifferent to human behavior.”

therefore god is flawed, he cant be all knowing or all powerful thus not devine, so simply put non-existent.

 

[Jan Ardena]

geeser,

non-religious does not necessarily mean atheist, atheism is not simple non-religious.

Whose talking about religion?
Get with it geeser.

there are some who say they are atheist that dont really understand what an atheist is, (these are usually the religious, trying to make a point, or agnostics, or deists).

An atheist is a person who does not believe in God.
What is there not to understand?

there are no god/gods, all it would take is one single instance of the thing for it to exist, where is that one thing.atheist from the greek atheos a (without) and theos (god).

Please state your point.

Atheism is "without belief in god."

Yes. An atheist is someone who does not believe in God.

Therefore, an atheist would have "no belief."atheism, is not a belief, just the opposite, atheism is the natural way of things, the religious have just diversified in to fantasy.

You obviously "believe this".
Can you not see where you are blind and dogmatic?

dictionary.con defines it as
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.

however two points here, it's not a belief, so there cannot be any disbelief, and there cannot be be any denial, for to deny something you must first believe it exists.

That's what "atheist" means dude. Get over it and move on.

An atheist is someone who does not believe in God.

I believe that atheism, is an indifference to the issue of a god's existence, dictionary.com's second statement is closer

Your "belief" is irrational, the very state scorned by some atheists.
Of course....
you
don't have a belief do you?

encarta defines it as, unbelief in god or deities.
most dictionaries get it wrong, because they were originally written and printed by theists.

Ooh! Its a conspiracy is it?

We are all born atheists til our parents or priest abuse us with the religious mind virus

So you believe that we were born "not believing in God"?
Some atheist in an attempt to be correct would say.."I don't believe in God because as yet there has been no evidence to support this hypothesis." Like you they imply that atheism is based on logic, rationality, critical thinking etc..
How do babies come to the conclusion that until God can be proven by modern scientific method, it is reasonable to assume He is nothing more than a fantasy figure?

is individual, atheism is what you are, before religion has taken hold, nobody who has been atheist from birth or rediscovered it/cleared his head, would go back to being religious not without the use of drugs or brain damage.

Atheism/theism has nothing to do with religion.
There is a connection between God and religion, but the two are totally different. Atheism/theism is concerned with belief or no belief in God, not religion.

You imply that being an atheist is an advantage. Why?
As a musician I'll give a definition of what I believe the mental state of atheism to be.
Once a song/track has been recorded and mixed, the next stage it goes through is a process called mastering. What this does is bring out all the frequecies of the track which are subdued by other frequencies, then level them all off, so that the listening experience is effortless and pleasureable through any medium.
Atheism, to me, is a process where the top end (high frequency) has been filtered out, and the clarity of the track, at first, sounds dull, but over time one becomes accustomed to the dullness.
Talking to you reenforces that analogy.

Jan.

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

I love the words you've used!, so your saying absolutely no one or no external force, could have caused you to believe. you went from an indifference to the issue of God's existence, to a believe.
you say no accident or drug inducement happened.
it was through devine revelation, just like moses.
wow we are not worthy.
I'd go see a doc, you may have a bipolar disorder.

.

Now aren't you the little piss hole? I never said I'd had a revelation or God spoke to me did I? If you check out my thread 'question for atheists' you will note in post made at 9.38pm, I have found (by googling) what appears to be an explanation for why we humans have a subconscious desire for an omnipotent being (don't bother arguing what it is about here, it's in detail in other thread) any way, that biological desire from childhood would have then been reinforced by certain observations I made as I became older. I chose to explain these observations as evidence to me at least that there is something outside of ourselves that we cannot see. I have been influenced to label this 'outside unseen force' as 'God' as that is the commonly held interpretation for this manifestation is it not?

My belief that there is an intelligence behind our deisgn comes about through my own intellectual judgement and again nowt to do with religion and nowt to do with being a sheep and following sciences 'theories' on unintelligent design.

Meanwhile re the bi polar shit, as most of the world believe in a God' that puts you in the minority, majority being deemed as 'normal', makes you thus abnormal. Maybe you should see a doc? Of course this is NOT my view, unlike you I resepct atheist views. You as an individual just don't know your ass from your elbow.

 

[redarmy11]

...reinforced by certain observations I made as I became older. I chose to explain these observations as evidence to me at least that there is something outside of ourselves that we cannot see. I have been influenced to label this 'outside unseen force' as 'God' as that is the commonly held interpretation for this manifestation is it not?

Crikey, these are a bad-tempered lot, aren't they?

It's hard to hear above all the shoutiness but God is listening, and so am I.

Well.. I am, anyway.

What observations? What manifestation?

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

Crikey, these are a bad-tempered lot, aren't they?

It's hard to hear above all the shoutiness but God is listening, and so am I.

Well.. I am, anyway.

What observations? What manifestation?

readarmy, I am not here to persuade anyone that god exists or care whether anyone believes that I have made certain observations. I am not starting my own religion or trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking. In life (off this forum) I just mind my own business and think what I think. However for the purposes of threads like these it is important despite the opposition I always get to be honest about my perspective, and not to sit on the fence. I have shared some experiences with others, but that is not a matter for discussion boards.

 

[redarmy11]

One of the main things that puts me off organised religions of all kinds is the history of persecution, bigotry and intolerance that accompany them, continuing into the present day.

Non-believers really shouldn't fall into the same trap.

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

One of the main things that puts me off organised religions of all kinds is the history of persecution, bigotry and intolerance that accompany them, continuing into the present day.

Non-believers really shouldn't fall into the same trap.

I agree 100%, I reject religion for exactly these reasons, it is interesting that some non-believers do fall into this trap, apparrantly the drive to submit to a blinkered view is strong!

 

[I don't know]

FOOLS you should whip yourselves for this nonesense, the most miraculour of millions of coincidences would have to have occured for their to be life without a greater being, oh but know everything can be explained well you are FOOLS

- If the chances are one in a bajillion, they're still pretty good, because the universe has far more than one bajillion planets

 

[KennyJC]

If God is perfect he would still be able to give free will without the existence of 'evil'. The fact he needs to give a blemish upon his creation in order to have free will demonstrates that he was stumped and couldn't think a way around this free will nonsense

 

[(Q)]

How do babies come to the conclusion that until God can be proven by modern scientific method, it is reasonable to assume He is nothing more than a fantasy figure?

What DO babies believe, Jan?

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

Do a search in this forum for 2035 and click "most americans will be non-christian by 2035ce"... I think there are a couple of urls in there that answer this if I remember rightly

If you google 'fastest growing belief' it will tell you Hindhuism is fastest growing belief in USA! Who knew?

Rest of world seems to point to Islam

Meanwhile re atheism:

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html

"Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns(1)


Phil Zuckerman

THIS CHAPTER IS FORTH-COMING IN THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO ATHEISM, EDITED BY MICHAEL MARTIN, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2005

Assessing rates of belief or disbelief among large populations is extremely difficult. Determining what percentage of a given society believes in God – or doesn’t -- is fraught with methodological difficulties, most importantly: 1) low response rates, 2) non-random samples, 3) adverse political or cultural climates, and 4) problematic cross-cultural terminology. A brief discussion of each is warranted before presenting an accumulation of statistics concerning rates and patterns of atheism worldwide."

"Conclusion

Based on a careful assessment of the most recent survey data available, we find that somewhere between 500,000,000 and 750,000,000 humans currently do not believe in God. Such figures render any suggestion that theism is innate or neurologically based untenable. The nations with the highest degrees of organic atheism (atheism which is not state-enforced through totalitarian regimes but emerges naturally among free societies) include most of the nations of Europe, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. There also exist high degrees of atheism in Japan, Vietnam, North Korea, and Taiwan. Many former Soviet nations, such as Estonia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus also contain significant levels of atheism. Atheism is virtually non-existent in much of the world, however, especially among the most populated nations of Africa, South America, the Middle East, and much of Asia. High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism. In some societies, particularly Europe, atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the world – particularly nations with high birth rates – atheism is barely discernable"


Note the world population in 2000 was estimated at 6.1 billion, atheists 500,000,000, not a majority!

 

[KennyJC]

Note the world population in 2000 was estimated at 6.1 billion, atheists 500,000,000, not a majority!

Where was it claimed atheism was a majority? The fact is it is growing 'rapidly' in countries with low birth rates.

I think not only are atheists/agnostics growing in numbers, but they have growing reason for lack of belief thanks to rampaging American Christians and Muslims from the Middle East. Along with the growing redundancy of the vatican.

 

[(Q)]

My belief that there is an intelligence behind our deisgn comes about through my own intellectual judgement and again nowt to do with religion and nowt to do with being a sheep and following sciences 'theories' on unintelligent design.

In other words, from your over-active imagination.

You as an individual just don't know your ass from your elbow.

... said the kettle to the pot.

 

[usp8riot]

Geeser:

The idea of a perfect being creating the universe is self-contradictory. How can perfection be improved upon? To create is to indicate a lack, an imperfection. a flaw

We really don't know the bible or quran's definition of perfect so it is something we just have to guess at. I am just merely taking what I've read or heard from those two religious text, bible especially, and just theorizing. Not debating but just theorizing for the purpose of discussion.

Also a perfect God doesn't mean He can do anything He wants. He has rules in which He follows. Perfect, for one, means not chaotic. That it confines to law or a set standard.

 

[(Q)]

However, throughout much of the world – particularly nations with high birth rates – atheism is barely discernable"

Gee, that wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the fact that those nations of high birth rates are the same nations with high percentages of theists?

"Go forth and multiply"

That is one of most thoughtless and irresponsible statements to appear in the bible. But it appears theists haven't figured that out yet.

 

[Cottontop3000]

Theists haven't figured out much of anything yet, as evidenced by the theists in this thread.

 

[Jan Ardena]

What DO babies believe, Jan?

Why are you asking me and not geeser?

Jan.

 

[phlogistician]

Try to use that bird brain of yours sometime. I defined God and then you sprang up saying that you don't have a definition of God.
"Why don't I describe God? I don't believe in God, so that is rather impossible."
And then I said "If you don't have any idea of describing God then on what grounds can you state that others' descriptions of God is wrong?"

BECAUSE YOUR OWN LOGIC SAID THAT THE ENTITY YOU DESCRIBED CANNOT EXIST.

But this DOES NOT IMPLY IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM THAT YOU HAVE CORRECTLY DECRIBED GOD, OR THAT THE 'REASONING' YOU STATED APPLIES IN ANY OR EVEN PART TO 'GOD'.

Maybe, a good place you should justify the description you gave of 'God', and validate all His attributes?