The Nonsense of Atheists

[spidergoat]

I didn't mean that. I only mean that saying the world would be better off without religion doesn't amount to a campaign of persecution. The Soviets didn't hesitate to kill people for no reason at all. They were sick people, authoritarian totalitarian thugs. And they were they way because that's how business is conducted in Russia. That's how the Czars did it. I would argue it was that way due to a thousand years of religious thuggery. That's nothing like a modern secular society.

 

[RenaissanceMan]

At least we have "a few fundamental points". Theists on the other hand have no points at all. It's just faith and no substance!

KRR

Francis Collins is a Christian.
Georges LeMaitre was a Catholic priest.
Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist.
Copernicus was a Christian.

They were each and every one men of substance.
And your "substance" is... what, precisely?
Let's see some of it.

 

[RenaissanceMan]

I agree that atheists are often arrogant and annoying.

But you seem to be trying to play the same attitude game yourself in this thread, aren't you?

Shall there be no ground rules? Is everyone to concur that atheists, by virtue of their Dawkinsian faith,
are intellectually superior? Proof of this, please.

Agnosticism, which pretty much amounts to atheism in a weak sense since it implies a lack of religious belief, appears to be the most intellectually justifiable position to hold regarding supposedly transcendental matters and supposedly supernatural revelations.

There are scientific relevations as well. Why do you discount those?

Well, its true that 'testimonies' and Bible quotations aren't likely to be very persuasive to anyone who doesn't already share the evangelist's beliefs. It's just too circular and somehow, everything always ends up being about the evangelist and his personal 'faith'.

Who mentioned the Bible? In my experience, it is always the atheists who bring it up first. How is that? Your side introduces the Bible and then blames US for doing so. How disingenuous. How anti-intellectual.

If the evangelist puts aside a revealed theology that's only convincing to those who already believe it, and turn instead to natural theology that purports to spin a personal deity out of the physical universe and from hypothetical abstract philosophical functions like first-cause, then results are going to be weak and notably unpersuasive.

There you go again, talking evangelism and theology and deity.

Let's talk about the insuperable statistics of polypeptide synthesis, shall we?
Let's talk chirality.

Let's talk about hemoglobin, and protein folding.

Now, what is the space of hemoglobin?

 

[RenaissanceMan]

Well done..

Angels, devils, gods, magic. Thousands on competing religions. War and violence.. Yes you are stupid for following a religion. All of which where invented by mankind to control the masses for the benefit of the power hungry few.

Once again each religion is sure of the others untruth. You would have to be very stupid to believe all religions are right...

You would have to be stupider by far to follow atheism, whose proponents include Chairman Mao, murderer of ~50,000,000, Josef Stalin, murderer of ~40,000,000, Pol Pot, murderer of ~4,000,000, and the countless other mass murderers of history, including one Kim Il Jung of North Korea.

Atheists lie that these fellow atheist murderers didn't "do it because of their atheism."

Uh huh. They didn't kill scores of millions because they were Christians, that is for sure.

As Dennis Prager said, "If people do not believe in God, they they will find a substitute for God, usually government."

For over two hundred years, America has developed as "One Nation, Under God."

Now stupid atheists continue to prattle the nonsense that they are discriminated against, that they cannot follow their own beliefs.

It is just one lie after another, beginning with the lie that the entire universe created itself, organized itself, energized itself, and so on.

Dawkins is the leader of this Huge Lie. He demands to know whence God got His power, else there can be no God.

Well, atheism is the contention that THERE IS NO GOD. Therefore it is incumbent on atheists to PROVE their/your contention.

Who has done this? WHO!

Nobody, that's who.

 

[AlexG]

Silliness.

 

[birch]

Well, atheism is the contention that THERE IS NO GOD. Therefore it is incumbent on atheists to PROVE their/your contention.

an atheist who says that there is no god is wrong. an atheist that says there is no proof of god is right.

Francis Collins is a Christian.
Georges LeMaitre was a Catholic priest.
Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist.
Copernicus was a Christian.

They were each and every one men of substance.
And your "substance" is... what, precisely?
Let's see some of it.

and this is your proof of what? that there can be those who use reason and contribute to science? lol

einstein was not a theist but his discovery was monumental.

what does religion or belief in god have to do with any of this? nothing.

you are making an opposite case. it seems to be a case of "in spite of" religion, they persevered.

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/2002/issue76/7.22.html

From the start, Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric system, described in his De Revolutionibus, met opposition from Catholics and Protestants alike. Critics attacked his new cosmology with a number of Scripture passages

 

[spidergoat]

If there is no evidence for God, then it's not wrong to say there is no God. Evidence should be there if God exists.

 

[spidergoat]

You

You're stupid. Shut up.

 

[krreagan]

Soviets and religion

The Soviets persecuted the religions because they felt it was a threat to their power structure. Instead of using religion to subdue its people, they used fear of the KGB, gulags, their neighbor...(fear is also something religions are also very adept at using to control the masses) Their ideology was to simply keep themselves in power and to acquire more power. Communism was simply the ideology that best fit their goals of subjugating the populace to keep the peasants peasants and the leaders in power.

Atheism is not an ideology or even a belief, but refusal to accept an idea without evidence to support it, no matter how many people are taken in by it.

KRR

 

[krreagan]

Francis Collins is a Christian.
Georges LeMaitre was a Catholic priest.
Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist.
Copernicus was a Christian.

They were each and every one men of substance.
And your "substance" is... what, precisely?
Let's see some of it.

Due to the religious persecution that was rampant at the time (inqusition, crusades...) it's very difficult to say what they truly were!

You were not a christian because you believed as you did so much as because it was expected of you and you were brain washed as a child to be one. Otherwise you were ostracized, stoned or burned as a witch... Being christian was a defensive position for the scholarly at the time more then a belief.

KRR

 

[krreagan]

You would have to be stupider by far to follow atheism, whose proponents include Chairman Mao, murderer of ~50,000,000, Josef Stalin, murderer of ~40,000,000, Pol Pot, murderer of ~4,000,000, and the countless other mass murderers of history, including one Kim Il Jung of North Korea.

Atheists lie that these fellow atheist murderers didn't "do it because of their atheism."

Uh huh. They didn't kill scores of millions because they were Christians, that is for sure.

As Dennis Prager said, "If people do not believe in God, they they will find a substitute for God, usually government."

For over two hundred years, America has developed as "One Nation, Under God."

Now stupid atheists continue to prattle the nonsense that they are discriminated against, that they cannot follow their own beliefs.

It is just one lie after another, beginning with the lie that the entire universe created itself, organized itself, energized itself, and so on.

Dawkins is the leader of this Huge Lie. He demands to know whence God got His power, else there can be no God.

Well, atheism is the contention that THERE IS NO GOD. Therefore it is incumbent on atheists to PROVE their/your contention.

Who has done this? WHO!

Nobody, that's who.

Sorry, The more of the non-sense I read from you the more I see that you are truly lost. Forget that I have responded to you... I'd hate to feed the ignorance and hate...

KRR

 

[lightgigantic]

I didn't mean that. I only mean that saying the world would be better off without religion doesn't amount to a campaign of persecution.

well once again, I bring to your attention that you seem to be driving a double meaning behind the word persecution

The Soviets didn't hesitate to kill people for no reason at all.

or more correctly, for reasons that stalin thought were important.

Post stalinism saw a different mode of persecution

They were sick people, authoritarian totalitarian thugs.

its the general nature of any extremist ideology, even extremist atheism

And they were they way because that's how business is conducted in Russia. That's how the Czars did it. I would argue it was that way due to a thousand years of religious thuggery.

or even extremist theism

That's nothing like a modern secular society.

(guffaw)
it seems that the only new tools that secular thuggery brings to the table are more sophisticated technology and media

 

[James R]

You would have to be stupider by far to follow atheism, whose proponents include Chairman Mao, murderer of ~50,000,000, Josef Stalin, murderer of ~40,000,000, Pol Pot, murderer of ~4,000,000, and the countless other mass murderers of history, including one Kim Il Jung of North Korea.

Atheists lie that these fellow atheist murderers didn't "do it because of their atheism."

Uh huh. They didn't kill scores of millions because they were Christians, that is for sure.

Time to grab that dictionary again. Look up non sequitur.

It is just one lie after another, beginning with the lie that the entire universe created itself, organized itself, energized itself, and so on.

How do you know that's a lie?

Well, atheism is the contention that THERE IS NO GOD. Therefore it is incumbent on atheists to PROVE their/your contention.

All atheists really say is that there's no convincing evidence for any gods.

Have you got any?

 

[lightgigantic]

The Soviets persecuted the religions because they felt it was a threat to their power structure. Instead of using religion to subdue its people, they used fear of the KGB, gulags, their neighbor...(fear is also something religions are also very adept at using to control the masses) Their ideology was to simply keep themselves in power and to acquire more power. Communism was simply the ideology that best fit their goals of subjugating the populace to keep the peasants peasants and the leaders in power.

not all political systems are so unique to utilize atheism to maintain their goals however ....

Atheism is not an ideology or even a belief, but refusal to accept an idea without evidence to support it, no matter how many people are taken in by it.

KRR

WTF?
So if god is evidenced with support one would also be an atheist?

 

[lightgigantic]

If there is no evidence for God, then it's not wrong to say there is no God. Evidence should be there if God exists.

it does however become wrong when one discounts evidence on the strength of the conclusion ("because god doesn't exist, anyone who lays claim to the experience of perception has been duped") or requires that the claim be validated by evidence gathering methodologies that don't meet the criteria for investigation (like naturalism and the about of 90% of what is deemed "empirical")

 

[spidergoat]

("because god doesn't exist, anyone who lays claim to the experience of perception has been duped")

That's not how it goes. Perception alone was never valid evidence.

or requires that the claim be validated by evidence gathering methodologies that don't meet the criteria for investigation (like naturalism and the about of 90% of what is deemed "empirical")

You have artificially placed the criteria outside of the realm of normative evidence gathering, which is the only way to know something reliably. Several religions make claims about God that most certainly do not fall outside of this realm, and it is these to which I am referring. The entire realm of all possible Gods is not what I dismiss, but neither do these make any claim to need worshiping, unless everyone's subjective perception is equally valid in determining what is real, (and in that case, we can never be reasonably sure of anything).

 

[Lori_7]

Nope. No persecution there. The world might also be better off with only one million people, but that doesn't mean it's ethical to kill people to get to that point.

we do that all the time. with the death penalty, and that's what a lot of wars are supposedly fought over.

 

[Lori_7]

You have artificially placed the criteria outside of the realm of normative evidence gathering, which is the only way to know something reliably. Several religions make claims about God that most certainly do not fall outside of this realm, and it is these to which I am referring. The entire realm of all possible Gods is not what I dismiss, but neither do these make any claim to need worshiping, unless everyone's subjective perception is equally valid in determining what is real, (and in that case, we can never be reasonably sure of anything).

normal evidence gathering is not the only way to know something reliably. why is it that everyone has to perceive something equally in order for it to be evidence? isn't it rare for even two people to perceive the same experience the exact same way? it is. and worship is simply a deserved appreciation for what you've experienced, and come to know. people are always so offended by that word.

 

[Yazata]

it does however become wrong when one discounts evidence on the strength of the conclusion ("because god doesn't exist, anyone who lays claim to the experience of perception has been duped")

The idea of perception is fairly straightforward when we are experiencing physical objects that reflect light, make sounds, emit smells and so on. It's a bit trickier if our observation is indirect and we have to use scientific instruments to detect whatever-it-is.

But the idea of perceiving God multiplies our problems exponentially. Presumably God isn't a physical body, so there's the initial problem of explaining how God interacts with our physical senses. People often talk about perceiving God in a different way, with some sort of inner sense, which raises the question of what that supposed inner sense might be and how it can be distinguished from imagination and self-delusion.

What's more, God is supposedly an infinite transcendental object, something that isn't bound by and completely overflows the limits of physical existence and human cognition. But humans are most definitely limited and finite. So we are confronted with the problem of explaining how any finite experience can justify our claim to have experienced an infinite object.

More graphically, that can be thought of as the 'Independence Day problem'. No matter how stupendously impressive the heavenly light show, no matter how utterly inexplicable the grand sky visitation, there's still the crucial question of whether or not what confronts us is truly divine and truly a suitable object for worship. It's not a trivial problem.

 

[spidergoat]

How can I rely on anyone's experience if experiences are observer-dependent? We have consciousness. Doesn't it make sense that we could create sub-consciences at will? Kids can have imaginary friends. They exist in one's mind. Might they not persist and mature in scope and power as a kind of self-regulatory system? We even call the thing that helps us make ethical decisions a conscience. I suggest that ethical thinking is an evolutionary development, that it has a specialized location in the brain, and that it can be perceived as a personality. My own experience with meditation confirms that the thing you think is your personality can be observed as from the outside. So what is the thing that is doing the observing?

I understand your conception of worship. I think I was talking about the customs involving interaction with a living God. Many people who believe in God try to make some kind of contact, and they are frustrated. If a rock exists, it doesn't matter who touches it, it's always there.