Guys, lets give DeepThought a break, he obviously doesn't have a source. He's throwing out random thoughts and presenting them as fact to give the verisimilitude of an intellectual grounding. This is even more obvious as he randomly states "I am not a Christian," perhaps hoping to somewhat gain our sympathy, as he sees we are argumentative towards Christians. This is a misunderstanding; we as atheists oppose any and all senseless arguments. Christianity just happens to be riddled with it.
Why do atheists hate Jesus?
- Thread starter John J. Bannan
- Start date
An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God.
Not someone who opposes senseless arguments.
Atheists love Monty Python.
ok...science cannot exactly answer how the universe began..they are just presenting theories, not exact facts. science cannot prove that we came from monkeys (and i won't personally believe that). as what our science teacher say, "not all things can be explained through science"
I never proposed my statement as the definition of an atheist. Nice try.
We also have enough intelligence to differentiate when a senseless argument is strictly for comical purposes and when it is asserting to be taken seriously. (Nice try again.)
While you are correct in saying that science cannot answer how the universe began, it provides a much more satisfying process (which is backed by a tremendous body of evidence...a strange concept, I know) than the alternative, which is that a mysterious God (nevermind where he came from) poofed everything into existence.
Science tells us that things evolve via a one way street, from simple to complex. This, whether you decide to ignore it or not, is a fact. While nothing as of yet has a completely satisfying explanation of how the universe began (if it began at all), this gives good ground for claiming it is highly unlikely that it is due to a complex God.
Why? This is why; because a God who is able to create such a universe would have to be extremely complex indeed. Now, based on what we know to be fact through meticulous scientific analysis (namely that things move from being simple to complex), the likelihood of the beginning of this universe being due to such an extremely complex being highly contradicts the evidence we find in said universe.
So while science does not yet (and I emphasize 'yet') have a thorough explanation, we see that attributing such a mystery to a God (in what I see as a throw-your-hands-up and shrug-your-shoulders attitude), only complicates and doubles the problem.
Edit: I should add that "theory" in scientific terms is perhaps not the same as what you think theories are. Theories in science are not merely thoughts, but thoughts that have survived the intensely hot crucible of objective testing. The reason they are called theories (as opposed to laws) is because they still allow room for new discovery. Issac Newton's gravitational theory is a prime example. It is a fact, but still a theory because we've found that these observable manifestations of force are actually due to microscopic and exponentially more complex processes known as quantum physics.
Last edited:
yeah, it's so complicated but, i would still believe that God created the world...and just a thought, i can't understand some complexities in science because i'm very young..but i will stick to what i know and what i believe in...
but God does not complicate things...he makes things clear (to my OPINION) to me. because, it's what i believe and it's what i will always believe.
no one (as for now) can make me believe that God does not exist.
dbl post, oops.
I sympathize with you if you want to play the young-and-naive card, I was there too and had a lot of fun. But know that as you grow up, fairytales collapse under more reasonable thought. I don't mean to be harsh, but what you've basically just told me is "No matter what kind of evidence you give me, no matter how overwhelmingly accurate, I will never listen or change my mind." Can you imagine such an attitude on someone you, say, are trying to lead to Christ? It's extremely close minded and childish. But if you claim to be a child, then this is excusable of course. Good talkin with ya.
14..but i guess that's not too young..anyway..i'm a theist but it doesn't mean that i'm as good as a saint..what i mean is, i still have some attitude-issues i need to work on..
Haha, I think you just showed me that this discussion with you can't go much further, on this day or tomorrow.
Oh, he's cited something (bolded by me). Unfortunately, it doesn't attest to his original claim any more than before he edited this post.
DeepThought, clearly what this study shows is that children whose families are broken are more likely to commit suicide. I didn't see the word 'atheist' in there at all, did you? Even if it did, it would be a pretty blatant stroke of bigotry to assume that just because one has a broken family, his/her parents are atheists.
In fact, now that I read it again, is it seems this source discourages religion altogether (I assume subsequently the absence of religion) as grounds to determine who is more likely to abuse a child. Talk about shooting yourself in the conceptual foot.
But I'm going to challenge your claim again, quoting a source of my own, one that is actually relevant:
"Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them--given certain other ingredients that are not hard to come by--to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades. Immunized against fear by the promise of a martyr's paradise, the authentic faith-head deserves a high place in the history of armaments, alongside the longbow, the warhorse, the tank and the cluster bomb. If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers. Suicide bombers do what they do because they really believe what they were taught in their religious schools: that duty to God exceeds all other priorities, and that martyrdom in his service will be rewarded in the gardens of Paradise...Faith can be very very dangerous, an deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong." -The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins.
Now, I ask you, which is the true child-abuser?
Last edited: