Religion, what's the point?

feck yeah. The Devil's clearly way better. I mean, he's supposed to be down there ruling hell and punishing the wicked as his own punishment. So he's supposedly doing what God wants him to do. But why would he do that? If he's really the enemy of God, what's in it for him? He's blatantly down there having a big party just to feck God off. Hell will be awesome!

Or you know, he could just be a tacked on invention to excuse the character of God from seeming evil enough to actually do bad things or punish people for eternity himself. You know, or that. That seems rational. But I reckon it's just as rational to believe he's real, and just kind of awesome.

Where did you get this kind of bullsh*t from?
 
Nice of you to tell me what I think. I believe there is no God. I don't concretely state unequivocably that there's definitely no remote chance there is one from a Deist standpoint. Hence the "theory or belief" part.

Though yes, I do definitely believe there is no Abrahamic God. But then "Atheism" applies to the whole concept, not individually to it's weird little sects.

A large portion of this thread is you, and other religious types whining on about how little we know about religion, whilst constantly misinterpreting and misrepresenting what we think, either about atheism or science.


Where did you get this kind of bullsh*t from?

It's a piss take post you spanner. Though since you ask, Christian myth.
 
How do you prove that the tooth fairy doesn't exist?

The point, which is fairly obvious, I'm not going to shout to everybody: Hey everybody, the tooth fairy does NOT exist! If somebody asks me, I'll just reply: I don't know, I've never seen one!
 
The point, which is fairly obvious, I'm not going to shout to everybody: Hey everybody, the tooth fairy does NOT exist! If somebody asks me, I'll just reply: I don't know, I've never see one!

Have you seen god lately?

(I'm not even going to bother mentioning the ridiculousness of saying "i don't know" to the question "is the tooth fairy real")
 
I have a simple reply to this, but don't change the subject. We're talking now about what atheists believe.
Atheism is defined by what we don't believe. How many times will you need this to be explained before you stop asking such a stupid question?
 
Danny is lost in the perception that Atheism is a thing that we all adhere to in some sort of a code. When in fact it's the complete opposite of that. Everyone has a slightly different perception of it, because it's simply the absence of belief in something else. We believe in what we can see & prove, and our atheistic outlook is informed by that, not by ATHEISM itself, as a thing.

As the Wiki page that Silva posted, which you conspicuously ignored in your quoting definition: Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence ofdeities. Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world today is difficult.

You're trapped in your religious mindset that because you and your brethren follow a certain set of rules, we do to. We don't, because Atheism isn't a dogmatic thing.

You think you're winning an argument by proving we don't all believe exactly the same thing, but you're only winning a straw argument you've invented by yourself. You're actually proving precisely why it's not like a religion.
 
The two are the same thing. We just don't know what came "before" the big bang. Yet. Classic God of the gaps and as the gaps narrow rapidly the search for unknown things to hang god on continues.

The origin of the universe is not a gap. Everything you discover is a mechanism, but you don't know where did this mechanism come from, or who decided that it should happen this way. Like the example I gave about somebody shot dead. You can argue that you're filling the gaps by discovering that he was dead because his heart was injured by a high speed bullet, that originated from a gun, though a mini-explosion that led to very high pressure which pushed the bullet in such a high speed...etc., but the matter of fact that you can't change, is that there must be somebody who arranged all this, and, ultimately pulled the trigger.

Science is limited because it doesn't take account of unicorns. brilliant*

* sarcasm

Science is limited because it's based on the law of reason. Everything has to have a reason to happen, which is why science can't explain point 0.
 
I've explained this to you before, the mechanism is a thing in itself. Running and kicking the ground hard to propel yourself in a direction are the same thing. There is the no distinction between how the the universe began and the universe beginning. You're looking for an explanation which neither exists nor needs to exists.
 
Neither can God. How the feck does he explain point 0?
 
The problem is that you (atheists) don't understand this..

Examples:
Well I understand those perfectly. I just don't necessarily agree with it, particularly not with what bill said. But then that's what you'd expect anyway from someone that doesn't belong to a hive mind. Individuals disagree, what a shocking revelation.

The pitfalls of generalizing a group who's only unifying aspect is lack of belief in something are pretty damn conspicuous. Yet you keep going down this road like fecking Sisyphus.
 
Danny is lost in the perception that Atheism is a thing that we all adhere to in some sort of a code. When in fact it's the complete opposite of that. Everyone has a slightly different perception of it, because it's simply the absence of belief in something else.

As the Wiki page that Silva posted, which you conspicuously ignored in your quoting definition: Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence ofdeities. Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world today is difficult.

You're trapped in your religious mindset that because you and your brethren follow a certain set of rules, we do to. We don't, because Atheism isn't a dogmatic thing.

You think you're winning an argument by proving we don't all believe exactly the same thing, but you're only winning a straw argument you've invented by yourself. You're actually proving precisely why it's not like a religion.

It's not me who is lost about the meaning of atheism.

Suddenly, atheism itself is up for "different interpretations" now, which is normal, you know why? Because when different people follow something, they can't all have the same interpretation. Everybody will try to interpret it in the way he likes.

The matter of truth though, when we're talking about science, atheism can't be proven (in its original/strict form), which is why the "broader sense" was invented, even though it's totally different..

It's very clear that atheists themselves don't understand the difference between: "I don't believe God exists" and "I believe God doesn't exist", which why they use the same word to refer to both meanings. "Atheism".

It's the second interpretation that makes them go out and try to convince people that atheism is correct ("in the strict sense"), claiming that science proves "atheism", while in fact science only supports the broader sense of "atheism" (the first one)..
 
One question I recently thought of (which, given how long this debate has been going has already been asked) but, given what we know about evolution, at which point in the evolution of humans did we start having souls?
 
It's not me who is lost about the meaning of atheism.

Suddenly, atheism itself is up for "different interpretations" now, which is normal, you know why? Because when different people follow something, they can't all have the same interpretation. Everybody will try to interpret it in the way he likes.

The matter of truth though, when we're talking about science, atheism can't be proven (in its original/strict form), which is why the "broader sense" was invented, even though it's totally different..

It's very clear than atheists themselves don't understand the difference between: "I don't believe God exists" and "I believe God doesn't exist", which why they use the same word to refer to both meanings. "Atheism".

It's the second interpretation that makes them go out and try to convince people that atheism is correct ("in the strict sense"), claiming that science proves "atheism", while in fact science only supports the broader sense of "atheism" (the first one)..

Firstly, no one follows atheism, there's nothing to follow.

Secondly, that's nothing but semantics, "I believe" has become a phrase independent of religious/spiritual belief, people 'believe in human rights' 'believe in gay marriage' 'believe in civic law'. It's a phrase, it's just another case of popular phrases being used in everyday life. It doesn't mean what you're wanting it to mean here.

And what's wrong with trying to convince people of your argument? We tell children that fairies aren't real, why can't we tell adults that neither is god?
 
You're hung up on what's for all practical purposes a meaningless distinction.
 
This is why I hate the term "atheism". It makes people like Danny very confused and strident.
 
You're hung up on what's for all practical purposes a meaningless distinction.

No it's not meaningless. It's actually a crucial difference which, ironically, some claim here that I don't understand.

It's one thing to say that I don't believe that a drug that cures all sort of malignancies exists, and another thing to say that a drug that cures all sort of malignancies can't exist.
 
What religion is Danny?

I think I've asked before but didn't get an answer. He seems to have an answer for everything else.
 
The matter of truth though, when we're talking about science, atheism can't be proven (in its original/strict form), which is why the "broader sense" was invented, even though it's totally different..

It's very clear that atheists themselves don't understand the difference between: "I don't believe God exists" and "I believe God doesn't exist", which why they use the same word to refer to both meanings. "Atheism".

It's the second interpretation that makes them go out and try to convince people that atheism is correct ("in the strict sense"), claiming that science proves "atheism", while in fact science only supports the broader sense of "atheism" (the first one)..


What are you talking about?

At what point are you positing that atheism was "invented"...and then modified to fit something?

The 2nd half of that post is a bizarre semantic argument, which ends with you agreeing that science supports atheism (in whatever semantic sense you're on about) and, since it doesn't support religion, that's more than enough reason to convince people it's correct. Even though it isn't a thing!
 
No it's not meaningless. It's actually a crucial difference which, ironically, some claim here that I don't understand.

It's one thing to say that I don't believe that a drug that cures all sort of malignancies exists, and another thing to say that a drug that cures all sort of malignancies can't exist.

Except gods and cures aren't really comparable in that way, even though it's true that men often invent both. You don't expect people to suddenly discover god the way they would invent a cure. Of course you don't, your god has already been discovered, otherwise you wouldn't be a believer. The rejection of that notion, and knowing that it isn't true, are virtually the same.

The more apt analogy would be not believing in beneficial effects of homeopathic medicines, versus knowing they don't work beyond the placebo. You're not gonna use them either way.
 
So, Danny, at which point in the evolution of humanity did god see us as good enough to have souls?

This is actually a question that's puzzling me. I've thought about this a lot, not only this actually, but even simpler, when do we consider that person x is formed? The word "soul" is too complicated actually to discuss for now..

I don't really know.. At the moment, I can't draw a line where I can say Person x is formed after ... of pregnancy. There is no clear cut line where we can say: it starts here. Probably as far as the genetics are concerned, fertilization could be the point where it could be considered as the starting point..

However, there is also a flaw in this, because some twins form after fertilization, and they grow up to form two separate people, even though they had the same starting point as far as "fertilization" goes..

So at the moment, I don't really know.. There is still a lot that we don't know at the moment..
 
This is actually a question that's puzzling me. I've thought about this a lot, not only this actually, but even simpler, when do we consider that person x is formed? The word "soul" is too complicated actually to discuss for now..

I don't really know.. At the moment, I can't draw a line where I can say Person x is formed after ... of pregnancy. There is no clear cut line where we can say: it starts here. Probably as far as the genetics are concerned, fertilization could be the point where it could be considered as the starting point..

However, there is also a flaw in this, because some twins form after fertilization, and they grow up to form two separate people, even though they had the same starting point as far as "fertilization" goes..

So at the moment, I don't really know.. There is still a lot that we don't know at the moment..


Can anyone decipher this ?
 
What are you talking about?

At what point are you positing that atheism was "invented"...and then modified to fit something?

The 2nd half of that post is a bizarre semantic argument, which ends with you agreeing that science supports atheism (in whatever semantic sense you're on about) and, since it doesn't support religion, that's more than enough reason to convince people it's correct. Even though it isn't a thing!

Science support "atheism" in the sense that science can't find a materialistic proof for God. But science doesn't support "atheism" in the sense that it proves that "God can't/don't exist", which is what most atheists claim.

If you review the posts of the atheists here, including yourself, you'll see very clearly how you don't really differentiate between the two senses of the word "atheism".

EDIT: Of course by "science" here I mean the "materialistic science".
 
What's this materialistic science thing and what's it's counterpart?