Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Are you willing to accept that there may be? And accept consequences for not believing? Avoiding the consequences is the logical reason for my belief. If no God exists then nothing happens. If God exists, I am rewarded if I believe, and punished if I do not. Thus, I made the rational and reasoned decision to believe.
Ah, Pascal's wager. Not meaning to offend you, but if I was your "god", I would probably deny your entry into heaven seeing as you believed in me out of fear, and not out of love and true faith. Pascal's wager may sound logical at first, but it is quite the opposite. It's a fine way of demonstrating how so many people don't even understand the "god" they believe in.
Quote:
Anti-theism offers no such hope. No hope at all. As if mankind were expected to suddenly become non-irrational, non-emotional, completely (100%) logical. As if people should deny the wonders and beauty of what the real world offers. No longer can a person behold a rainbow and wonder at the beauty and the circumstances of its being, much less how a rainbow affects the mind and spirit of the beholder. No, no. Man must look only upon the rainbow with the knowledge that raindrops have alligned them in specific rays, that the complex chemical structure of water is capable of splitting up visible light into its individual components.
Whaaaaaaaaaaat?
I'm an anti-theist and this is (100%) ridiculous. Just because I believe in logic and facts does not mean I can't appreciate beauty and feel emotions. I find rainbows beautiful and fascinating, as I do most of nature and science. I see the wonders and beauty in the world around me every day. Using science to understand those wonders is just another captivating aspect of the whole scenario. Anti-theists believe religion is more harmful then it is helpful, that is the reason we are anti-theists. We ARE NOT out to take away the beauty from the world. We simply know how to find that beauty without the help of fictional beings and believe the world would be better off without said fictional beings and their discriminatory rules, fear mongering, and punishments.
Quote:
It seems to me that more religious people will agree with evolution than atheists will agree that God exist
Yes, it seems to me that more people will believe in facts than fictional stories. Most religious people even believe in gravity!
We all know which side of the fence you fall on, Mercury. But to say more would violate the "personal attack" restriction.
Hide all you want from yourself.
To the others, who misunderstood:
I did not state that atheism = antitheism.
Many of my good friends are atheists. And they are wonderful people.
Other friends are theists.
But I will get on the cases of the extremists, both the anti-theists and the ultra-evangelists.
No one has the right to state that the opinions and feelings and beliefs of another individual are wrong or stupid. Prejudicial discrimination of any sort is simply not allowed within the United States, and it certainly should be shunned elsewhere in the world. It merely divides and conquers the human race at a time when we need each other work and survive together.
Disagreeing with an idea is fine. Telling another person that they have to be the dumbest rock for believing in anything is just flat out wrong. What was that old saying? I'm rubber, and you're glue.
I am not an anti-theist because I think religion is stupid. Your theory for why people are anti-theists shows that you do not understand anti-theism.
I'm an anti-theist because I do not like seeing discrimination based on fictional stories, I do not like wars fought over fictional stories, I do not like seeing people use religion to gain power over people, etc, etc. I could go on for a pretty long time about why I'm an anti-theist. It is because, like I said, religion is more harmful to the human race then it is helpful.
If all religious people were minding their own business, I would not be an anti-theist. You are correct, disagreeing with an idea IS perfectly acceptable, but using your beliefs as an excuse for mistreating and discriminating against fellow human beings is NOT acceptable.
You say prejudicial discrimination is not allowed within the United States, yet homosexuals aren't allowed to marry each other in every state. This has everything to do with religion. Ergo, I'm an anti-theist, because I am also anti-discrimination. The day religion has no control over laws such as gay marriage, abortion, etc, I will cease being an anti-theist.
I could care less whether an individual believes in a "god" or not, to each his own, but I care very much when the separation of church and state is ignored. Which it is far too often.
But in your anti-theism, caitlindwarf, you are arguing from a point of logic and social equality. A few of our most ardent anti-theists are calling for the heads of all theists and deists, which is in effect a desire to control what other people think.
BTW, the best ammunition against these extreme theists (most notably Fundamental Christians) is to use their own cannon and church leaders against them. It is a documented fact that homosexuality was allowed in the early church. There was only one stipulation: equals could not be "joined." One of the couple had to be in a socially higher position, and there were plenty of bishops who were homosexuals.
Secondly, Paul was not lambasting homosexuality but the pagan religions that were associated with homosexuality. In order to please the gods, whole religious ceremonies were dedicated to sex with anyone and anything. What Paul was really saying is that to even NOT say anything about the practice was to condone the worship of a pagan (therefore not the true God) god.
I agree with you on many aspects of society whereby people should be treated equally and unequivocably. As a theist, how could I otherwise hold my head up and honestly state that I love my fellow man, enemy, friend, and otherwise, if I did not combat the extremism that has befallen the really wierd (really anti-Christ) so-called Christian churches and the messages they are brow-beating the already who-gives-a-care populace.
It seems to me that more religious people will agree with evolution than atheists will agree that God exists.
Yes, but that isn't because Theists are les arrogant than atheists but because the evidence for evolution is far sounder than the evidence for theist claims.
Ah, Pascal's wager. Not meaning to offend you, but if I was your "god", I would probably deny your entry into heaven seeing as you believed in me out of fear, and not out of love and true faith. Pascal's wager may sound logical at first, but it is quite the opposite. It's a fine way of demonstrating how so many people don't even understand the "god" they believe in.
Yes. My line is that atheism, while recognising that the evidence for an afterlife is not very sound, would not deny there might be one. But it would not be one reserved for followers of a particular religion (which Pascal's wager overlooks - one must not only believe in God but the right god, or one has less chance of heaven than an atheist, who at least did not believe in a false god) but would be open to all. Thus the atheist can get on with their life content in the view that an afterlife (should there be such a thing) is guaranteed.
Quote:
Whaaaaaaaaaaat?
I'm an anti-theist and this is (100%) ridiculous. Just because I believe in logic and facts does not mean I can't appreciate beauty and feel emotions. I find rainbows beautiful and fascinating, as I do most of nature and science. I see the wonders and beauty in the world around me every day. Using science to understand those wonders is just another captivating aspect of the whole scenario. Anti-theists believe religion is more harmful then it is helpful, that is the reason we are anti-theists. We ARE NOT out to take away the beauty from the world. We simply know how to find that beauty without the help of fictional beings and believe the world would be better off without said fictional beings and their discriminatory rules, fear mongering, and punishments.
Very good. You come to the site with some sound ideas already. It is a calumny, old, refuted, but still persistent, that a logical and factual approach will somehow cause all sense of beauty and wonder and even those feelings designated 'spiritual' (in order to unfairly claim them for the general sphere of theism) to somehow vanish leaving soulless human robots (google 'The Straw Vulcan'). This was beautifully refuted in Harbour's 'the intelligent person's guide to atheism' where it was pointed out that Keats (a fine poet but a logical fathead), a propounder of this 'knowledge negates beauty' foolishness, wrote a poem about the beauty of Venus even though the poet knows that it is a planet going round the sun and not a star. Knowledge adds to a sense of wonder and beauty.
Quote:
Yes, it seems to me that more people will believe in facts than fictional stories. Most religious people even believe in gravity!
Yes. In fact there is reasonableness and arrogance on both sides and I am not going to say that theists are more or less arrogant than atheists. I will just say that the atheist arguments are sounder and attacking them and their behaviour is probably going to make more points for theism than trying to out - argue them on logic and facts.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-22-2010 at 04:59 AM..
Reason: My flaming clumsy typing.
Yes, but that isn't because Theists are les arrogant than atheists but because the evidence for evolution is far sounder than the evidence for theist claims.
Doubtful.
The evidence for God's existence is all around.
Where did the universe come from?
How did life begin?
We (all of the life on earth and in the universe) could not have evolved from nothing.
If you cannot make a case for how life began, evolution means nothing.
I am not an anti-theist because I think religion is stupid. Your theory for why people are anti-theists shows that you do not understand anti-theism.
I'm an anti-theist because I do not like seeing discrimination based on fictional stories, I do not like wars fought over fictional stories, I do not like seeing people use religion to gain power over people, etc, etc. I could go on for a pretty long time about why I'm an anti-theist. It is because, like I said, religion is more harmful to the human race then it is helpful.
If all religious people were minding their own business, I would not be an anti-theist. You are correct, disagreeing with an idea IS perfectly acceptable, but using your beliefs as an excuse for mistreating and discriminating against fellow human beings is NOT acceptable.
You say prejudicial discrimination is not allowed within the United States, yet homosexuals aren't allowed to marry each other in every state. This has everything to do with religion. Ergo, I'm an anti-theist, because I am also anti-discrimination. The day religion has no control over laws such as gay marriage, abortion, etc, I will cease being an anti-theist.
I could care less whether an individual believes in a "god" or not, to each his own, but I care very much when the separation of church and state is ignored. Which it is far too often.
I agree again. It is sometimes asked (not as a just point but as a way of trying to misdirect - dishonesty is built - in to theist apologetics) why we don't attack Hinduism or Buddhism.
It is because they don't bother us. They put up their temples and get on with what they do and bon't bother us. We can even join in their festivals (if permitted) for the sheer fun of it, just as we do at Xmas and Hallowee'n.
If Christians just did their thing we could leave them to it and the worldview would be a logical and evidence - based one, as it ought to be.
But they don't. They interfere with law, education, the workplace, society, government, every organisation that they can infiltrate and - blast their eyes - in science too.
I take Thom R's point that many theist scientists have made splendid contributions to science and I hope he takes my point that the egyptologist Kitchen draws criticism for fiddling the results of archaeology to try to support the bible.
Given that there is a need and responsibility to argue the facts and logic and, since Theist claims are soundly based on neither and it has to be said that the theist claims do not stand up, the main wrangle is where science is either misused to try to support the Bible or denigrated because it doesn't.
If the Hari krishnas had millions of adherents and were pushing their 'Western knowledge is inadequate' view they'd get the same treatment as is dished out to Christianity here.
Scientology is the veriest crap and it is a nasty llitte Deen (thanks Mystic ) too. But it does keep itself to itself so is not so alarming as the vociferous science - corrosive apologetics of Christianity.
Islam gets a well - deserved slamming, too, but it is just so absurd. The argument by pasting scripture doesn't take much dismissing as irrelevant. The proof of the Quran because mention of bee - keeping proves advanced scientific knowledge is so laughable that it hardly deserves debate.
Christianity - and I really mean the well - funded, highly motivated and utterly non - scientific Fundamentalist Creationism - is the real and a very real threat because it is NOT well based in science or logic but it is very clever at pretending that it is.
That's why we have to oppose it vociferously and specifically and Islam will get the same once it has finished climbing on the Creationist band - waggon.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-22-2010 at 05:28 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
) too. But it does keep itself to itself so is not so alarming as the vociferous science - corrosive apologetics of Christianity.
