Calling all Atheists

[der Astronom]

I find it funny how those who follow religion blame Man and the devil when things go wrong, but keep their faith in someone who is said to help if deemed worthy through prayer. Don't you think that if your god does exist that either A) he hates man because he sure as hell has not interveined in the worlds affairs or B) he would step in and do something instead of letting mankind suffer. Who's to say that the author(s) of the bible were not fraudulent? until i am proven wrong, by fact, then anyone who played part in creating the bible is a potentional enemy of man. If man is as bad as believers say then wouldn't it make perfect sense to gain control by exploiting a "god"? And writing a book cliaming it to be his will? and yes there is various works that do not spark outrage, everyday books that don't try to police the world and brainwash mankind into believeing ideals which just make life more difficult. Honestly tell me that if the world was godless and the slightest shred of god did not exist, that there would be more conflict. The catholic church along with the other religions have not really changed all that much, sure there is no longer the spanish inqusition, or the salem witch trials, but still the church tries to police the world. Not through government, but through brainwashing and selling hope. I don't just feel this way about catholicism and christianity, but about all organized and un-organized religion. Jihaad is a prime example of how religion negatively affects the world.

To add to this, I just want to add that secular and atheist societies often have lower crime and divorce rates, and are also generally safer. Some people have tried to come up with statistics to favor religion over secularism, but such studies were either skewed and grossly inaccurate, or became inconclusive because they couldn't find the evidence they wanted. If religion didn't corrupt people, the converse might be true, but it's not.

its islam not muslim
and there are different denominations of that,
the pope is much more powerful then any ayatollah, bush met him.

Islam is the name of the religion, and muslim is what you call a person who practices the Islamic faith. Ie, Islam is an isomorphism of Christianity, and muslim is an isomorphism of Christian. (Well, not quite, but that's an analogy)

no, your wrong.

the bible is not inherently evil, or fraudulent, some parts of it are very wrong, yet most people's morality comes from the bible and the ten commandmants,( i know that they are from Judaism).

If people's morality comes from the bible, and you concede that some parts of it are wrong, how are people to know which "morals" from the bible are the correct ones and which ones aren't? Would you not require an external criteria by which to judge the bible, rendering whatever morality in the bible useless and redundant because you already know what you're looking for?

The fact that people derive some of their morals from a book does not make the book any less inherently evil or fraudulent. You could simply be following fraudulent "morals" or ideals, as people have for some odd centuries in the Western world.

there is no definitive proof, therefore there is a group of people classed as agnostics.

If you believe that, then you're an agnostic, but since that's a belief and not fact, it's entirely possible that atheists could be disproven. However, since your opponent is challenging you to disprove him, you might want to spend your energy on finding a counter example or something.

i agree, its wrong for children to be indoctrinated with religious beliefs, but hope is a good thing, they dont sell hope, they provide it, with so many bad things happening in the world, some people need hope.

Yes, but false hope is ridiculous. Particularly if you're reading for hope from a book that advocates a 6000 year old flat Earth, which no one in today's society should have to believe--actually, very few do. Hope (it's probably faith though) is ridiculous and useless. I'd rather rely on probability than rely on hope. At least if something bad happens, I can't say I didn't expect it.

the church doesnt, but the US and to a small extent, the UN, and this is not a bad thing, genocide in rwanda needs policing, genocide in serbia needed policing, and in the future there will be other situations which need policing.

This need not be done by religion, and the affairs of other countries, so long as they do not interfere with one's own country is not really a concern. At least I feel that way about it. Do you feel the need to stop countries that accept polygamy, even though it's completely none of your business, and doesn't interfere with the way your country operates?

you say that most peoples morals are based on the ten commandments, but most people don't have morals. Everyone breaks the ten commandments and sins.

I'd also like to add that the ten commandments went through a series of changes, so there are two versions of it. The revamped version has more on worshipping God, and only God, and less of the other ones--in fact, thou shalt not kill gets pulled from it.

So technically, every atheist, despite the fact that they might be generally decent and kind people is a sinner. If we went by those morals, you'd know how ridiculous it would get.

the reference to Jihaad was not to single out the islam faith, but to show an exaple of how organized religion always has it's own way of getting out of hand.

There are actually examples of Christians who do that, but probably not as ridiculous as the Jihaad, not just in history, but now, you'll see lots of creationists and crackpot creationist scientists trying to push their agendas into education of science. It's ridiculous, dishonest, and disgusting because they're trying to advocate for an idea that's not scientific at all as science. The worst part of it is that they're not appealing to the scientists for this; they know they'd lose if they tried, so they're appealing to politicians, who don't know jack about science.

everyone has morals, they just differ, morality is defined by an individual, not society.
as the for breaking the ten commandmants, some people work on sunday, thats not a crime, but breaking most others is.

But by definition, you are STILL breaking one of the commandments. You don't make exceptions just because you FEEL it's wrong; if you feel something in the bible is wrong, then you must admit that it's not an adequate basis of morality, and you are using your own criteria to judge the bible. Thanks for backing up what I said.

you fail. thats not a legimate counter arguement, its you clutching at straws.

No actually, that is a valid rebuttal to your statements. If you have said nothing but statements and little to no explanations whatsoever, then your argument is without substance. You can't have much of a counter argument if you don't have any substance with which to attack. So actually, there's no point (or rather, it's impossible) for someone to make a counter argument to an empty argument.

wrong, the powerful is very powerful, he is supposedly god's representative on earth, which is quite powerful.

I don't ask this because I wish to interfere with your debate, but I ask this for the benefit of your debate: define "powerful".

In my opinion, the pope's power is redundant to me because he only commands people who rely on faith and religion--he might even be blinded by his own religion and faith as well. If you are to advocate that popes are powerful people, please remember to laugh at the fact that perhaps some of the most "powerful" people in history did not know that the Earth wasn't flat or older than 6000 years old--it's not even that--they assumed no one was "powerful" enough to find out this information, and they didn't figure out for themselves how to obtain such information.

I am simply not impressed by people who control other people because they ridiculously believe in something a book says with little to no evidence, and their
devotion to faith (otherwise substituted as an isomorphism for blindness) in an obsolete book is not impressive either. A pope, regardless of the power he commands, could not make me sit in church every Sunday for the rest of my life. And it is because he cannot influence those who do not believe in religion or faith.

In my own opinion, the people that hold the most power are people of science and math. They use logic, a tool which has allowed us to advance both economically and technologically. We could not live the way we do now without them, and I wouldn't even be typing this message (and neither would you) without them. Please also remember that Pat Robertson and other creationists and maybe even the terrorists should respect the fact that somebody was smart enough to create their guns and other weapons, their radios and other equipment for their shows and all the other wonderful bits of technology that could not have happened without these scientists and mathematicians. If they didn't have this technology, they couldn't succeed as well. And as I mentioned before, scientists were the ones who discovered the real shape and age of the Earth, as well as other natural phenomena the bible writers and other religious folk could not fathom on their own. So think more carefully about who really has power next time.

There are two core problems with religion: the people and the holy text that it originates from.

The problem with the people is that they often choose to take what's written in a holy text as truth, just because it's that: a holy text. But they don't realize that it's not logical to trust a text as truth just because it's written there and it's "holy"--a statement written in ink could just as well be false. The next problem lies in the fact that because they read the holy text as truth, they lose whatever criteria they had for judging anything they read, and readapt their own criteria for judgement to match the holy text they've read. So even if they might be destroying society, or generally just doing harm to themselves or other people, they won't realize it because they've changed their judgment and morals to something else, and haven't even checked to see if it might just be right. That's why people have been torturing so called heretics in history, and that's why the Inquisition and the Crusades happened--because they believed what was written in a book without evaluating for themselves whether or not it would actually benefit themselves.

The problem with the text is what's written in it. Of course, we could all simply just analyze the holy text with a grain of salt, and know that it might not be true at all--several conclusions arise: from an objective perspective, any holy text is hardly scientific in nature at all, and is in no position whatsoever to dictate what natural phenomena are or what they are like. In fact, trying to let a text do such a thing is hardly adequate and useless anyways; it tells us very little compared to what scientific literature has in store for us as we have found so far. From a more subjective perspective on the morals, our experience and consequences tell us that some of these morals don't make any sense or just feel wrong. Of course, it's hard to judge the morals in a holy text without either reading a different holy text with different morals or without considering the objective perspective. So far, we have seen that the holy text is generally scientifically inaccurate, and one might conclude from that that it's entirely possible for the morals to be wrong as well. When reading other holy texts, one might find that the morals in them don't agree, and either one of them is right, or they're both wrong. This inconsistency tells us that you cannot determine whether or not the morals in a holy text are right or wrong alone--there is simply too little information to know that they are--the only reason they are accepted as such is because of fear of the consequences.

In fact, most of us obtain our morals and our lifestyles from consequences that have happened, either in life or from observing it happen. The reason people follow the morals in a holy text, even if it might seem wrong to an outside observer is because they fear the consequences spoken of in the holy text--do something wrong, and a god comes by with his giant thunderbolt and pecks you to pieces. Stop worshipping him, and he gets his other followers to kill or torture you. But from this observation, one thing is painstakingly clear--it is the consequences that determine morality, and not a holy text. Take the morality of someone who doesn't follow a holy text. They learn their morals from the consequences of things that have happened to them in their life or to other people they have observed. The only difference now is that the consequences that religious people fear are the consequences spoken of in a holy text (this also goes back to the first problem with people) and the consequences atheists fear are the REAL consequences that happen to them in their REAL LIVES. Since we have already validated that the objective perspective of the holy text is completely useless (ie, it cannot be used to verify any objective truth; I have seen more holy texts and adapations of such being molded to catch up with science rather than the other way around), there is no reason to believe that any of these consequences spoken of in a holy text might be true--the probability that they are is very small. But this only tells you that you cannot trust what a holy text says, either in morality or in objective fact. You must use a separate criteria to determine what works best for you.

 

[Donald Trump]

In my opinion, the pope's power is redundant to me because he only commands people who rely on faith and religion

redundant to you as an individual, yet not to the people around you. 1.1 billion catholics, and he has power over most of them, he can also influence world leaders, because one of the bad things of democracy is you need the support of the people. eg spain's population has a majority of catholics, so if he chooses to endorse a politician they will become prime minister, most likely in exchange for doing something for the pope.
ie hitler. pope said dont interfere with the church and i'll say your alright.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">you fail. thats not a legimate counter arguement, its you clutching at straws. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>No actually, that is a valid rebuttal to your statements. If you have said nothing but statements and little to no explanations whatsoever, then your argument is without substance. You can't have much of a counter argument if you don't have any substance with which to attack. So actually, there's no point (or rather, it's impossible) for someone to make a counter argument to an empty argument

it wasnt an empty arguement though.

please remember to laugh at the fact that perhaps some of the most "powerful" people in history did not know that the Earth wasn't flat or older than 6000 years old

sad thing is though, intelligence doesnt make you powerful.

If people's morality comes from the bible, and you concede that some parts of it are wrong, how are people to know which "morals" from the bible are the correct ones and which ones aren't? Would you not require an external criteria by which to judge the bible, rendering whatever morality in the bible useless and redundant because you already know what you're looking for

where do you get your sense of morality from?

So think more carefully about who really has power next time.

inventing something doesnt make you powerful, it proves intelligence, but as i said before intelligence doesnt eqaute to power, in my opinion charisma is more important.
most world leaders present and past have not been intelligent.
take stalin and trotsky, trotsky was far mor intelligent than stalin, but trotsky was the one expelled from the USSR and murdered with an ice pick.

The problem with the people is that they often choose to take what's written in a holy text as truth, just because it's that: a holy text. But they don't realize that it's not logical to trust a text as truth just because it's written there and it's "holy"--a statement written in ink could just as well be false. The next problem lies in the fact that because they read the holy text as truth, they lose whatever criteria they had for judging anything they read, and readapt their own criteria for judgement to match the holy text they've read. So even if they might be destroying society, or generally just doing harm to themselves or other people, they won't realize it because they've changed their judgment and morals to something else, and haven't even checked to see if it might just be right.

another problem with democracy, people are stupid, i totally agree with you on this.

Yes, but false hope is ridiculous

to you the hope is ridiculous, not to the religious.

If you believe that, then you're an agnostic, but since that's a belief and not fact, it's entirely possible that atheists could be disproven

realistically there is no proof that god/s exist and therefore no proof that he doesnt. but thats what religion is, faith, as you have said before its not based on fact.

At least if something bad happens, I can't say I didn't expect it.

thats pessimism.

AM i agree with most of what your saying, but a lot of its wishful thinking. in a utopia the things people would believe would be scientifically proven, but utopias dont exist.

if you look at the thing that showed the amount of people which followed which religion, atheism is down there at the very bottom.
and there are something like 6 billion people on this earth.
until there are as many atheists as religious people, your utopia wont exist.
btw sorry if i sound condescending, i dont mean to

 

[Hera Ledro]

redundant to you as an individual, yet not to the people around you. 1.1 billion catholics, and he has power over most of them, he can also influence world leaders, because one of the bad things of democracy is you need the support of the people. eg spain's population has a majority of catholics, so if he chooses to endorse a politician they will become prime minister, most likely in exchange for doing something for the pope.
ie hitler. pope said dont interfere with the church and i'll say your alright.

Well, to start off, it's not redundant. You do realize that the Pope himself has no authority over all the Catholics, right? He makes rules to doctrine and everything, what is and isn't allowed to be believed, but the instant that someone challenges his authority by saying, "Why?", they become out of his jurisdiction. If at one point, Angelus was a hardcore Catholic, and then found something that made her becoem the way she is, the Pope has no power over that. A simple question makes him lose his power. Is that really power? No, it's influence.

sad thing is though, intelligence doesnt make you powerful.

What world are you living in? The more intelligent you are, the more powerful you are in modern times. Let's not forget, though, that there are different forms of 'intelligence.' There's straight logic, there's mathematics, there's EQ, there's IQ, there's a whole bunch more that is encompassed in g. Bush was smart to get where he was. He was an ass, but he was smart. He may not be the same kind of smart as, say, Al Gore or Stephen Hawking, but he's still smart. Stephen Hawking has huge power in the scientific community. There is very little that he says that is fully contested and challenged, because he is smart, he knows this stuff.

Knowledge is power in humanity. Forgive my french, but how the fuck do you think they got where they are now? They were smart (and cowardly).

where do you get your sense of morality from?

Where do any of us get our sense of Morality from? I got mine through personal values. I see something that causes suffering, I don't automatically assume it's bad. I was taught basic Catholic morals, but went and diverged off into my own when I questioned my faith. I am a complete anti-anthropomorphic atheist now. And I feel that my morals are those that can prevent a great deal of suffering.

So, now you tell me, where do I get my morals? You get them from anywhere you want to. It's you that decides what your morals are going to be.

I have more to say, but I'm going to stop here cuz I gotta go to uni.

 

[der Astronom]

redundant to you as an individual, yet not to the people around you. 1.1 billion catholics, and he has power over most of them, he can also influence world leaders, because one of the bad things of democracy is you need the support of the people. eg spain's population has a majority of catholics, so if he chooses to endorse a politician they will become prime minister, most likely in exchange for doing something for the pope.
ie hitler. pope said dont interfere with the church and i'll say your alright.

I never said every person on the planet thinks logically, did I?

it wasnt an empty arguement though.

You made the statement that Islam is not more powerful, but failed to provide any kind of reasoning or proof to back this claim up. Your opponent could suggest reasons as to why your statement is wrong, but he already has, and is waiting for you to make an adequate rebuttal, other than repeating the statement, a concept of circular logic in its most simplest form.

sad thing is though, intelligence doesnt make you powerful.

If it doesn't, then explain why it is that almost every single household contains a computer, that most likely has Internet access, televisions, electricity, plumbing, heating and other convenient devices. You may suggest that the pope influences Catholics, but there are more households with TV's and computers, a result of math and science through intelligence than there are Catholic families. In fact, most of us have become dependent on this kind of lifestyle.

where do you get your sense of morality from?

That's a question you should be asking yourself, since you actually defy what the bible says about the Sabbath day.

inventing something doesnt make you powerful, it proves intelligence, but as i said before intelligence doesnt eqaute to power, in my opinion charisma is more important.
most world leaders present and past have not been intelligent.
take stalin and trotsky, trotsky was far mor intelligent than stalin, but trotsky was the one expelled from the USSR and murdered with an ice pick.

Intelligence is a kind of power, and with it, there is almost nothing you can't do. The bible says there are things that can't be done or discovered, like the shape of the Earth or how natural disasters occur? Scientists have proven it wrong on numerous occasions.

The fact that one occasion of intelligence failing does not contradict that intelligence has no merit in "power"--it's just highly probably that intelligence amounts to more than charisma alone.

I personally believe part of the problem is people not thinking rationally. How else do you think the shape of the Earth was contested and took another century before the pope finally conceded that the Earth wasn't flat?

another problem with democracy, people are stupid, i totally agree with you on this.

This has nothing to do with democracy; it only has to do with people trusting everything they read for irrational reasons.

to you the hope is ridiculous, not to the religious.

That certainly explains their delusions of creationism and a flat 6000 year old Earth.

realistically there is no proof that god/s exist and therefore no proof that he doesnt. but thats what religion is, faith, as you have said before its not based on fact.

That's a non sequitur. Unfortunately, the fact that God is a concept based on faith does not mean there is no proof. It just means it's falsifiable and it was not devised from evidence.

thats pessimism.
[/quoet]

Probability is considering as many possible outcomes as you can. If you only believe one thing and only one thing can happen, then you are subscribing yourself to predicting what MUST happen, and because you automatically deem all other outcomes as impossible, the truth hurts you when it doesn't come out as you expect it because you place too much faith in what you believe MUST happen, despite the fact that there might not be any rational basis for it at all. This also causes problems with ignorance because you might deny that such a thing happened because it doesn't fit with your scheme of predicting what will happen, and is not only irrational, but both dangerously unreal and narrow minded. If you can consider as many possible outcomes of an event as possible, then it leads you to consider how probable such events would be--at least you might be able to reason or predict why something might occur, but at the same time, know that it need not be the case, as it's still entirely possible for something else to happen--experience and some observations might tell you that. At least if you know what to expect and what possible outcomes could happen, you can accept them more easily and be prepared for the case where they do. I don't consider that pessimistic; that's a reasonable way of thinking that's both rational and reassuring.

AM i agree with most of what your saying, but a lot of its wishful thinking. in a utopia the things people would believe would be scientifically proven, but utopias dont exist.

I am well aware that not everyone is rational, but I don't need to accept their lines of thought. But most people still need to realize that much of what we have accomplished today would be nearly impossible without rational thinkers. I do not consider power to be the number of people who believe in something, as an entire crowd of people can be wrong--the entire Western world for some odd centuries were about the shape and age of the Earth.

if you look at the thing that showed the amount of people which followed which religion, atheism is down there at the very bottom.
and there are something like 6 billion people on this earth.
until there are as many atheists as religious people, your utopia wont exist.
btw sorry if i sound condescending, i dont mean to

Despite what you claim, many notable scientists and mathematicians are acknowledged for their accomplishments, and are worth admiring. But life is rarely simple, if ever, clear, and filled with many things. When people are able to step out of it and see how great these mathematicians and scientists are, they would most likely respect them for being able to accomplish something they could not even grasp the depths of. But because life is filled with too many things, they often get ignored, and can't dwell on very much.

I did not say I desired a world filled with atheists, because I am perfectly fine with people being Christians so long as they aren't interfering with what I believe, but perhaps the fact that there are few atheists might simply be an indication of how few people are rationally thinking--I suggest this as a trend, and not fact. In fact, scientists and mathematicians need not be acknowledge completely (they are though; Andrew Wiles made the headline for his proof of Fermat's Last theorem); humanity need only see that they would be completely lost without the direction of science and math to enhance their lifestyles and living standards.

The ignorance of people to deny the power (and beauty) of math and science does not dismiss the fact that such a power exists.

 

[Donald Trump]

The ignorance of people to deny the power (and beauty) of math and science does not dismiss the fact that such a power exists.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

if they ignore it, it may as well not exist to them.

If it doesn't, then explain why it is that almost every single household contains a computer, that most likely has Internet access, televisions, electricity, plumbing, heating and other convenient devices. You may suggest that the pope influences Catholics, but there are more households with TV's and computers, a result of math and science through intelligence than there are Catholic families. In fact, most of us have become dependent on this kind of lifestyle.

your point is?

That's a non sequitur. Unfortunately, the fact that God is a concept based on faith does not mean there is no proof. It just means it's falsifiable and it was not devised from evidence

there is no definitive proof/evidence that god exists or doesnt exist.
and there never will be.
which means atheism is just as much of a faith as religion.

What world are you living in? The more intelligent you are, the more powerful you are in modern times. Let's not forget, though, that there are different forms of 'intelligence.' There's straight logic, there's mathematics, there's EQ, there's IQ, there's a whole bunch more that is encompassed in g. Bush was smart to get where he was. He was an ass, but he was smart. He may not be the same kind of smart as, say, Al Gore or Stephen Hawking, but he's still smart. Stephen Hawking has huge power in the scientific community. There is very little that he says that is fully contested and challenged, because he is smart, he knows this stuff.

dont give bush all the credit fir him becoming president, all those advisors certainly helped, espicially the ones who helped bush snr.
stephen hawking may have power in the scientific community, but outside of that he has little power.

Knowledge is power in humanity

not desputing that.
yet a guy with charisma thats good looking will probably get more power.
there a few leaders in history that have been intellectuals.

Is that really power? No, it's influence

and influence is power, sure some stop believing, but some convert to catholicism. the pope is a powerful guy.

 

[der Astronom]

if they ignore it, it may as well not exist to them.

That wasn't my point though. See below.

your point is?

If science and mathematics had no "power" whatsoever, then that would mean the technology and living standards we have today that are a direct result of understanding such concepts would not exist. In other words, I would not be typing this message to you, the average age at which people die would probably be lower, and more diseases go unchecked with fewer medical cures, and pretty much all the other things we take for granted would not happen. Unless you acknowledge that such a power affected us and caused us to have the living standards and benefits we take for granted now, these things might as well not have existed to you at all.

there is no definitive proof/evidence that god exists or doesnt exist.
and there never will be.
which means atheism is just as much of a faith as religion.

That is a statement, which I might take to be circular logic thrown back at me if taken to be an explanation.

Try again.

not desputing that.
yet a guy with charisma thats good looking will probably get more power.
there a few leaders in history that have been intellectuals.

Well, what do you expect? A crowd of not so rationally thinking people would buy a good looking guy with charisma, even if a terrible liar rather than a more intelligent person.

and influence is power, sure some stop believing, but some convert to catholicism. the pope is a powerful guy.

Unfortunately, influence is limited because it only works on people who don't think rationally. However, don't mistaken all the people who are Catholics as people who exist as such because of the pope's power.

 

[Donald Trump]

If science and mathematics had no "power" whatsoever, then that would mean the technology and living standards we have today that are a direct result of understanding such concepts would not exist. In other words, I would not be typing this message to you, the average age at which people die would probably be lower, and more diseases go unchecked with fewer medical cures, and pretty much all the other things we take for granted would not happen. Unless you acknowledge that such a power affected us and caused us to have the living standards and benefits we take for granted now, these things might as well not have existed to you at all

it effects our lifestyles, it doesnt actually influence our actions though, does it?

Well, what do you expect? A crowd of not so rationally thinking people would buy a good looking guy with charisma, even if a terrible liar rather than a more intelligent person

a lot of people dont think rationally, they will blindy follow a leader who promises to deliver a panacea for all their problems.
people would much rather believe that then deal with reality

 

[der Astronom]

it effects our lifestyles, it doesnt actually influence our actions though, does it?

Sure it does. The pope would have a harder time broadcasting any of his messages if he did not have a radio or any other means of communications that we now take for granted, including the Internet, telephones, and even snail mail (remember that transportation is a part of technology). But because all of this was made possible by the use of technology, the pope has a larger influence on people than he would have otherwise if he could not communicate to people on the other side of the planet--in fact, he might as well have been ignorant of such an existence since they believed the world to have been flat.

a lot of people dont think rationally, they will blindy follow a leader who promises to deliver a panacea for all their problems.
people would much rather believe that then deal with reality

That might be something they'd like to accept, but it is, by no means, a good thing at all.

 

[Hera Ledro]

dont give bush all the credit fir him becoming president, all those advisors certainly helped, espicially the ones who helped bush snr.
stephen hawking may have power in the scientific community, but outside of that he has little power.

No, but he had to do a lot to get where his S-O-B ass is right now. Yeah, advisors played a huge role, but that's all they played: a role. Bush was the lead, and the advisors were supporting characters, albeit very important ones.

And though Stephen Hawking only has great power in the scientific community, I'd like to point out that, statistically, scientology (or whatever the hell it's called) is making a HUGE rise in comparison the the dramatic fall of religion. More and more people are coming to question faiths. There's always the retrograde action, of course, such as the one that is happening with extremist Islam, where people's faiths are becoming stronger, but the majority of people are questioning their faiths. Correct me if I am wrong, but China has a HUGE thing against practicing religion, you're not allowed to do it. There's one country that's making a huge leap into scientology, forget the individuals.

Anyways, the point of that waffle is basically that though he only has immediate power in the scientific community, he has HUGE influence outside of it.

sad thing is though, intelligence doesnt make you powerful.

not desputing that.
yet a guy with charisma thats good looking will probably get more power.
there a few leaders in history that have been intellectuals.

Really? Wow. Seemed like a dispute.

But once again, you ignore the subtleties of psychology. Yes, a guy with more charisma might get more power in one place than a nerd will, but even so, it's power. And, in all honesty, these leaders owe the nerds bigtime. Where would Bush or Harper be without their PDAs

and influence is power, sure some stop believing, but some convert to catholicism. the pope is a powerful guy.

Yeah, influence is power, but a different kind of power. Much like my Stephen Hawking argument above, saying that he has huge influence, the Pope's influence is on quite the decline.

I've spoken to people and unintentionally converted them FROM Catholicism by pointing out some very basic overlooked facts. Some of these include the religious fact that, if right and wrong are defined by God, and he tells us murder is wrong, then he's damned to hell for killing all those Egyptians.

Next part: He orders the Jewish people to "use the women as they would" - implied rape. Oh yeah, mmhmmm. VERY right, I feel the ethics flowing out there.

Yet, he contradicts these all the time through his Pope and his readings. Bible, as has been proven time and again, it it's own downfall. Faith for the sake of faith is pointless, it's just like saying, "Oh yeah, I'm independent, but really, I'm just gonna follow Osama's orders, I don't really care what he does."

Oh yeah. Real. Fucking. In. De. Pen. Dent.

 

[der Astronom]

And though Stephen Hawking only has great power in the scientific community, I'd like to point out that, statistically, scientology (or whatever the hell it's called) is making a HUGE rise in comparison the the dramatic fall of religion. More and more people are coming to question faiths. There's always the retrograde action, of course, such as the one that is happening with extremist Islam, where people's faiths are becoming stronger, but the majority of people are questioning their faiths. Correct me if I am wrong, but China has a HUGE thing against practicing religion, you're not allowed to do it. There's one country that's making a huge leap into scientology, forget the individuals.

Here's an example of what I mean when I say there's a problem with people and religion. So perhaps people like Stephen Hawkings has influenced other people to see that religion isn't the end all, and you don't have to believe it, but the problem is what people choose to do with this information. You can't blame Stephen Hawkings anymore than you can blame any other atheist for making China go against practicing religion--that was the Chinese government's own decision to do that. What Stephen Hawkings and probably many other atheists advocate is that religion need not be a necessary part of life, but whether or not you actually choose to abandon religion or simply outright disallow it is entirely up to the individual. In closer context to religion, you could worship God and go to church on Sundays because some book told you to, but you can't blame the book for doing that--that was your choice to trust what the book said, regardless of what reasons you had for doing so.

And I'm not entirely sure why you mentioned scientology, but it does bring up a case of explaining the part of the world that doesn't think rationally. But in my own opinion, they're not any better than the other people who believe in religion from faith. The only difference is that they believe in other things, it's not considered religion, it's considered a cult, and they make people pay before they can become members. Actually, is that the scientology you're looking for?

 

[Hera Ledro]

Nah, mebe I was thinking of naturalist or something. I'm still in theistic religions, haven't gotten into atheistic religions, so I'm not sure exactly what people who rely totally on science are called. I allus thought it was called scientology.

 

[der Astronom]

Oh, well there is actually a cult called scientology, not to be confused with atheists, secularists, scientists or other free thinkers. Scientology was apparently based off of some science-fiction book by a writer called L. Ron Hubbard or something, and the cult is based off of some ridiculous story about negative energy or something being the souls of aliens that couldn't return to their original bodies, which apparently explains why we have these thoughts--sounds ridiculous to me. Then they have these e-meter things which apparently measure something; I don't even know quite what it is; it's not even science based. And like I said, you have to even pay to be a member. It wouldn't make much sense that scientology is becoming more popular because people don't believe in religion anymore; it should probably be diminishing or not growing much larger than it already is because it's just a scam for money; none of the things they do are even scientifically based. Although that's something you shouldn't even have to be told about; for goodness sake, it's based off of a SCIENCE-FICTION story. An example of more people going astray yet again, for the same two reasons I mentioned before.

Although I suppose there's a distinction between people who treat science like a religion, and people who accept scientific fact and evidence. The people who treat science like a religion believe in science out of faith, but doing so is redundant because science always works with evidence as much as possible, and any kind of faith you have in it means nothing to the scientists. The people that accept science as it is accept it because of how science has helped us discover what we could not and because of the evidence--it's all explainable. If something can be explained and evidence could be provided, you need not believe it for it to be true; you accept it because you have seen enough that you no longer need to doubt it or you have a reason to accept something. So I guess the people that you're referring to are probably the free thinkers, atheists, secularists and probably atheist-agnostics.

 

[Ewan]

God does exist.


Prove me wrong, without the use of science and circular logic.

Theism is the belief in a God. Atheism is without the belief in a God. That's why the 'a' is there.

So, an atheist doesn't need to provide evidence of a negative because an atheist simply does not believe in the theists claim. If you're a strong atheist (says that God does not exist) then you would have to provide the evidence.

This also addresses the point that some people make that "atheism is just as much as a faith belief and a religious one" or something to that effect.

 

[Shu]

Wow Digging up an old thread here, Mage Masher.

I have never seen a natural born athiest due to the fact that since the youngest age most people are manipulated to believe there are religions and such. Some call it brainwashing and I call it teaching your kid a system of values.

Is believing in god harmful? All depends to be honest. Just take the Islamic faith for instance, most of their faith revolves around being kind hearted to your fellow neighbor. The people who implement Jihad's or holy wars or whatever take the Qu'Ran out of context. I mean you can misrepresent your religion all you want, but it takes a person with humility to understand the true meaning behind what religion really is.

Without humility all religions are moot. What people look for in a faith or religion I call it is a sense of purpose or a beginning of their existence. Due to the fact they create this sense of beginning there has to be someone who created it due to cause and effect. There also has to be some sort of law that man was to abide by, and by creating Deuteronomy in the Hebrew bible, they laid down a set of laws. Same goes for each "legit" (if there is such thing) religion.

I mean the thing is people have always been looking for a fate, or a purpose or something bigger than themselves. This is in a sense is how I perceive religion started in the first place.

I don't diss it because there are so many good references in these religious books. I kind of took bits and pieces and made it and called it my own.

A system of Karmas and I do believe in a god.. but generally it is imperfect as I am. I mean my life has always lead itself in a spiral, I have seen so many signs and such when needing to see them.. and there is nothing that can explain it and coincidence would never be there.

There was no cause and effect, and only some sort of imperfect god could have blessed me with it. So I thank whatever when this occurs, and I only pray when it comes to other people needing it... never for myself.

SO I believe that Athiesm is generally a crock in general, because even Karma is a system of a belief that might even be linked to a god. When you get past the age of 30.. if you don't believe in something.. I feel for ya brother or sister. It's hard to explain life without a sense of purpose.

If we are just lingering here.. well what's the point.. to build a better weapon?

 

[Darth Nihilus]

God does exist.


Prove me wrong, without the use of science and circular logic.

Proof:
Definition: That degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments that induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment; conclusive evidence; demonstration.
Evidence:
Definition: That which is legally submitted to competent tribunal, as a means of ascertaining the truth of any alleged matter of fact under investigation before it; means of making proof; the latter, strictly speaking, not being synonymous with evidence, but rather the effect of it.

This means that you want a proof but you put limits to the way of proving.
It's a bit... malicious
However there's your proof:
Universe was created by a great force of energy.
I don't really care if there was an ultimate being who created it or not.
However, as a great philosopher once said, religion is people's drug.
So, people tend to believe in a great god, for this is a reason to hope in a better future and the afterlife. Also, they tend to believe in destiny.

On the other hand, I, don't have such hopes or beliefs.
I prefer to control my own destiny and my own future.
If I get killed cause of a wrong decision of mine, it will not be an act of destiny. It will be just a consequence of my wrong decision. And I'll be there to pay for it.
Luck and destiny do not exist.
If I fall in love with a woman and in her denial I suicide, would I be unlucky or destined to die? Or would I be suck a pathetic fool to waste my life and hurt those who love me and care about me?

Probably the later...
So, God, as a religious feature, doesn't exist, even if people want it to exist.
God, however, as a great force or a really giant scientist or painter, locked in a laboratory trying to create life or drawing a universe on his wall, could exist.

 

[GBJoker]

God does exist.


Prove me wrong, without the use of science and circular logic.

tl;dr, and yes, I know I'm late to the party.

Can't prove a negative. Burden of proof. And of course, you demand suppressed evidence. Three fallacies so far. But I'll take you up any ways.

Just because you can't explain what happens in the world, does not automatically mean "God" did it. And FFR, I'm going to assume you're speaking of a Judeo god. But more importantly, what if Ra, Zeus, or Jupiter did it? Not to mention Izanami, or Ikazagi, or Mahtma, so forth.

But then lets take it one step further, and just assume "god" whatever that is, takes all these random forms as needed throughout history.

Who says "god" is in fact... a god? Much less, good or evil, whatever those are. Are there multiples, or singular?

I'm trying to form an argument here for your amusement, but I will require more information. Specifically... the definition of "god."

Also... Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

 

[LeafHouse]

I hate to butt my head in in the middle of a conversation, but it does say "calling ALL atheists" so I guess I'll give this a shot.

First off, the burden of proof is on the religious side of the argument without a doubt. The religious side is the one making an assertion - the atheist position is (not as I've seen written in this thread a belief system in of itself but in fact) the lack of one, or in its most extreme forms a calling away from all other forms (known as 'antitheism'). If the argument topic becomes 'Should we do away with religion completely?' then the atheist position would become the affirmative - that is, the side that has to prove something. Just to make things fun, let's make this the debate topic - I bet I can argue for doing away with religion in a convincing enough way, at least without 'circular reasoning'. I'm calling for this instead of the original broader topic of debating God's existence because
a) ultimately, that question disintegrates to conjecture. Maybe God exists and is the source for all of the universe's mysteries, or maybe it's a secret group of tuna fish that's responsible for all this, or a group of aliens. Try proving or disproving any of those, its the same debate
b) even if you somehow proved His or Her existence, that does nothing to prove God's omniscience or omnipotence, let alone that He or She did anything the Bible or any other Holy book claims Him or Her to have done. So unless your a Deist, what's the point?

Ok, here goes. Of course, most of this stuff comes from other minds far more brilliant, or at the very least more original, than my own:

1) Religion is immoral, and it teaches falsehoods. it inspires the absolute worst in human beings, and when institutionalized it licenses people to commit acts they otherwise would not have had the courage to. What evil would religion not excuse in the mind of a zealous person? In the Bible Moses tells his people after taking back over Egypt to rape the Egyptians, God brings Able just short of murdering his own brother in the name of his glory, and biggest of all it is taught that a disgusting, bloody desert human sacrifice somehow absolves sin. Not to mention all the lies in the Bible, things we know are falsehoods - such as God stopping the Sun in the sky, or that man was given dominion over all creatures (I think that was reserved for microbes and other forms of bacteria, thanks). When did that giant flood hit again, and while we're on the subject, why would God use a giant flood to wipe the Earth clean? What about the animals that could swim, or sinners with boats? Did they just luck out or what?? Why do we continue to force children to learn these lies that contradict what we know and can verify empirically any day, any time? Have you looked at the 10 commandments lately? Those were the 10 most important rules??? Really, it reads like it was written by the most petty, jealous God of all time. Those aren't morals at all, and yet they were supposed to be God's Official rules, the ultimate morality, for how ever many thousands of years.

2. It inspires evil, it's the tool of evil and ignorance. Mother Teresa telling people in Africa dying from AIDS is less of a sin than wearing a condom? The Crusades? 9/11? All perpetrated by people claiming to be within God's most tight-nit group of humans, in one way or another. How about the part in the Mormon texts where black people are supposed to have no souls? Or the parts in the early books of the Bible that seem to dare I say support slavery, and were used to scare slaves into thinking God wanted them to live in chains? No matter what faith you're looking at, religion has been used by evil, it has fed and born evil, and it has been created by evil men. Take out all the evil stuff, and your left with a bunch of grown adults praying to a Man and his family living in the sky, adhering to a book that was written for a time thousands of years behind our own - yeah when the Bible was written the human race had yet to uncover the fundamental laws of Physics, most of Math, and hardly any science. Why should such an old and outdated methodology of looking at the world remain when literally nothing of its time period does? Outside of the tradition, isn't it all just very silly?

EDIT: Oh, and Shu, that whole bit about When you get past the age of 30.. if you don't believe in something.. I feel for ya brother or sister. It's hard to explain life without a sense of purpose.

If we are just lingering here.. well what's the point.. to build a better weapon?

doesn't make any sense to me. What, because it's not nice to think about it can't be true? Who ever said life comes with a purpose? Self importance and special relativism are unique to humans, but that's all illusion. One day you're alive, the next you're dead. There's no meaning, nothing lasting, nothing bigger than ourselves. We just have to sleep at night somehow, so we make up theories to avoid the glaring truth. At least, that's my opinion.

 

[eye of the divine]

For me personally I do not believe as such I find it difficult to believe in a religious following that condoned murder, I refer to the crusades in this case of christianity.

I'm sorry but it seems hypicritical concidering one of the 10 comandments is: "thou shalt not kill"

I also find it strange how similar Jewdaism, Christianity and Islam is. When you strip away all the frills of the different texts.

Prove me wrong, without the use of...circular logic.

But alot of people who have faith use it to provide their reasons for faith in God why can't we use it?

 

[Ewan]

But alot of people who have faith use it to provide their reasons for faith in God why can't we use it?

Uh...

You can't use it because it's circular logic and it's fallacious.

 

[eye of the divine]

Uh...

You can't use it because it's circular logic and it's fallacious.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that when it comes to religion every point made brings you right back to where you start off because one person's explination like mine will never be good enough for someone who believes; leading to circular arguments.