I’m actually starting to believe the show ‘Community’ was right. “Agnostic’s” are the lazy man’s “Atheist”. I always thought my brother, who’s like me, should call himself an agnostic, rather than atheist, because he never said ‘there’s no God’. Now I’m guessing it’s me that should change his Facebook status under “Beliefs”.
I agree that there’s no reason for me to believe in a God. If there was a God, and I was able to find out about it’s existence, I would be more surprised than not.
How can you pay attention to something you haven’t seen? Or, to put it another way, how do you justify ignoring the teapot in orbit between earth and mars?
There is this book, I assume you have heard of, full of stories of a creator God showing himself to people. Burning bushes, flaming swords, pillars of salt, world-covering floods, rivers of blood, locusts, darkness, killing every first-born egyptian child, staves turning into snakes and creating a spring, having a child, water into wine, raising the dead, you know, stuff like that.
If that is the “creator” you’re talking about , I think it’s fair to ask “why hasn’t He done any of that stuff recently?” If those really were histories, and not just stories, they are talking about an entity with (1) the ability, and (2) a fairly frequent tendency of dramatically showing Himself to the world. If there is such an entity, why hasn’t He continued to do so?
See my response to #2. Atheists aren’t the group who have proposed a God that can, and often does do very dramatic things that are observed by, and affect the whole world. They’re simply asking "if such an entity exists, why hasn’t He continued with His demonstrated tendency to show Himself in very dramatic ways.
But I do capitalize Flying Spaghetti Monster.
We have all been touched by his noodly appendage.
Well, yes. And taking as a starting premise that there is no God, the bible is a work of fiction, and it is irrational and foolish for people to structure their lives around the belief that such a God exists. So if you are correct, “Atheists is nothing more then a stubborn rebellious child of God,” and if the premise I have offered in response is correct, believers are irrational and foolish. It all depends on which premise is right.
Let me be clear: in this last point, I am arguing without making any statement of what I think the correct starting premise is. I do not wish to be implied to have endorsed either the premise you propose or the one I respond with (for one thing, Zeus would strike me down were I to do so). I am just making this last point to show how silly it is to try to make an argument that takes its conclusion as a starting premise.
If you follow Rules #s 2 through 4, you’re breaking Rule #1. And if you follow Rule #1, you’re breaking Rules #s 2 through 4. I guess atheism is all about breaking the rules.
Cite, please? And some reason why a hypothetical disinterested observer would be likely to consider the cite authoritative, if you don’t mind.
Again, why do you expect anyone to take that as a starting premise?
So, I guess I had it right about the rule-breaking thing, eh? 
Hey, don’t blame me – I thought it was the right place to begin with.
I think this is the first 2-page thread I’ve ever started. Maybe there is a god after all…
ETA: Hey! It’s three pages now.
**kanicbird **
If I were to believe in your God, I would still think he’s a terrorist, narcissistic, mood-swinging looney. Your god’s decision have changed after something intervened, which tells me he’s not the infallible. I think that leads me to believe he’s a man-made God. Pray for me.
Heh.
I had to look up both of those abbreviations.
Tell me about it! I hate when I’m in the tub or painting a room and the doorbell rings. At the door, there is the usual crowd of atheists trying to push their philosophy onto me, talking about Dawkins and Spinoza, handing me pamphlets.
Or, when you turn on the television and there is some blowhard atheist asking for money to further the cause of atheism and it’s many tenets. (What were they again? I had them right here…something about nothing, dang it, I can’t find it!)
Or, when I’m in church and you have some atheists insisting on no prayer in churches and that evolution is taught along side my favorite creation story (you know, the one about the Great Green Arkleseizure). Jeebus! I hate when those atheists and their fervor get in my face like that!
No, an atheist offers the world as evidence that the world exists. There’s no leap of faith there. It’s the theists who offer the existence of the world that something other than the world exists who have crossed over into religion.
Let me ask the religious this. A Christian doesn’t believe in the existence of Zeus. An atheist also doesn’t believe in the existence of Zeus. Is there a difference in the way a Christian doesn’t believe in Zeus and the way an atheist doesn’t believe in Zeus? A Muslim doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus. An atheist also doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus. Is there a difference in the way a Muslim doesn’t believe in Jesus and the way an atheist doesn’t believe in Jesus? And if a person doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, that makes him an atheist as far as a Christian is concerned but it doesn’t make him an atheist to a Muslim. So how is it one belief may or may not make you an atheist?
Where do you get this shit? Atheism is a lack of religion due to achieving the understanding, there is no god. I spend zero time thinking about “god” , the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny. It appears to color your entire life though.
No.2 is dumb. I impose no conditions. But if god existed there would have been plenty of evidence by now. Since there is none, the conclusion that god does not exist is straightforward and simple.
That’s one approach. I prefer: “there are no gods”* is shorthand for "no one has yet suggested a definition for the word “god” which makes any sort of meaningful sense in the statement “there is a god”.
Sandwich
A religion is more than just a coherent set of beliefs. It is a set of beliefs that informs a believer’s actions at a fairly fundamental level. It is this “faith in action”, in fact, which most believers primarily identify as their religion. This (IMO) is why logical arguments made against a belief structure aren’t very successful in getting the believers to change their minds: Such arguments virtually ignore the personal dynamism of religious belief (please note I’m not defending any particular actions wrought from a religious world-view, just stating the plain fact that people who profess a belief in God or any associated theories about God–e.g. the divinity/mission of Christ in the Christian religion–live and act in ways that are strongly influenced by this belief).
If atheism is a religion–or at least can be compared to a religion–people who hold this belief should be using it in a fundamental way to inform their actions. I’m not sure this actually happens, but I’ll leave that for others to kick around.
Well…atheists, when discussing atheism, usually are involved in discussions that deal at least tangentially with religion or religious related topics.
Fervor is a hallmark of many theistic arguments. When I see fervor in atheists…it reminds me of theists.
If you don’t…no problem.
Nope. I just a huge kick out of watching atheist squirm when you call attention to the fact that they often treat their “beliefs” the way theists treat their “beliefs”…as a religion.
The do…you are doing it…and I am enjoying this more than you can imagine.
I’m 73. Finally got out of grammar school last year. No more school for me.
Okay, I did. And it still is incomprehensible.
Oh the joy of it! Atheists have been trying to make me one of them for decades. I guess they need the reason and logic agnostics bring to discussions.
But, no thanks. I am not an atheist. I am an agnostic.
And obviously you do not have to be able to put together a coherent sentence either. But what does that have to do with things?
Really? Is that some law that was passed recently?
I am an agnostic. We agnostics do not have a belief in gods. That does not make us atheists.
Ew!
And I thought I was kidding when I made that crack about Orthodox vs. Reformed Atheists.
You must have…but I did.
I’ve already done all those things…you are not going to get me to jump through hoops, Diogenes. Look for it. And you really should put question marks at the end of questions.
Oh, you took the words right off my keyboard. But if I mention that…the moderator is gonna get on me again…and I do not want that.
I am talking about the evidence theists offer for the existence of gods. I think it is bullshit; doesn’t hold water at all. There is absolutely nothing of any substantive value in the supposed “evidence” they offer that there is a god, or are gods.
In the case of atheists…the same goes with any “evidence” that causes them to assert there are no gods.
Matter of fact, atheists really do not offer “evidence” that there are no gods…they merely work over variations of “We see no gods”…or “There is no need for gods”…neither of which is even remotely evidence that there are no gods.
Really! Well, that’s an improvement. At least you are starting to think.
Yeah, me too.
But with me, it happens mostly on the Internet.
Jeez…you must live in a strange place to have them actually knocking on your doors!
So, you weren’t kidding, you were saying something that you knew no made sense because you thought it would make atheists here squirm? And you get a big kick out of this? I’m done with you.
This has been floated many times, but lets give it another go:
Atheism is a religion the same way that *not *collecting stamps is a hobby.
We’re not squirming. We’re pointing out that what you’ve said has no connection to reality.
Actually I hadn’t been imaging your self-enjoyment at all. But now that you’ve put that picture in my mind, I think I’m going to go throw up a little.
I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding at work here. Atheists tend to define themselves as having two subgroups: ‘hard’ atheists, and ‘soft’ atheists. Hard atheists are people who believe that there is no god, period, and soft atheists don’t believe that there is a god, but are open to evidence that could change their minds.
Agnostics, meanwhile, define themselves as people who don’t believe that there is a god, but are open to evidence that could change their minds. They define atheists as people who believe that there is no god, period.
As such, atheists see agnostics as just other atheists, while agnostics see atheists as crazy zealots.
Generally speaking, we are not crazy zealots. I’m not a crazy zealot. By Frank’s definition, I’m an agnostic. But I think of myself as a soft atheist.
Now granted, there are some atheists who are crazy zealots, while I have never heard of a self-defined agnostic zealot. This compounds the definition issue, since some agnostics, with the power of confirmation bias, think that ‘atheist’ is the label of a degenerate brute.
But, Frank, you’ve got to consider that most people who aren’t self-defined agnostics will call you an atheist. It’s the dominant label for that sort of thing. So if you rant about atheists, soft atheists will wonder what the hell you’re smoking, while theists will think of you as a self-hating atheist.
To be honest, I prefer your terminology. It’s more precise. But the court of public opinion has ruled against it long ago, and I abandoned the label a while ago simply to avoid confusion.
There’s this thing? It’s called sarcasm.