Perhaps atheists are interested in the truth unfettered by myth and dogma that merely spouts phrases about God while unable to actually live the principles talked about.
Perhaps they are claiming their right to find their own path rather than follow one created by other men who foolishly claim their path is the one true path to God.
Shhhhhhh don’t give the AC any ideas or that may actually start happening.
I know I know. Leave out the first six words of this sentence and change the question mark to a period or even an exclamation point.
It depends. If this person doesn’t care whether or not God exists, but believes he does and is just apathetic about that fact, they are a theist. If they don’t care whether God exists, and simply assume he doesn’t – the same way they assume unicorns and Cthulu don’t exist until convinced otherwise – they are an atheist. If they are indifferent but think God might exist, while giving equal weight to the notion that God doesn’t exist, and not very sure either way; then that person is an agnostic. In short, atheism has nothing to do with how you feel about religion, and all to do with whether or not you believe in a deity.
It’s quite simple actually: Theist – believes in God(s). Atheist – doesn’t believe in God(s). Agnostic – unsure or somewhere else in between believing and not believing. ‘Atheist’ doesn’t mean ‘loud, obnoxious God-hater’ any more than ‘theist’ means ‘fundamentalist religious wacko’.
kanicbird, I wish I could call you crazy, but you’re more representative of the prevailing beliefs of present Americans than the rest of the SDMB. Go handle some snakes, roll on the floor speaking tongues, listen to DC Talk, whatever; but stop accusing me of being the ‘enemy’, ‘deceived’, ‘the Antichrist’, ‘demonically-inspired’ and an instrument of the Devil. I can’t be the only one getting pissed off by that.
Ah, but there is no Satan, either.
Oh yeah!!! Then who’s this.
andthis
and this being next to Jesus
hmmmmmmmmmm
By the way, is Satan a Christian invention? I don’t know of a Jewish analogue, and I can understand why, having created an entire PR campaign around good-guy Jesus, the dramatic demands of the New Testament required bad-guy Satan, else people might start to wonder why Jesus hasn’t solved the world’s problems yet.
John Travolta?!?
That’s pretty special that you believe that. However, I’m not asking GOd to reveal Himself, unqualified: rather, I’m hoping to find out the truth about this whole bundle of wax. If there’s a man behind the curtain, yeah, I’d like him to show himself, at which point I’m going to be pretty pissed off at him (you mean ebola is an engineered virus? AIDS was deliberately created? You could have sopped the Holocaust and you didn’t? You knew how to stop SIDS for years, and you didn’t tell us? What the hell’s wrong with you?)
I assume GOd’s not scared of my asking him these questions; I assume there must be another reason for my quest for truth not revealing a God. The likeliest answer seems to me to be that God doesn’t exist. A less-likely answer is that God is not benevolent.
Daniel
As long as it meets all your predetermined doctrinal conditions. From our discussion in another thread it doesn’t appear to me you actually believe this.
The Bible notes that anti-Christs will claim divine authority, as I recall, which means that atheists are in the clear. We Christians have to be cautious of those who falsely claim to be speaking for God, not those who do not believe in God.
You win. I concede. 
The Bush one was freaky.
Huh. And here I thought the Bible was completely anti-woman.
Here is a perfect example of why I don’t believe anything about the Bible, other than it was a book written by men a very long time ago. The Bible I was taught from was interpreted to mean that Eve gave Adam an apple because a serpent told her to (obviously paraphrased). Your interpretation is our free will is why we are in pain and if we would just become slaves to God, we would always be happy. Not that the God slaves I happen to know appear to be always happy, but then it must be hard trying to figure out what the big guy wants you to be doing at all times.
Hell is a place underground. If a womb is hell, is it any wonder I never wanted children?
A lamp can fail, but so can sunlight if there is to be a storm and the sky is covered with black clouds. My mother was willing to br responsible for my comfort for all time, but that is not an adult thing to do. Neither is expecting some spirit in the sky to do so, particularly when your Bible wants me to live a life I would hate.
This is exactly why I took great pains to emphasize that some dictionaries (but by no means the majority) define “disbelief” as a mere lack of belief. The vast majority that I’ve consulted do not though. They define disbelief (and thus, atheism) as an active rejection of belief rather than a mere absence of belief.
Besides which, the point remains… When people declare “Atheism is just a lack of belief, stupid!” they’re vastly overstating the case. Virtually every authoritative resource that I’ve seen defines it much more narrowly. They define it as an active rejection of theism, even if we acknowledge that some of these references could be interpreted to denote a mere lack of belief.
And Christianity was started by Nyarlothotep in the form of a human to increase strife and hatred on the planet. See? I can spout made up hateful and decisive things too.
Oh yeah? Prove that any of the ‘spirits’ you’ve talked to aren’t deceiving you. It’s funny how the spirits always seem to teach things that the person already agrees with.
Cite. Plain and simple, give us some proof that you aren’t taking some serious psychedelics. Cuz, really, that’s all I’m getting from this.
This is why we have to argue against religious nonsense. This is why atheists have to stand up and say something. People like kanicbird spout this insane gibberish, and then expect not only to be not called on it, but that people believe him. Well I’m calling him on it. kanicbird, you’re either being malicious in spreading hatred and deceit or you are being ignorant, and spreading the hatred and deceit others have filled you with. Either way, what you are doing is bad, and should be opposed.
Ya see, that is crystalline evolution. The shear of a rock (Crystals) implemented every technology we have yet discovered. We probably cut ourselves on that shard, and it caused harm… so it became tabu for a while, until we discovered that we could cut… other. Still cutting ourselves today. Nothing has changed. We are young evolutionaries.
I agree, but it turns out all you can really do and still keep a free society is blunt any effort made by people like him to get their superstitions written into law; eternal vigilance and all that.
You know what a truly evil religion would be? One whose founder told his followers that they must hate their families and even maim themselves, who openly boasted of bringing strife and even warfare, and who gloated that his enemies would be subjected to horrible tortures.
Eternal vigilance? Hah! I knew it. You’re a believer.
I knew anybody that made that many off the wall jokes worshiped this guy.
I’m trying to find an online version of one of my favourites, in which God, having finished the Earth and while thinking “And just to make it interesting…” sprinkles in some Jerks.
