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RALFFERS

I'm becoming an atheist

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quote :

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and things not seen"

to quote people on the wikipedia ( A far more believable text than some stone age rant by old men ):

"Faith is generally nothing more than the permission religious people give to one another to believe things strongly without evidence." ~Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006)

"Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate." ~ Richard Dawkins


"Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated" ~Christopher Hitchens

"Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge about things without parallel." ~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't." "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. - Douglas Adams

"I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning." ~ Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

"Orthodoxy is the abillity to say two and two make five when faith requires it." ~ George Orwell, 1984

* The moderation we see among nonfundamentalists is not some sign that faith itself has evolved; it is, rather, the product of the many hammer blows of modernity that have exposed certain tenets of faith to doubt. ~ Sam Harris, The End of Faith


I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent that I just said, 'This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, but it's not for me.'

* George Carlin, New York Times, 1995-08-20


I can't believe in the 21st century in the first world we are still having this argument. You can almost excuse thirld world people who have no education and long standing cultural fairy tales to base their day to day life on, but here and now in the west, there is nothing more irrelevant than the belief in a God. It's depressing. How are we to ever move forward as a race if we believe in rubbish like religion? How are we going to stop killing each other? Performing genital mutilation on young boys and girls? enforcing celibacy on leaders of cults and in so encouraging the sexual abuse of children? and then covering it up???

There is nothing good about religion. nothing. wake up believers and smell the reality of being a clever monkey on a small rocky planet. Thats all there is.....

D

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Do you believe that any circumstances, which were or are beyond your control, have made you the person you are, today?

Sadly, the adage,"I am the captain of my fate." is good, until the old lady, who is also captain of her fate, runs a stop sign and T-bones you.

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Do you believe that any circumstances, which were or are beyond your control, have made you the person you are, today?

Sadly, the adage,"I am the captain of my fate." is good, until the old lady, who is also captain of her fate, runs a stop sign and T-bones you.



What does that have to do with the discussion?

Unexpected things happen, therefore God?
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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If religions had otherwise few negative effects, it would largely be a moot point and you'd never hear from Atheists, but as long as people are dying simply because of religious differences, we argue to try and make the world a better place.

If your religion gives you a sense of purpose and doesn't intrude in the lives of those who don't believe as you do, then I'm happy that you do have that sense of purpose for yourself.

As for extremists, I don't know of any time an extremist Atheist has killed people because they believed in religion.

So, what if I am a true believer in evolution, and believe that only the strong survive? That really doesn't hold up to your concept of making a better world, does it, which is a belief system, in itself...Those who promote the betterment of mankind, regardless of any claimed belief or lack thereof, still have something inside of them, which pushes them to a pie in the sky future, even if they claim it's for thier great great grandkids, who may or may not ever exist...Now, there's something I can believe in.

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Do you believe that any circumstances, which were or are beyond your control, have made you the person you are, today?

Sadly, the adage,"I am the captain of my fate." is good, until the old lady, who is also captain of her fate, runs a stop sign and T-bones you.



What does that have to do with the discussion?

Unexpected things happen, therefore God?

Either you believe you are totally in charge of your life, or there are outside forces, which you cannot know or understand, which were, ultimately, put into place, to form you into the person you are, today, thus, affecting someone else's life, in some unforeseen way.

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Either you believe you are totally in charge of your life, or there are outside forces, which you cannot know or understand, which were, ultimately, put into place, to form you into the person you are, today, thus, affecting someone else's life, in some unforeseen way.



That's a pretty narrow view. Why can't it be that you are in charge of what your brain decides to do, but there is a random nature to the universe that causes asteroid collisions and earthquakes?
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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So, what if I am a true believer in evolution, and believe that only the strong survive? That really doesn't hold up to your concept of making a better world, does it, which is a belief system, in itself



It doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with making a better world. Evolution is what happens in the natural world. It is not a guidebook for social engineering. Any attempt to equate the two is idiotic.

'Believing' in evolution simply means that you're not in denial of reality. Nothing more, nothing less.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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Either you believe you are totally in charge of your life, or there are outside forces, which you cannot know or understand, which were, ultimately, put into place, to form you into the person you are,



Holy crap: You actually are saying 'Unexpected things happen, therefore God'!
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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I can't believe in the 21st century in the first world we are still having this argument. You can almost excuse thirld world people who have no education and long standing cultural fairy tales to base their day to day life on, but here and now in the west, there is nothing more irrelevant than the belief in a God. It's depressing. How are we to ever move forward as a race if we believe in rubbish like religion? How are we going to stop killing each other? Performing genital mutilation on young boys and girls? enforcing celibacy on leaders of cults and in so encouraging the sexual abuse of children? and then covering it up???

There is nothing good about religion. nothing. wake up believers and smell the reality of being a clever monkey on a small rocky planet. Thats all there is.....

D



The argument comes from to many people spouting off about things they don't have the first clue about. Your list above is a good representation of those who have no idea how faith in God unlocks the blessings and mysteries of life. But dear God they can spout like they know something.


...

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Sadly, the adage,"I am the captain of my fate." is good, until the old lady, who is also captain of her fate, runs a stop sign and T-bones you.

So, your perspective is that it is God who made the old lady run the stop sign? If your goal is to convince anyone that your belief system offers anything constructive, I have to say your approach sucks.

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So, what if I am a true believer in evolution, and believe that only the strong survive? That really doesn't hold up to your concept of making a better world, does it, which is a belief system, in itself...Those who promote the betterment of mankind, regardless of any claimed belief or lack thereof, still have something inside of them, which pushes them to a pie in the sky future, even if they claim it's for thier great great grandkids, who may or may not ever exist...Now, there's something I can believe in.

Once again you resort to a cartoon of evolution to try to make your superstition look more attractive by comparison, but all you accomplish is to reveal (again) your profound ignorance of the most basic concepts of science. Evolution has nothing to do with "only the strong survive". Biological evolution is about the success of genes in propagating themselves into future generations. Genes that do a better job of conferring attributes to the organism in which they reside, that result in successful reproduction (and so transmission of the gene into subsequent generations) will persist, and genes (or alleles of genes) that do that less well will be out-reproduced, and eventually replaced. However genes don't exist in isolation, they are part of a whole genome and they must be able to work well with all the other genes to produce a successful phenotype, which is why evolution works more at the level of the genotype than the individual gene. All in all a very simple but very powerful idea, supported by mountains of real evidence. Behavior is part of the phenotype too. Individuals that are "stronger" than others of their species, but spend all their energy fighting, will not live long and on average will leave fewer offspring than less violent individuals. Human mental evolution has been dominated by the ability to collaborate and plan (which necessitates both good memory and language). Even a few people, working together, will always be able to prevail over a stronger but solitary aggressor. All the traits that make humans different from other animals are related to our ability to organize into large societies of collaborating individuals, and evolution can easily account for the development of those traits. The mischaracterization of evolution as "only the strong survive" has been a staple of the religious since Darwin's day, as they are threatened by the idea that a simple biological process can explain human nature, and no supernatural intervention is required.

Ideas, too, survive by being transmitted to future generations, and in a non-biological sense they too can evolve, in that more successful ideas are retained and less successful ones are replaced. To survive, in the face of a set of ideas (science) that actually produces practical results (technologies), religious ideas will also have to evolve. Perhaps they can survive by retreating even further from the territory covered by science, and dealing only with questions like "why am I here" (in the metaphysical sense, not the biological sense that all your ancestors managed to get laid at least once). Unfortunately some religions seem to be following a strategy of surviving by dictating the violent suppression of competing ideas; either you accept my religion completely (no matter how crazy), or I will kill you. Some do this explicitly, such as the version of Islam followed by the Taliban. The fire-and-brimstone version of Christianity abstracts it some these days, in that they don't threaten physical death, but their threats of eternal torture in the "lake of fire" for those who don't fall in line make them at least kindred spirits to those who threaten physical death. Ultimately it's all about hanging onto their power over other ideas and people.

Don
_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

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enjoy discussing my beliefs and exploring other people's beliefs, especially atheist & agnostics. (I grow weary discussing with "Christians" who have EVERY answer)



I grow weary of "Christians" that try to dumb down every hard truth the Bible has to offer.

If they can't take the hard riduculous unbelivable truth of the Gospel than that's it....quit trying to people please with all the answers....it's not gonna happen...either faith or not.

It's not appealing.....there is nothing at all appealing about the Gospel. Even the greeks till this day still mock Christianity with a Jackass on a cross....The idea of a crucified God was ridiculous to the Jews and it was even more ridiculous to the Greeks...Nothing has changed.

I'd rather give the people the hard truth to reject than some sugar coated BS that they won't believe anyway....let em live...let em live sin to the fullest...after all...it is bettter you've never known the truth than it is to have known it and reject it.
Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

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Either you believe you are totally in charge of your life, or there are outside forces, which you cannot know or understand, which were, ultimately, put into place, to form you into the person you are, today, thus, affecting someone else's life, in some unforeseen way.




Popycock - No one is Totally incharge of their life, because they are not in charge of anyone elses, with whom they interact.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

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Popycock



First of all that is my word....but I allow you to use it.;)

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No one is Totally incharge of their life, because they are not in charge of anyone elses, with whom they interact.



There is truth to this, but God is Soverighn, yet we have free will...so much can be said about this...but it will never be resolved!
Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

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There is truth to this, but God is Soverighn, yet we have free will...so much can be said about this...but it will never be resolved!



Well, do you have "free will" or not?

You claim God gives man "free will", but you also say man isn't in control of his life. Man has "free will" but if he doesn't conform to somebody's arbitrary version of what God said he should or shouldn't do, then he's doomed for all eternity.

FFS, one of the first things God says is not to eat from the tree of knowledge. That doesn't sound a lot like "free will." Then at some point later he gets pissed that mankind is trying to exercise their collective "free will" and he decides to wipe them out with a flood. Then, after that, God starts handing down these stone tablets (numbers of laws vary by who does the counting).

Doesn't sound much like "free will" to me.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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I had the same debate with a Jehovah's Witness in the street once when he was trying to hand me flyers (much to my girlfriends shame)

The whole free will thing makes little sense. As you touched upon, free will is indeed not free will at all.

For an analogy, it's like going to a prisoner, and telling him he can leave or he can stay. But if he decides to attempt to leave, he will be shot down in the court yard and killed for trying to escape- yes he has the ability to make the choice on what he wants to do, but there is still only one right answer and the wrong one is met with death.

Now why would God want to give man free will then? Does he enjoy watching billions of his beloved children descend upon the fiery depths of hell? He is all knowing, so clearly he knew that so many people's free will would end them up in hell. So why do it if he knew it? Why not just take away our free will and make us ultimate worshippers who never do anything wrong? Is the idea of us having 'free will' supposed to make us thankful? I don't know about you guys but I'd give up my free will for an eternity in 'paradise'.

Maybe 'God' just likes making things difficult for us al, you know.. Some boobie traps here and there. Like science, maybe he put science here so that we are like "oh wow, that's contrary to what the bible says, but since I have free will, I'll follow it" and God smirks and mutters, "sucker".

In my mind God is either a) Sadistic and enjoys watching the 'children' he loves so much suffer for eternity, or b) Too weak to overcome the powers of Satan that lead us astray.

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Meso,

The key to the whole free will thing is easy if you understand there's nobody that's "giving" it to you in the first place. You simply have it and God isn't required at all.

Of course, you've known that for quite some time. Other people still seem to be a bit confused by the concept though.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Do you believe that any circumstances, which were or are beyond your control, have made you the person you are, today?

Sadly, the adage,"I am the captain of my fate." is good, until the old lady, who is also captain of her fate, runs a stop sign and T-bones you.



There are lots of things in life that I don't have control of, in fact the only thing I really have any control over is myself. The decisions I make and most improtantly how I react to the world around me defines me and the quality of my life.

I have not seen any evidence of any deity. I think it is very narrow minded and superstitous to think that what we don't understand is the work of some god. By doing so you limit your ability to learn and understand the world around you. Imagine if no one had ever questioned the belief that the earth was flat or that lightning was caused by gods. How little we would know about the world around us!

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It looks like a have a bit of reading to catch up on; I was in Oshkosh, for the airshow over the weekend & just got back last night. I took a peak at this thread every now & than, but was trying to save my save my battery for phone calls & pictures.
Dialogue/commentary between Divot, Twardo & myself -

"from your first Oshkosh when the three of us were riding to or from one of

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Dammit, I wanted to save that one until rehmwa turned up again



too late, your superior beat you to it.

but give it a shot anyway...redundancy is one of the main characteristics of these forums.
Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

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I have not seen any evidence of any deity. I think it is very narrow minded and superstitous to think that what we don't understand is the work of some god. By doing so you limit your ability to learn and understand the world around you.



Which also makes it closed minded to disgard the possibility of a deity.

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