Atheist Club. Begin.

[Miss Chicken]

Your right this thread wasn't defend your non-believe. It is merely a social gathering of atheist sharing stories and why they became one, struggles, ETC. I had no intention of trying to start such an arguement.

I did mention the trouble i was having with my sisters but no-one seemed to have noticed what I said.

I cannot understand my sister's feelings. If my sister truly believes that her husband is in Heaven why would she even care if I believe it or not. It was she who brought it up not me. She openly asked me if I believe in Heaven and I said "No, I don't think I do". She then got very angry with me saying she knows that one day she will be reunited with her husband. I said I was fine with her believing that and I told her she could be right, but I don't see how it could be proved to me short of me dying and finding myself in Heaven.

 

[auntiehill]

^I noticed.

There's no arguing with people like your sister; my in-laws are just like her. I think Sephiroth's comparison of junkies clinging to their crackpipes is very apt; the very fact that you dared to say something that isn't exactly what she believes (even if you say you support her believing that, but personally feel otherwise) is enough to send her into a tailspin.

All you can do is shake your head and walk away.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I will disregard your first post Locutus of Bored, mostly because my eyes drift to your avatar and I get distracted.

Sorry, that was kind of a semi-jokey/semi-serious post. I am serious in that I think organized gatherings to talk about being atheist, and reading extensive magazines and books on living the atheist lifestyle kind of misses the point and delves into treating it almost like a religion, which was one of the things I became atheist to avoid.

It's sort of like when Dan Akroyd was trying to recruit John Cusack into his Assassin's Union in Grosse Point Blank, thus defeating the purpose of being a lone gunman.

But that shouldn't hinder your enjoyment of the thread.

Anyway, enjoy dancing Chewie.

 

[scotpens]

. . . two of the most convincing arguments against the existence of God--the problem of evil, and the problem of disbelief--can be boiled down to simple syllogisms like these. Namely:

If God existed, then everyone would be good. (Or: if God, then universal goodness)
But not everyone is good. (Not universal goodness)
Therefore, God does not exist. (Therefore, not God)

And:

If God existed, then everyone would believe in Him. (Or: if God, then universal belief)
But not everyone believes in Him. (Not universal belief)
Therefore, God does not exist. (Therefore, not God)

I prefer to see it in these terms: The Abrahamic God is benevolent, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Yet there is evil in the world. Assuming God exists, then, one of the following must be true:

A. God is benevolent and all-knowing but not all-powerful; he's unable to stop evil from happening.

B. God is benevolent and all-powerful but not all-knowing; evil happens because God is unaware of it.

C. God is all-knowing and all-powerful, but he's a douchebag.

If there was an elephant in this room, I would see it.
I don't see it.
Therefore, there is no elephant in this room.

Or you are blind. Or you are looking in the wrong direction. Or the elephant is inside a big box. etc.

Or it's a freakin' INVISIBLE elephant!

And on the other hand--doesn't President Obama actually have a birth certificate? I'm pretty sure I've seen it somewhere online.

. . . I actually get a big laugh out of many naive individuals who have NO IDEA that a birth certificate from a state other than their own might look different from their own certificate, yet they act as though they are experts on the subject!

Not that I give the "Birthers" any credence, but it's hardly necessary to point out that the document pictured is a modern computer printout on laser print paper, not a photocopy or microfilmed copy of an original 1961 birth certificate.

Oh, and they claim Obama was born in Kenya, not Nigeria.

. . . Time to break away from the "spirituality" bullshit. Newsflash - there is no such thing as "spirituality", its a made up term for a made up idea.

As far as I'm concerned, the only meaning of "spiritual" is an old song that slaves used to sing.

 

[6079SmithW]

Or you are blind. Or you are looking in the wrong direction. Or the elephant is inside a big box. etc.

Or it's a freakin' INVISIBLE elephant![/QUOTE]

To play along with this metaphor:

My vision is just fine. I can physically look around the room and I see no elephant.

I look in all directions and search the room for an elephant. I find none.

If there is a box in the room, I open it if I can. If I cannot, I don't make assumptions about was is or isn't in the box.

Invisible elephants are illogical. They do not posses the means to change pigments at will or bend light around them.

Also, even if elephants developed this ability I could walk around until I bumped into an invisible wall, because it would still have mass.

Now, the real way to counter my arguments would be to state that I do not know what an elephant is or looks like.

Here lies the fundamental disconnect between atheists and theists I was talking about earlier. They each have a different baseline for reality. For an atheist the elephant is biologically defined and objectively observable while to a theist it is something else entirely.

 

[scotpens]

Now, the real way to counter my arguments would be to state that I do not know what an elephant is or looks like.

Which reminds me of a fable about six blind men -- or was it five?

 

[6079SmithW]

^Which is why there is peer review in the scientific community. Also why experiments are replicated.

 

[KJbushway]

I will disregard your first post Locutus of Bored, mostly because my eyes drift to your avatar and I get distracted.

Sorry, that was kind of a semi-jokey/semi-serious post. I am serious in that I think organized gatherings to talk about being atheist, and reading extensive magazines and books on living the atheist lifestyle kind of misses the point and delves into treating it almost like a religion, which was one of the things I became atheist to avoid.

It's sort of like when Dan Akroyd was trying to recruit John Cusack into his Assassin's Union in Grosse Point Blank, thus defeating the purpose of being a lone gunman.

But that shouldn't hinder your enjoyment of the thread.

Anyway, enjoy dancing Chewie.

My post was a joke as well, not the part about your avatar though, its cool.

 

[Captain_Nick]

I cannot understand my sister's feelings. If my sister truly believes that her husband is in Heaven why would she even care if I believe it or not. It was she who brought it up not me. She openly asked me if I believe in Heaven and I said "No, I don't think I do". She then got very angry with me saying she knows that one day she will be reunited with her husband. I said I was fine with her believing that and I told her she could be right, but I don't see how it could be proved to me short of me dying and finding myself in Heaven.

She's using heaven to help her cope with her loss. Perhaps she is trying to avoid or suppress her feelings of sadness. She was looking for validation when she asked you about heaven and when you didn't give it to her she regressed and acted like a child which is what we all do at stressful or emotionally turbulent times.


I've watched 11 seasons of Frasier and now I'm better than the pros

 

[Goliath]

I prefer to see it in these terms: The Abrahamic God is benevolent, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Yet there is evil in the world. Assuming God exists, then, one of the following must be true:

A. God is benevolent and all-knowing but not all-powerful; he's unable to stop evil from happening.

B. God is benevolent and all-powerful but not all-knowing; evil happens because God is unaware of it.

C. God is all-knowing and all-powerful, but he's a douchebag.

Yes. That's the argument in its classic form.

Not that I give the "Birthers" any credence, but it's hardly necessary to point out that the document pictured is a modern computer printout on laser print paper, not a photocopy or microfilmed copy of an original 1961 birth certificate.

Hmm.

That would mean I have more convincing proof of being born in the USA than President Obama.

Sweet.

 

[KJbushway]

How about a newspaper that dates back to his birth announcing it. Bill Maher said on his last show on friday that bascially Republicans can have the most fucked up thinking, but they will make Americans believe it.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Or you are blind. Or you are looking in the wrong direction. Or the elephant is inside a big box. etc.

Or it's a freakin' INVISIBLE elephant!

To play along with this metaphor:

My vision is just fine. I can physically look around the room and I see no elephant.

I look in all directions and search the room for an elephant. I find none.

If there is a box in the room, I open it if I can. If I cannot, I don't make assumptions about was is or isn't in the box.

Invisible elephants are illogical. They do not posses the means to change pigments at will or bend light around them.

Also, even if elephants developed this ability I could walk around until I bumped into an invisible wall, because it would still have mass.

Now, the real way to counter my arguments would be to state that I do not know what an elephant is or looks like.

Here lies the fundamental disconnect between atheists and theists I was talking about earlier. They each have a different baseline for reality. For an atheist the elephant is biologically defined and objectively observable while to a theist it is something else entirely.

That's sort of like the story of God as the gardener.

Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods."[1] Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"

 

[Amaris]

Once something is believed upon that requires no physical properties, no examination, and no expectation of manifestation under any circumstances, it can never be disproven, because it exists in the realm of fantasy. In the realm of fantasy, it can be attributed any property and personality, any number, any power, any motivation.

As an example, I could say there were 9 gods in the Pantheon of the Holy and that they shared the kingdom of the universe, and another person could say there was only one god who ruled the universe, and both of us would be right, because fantasy has no requirement of any kind and requires no evidence. Set it against logic and it fails utterly. However, since it does not have to fit a logical pattern, it's suppositions do not have to be challenged; in short, it can be anything and everything, and as long as someone is willing to believe that, no amount of logic or reason can ever sway that person away from it.

The reason religion gets away with this is because of it's age. Culturally, religion is thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years old, all the way back to when we were simple primates afraid of the angry lightning and terrible thunderclap that followed. Start a new religion based on your own set of values, and it's a cult. Give it five hundred years and it's a religion. Give it a thousand and it's a venerated culture. It doesn't have to make a lick of sense, people will fill in the details themselves, and so you have a new religion, one given an air of legitimacy, even though it is completely baseless in it's "spiritual" claims.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

To quote Bill Maher:

The irony of religion is that because of its power to divert man to destructive courses, the world could actually come to an end. The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge having in key decisions made by religious people. By irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken. George Bush prayed a lot about Iraq, but he didn't learn a lot about it. Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing, Lord! I'll do whatever you want me to do!" Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas. And anyone who tells you they know, they just know what happens when you die, I promise you, you don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that's what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong. This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you comes at a horrible price. If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers. If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let's remember what the real problem was. We learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up or die.

 

[KJbushway]

I don't mind religion as a whole.
I just hate when religious law is pressed upon me. Like living in the bible belt and being told to stand, place my hand over my heart and say one nation under god. Something the founding fathers themselves would have revoked. Upon refusing, being sent to the prinicipal.

Why am I an atheist?
Well I do live in a pure atheist-non-believer family. Well actually its just my father and mother. Their families and past generations have been Catholic on both sides. I have a strong Irish-French family history.
Anyway, my believe doesn't come from that.
I have a problem believing in something, that is supposed to be all knowing and good(which means it knows the emotions of compasion,empathy,kindness.)
Yet how could something that is supposed to love all its creations(Earth, Ecosystem, humans)
Let the Earth, something that has the potential to be beautiful and majestic be ruined and ravaged by his LAST creation.

Its kinda like a Mother giving birth and buying a dog at the same time. She wouldn't just let the dog constantly knock over the baby and destroy the kids home and not get rid of it. Thats becuase she loves and cares for her creation first.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

For the record, neither stance is arrogant in and of itself, it's how you behave as a result. For instance, if I went around harassing and belittling people of faith who have not harmed anyone it would absolutely be arrogant, but just choosing not to believe in a higher power without evidence is not arrogant in the slightest.

My point is more that there is an arrogance in believing that ones limited observation is the know-all-end-all and that people who subscribe to a higher power are acting purely on superstition. I may be skeptical, but who am I to say that the Buddhists I met in Japan or my childhood pastor are all lost in religious fairy tales? It would be arrogant and close-minded for me to believe that about those people, simply because I don't understand it they way they seem to.

Your statement is contradictory though. You criticize atheists by saying their limited observations aren't sufficient for seeing the world, yet you give credence to the beliefs of religious people based solely on the observations of their limited experience. Yes human knowledge and experience is limited so we should not make pronouncements about things that are outside are realm of understanding and scope of knowledge. Atheists don't do that. They are basing their beliefs on an examination of the world as it has shown itself to be. Theists are making claims about the existence of things they have never seen and experienced.

 

[Terengo]

Although raised Catholic and a member of the Church well into my adulthood, I now class myself an atheist, in the sense that I find the idea of the Judeo-Christian deity to be literally unbelievable. I am not, however, a materialist. While I reject the supernatural, my notion of the natural extends further than most people's. I currently consider myself a philosophical Taoist.

 

[KJbushway]

^ what you consider yourself confuses me. Elaborate please.

 

[Goliath]

I don't mind religion as a whole.

I think it's important to note that theism and religion are not necessarily synonymous. It all depends on how you define religion.

Spinoza, for example, argued that true religion consists in the practice of justice and charity towards one's neighbour. This was also the position of Enlightenment philosophes who were influenced by Spinoza and his ideas.

 

[RAMA]

Once something is believed upon that requires no physical properties, no examination, and no expectation of manifestation under any circumstances, it can never be disproven, because it exists in the realm of fantasy. In the realm of fantasy, it can be attributed any property and personality, any number, any power, any motivation.

Strictly speaking this is not true, a God who creates a universe with a set of laws can't break them...at least not within that universe. God as omniscient? Not possible, breaks the uncertainty principle. So Earth in 6 days? I think not...

RAMA