Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon - 14 November 2012 04:34 PM
Good points.
No, they’re not.
I’ve never understood the atheist mindset
Atheism is a blank slate. Null program. A lack of belief. A baby is an atheist in that a baby is a blank slate with a lack of belief.
We’ve explained all of this to you before. What element in the above sequence escapes you?
Do you really think all atheist share your definition of atheism? I know 4 people who call themselves atheist - none of whom define it as you do - most just dislike religion and repeat - “there’s no God” when asked about what they believe. And of course a non-belief is a belief in itself - what is it that you don’t believe?
Unfortunately, there are many statements that are meaningless, that is, they impart no meaning. For Example: The sun will come up tomorrow or it won’t. This gives us no information because it doesn’t offer a differentiation. While your statement—quoting S.P.:
And of course a non-belief is a belief in itself
is often stated by theists, it’s of no value because it gives no meaning.
There are a huge number of ideas I don’t bother including in my ontology because they offer me no value in my life’s operations. A few are: the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, god, and a wide variety of mythological concepts.
Now you know two more people who are atheists (I prefer to call myself a non-theist, but most don’t understand that), but who don’t have the same ideas as the four you knew previously.
Do you really think all atheist share your definition of atheism? I know 4 people who call themselves atheist - none of whom define it as you do - most just dislike religion and repeat - “there’s no God” when asked about what they believe. And of course a non-belief is a belief in itself - what is it that you don’t believe?
The premise of your argument Patrick is based on anecdotal evidence only. I know hundreds of people who believe there is a god. So what? It proves nothing but that these people have faith in some supreme being and nothing more. Once again, if there is a god then using emperical evidence, prove your contention. that’s why I’m an atheist. I have no faith nor belief in a supreme being because it has not been scientifically proven and am not clinging to a “belief” as you style it, as I would change my position if Spock’s brother actually “found” god on a planet. In this case, belief implies faith in an unproven contention.
Do you really think all atheist share your definition of atheism? I know 4 people who call themselves atheist - none of whom define it as you do - most just dislike religion and repeat - “there’s no God” when asked about what they believe. And of course a non-belief is a belief in itself - what is it that you don’t believe?
The premise of your argument Patrick is based on anecdotal evidence only. I know hundreds of people who believe there is a god. So what? It proves nothing but that these people have faith in some supreme being and nothing more. Once again, if there is a god then using emperical evidence, prove your contention. that’s why I’m an atheist. I have no faith nor belief in a supreme being because it has not been scientifically proven and am not clinging to a “belief” as you style it, as I would change my position if Spock’s brother actually “found” god on a planet. In this case, belief implies faith in an unproven contention.
Cap’t Jack
Hebrews 11:1 states, with complete accuracy, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1 states, with complete accuracy, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Damn Darron, that was fast. You really know your bible! Impressive.
Cap’t Jacj
I spent half a semester in a fundamentalist seminary in my youth. Reading Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan cured me. I emailed that verse to myself a few years ago so I can keep it handy.
Hebrews 11:1 states, with complete accuracy, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Damn Darron, that was fast. You really know your bible! Impressive.
Cap’t Jacj
I spent half a semester in a fundamentalist seminary in my youth. Reading Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan cured me. I emailed that verse to myself a few years ago so I can keep it handy.
I think he was a bit extreme in his views of atheists. I do not believe in any of the gods mankind has invented. That does not mean I am certain there is no being or group of beings who cannot be considered gods. We do not know what happened before the Big Bang. Indeed, in our universe the phrase “before the Big Bang” is meaningless. When I describe myself as an atheist I am commenting on my lack of belief in man-made gods. As Sagan implied, we know nothing of ultimate causes. What I do know is no one has ever presented any compelling evidence a god exists.
The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. [Carl Sagan]
In an infinite time-space continuum ANY combination of anything is possible including God. This is the logic of infinity and it destroys the atheist position that claims no god exists. This is being done, btw, in the face of 40,000 years of human beings claiming to experience spiritual forces as well as the whole of Western Civilization evolving around religious beliefs plus physical evidence within brain functions pointing to human evolution evolving spiritual reception capability, and why would that be if there is nothing there as atheists claim for our brains to process?
Your ignorance of not knowing why some of us might have evolved to be religious is a proof that atheism is wrong?
BTW, as far as I know it is the religious who claim time is infinitive—at least for God it is. We have a rough idea of how old the universe is and how much older it will get before it ceases to exist, so I don’t know where you’re getting the nonsensical idea about atheists believing in “an infinite time-space continuum” from.
Hmmm..my post disappeared..Here it is again. You need to read up on the Big Crunch theory that makes the universe a recycled phenomena that is paradoxically infinite and finite at the same time. From Big Bang beginning to Black Hole annihilation the universe is recycled continuously. Within its time-space continuum time and space expand from the original Big Bang until the juice runs out and the universal expansion reverses direction. Within the universe black holes continually recycle matter and energy and all the lost material and energy gets coordinated in time and space and then is spewed back out as the Big Bang beginning’s blast of hydrogen atoms that then go on to coalesce into gas clouds, then proto-stars and planets, which live until their solar material is spent and collapses as dying stars going nova and then black holes, a steady-state vacuuming of stars and planets going on all the time within a greater recycling system that forms and reforms the universe from Big Bang beginning to Black Hole ending.
It’s too bad I only have one last life left on this forum. If I had more I could have told you what I really think of your post.
It’s too bad I only have one last life left on this forum. If I had more I could have told you what I really think of your post.
Yes, it is amazing to see so much ignorance in one post. The Big Crunch theory is at least 16 years outdated. The idea of Black Holes coordinating matter in space and time almost made me spit beer on my keyboard. I find it fascinating that people with so little knowledge can be so sure of themselves.
