"All atheists are angry and unhappy!" (Page 3)

CoIin: Assegayer has posed an interesting challenge. I know little about the Quran, but I'd bet my bottom WireCredit that you'll find explicit exhortations to violence in there.

The Bible (which I'm more familiar with) is chock-a-block with them.

And again, we must emphasize that a person should be judged by their ACTIONS, not their words. If Michael claims to be a peaceful man, but is regularly involved in violence, how do YOU judge him?

Finally, if/when Orkanen comes up with a list, you just KNOW what's going to happen, don't you?

(How can we know this? Well, it's already prefigured in his " becasue i can 100% gurantee to prove you wrong about that verse if you bring one"

Compare with - "Bring me a chicken and I'll prove to you that it's not a chicken" )

Our valiant and sagacious defender of the faith will inform us :-

1. We're misreading (and so are the experts we cite)
2. "kill" means love
3. "sword" is a symbol of peace
4. We're stupid

5. The violence prescribed is of a self-defensive nature ---- Let's not make fine distinctions here please. Violence is violence; save the justification for somewhere else. (On the other hand, Christ's 'turn the other cheek' is a marvellous exhortation to non-violence . Alas, I seldom see Christians exercise it )

As a serious sidenote, what we see here is blind, dogmatic defence of one's belief system. There is nothing noble in this.

Science fans should also take note. Claiming that science bears no responsibility for the Hiroshima bombing, say, is as disingenuous as Chruslims claiming, in the face of incessant violence, that their religion is one of peace.

CoIin: We might draw an analogy to the "religion of peace" claim with a "harmless drug" claim.

Let's say that most patients who take a certain drug suffer no ill effects. A minority, however, experience serious vomitting and diarrhoea

In a few cases, death ensues.

Doctors scratch their head and assert "It's a harmless drug. That's not supposed to happen."

Should we be concerned with what's SUPPOSED to happen or what actually DOES happen?

Should the drug be approved by the FDA (or whatever)? Well, maybe yes, maybe no - this would depend on its benefits (think of cancer chemotherapy drugs). But this is NOT a harmless drug.

Sassy: Very interesting. But what about the placebo effect? Is that as harmless as it sounds, or could a "patient" become violent, not as the result of the side effects, but because he thought that he swallowed a drug that turned him into a raging terrorist when he in reality ingested a harmless sugar-pill?

Headline: Terrorists don't need drugs. Their mind is totally void of compassion and care for other people's lives. Not all of them are religiously motivated, but many are. In that respect, their faith may be seen as the drug that alters their behaviour so much that they lose contact with reality and thereby the respect for other people's well-being.

assegayer1: If Michael claims to be a peaceful man, but is regularly involved in violence, how do YOU judge him? said colin

ok will you have given the answer to your self...YOU only judge him not his friends or family that may be very peaceful ..he may jsut be the one that is the odd one out and no one raised him to be like that


jsut as in the quran. people folow it do not think terorism is good....its only a couple of people giving a bad name

orkanen: assegayer1: I have only one verse to present, 33:21, here by Pickthall's translation:
Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the Last Day, and remembereth Allah much.
Basically, do as Muhammad did.

What Muhammad did is very much up to interpretation.

The majority of Muslims are generally peaceful and decent people. Looking at statistics from 2011, ca. 110.000 people were registered Muslims in my country. Out of those, approximately 2 - 300, maybe less, can be considered radical. They stick out like a sore thumb, get noticed, providing an image of Islam for everyone else. These extremists are also role models for young Muslims, not raised by their parents, but left to the whims of siblings and other relatives of same age range.

assegayer1: that verse doesnt prove anything because it doesnt mention anything about muhammed or obeying him ...anyway even if it did say that he was the most peaceful man on the planet he does not cause any fights nor wars. Also you know that statistics you got ,they can happen to any kind of people like athiests ..there could be athiests where there mum and dad have died and they are inspired by other people that steal which resort them to stealing howver it doesnt mean that i say athiests are all theifs.

Queenie The Poo: I AM AN ATHIEST!!

assegayer1: ok

orkanen: assegayer1: If Muhammad was as peaceful as you claim him to be, he'd most surely surpass the myth Jesus in terms of peacefulness. Turn the other cheek and so on. What does history tell us?

lavendar_star: Wait a minute I am sure Muhammad was involved in conflicts with pagan Arab tribes and Jews ones i.e. was in wars. But anyway I am discussing myth upon myth when it comes to discussing religion.

Anyway, to answer the thread question I am atheist I am neither angry or unhappy but I guess being religious can give one a euphoria like being drugs so maybe that's where the misconception comes from and what atheists lose out on unless that get some other chemical high which rivals the high some people get from their religious experience.

Zanjan: "Christ's 'turn the other cheek' is a marvellous exhortation to non-violence"

Umm....No it's not. Christ wasn't a pacifist so that wasn't the aim. He was telling His followers how to expose the other guy as the violent, frustrated and fearful non-believer.

You see, blows bounced off the early Christians because they had no doubt - no temper tantrum could sway them from their right to choose. Jesus never forbid believers to defend themselves and God.

How many atheists have been martyred for their beliefs (non-beliefs)?

" Terrorists don't need drugs. Their mind is totally void of compassion and care for other people's lives"

True. They're actually suicidal people who plan on taking others down with them, as many as possible. Their heart has shut down so they're not open to religious suggestion.

This makes them vulnerable to political suggestion. How easy to wear a disguise and how gullible the majority to be fooled by it.

Yes, some people get a real high strictly from a spiritually rarefied atmosphere and other religious experiences....oh, like the rapture and such. I don't recall any of them going out and hacking someone to death as a result. A Boozer, on the other hand, yeah.

assegayer1: well orkanan if you knew your facts muhammed phuh never started fights he only fighted when other came and destroyed their villages and killed their children etc. in defense

CoIin: Yes, it was a policy of defensive expansion

Zanjan: You don't expand your membership by killing the people you wish to save.

CoIin: Thoughtful Christians saved countless thousands of witches and heretics precisely by killing them.

It's membership "up there" that really matters, remember?

Zanjan: By the time Christians were killing people, their religious civilization was a carcass of dry bones.
They knew they couldn't compare to the early Christians so, they stalked those who strayed from *their* path.

Remember the Crusades. God took the Holy Land from them and gave it to the Muslims.

For Christians, it wasn't a matter of increasing membership, they already possessed the numbers - it was the shame of having slipped from divine grace.

orkanen: assegayer1: Contemplating on Bukhari 46:717, of the 72 wars he was in, how many times did Muhammad wage war unprovoked and how many times was his group attacked unprovoked?

Oh, I found a Qur'an verse where the order is to kill innocents. Look at verse 9:5. I'm very sure you'll object though, probably on the basis that Islam is the only "true" religion, or that Pagans are not innocent, or some other bullshit.

Zanjan: The Hadith is not authentic, nor is it scripture - it's the vague gossip of people. God doesn't approve of gossip so no one should pass it on.

Orkanen, nowhere does the Quran say to kill innocents. The 'unbelievers' arent people who belong to another religion or atheists. They're the Muslims who broke their covenant with God and Muhammad. He gives them a chance to repent, which means to demonstrate remorse for their deliberate wrong doing. Repentance is a change of heart.

Every country, nation and organized religion has had its infiltrators and turncoats, who always foment dissension and hatred. They could just walk away if they didnt believe or want to be there, but nooooo, that's not their objective - they want to destroy the community from the inside out - these are the worst of men. No one can be an enemy of Islam except a Muslim.

Heretics have to be ejected from the fold to keep the peace - every Prophet of God has said so. Even in civilized nations, a traitor to the country is still given the death penalty (except they don't get a second chance) Why do you suppose that is?

The Quran is perfect. A Prophet can't depart from His nature to behave like the common man. You should be able to tell a lie when you see one...if you cant, you're no innocent puppy yourself.

orkanen: Zanjan: Eh, no, read it again.

CoIin: I entered into a covenant with an ant colony once. I promised them protection if they promised to worship me and follow my laws. It didn't work out

I'll try amoebas next time.

And if it still doesn't work out, I'll try Canadians

Pigfish: Do ants and Canadians need protection from the same thing? Didn't realise that they have a common enemy.

Djinnaya: The angry atheist myth is still alive and kicking. The first thing that happens when I tell theists that I'm an atheist, is that many of them accuse me of being mad at God, which of course is completely absurd. Then, they try to convince me that I need to join their particular faith. When I tell them that I was once an ardent believer like them, they find it hard to believe, but it is nevertheless true.

I used to believe that only my own faith was right and that every other religious belief was wrong. I studied apologetics, so I could prove this to people I met. Anyone that didn't share my view was clearly suffering a satanic delusion. I believed what in retrospect has turned out to be a clearly mythological story with blind faith and nothing more to back it up than the "facts" that its own teachings professed were true. Then, I realised that people fly planes into buildings and run into crowded plazas with bombs strapped to them in the name of their gods. If faith is really the true measure of the veracity of a religion, I was clearly in the wrong church and should have become a militant Muslim.

I also prayed daily, often for hours, for every little facet of my life, turning over even the most insignificant little things to the creator of the universe. If I were not praying for what God would want me to pray for, the answer would undoubtedly be no, but if I were asking in faith for something that lined up with God's will, I would be rewarded. It made me wonder why it was God's will that certain of my friends drove a brand new Mercedes, while he wanted me to drive a battered old station wagon.

Then, I came to the realisation that if I prayed to God for a given number of things, and I prayed to a rock for that same number of things, the chances were very good that the rock and God would answer roughly the same number of times. Muslims pray to their god, Hindus to theirs, Catholics and Protestants to theirs, Wiccans to theirs . . . and after all is said and done, every god seems to answer in roughly the same proportion . . .

I used to say to the doubters: "You can't disprove God!" That’s true, but it's true for one very important reason, namely the fact that you can't disprove something you don't have proof of. I can't disprove leprechauns, or ghosts, or smurfs, or anything that you don't first have proof of. You can only disprove something by showing how the proof of it is not valid. My entire life once required belief in something that in no way could be proven to be real. This is like turning around to sit down on a chair before you have actually verified that the chair is there in the first place. The worst part about it is that, instead of a slightly bruised bottom, you come out of it with an entire life wasted trying to sit in a chair that isn't there.

If the god of the Bible were really its author, it would surely be much less full of atrocities, contradictions, plagiarisms and absurdities. Considering the only real knowledge we have on the subject comes from unverifiable experiences in ancient books of mythology which can partly be proven to be nonsense, the deity they describe can thus safely be assumed to be fictional.

I finally did a bit of math and found out that I had read the entire Bible no less than 26 times! Although I had read every single word, yet I had never caught how evil God is, I never saw his bloodthirsty acts and his terrible, tyrannical ways or his childish temper tantrums. I never saw the obvious mistakes and contradictions in the Bible. There are so many things in the Bible I just didn't see until the day I chose to read it with a wary, discerning eye and then everything came out.

As many of my Wireclub colleagues correctly have pointed out, science is not perfect and neither does it have all the answers. However, it does have a method for obtaining answers, whereas religion simply claims answers without having ever done any of the work to get there. Science starts with the idea that we do not know something and then tries to figure it out. Religion starts with the arrogant assumption that we know everything and therefore must base all our knowledge on this assumption.

The only problem is that religion causes a delusion that stands in the way of available facts. This delusion was so strong in me that despite my deep-seated love of science, I accepted the pseudo-science of men like Kent Hovind without bothering to seek out the truth. As soon as I chose to open my eyes, it became clear to me that the only reason I believed in creationism was because that's what I wanted to believe in and the only reason I didn't believe in evolution was because I chose not to see all the available evidence.

Religion creates rifts and divisions in the world. It causes backwards-thinking and halts medical, scientific and societal progress. It encourages people to be content rather than try to better themselves and to trust an invisible friend rather than strive to succeed. It takes away any joy that we might have in our own successes and instead attributes everything to an invisible being that has nothing to do with it. It makes people sit idly by and pray, rather than stand up and do something themselves. It locks young people in and does everything it can to ensure that they will never even have the opportunity to look in any other direction. This cannot be the will of any supreme being, unless it is stupid or evil.

Things may change rapidly. Not too long ago, I desired to be God's servant and now, I don't believe in him anymore. All it took was for me to choose to open my eyes and critically examine my beliefs. I set out to find God and found that he wasn't there. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that anyone seeking the truth objectively and honestly will ever find it embedded in a religious faith. Instead, they will inevitably discover that what they once thought could be true turned out to be false.

. . . unless, of course, they are too dishonest to accept the result of their own research.

Zanjan: " It made me wonder why it was God's will that certain of my friends drove a brand new Mercedes, while he wanted me to drive a battered old station wagon."

You didn't have to wonder about it - God's response to that question is in the Scriptures. So here you have it - God didn't do what you wanted. He hasn't met your demands when you felt you had met His. It never occurred to you that you were supposed to be learning selflessness, and not materialism or acquisitiveness; and that it was God who sets the standard for virtue, not you?

Your whole post sounds like a justification for not wanting to follow the rules and laws. You see, what else can you say against the testimony of millions of believers who've been given a new life, love and joy through their relationship with God? Where was *your* candy?!

"I had read the entire Bible no less than 26 times"

And got nothing out of it, right? Uh huh. One day, you just up and saw no truth, nothing intelligent in it...nothing you wanted it to say. I think that is a reflection on you, not the book.

Not sure why you think people have to make a choice between science and religion - I never have, nor any of my co-workers in the Faith. If anything, science serves religion - this isn't the dark ages anymore. There's a reason Sir Issac Newton had to hide his scientific findings about the Biblical apocalypse, making sure they were kept hid for 200 years. That situation no longer exists.

Could it be the light of exposure has messed up atheists excuses not to believe?

" it became clear to me that the only reason I believed in creationism was because that's what I wanted to believe in"

In your own words, you only believed what you want to believe - this is *your* standard; it doesn't change when you decide to adopt different beliefs. Does a leopard change his spots?

"Religion creates rifts and divisions in the world"

So, you're against independence and diversity. Whenever there was war, it was the unbelievers who challenged. This challenge made true believers stronger in that they became a more cohesive, unified group. The challengers, on the other hand, had to disperse.

"This cannot be the will of any supreme being, unless it is stupid or evil."

Wow, calling God stupid! Then who is smarter than you - anybody?

I'm sorry, but there is nothing but resentment in your post. I see no love in it. Not once did you even put forward a reason why your lifestyle works, as opposed to any religious lifestyle.

In my experience, which your post demonstrates well, atheists wont do anything that doesn't serve themselves. If only they'd see *learning* as serving themselves, it wouldn't be so bad, but they avoid it because learning is painful. So is martyrdom.

orkanen: Zanjan: It seems you speed read yet again. Look closely at Djinnaya's last sentence one more time, maybe you'll discover something. It's funny, I'm not the only one noticing this. The dishonesty, the willful ignorance, the arrogance, the straw man responses, the projections, the no true scotsman fallacies and so on. Looking through your latest post here, every single paragraph contains at least one fallacy, doesn't it just make you proud?