atheists

deuce916
deuce916: Hello. How are you? I'm just wondering if there are any real atheists out there. I mean, with 100% certainty that there is no god. 99% will not do. 99.9% will not do. Only 100% will do. Are you this person? Have you mentally evolved to the point where you are not even angry with a god because you know that a god doesn't exist? Some apparent atheists seem to be angry with a god. But that's only believing in a god. I'm interested in real atheists. I mean, are you prepared to say that the christian god, for example, is a fuckwit if it existed? All that murdering that the bible tells us that the christian god will do to us. Are you prepared to say that if it were true then that type of behaviour is atrocious. Imagine a god of love killing people. Imagine a god of love telling you you're wrong. I can only imagine that the christian god is one of fear. Devoid of love I tell you. Let's be clear & truthful - there is no god. Not even one of the many to choose from. A god did not create us, we are born of evolution. Right & wrong are theories devised to keep people safe - apparently. We can say the christian god is a fuckwit because it doesn't exist. It's like talking to air - except the air is real.

So come on, fess up & tell me if you're a real atheist.
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Geoff
Geoff: Am I 100% convinced that there is no God? No.

God as portrayed by human religions? Yes, I am sure they don't exist.

Does the potential existence or non-existence of any god affect how I live my life, or what choices I make? No.
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Zanjan
Zanjan: Deuce, your first 10 sentences were good - interesting question.

The rest of your post turned into leading with subliminal messages - NOT an unbiased, pure question. You go from honest to fanatic zealot in just one post, saying in so many words 'you're not a true atheist unless you believe THIS'.

When I was young, nobody believed there were any true atheists but there was one test that would determine the truth. When you're in a seriously frightening situation, hanging by a thread to life and in full on panic, you WILL call on God for help.

That was true in those days but not anymore. People's last words of desperation are usually the popular 4 letter utterance, judging from recovered black box recordings.

Perhaps you should have a fun test where people can click off the statements that are most true for them, then the readers could analyze it themselves. I'd be interested in the results.

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Geoff
Geoff: ^^Nice bit of pop psychology, clichism and anecdote taken as evidence, Zanjan.

But I'm afraid to say that the "There are no atheists in the foxholes" is a theory as thoroughly debunked as the field of phrenology.

In my experience; people in truly terrifying situations are more likely to call for their mother than God.

//Edit - Rewording of last sentence for clarity
(Edited by Geoff)
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Zanjan
Zanjan: Are these grown adults you're talking about? Seriously, I wouldnt have called for my mom even as a kid - she was a termagant.
(Edited by Zanjan)
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Geoff
Geoff: I suppose that explains why you turned to religion.
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orkanen
orkanen: Not a single religion in existence convinces me gods exist. Many followers of religions convince me their gods do not exist, by their behaviour, lack of integrity and lack of honesty. Would that do, Deuce916?
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Zanjan
Zanjan: No, Geoff - that's why I ran away from home. Truthfully.

It was my husband who drove me to religion - booze didn't make the grade.

Ork, it's about time you showed up! I think you failed because you said "many" instead of "all".



(Edited by Zanjan)
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orkanen
orkanen: Had I met more people like relgan in my youth, I'd probably still believe in a god today. My best friends dad, a travelling Latter Day Saints preacher, was a decent man, honest enough to say "I don't know", instead of accusing me of blasphemy, or divert and pretend what I said never happened. They allowed me to join them at a summer camp, which is where I seriously began to question my faith. It is where I met the double standards of religion, it is where I was ridiculed for asking honest questions, it is where I found that most religionists lack integrity and honesty, concerning their own religion. It still took me 15 - 20 years beyond that to rid myself of the doubts about hell, sin and my view on sex and women, the shame and guilt that is so big a part of Christianity. It's gone now. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Not all religionists are dishonest, Zanjan, just most of them.
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Zanjan
Zanjan: So instead of turning you off Christianity, they turned you off God. My, what a leap. Obviously, this particular bunch made a highly influential impression on you.

They pushed you to sweep all other religions aside so you could jump straight into another box - atheism. You had to go back to scratch. Might not have been a bad thing for you to start your life over again.

However, I'm not about to believe it was their fault you took 15-20 years to do it. I did mine in 3 months.

"Not all religionists are dishonest, Zanjan, just most of them".

Replace the word 'religionists' with "atheists". Would you say this is also true of them?



(Edited by Zanjan)
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orkanen
orkanen: I suggest you reread what I wrote, then try again. You have a tendency to imagine stuff that was never there, and you certainly did this time. You got one line right though, so I'll address that one.

Many religionists have a tendency to put it upon themselves to know everything, being in contact with their god, and all that. Thus, they assert this and that. When they don't know the answer to something, they make up stuff. This occasionally crosses over to other parts of life, some times just in forms of exaggerations, other times in making up stuff. If confronted, most of them go into attack mode.

This is mainly a self esteem issue, which is a huge topic in on itself. I'll put it as brief as I can, generalizing as I go.

When measuring oneself to something infinite, it doesn't matter how well one performs, as one will never become perfect. If one is never good enough, one cannot pat oneself on the back, saying one did good. Instead, it is always the same, do better, do better, do better. This simply does wonders in producing low self esteem. Unrealistic demands going against ones nature also produces low self esteem.

Some people have reasons in becoming dishonest, be it traits, events or situations in life, or a combination. This includes theists, deists and atheists alike. Adding a reason to become dishonest, like some of the fruits of religion, and the level of dishonesty in a given group increases. For many, efforts to compensating for low self esteem is this reason. For others, the reason is peer pressure. I hope this answers your question.

You keep asserting that Atheism is "something", like it's a counterpart, replacing religion in some way. You're so wrong, it hurts. The same way you don't replace beliefs in the Easter bunny, pixies, trolls, goblins, Santa, unicorns, or the Loch Ness Monster with something else, I don't replace the belief in a religion and a god with something else.

To illustrate this in mundane terms. What is the opposite of a car? It's certainly not another car, or bus, bicycle, plane, boat, or even a submarine. It's a "not car". How does one address a "not car"? One doesn't. It's that simple.

Feel free to add anything you like between the lines of what I wrote. There's plenty of room for it, as I didn't.
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Zanjan
Zanjan: " I hope this answers your question."

Only this line did: "This includes theists, deists and atheists alike".

Thank you. So, let me re-cap: You're not claiming atheists are more honest or have the answers to everything. You're saying that atheists are more obvious - they expose themselves, naked before the eyes of all. I agree.

Naturally, it makes sense why God wouldn't deign to hide an atheist's shortcomings or cloak him with armor against the arrows of criticism.

You wrote:
" I don't replace the belief in a religion and a god with something else"........and...."What is the opposite of a car?"

The opposite of a car is something which doesn't transport, carry or convey anything. Of course, you'd be hard-pressed to find something that fits that description.

If you don't have something - anything- inside you, that makes you empty. I know you're not an empty vessel, you're still a carrier of something.

Removing religion from the vessel is like removing oil from the liquid - just skim it off the top. But removing belief in God from the vessel is like removing wine from the water. If this were possible, you'd still end up with residue. Can you name this clingy stuff?

(Edited by Zanjan)
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Geoff
Geoff: I don't think any atheist would claim to have the answers to all the questions. Just a more sensible means of determining which of those answers fit the evidence.
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Zanjan
Zanjan: If that's true, the more sensible means must be non-operative when one can't see any evidence.

There's a lot of undiscovered evidence out there so this leaves one very limited in their vision.
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Geoff
Geoff: When one doesn't have evidence, does that give one the right make stuff up?
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Zanjan
Zanjan: Atheists are confined to what they, alone can see - each individual. At any time, does it make sense for them to decide that what they, alone, can't see is all imaginary?

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Tamanisha
(Post deleted by staff 10 years ago)
Geoff
Geoff: Everyone has to form their own opinion of what they accept and reject.

Personally, I have a keen interest in science. And while there is a fair amount of it of which I have little to no personal experience, I know the value of work being peer reviewed. I also know that should I ever feel the need, I could repeat the experiments carried out myself.

The same can not be said of personal revelation.

"If every trace of any single religion were wiped out again and nothing was passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it out again. Without hype, Lot's salt-heap ho would never be thought of again. Without science, the Earth still goes around the sun and someday someone will find a way to prove that again."

--Penn Jillette
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Zanjan
Zanjan: "atheists have nothing to lose, so they stand there in all their naked glory exposed to the ridicule of everybody that wants to take a cheap shot at them."

Seriously?? Since when was anyone NOT criticized? Did you not do this, yourself?

Everyone knows this topic was created to see if there are any TRUE atheists.........are you one of those?

(Edited by Zanjan)
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Zanjan
Zanjan: "...... should I ever feel the need, I could repeat the experiments carried out myself."

Science is testable, meaning others can repeat those same experiments and get the same results. Would you say art is the same? If not, do you reject all art as being useless and invalid?

There is no such thing as "personal revelation", not even in science. No human can know what has not already been revealed. In otherwords, you can't know what you don't know. I think you're speaking of 'inspiration', not revelation.

Nevertheless, like science, divinity (perfection) is also testable - this process is the unveiling of a truth.





(Edited by Zanjan)
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Geoff
Geoff: Revelation; the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence. What faith is founded on anything but the personal experience of individuals? At what point were any of these people tested for psychological conditions? Or hallucinogens?

And, if you please, explain how divine truth is testable? An example of of a religious assertion standing up to proper scientific scrutiny is required to back up that statement.
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orkanen
orkanen: Doesn't it embarrass you even the slightest, being this dishonest, and caught, Zanjan?
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Geoff
Geoff: So - by taking your edited words (rather than your original assertion), we can take it that "Vague prediction which can be interpreted in any sufficiently loose way to fit a future event" is proof of the existence of a divine being?

Well, I am a god, and I predict that something nasty will happen to you, or someone you know in the next ten years. And that something equally good will also happen to you, at some point in the ten years that follows that event. Yea and verily, for Geoff hath spoken.
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orkanen
orkanen: Praise Geoff, the God of Gods!
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Zanjan
Zanjan: Geoff: "...... of something relating to human existence"

Sorry, it's also related to physical and spiritual existence...and to all the sciences and arts there ever was. For example, had not a Revelator disclosed that the earth revolved around the sun, no human could have discovered that truth. Check history - no human did before that particular Revelation disclosed it.

"What faith is founded on anything but the personal experience of individuals?"

Blind faith. Life is too short to be introduced to every individual and substantiate every claim.

True faith recognizes a common truth; whereas certitude understands and verifies it.

A divine truth: to tell a lie is wrong; to tell the truth is right. A truth is a working principle, providing much evidence of its existence; it's universal, always operating in the same way, always providing the same results, wherever and whenever. A truth stands the test of application and time.

Whereas a lie is a failed experiment; cannot be verified, has no foundation, no substance, thus no existence as a working principle. It is nothing.

It 's a divine truth that germs and genes have existed since primordial times, although these truths were only discovered by humans in recent times. This is testable, provided you apply the correct tests.

The same is true for the Divine world. It's a fact that the Messengers of God have always been with us; their appearance can be substantiated by many methods. The identity of the highest Prophets can be verified through many correct tests - collectively, these results point to positive identification.

Geoff, this is called cross-referencing, and a truth will provide lots of connected facts.

How much evidence is necessary depends on one's desire to disprove the results. It follows that if one can't disprove, then one has just proved a truth.

(Edited by Zanjan)
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Geoff
Geoff: What utter twaddle. You've just talked yourself in circles, with no reasoning - if some madman makes something up and it is later tenuously linked to a scientific fact- then god did it. If he was wrong, then he made it up.

That's not evidence, that's wishful thinking.



The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

― Douglas Adams, HHGTTG
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