Where are you getting this universal claim about atheism from? I think this is a hasty generalization that leads you to bifurcate. And you seem to have asked the same question on 3 or 4 threads. I'd focus on one or you might be criticized for trolling.

Atheists don't all think alike, and for that reason you may have the impression that atheists have fragmentation etc. But this is not an indictment against atheism at all. Rather, it's simply stating the obvious. Calling it "hypocrisy" and "ego-centric selfishness" sounds to me like ad hominem attacks. Furthermore, you're not substantiating your claims here either....

And raising question about atheism and answering them for yourself by saying, "God" does not add solvency to your case. It only shows that you're question begging.

So, if I were you, I would focus on 1 thread, stop the ad hominem attacks, and clean up your own arguments before you start ridiculing atheism.

Truth is not relative.

Atheists don't believe in God. Anything else they believe or don't believe in is not relevant to whether or not they are atheist.

Correct.

Induction doesn't allow us to 'know' things with absolute certainty. We simply use methods that hold pragmatic value.

Beauty, truth, justice, right, wrong, honor, purity, and goodness are preferences. Everyone "knows" them in the sense that they have preferences.

Atheism is denial or disbelief in any god or gods. It does not make any arguments, so it cannot commit any fallacies.

All religions are irrational, by definition.

No matter how many times you assert that, it still contradicts the actual evidence. Sorry.

Dear Jean,

Please take you christian cross made of good wood, push it deep into your ass, and turn twelve times. 

This will be art and beauty.

Have a great Sunday ... you ... masturbator.  And I know this.

Without any respect,

100%

Wow,

The responses I got were all what you would expect from an Atheist. Curse words, and everything. This is what you would expect since Atheists by definition have no morals/ethics, values, virtues. If God let them go via their consistency, they would indeed by criminals. I think maybe one person maybe two gave me nice answers, I'll answer them.

________________________

Hi Ubuntuanyone

Trolling? Not trying to do that. I can only answer when I can. I am not God.

In any worldview, there is the consistent outcome and the inconsistent outcome. For example, empiricism is consistently known as Logical Positivism. However, this consistency embarrassed the scientists so badly, they had to go back to inconsistently, thus so as not to be as noticed. This is intellectual dishonesty.

The same for me or anybody. I am a consistent Christian. Of course, I'm not perfect, but I live my life and belief consistently. What would an Atheist look like IF IF IF he/she was consistent. That is what I'm arguing. Via the chain of consistency, what is the end result.

And thus, I argue is what I stated above. If you disagree with the consistency of Atheism, tell me where I'm wrong. Show me what it means to be 100% consistent logically as an atheist.

This makes the problem worse for you. If there are no universals in Atheism, then it is even fragmented more then I thought. Though, I believe there is at least 1 universal?

But the Atheists that are attacking Christianity. They have taken over the media, the Universities. In High School debate class, I was almost kicked out of school for debating Abortion. It took a big Washington DC Lawyer to keep me in. This is not an isolated case.

So the issue regarding atheism's epistemology is crucial for it to survive as a system of thought. Atheism has fallen, and it can't get up.

Look, atheism as a whole is attacking America. Atheism and Liberals are kissing cousins. If you disagree, tell me. That's why I opened this thread. I opened it, then it was deleted, I did not know it was here. Know I do, Now I can respond.

______________________________________________

Hi Jeffrick,

aww, I knew I would encouter a "soft atheist" soon. George Smith Style Atheist. Though the lack of faith is a lack of knowledge. Biblical faith is knowledge, thus to lack faith, is to admit you are ignorant, and check mate.

Unless you are of a different flavor? Please tell.

___________________________________

Hi Butterbattle,

Atheists believe in nothing. Thus their belief. Unless of course if you are a Humanist, then man is god. It depends what flavor.

I'm glad we agree on induction. That's nice, I finally agree with an atheist.

Beauty is not a preferences. This is relativistic subjective thinking made popular by the art show of of 1913, and poof, modern art was born. Beauty and goodness is objective in the Christian Worldview. So is Right and Wrong. The Christian philosophy of aesthetics I can discuss if you would like. It's a fascination study.

Atheist is disbelief in belief. Thus the believe in disbelief. They are reciprocal. Though again, there are dozens of flavors. O'Hair did NOT define Atheism that way? You win a prize if you can tell me how she defined Atheism.

______________________________

Hi 100%pureatheist,

Oh, nice one. You claim that are 100% pure atheist. So you are consistent? So again, this is what you would expect from a consistent atheist. I believe if I was an empiricist, I would now way, "exhibit A."

__________________________

Hi CPT,

to say something does not mean you know it. You must define the know, then justify it. They you will be reasoning.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

It simply means that you consistently do not believe in fairy tale gods. Period. All other beliefs on politics, economics, morality etc. are completely separate. If you look back on some old threats you will see that we widely disagree on many of those subjects.

Yes. The belief that there is no god.

Yes, all 10% of us are going to take over the country....MWAHAHAHAHAHA. Seriously. We are an extreme minority. Just because there are some theists who agree that religion shouldn't be jammed down peoples throats in school it doesn't create some vast conspiracy where we are taking over the country. And people call me paranoid. You were probably kicked out of debate class because of your obvious lack of ability to make a coherent argument. I debated against abortion in my high-school debate and no one tried to kick me out. Of course, I did more than stand there and say "YOU ARE GOING TO BURN IN HELL FOR MURDERING BABIES, HITLER!"

I disagree. I am hardly a traditional political liberal. Read some of the political threads on this site. We have some radical disagreements and you can find folks on all sides of any given political issue. In general, I would say you would find more people who prefer democrats among atheists than republicans but that is mostly because the Christian right wing is so fanatical. Would you politically support people who routinely call you evil and less than human even if your other political views were the same? So while there might be a correlation between atheism and political liberalism they are not the same. As someone who crows about his logical superiority I would expect you to understand the difference between correlation and causation.

Religious beliefs, including those of Christianity, are totally without epistemological foundation, since it is based on wholly subjection intuitions and unverifiable 'revelations', and the self-deception known as religious 'faith'.

Even if there was some supreme intelligent awareness as envisaged by Christianity, it would be totally impossible, logically, to know anything with certainty about the nature or intentions of such a being, which would have unlimited capability to manipulate what we see and hear and feel, so could make us believe whatever it wanted to.

Secular morality is true morality, based on our evolved empathy, as required for a successful social animal which must be able to cooperate with others, and encourage their cooperation in turn. It is based on avoiding, as far as possible, actions which will cause others distress and harm, and so invoke retaliation, which can lead to collapse of the social group. It is based on moral urges, not conscious calculation, which is why it is in a separate category from 'reason'.

Religious 'morality' is really a crude 'legal' system, based on demanding obedience to whatever edicts an (imagined) authority figure announces, under threat of horrendous punishment, with the promise of some remote ultimate reward.

No knowledge of the truth value of any simple claim, such as the existence or not of some entity, is provable with 100%, assuming the claim does not involve a logical contradiction. However, the truth value of the sentence I just typed, is demonstrable by logic. So certain categories of statement are knowable with 100% certainty, others with only a confidence of less than 100% because of incomplete knowledge of aspects of reality, others have no assignable truth value because of circularity, self-reference, or other flaws, such as the classic "this sentence is false".

Science is founded on logic, math, empiricism, and inductive reasoning, based on the absolute minimum of initial assumptions, such as the laws of logic, accompanied by a rigorous system of testing of all claims and the encouragement of robust criticism of new theories, to minimize the chance of even temporary acceptance of faulty claims. All scientific theories are held tentatively, and are not claimed to be eternal truths, but the best current model of some aspect of what we perceive as 'reality'. There may be more than one theory held to be the 'best' by different groups, but they all are required to be consistent with current observations to a similar degree.

That is an inevitably incomplete summary of how I see things.

I see little point in directly attempting to address the many utterly absurd and ignorant claims of people such as Chauvin, who appear to hold such a diametrically opposite world-view. I just lay out my position as clearly as I can, to show that the alternative to their position has at least as coherent and firm a logical basis as theirs, and challenging them to show why their world-view is superior, in whatever sense they care to apply.

Over to you.

I wholly beg to disagree with most of what you have espoused here, as it is purely assumption on your part.  Also aren't you just labeling atheism as a "religion" and I could swear you said that religion could not be defined so how can you judge what is a false religion.  I like the statement you made about God being the infinite reference point interesting speculation I would like to study on that some more it may concur with some of my views however I will have to say I disagree with some of your points that I have read here so far.  I am still reading doing some catch up have been off the forum for a bit .  Just wanted to say welcome aboard. 

Respectfully (and I actually mean this )

P.S. don't let these guys attack you too bad they are fundamentalists in their own way especially brian37 he gets kind of touchy if you disagree with him

Reverend Willie G.

1. Reverend Willie admitted he has no proof for god but chooses to believe in one just because he wants to.

2. atheists on this website proposed many reasons why that isn't logical

3. we are therefore fundamentalists.

Willie, I'd rather be a logic fundamentalist than someone who believes things "just because."

Well I feel sorry for you then, I would rather believe in something because I want to not because other people tell me so.  Circular arguement and you guys all seem to KNOW, how about emptying your cup once in awhile you might learn something.

Reverend Willie  G.

ANSWERS,

Hi BobSpence1

I made an argument that was objective. Since God is infinite, and all knowledge is in Christ (Col 2:3), then objectivity is measured by God Himself. And without God, logic could not be.

Since God created the reality around us, I think He'd be the expert? No? Validity, remember.

Supreme intelligent awareness? Well, via logic and knowledge, one can only know again, if the particulars have meaning via Universals. Which begs the question regarding universals. Universals must be tied into a Infinite Reference Point in order for them to all be rooted into something.

And at this point, subjects, which are particulars, can connect to other subjects all the time, thus giving us knowledge. You cannot know, if you fragment all the subjects, which is what Atheism does by nature.

Secular Morality is true morality? You mean, atheistic ethics is based on absolute knowledge via a variable with absolute zero error? This would mean that Atheistic epistemology (whatever that is) would connect to it, along with metaphysics and aesthetics. But you guys say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, thus again, fragmenting the connection, making morals/ethics alone on an island worshiping "the fly." How can this be if Atheistic morals are true? You have to steal Christian morals, if you want to be consistent in your worldview, you are a particular. Skepticism is better for you because they are honest, and admit consistently that ethics can't exist logically within their system.

Many Religious Morals are cruel. Not sure what you mean by religion though since the term is dead. but Sharia law is evil. Along with Native American law, where they were forced to eat their dead for 3 days, and vomit to appease the "great spirit." But those are false, Christianity is true, that's the difference.

If knowledge is not possible 100%, then knowledge is not possible, period. We agree. I do not play by the same pagan games of empirical proofs like atheists do. Most Christians do play by the same game, but not me, I'm consistent. So my proof is totally of a different caliber since I'm not an empiricist.

Science (aka Knowledge) Is founded upon the Infinite Reference Point. Math and such are particulars. But they all interrelate with each other. So really math and science and biology and music and art are DEPENDENT on the Infinite Reference point, not the other way around.

I do hold a 100% opposite worldview. Fun isn't it. That's the way it ought to be. My propositions and my method of argument are 100% opposed to your paganism. We have nothing in common, except the Imago Dei.

_______________________

Hi Extremeist,

Satisfaction is when your full from eating your mommys oatmeal. You ought to be after truth, not satisfaction. Truth may or may not be satisfying. The fact that you are evil is not satisfying, but it's the truth.

_______________________

Rev. Willie,

It's not purely assumption. Just my first principles are which are perfectly acceptable according to the rules of logic. But they are givens rooted into the Imago Dei.

My Humanist friends admit that it's a religion. There seems to be a schism in Atheism. This is what you would expect since fragmentation is their nature.

Good point. Religion can't be defined. However, I am simply repeating what the Humanists say all the time. So according to the ones calling the shots in America, it's a religion within their system. Fun stuff. Though technically, it cannot be defined, you're right.

Thanks Rev. Willie for the welcome.

__________________________________

HI Sapient,

I'm not sure if he admitted that. But if he did, he would be absurd, I agree with you. I do not say such a thing.

Fundamentalists are different then the ones in the early 20th century. But yes, this is fundamental thinking. Logical Christians know what they believe and why they believe it via he use of reason and logical argument.

_____________________________________

Hi Rev. Willie,

I rarely do this, but I would have to agree with Sapient and my other atheist friends on here. If you abandon logic and reason and simply believe in God via an Existential Blind Faith, this is the opposite of reason and is absurd. The founder of Existentialism even admitted that passion is the key to knowing, not logic, and was thus admittedly absurd. Don't fall into that same trap. Otherwise you are no better off then the Skeptics.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

Just because you don't understand my view doesn't mean I'm wrong, since God cannot be proven to exist or not to exist all you have left is faith or doubt or some point inbetween.  This is only my opinion, now I want you to realize something, THIS IS MY OPINION.  Each one of you has been TELLING me how I should think, TELLING me how I am wrong, very few has mentioned in my opinion, in my view so that to me is condescending, brian37 has been rude and downright assinine now that's fine I'm good with that, that is his opinion and I will react accordingly, but as I stated I don't want to argue circular logic so I didn't respond and I quit dealing with you guys because you obviously weren't going to let up so I moved on to other posts.  I don't care about if you agree with me or not it matters not, what I wanted was some polite idea swapping and when we disagree, we agree to disagree and drop it.  You guys didn't do that kind of like a toothless pit bull on an old bone.  Athena was right about you guys.

Reverend Willie G.

First of all you should note that I was just extending an olive branch and you took out a match and lit it on fire, yet you're bitching about how you're being treated.

People are telling you how you should think and why you are wrong because that is the idea behind this website.  This website is designed to respond to irrational claims with logic and reason, that is what happened.  You stated that you don't want to embrace logic and reason and choose to believe with no sound reasoning, I wanted you to know that I along with others here can still accept you for that.  That we are capable of finding the common ground between us instead of constantly bringing up what we don't agree on, I was asking if you were able to do the same.  If you are able to do the same than maybe you will refrain from calling people here fundamentalists in completely unrelated topics as you chose to do here.
 

Isn't it ironic that the whole reason were talking about this right now is because you called us fundamentalists and I was essentially asking if we could agree to disagree?  I kindly request you follow your own request.  We only covered the topic with you for two pages of a thread, and we all moved on after you left it, so don't lie to yourself and tell yourself we wouldn't let it go.  Two pages of a thread, that's extremely short.  

This comment is very crybabyish.  I don't know Athena, nor do I know what her opinion is of us.  What I do know is that many people who use faulty logic and reasoning skills leave this website hating us.  So if someone hates/dislikes us, I can reasonably expect that they aren't a very good thinker.  This facet of our website is there purposefully so logical thinkers know who is worth uniting with in our common cause.  If Athena left with a bad taste in her mouth or you do the same, we have a good idea why.  We wont lose sleep over it, in fact we will rest better as a result.  Got it?

It's ok, it's ok.

I am totally fine with people who believe just because they believe.   Often, it is really good for them and everybody around.  Some of them become workaholics instead of alcoholics.  And this is good. 

The problem begins for me when some of believers claim that they are exceptional because of their believe. 

Anything else is certainly debatable with joy on this forum.

Hear Hear well said!! I totally concur.  Hey wait a minute I'm supposed to be better'n you

His Highness

Reverend Willie G.

Hi Willie,

Within the realm of opinion, all you have are statements based on uncertainty. You are thus holding to no position.

If one cannot logically disprove God or prove God, when while are you asserting that as if that was reality. You must justify your assertion of non-assertion. Again to assert that you can't prove God requires proof. Unless you are again, just being absurd.

For one who is against logic and reason, you sure make a lot of assertions.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

You should probably take Jeffricks advise and find a dictionary so you can correctly define atheism. Here, I'll help. Atheism: lack of belief in god. Nowhere in the difinition dies it say lack of morals or values and nowhere dies it state we are automatically criminals.

I have morals and values. I'm no criminal either so I have to admit that I'm a little ass infected that you would make such a statement. Like most here have already told you about the end o f your post saying respectfully, you are not respectful. You are very rude and degrading.

Just because we don't have the same beliefs as you doesn't mean we are less human than you are. You don't even have the same beliefs as other theist on this site so how are we suppose to be able to tell which of you are correct?

I have heard lots of christians say that the devil is the master of confusion. So am I correct in claiming that you are the devil since now you have told us that god hates nonbelievers? Other christians say he still loves us. I'm confused.

I see no logic in anything you've said so far. It isn't logical to label people just because they believe in what you believe in. Check yourself at the door next time and stop making wild claims.

Objective arguments would have to be restricted to objectively determined propositions, which disqualifies anything concerning God. I assume the arguments you are using are logically consistent and valid - that would not be best described as 'objective'.

I actually don't recall seeing any actual logical arguments from you just a series or assertions, non-sequiters, naked claims that 'A therefore B' with no actual attempt to justify it. As exemplified by your statements beginning "Since God is..." above. Any attributes of God are pure supposition, and there is zero knowledge "in" Christ - we don't even know if Christ existed as an individual vaguely matching the descriptions in the Bible.

Since the existence and nature of a God is inherently pure conjecture, any argument or assertions regarding such an entity are simply speculation.

Quoting from the Bible is merely repeating the ideas of some person who live a couple of millennia ago, and has no intrinsic  worth, except as it can trigger a thought that may not otherwise have come to mind, but that applies to virtually any utterance ever made.

Any logic involving 'infinite' values is problematic as to validity.

'Universals'  would be things like the Laws of Logic. There is no logical requirement for some separate 'reference point' - they would be their own 'reference point', if they were truly Universals, otherwise you have an infinite regression - a 'reference  point' would need another reference point itself, and so on.

'Meaning' can only be with reference to a particular consciousness or closely interacting social group. Absolute and/or Universal 'meaning' is meaningless.

Such connections only generate knowledge about the interactions, and may pass on knowledge separately gained.

Atheism simply does not believe in God, the rational default position. It is normally a consequence, not a driver, of a mindset which values the honest search for truth over comfortable but illogical, unjustified claims. At most, a position of atheism frees the mind from certain constraints and presuppositions, rather than inspiring new ideas itself.

Knowledge about external reality is won by gathering as much possibly relevant data about some subject, comparing and correlating it to find consistent patterns and associations within it the body of data. It involves a combination of analysis, which may, at a stretch, be described as 'fragmentation', but it is an essential part of the process, followed by synthesis, to see what new connections and patterns can be found or generated, and more data-gathering and analysis, in a endless cycle.

Of course it is true morality - I explained it clearly enough. The alternatives are simply blind obedience or a 'might makes  right' scenario. Absolutes are simply not required.

There is no 'Atheist' epistemology, altho it is commonly associated with a rational, empirical, evidence-based approach to knowledge, with an acknowledgement of an inevitable degree of uncertainty about any 'real' knowledge, and the aim being to find the most workable and useful model of reality, not the absolute, ultimate Truth.

So you have no proof worthy of that description.

Science involves no such thing. Math and Logic are tools for science.

This 'Infinite Reference point' is an empty phrase.

Empiricism as applied in Science is not capable of finding ultimate truth, but the alternatives have no claim to any epistemological status unless they can be to some extent checked empirically.

Hume claimed that knowledge "cannot be conclusively established by reason", and included ALL categories in that. Logic and Math he classified as "relations of ideas", a distinct category from "matters of fact". He was not skeptical about empiricism as such, but about all 'knowledge', as being unable to be determine Absolutely.

Whatever limitations there are on empiricism, at least it overall leads in the direction of greater accuracy, whereas intuition and revelation are in practice indistinguishable from fantasy, unless tested against reality, ie, empirically.

Rejection of empiricism leads toward solipsism.

Your talk of Absolutes and Reference Points is outdated thinking. Your "Absolutes and Reference Points" are subjective, realtive to you and others who share your viewpoint. They are unverifiable as realities without your set of presuppositions.

It's getting really boring. 

Jean, tell me are you going to church?

For one who sees so much you are certainly blind. 
 

Reverend Willie G.

Cut the convoluted crap J,

Here is your core claim, "A magical super hero exists and will swoop me off the train tracks"

The bible's invisible super hero sky daddy with magical super powers, was not the first god claim in human history nor is it the only god claim in human history.

I gave up on Santa when I was a kid, you merely worship Santa for adults. But not even a good Santa. At least my childhood delusion Santa only gave you coal if you were bad. Your super hero claim involves a vendictive asshole who will torture you like an abusive husband whose wife tries to leave him.

There is no such thing as an invisible being. There never was and never will be. Vocanos were not gods like people falsely once believed. The ocean was not controled by Posiden and the god/s of Abraham are just as fictional.

You are merely a deluded person who is sooooo deeply intrenched and in love with the idea of a god you believe it.

Thats ok, I can sell you a snarfwidget at my immaginary myth lot. It is right down the street from Crazy Eddy's used myth chaple. I'll throw in a free brain rotation.

An "Infinite Reference Point" is a pretty meaningless concept. A reference point, to be actually usable, has to have precisely defined, specific attributes that any real value can be compared to.

"Infinite" completely defeats this.

And of course can you justify your assumption of the validity and reality of "the Ontology of God"?

Hey Bob,

I really appreciate your thinking. We obviously disagree, but I came on here thinking everybody was going be like you. Though we disagree, I hope we can respect each other through this.

And Happy Thanksgiving.

I will respond to your arguments as soon as possible. I must sleep.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

Jean, I am just curious about something. In many of your responses to others and myself, you have mentioned Atheist friends, Universalist Friends, Pagan Friends, etc. You have mentioned many debates and discussions with these friends of yours on a regular basis. I am just curious, how do you treat these people in person ? Do you tell these people that they are irrational, hellbound, and illogical ? If so, what sort of responses do you receive from these friends of yours ? Or are all of these discussions that you are referring to online discussions ? I noticed that you have expressed disappointment with the Atheist responses from the majority of us, have you interacted with other Atheists before as you alluded to ? If so, did you start off your discussions with them by referring to them as irrational, illogical and unable to formulate an argument ? How is that having a discussion ?

Lol.

Ooohh, I wasn't aware that there were different "kinds" of Satanism. Did they torture puppies?