Why do atheists spend so much time discussing a "being" they dont believe exists?
Offline Atheists have commonly said this life is the only one that we have therefore every minute is precious. If this is the case, why do atheists spend so much of their "precious" time talking about, discussing, arguing, researching and complaining about something they dont believe exists?
How many of you are on big foot, tooth fairy and Lepricorn websites arguing with believers that what they believe exists is false?
Now i suppose i will hear responses regarding the negative impacts religions have on society, however the last time i checked, the biggest mass murderers in history are atheists. I am not saying that atheism caused these mass killings, but am just pointing out that this reason shows that the objection is false.
So atheists, why do you spend so much time.
Talk about irrational........
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Take six minutes of your time, and let Christopher Hitchens tell you why he fought religion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b1aIuoCq4w
Some of my thoughts: The people who believe in bigfoot, the toothfairy, and leprechauns are in a very small minority. However, there are people like Michael Shermer from Skeptic magazine and Joe Nickell from Skeptical Inquirer that investigate paranormal claims like bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, ESP, telekinesis, holocaust denial, chupacabra, the Bermuda Triangle, etc. For one thing, the topics are interesting. And truth is a good thing.
For the more toxic claims, it's necessary to remove them like tumors by means of rational argument. If applicable, it shouldn't be replaced with a better tumor, but with knowledge (sometimes there's nothing to replace it with).
Most people believe in a deity, so that's a good target -- rather than attacking some irrational beliefs that only three people in the world have.
This is the exact thing i was talking about, the typical response from the atheist is that they want to eliminate the impact of religion on society.
This is false on a number of levels
1. The biggest mass murders in human history have been atheists, nothing comes close. Let me say again, i am not saying that atheism caused these mass murders, but rather, they didnt believe in a religion, yet they still committed the largest atrocities in the history of humanity. Had they believed in God, they may or may not have killed.
2. Believers and non believers both have killed, raped, stolen, lied etc etc. Neither group is better than the other. SO the evidence does not point to believers as a "worse " group than non believers.
3. I think it is wrong to equiovate a small percentage of "extremists" with the majority of believers. I have been a strong believer all my life, why havent i killed in the name of God OR felt the need to kill in the name of God? In fact , i would argue that i have been a better person via belief. For example, there are many things in my life i could have gotten away with, many things. However, as a strong believer, i always believe that God is watching me. So while i may get away with it in this world, i will not eventually get away with it, therefore i proceeded to do the right thing. At that moment in time, while it is only small and immaterial, the world was a better place for it. I know many who act in similar ways. Again, if i was a non believer, i dont know how i would have reacted, but there would not have been a strong motivation to resist the tempation.
Furthermore,
If atheists are really concerned about the impact of an organisation on society in an adverse way, then why arent many of these atheists on "war" or "political party" websites arguing with pro war posters.
The military troops in afghanistan, Iraq where they have blown up babies, innocent by-standers, families all for taking oil out of a country to satisfy there pockets. Why dont we see these same atheists on these sites fighting tooth and nail against pro war people if atheists are so concerned about the negative impact of organisations on society?
Why can't you be good without believing God is watching? The person who goes into a store with surveillance cameras and doesn't steal, is less moral than the person who goes into a store without surveillance cameras and doesn't steal. But at least they both aren't stealing.
There's a political forum here already. Go here
No, if you read what i said, "if i was a non believer, i dont know how i would have reacted". The statement "why cant you be good without believing God in God" is rather ambigious.
Certainly there are better moral people who dont believe than those that do, absolutely. However, this introduces a number of issues, namely a whole topic of absolute morals v relative morals, but that is a completely different topic to which i am tryimg to discuss here.
However, human behaviour and tendencies is generally "if you can get away with it", then do it, that is what i have found in my experiences around me.
That isnt saying that one must believe in God to acting properly, but then again, that is a completely different topic, and we have strayed from the original topic already....
No, if you read what i said, "if i was a non believer, i dont know how i would have reacted". The statement "why cant you be good without believing God in God" is rather ambigious.
Certainly there are better moral people who dont believe than those that do, absolutely. However, this introduces a number of issues, namely a whole topic of absolute morals v relative morals, but that is a completely different topic to which i am tryimg to discuss here.
However, human behaviour and tendencies is generally "if you can get away with it", then do it, that is what i have found in my experiences around me.
That isnt saying that one must believe in God to acting properly, but then again, that is a completely different topic, and we have strayed from the original topic already....
Can you point to any thread "off the top of your head" where people have attacked the US Govt for the wars in Iraq and Afghan over the years? If you say you cant but have seen it then i take your word for it.
However, many atheists that i have talked to on other forums dont entertain this topic at all.
It because of bullshit statements like yours that atheists have done the biggest mass murders in history.
Let see, the Bible is quite thorough in God commanding the righteous to kill entire civilizations when God was too busy to do it himself, like wiping out the entire world save 8 souls in the flood and raining down fire and brimstone on Sodom & Gemmorah. Then there is the entire dark ages, the crusades. If you believe god sends plagues or allows plagues then lets add the bubonic plague. Now how about all those good Christians killing just about every Indian in the Americas. And of course Got Mitt Uns. Ah, and lets not forget that nearly ever human will burn in hell except a very small remnant. Monotheist religions love to hate.
And don't forget the bloody history of Russia prior to 1917. They are the bad example of just about everything, but they produce some of the most beautiful arts.
Religion has been in control for way too long to suddenly look the other way rewriting history as you want to do.
And yes the tooth fairy never did such things.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Go to Google SEARCH this Site! It's on the Home page on the left. You can search all the threads for topics.
Then it seems you haven't bothered to look at the forum topics at all, if you actually scroll down more then you will notices other topics such as politics, environment, scientific forums etc, if you search within them you will find all types of topics, including regarding the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, Israel conflicts, etc, etc.
As for your comment about atheist doing the most killing, well no, they don't kill in the name of atheism, people kill for causes or dogmatic beliefs, such as communism, the reason the church or other religious insititutions haven't done more mass killing after world war II is mainly because they lacked the power to do so, even if the weapons of such mass destruction and other more viable means was available. However if you are going to include Hitler as so many other chrisitans try, sorry he wasn't an atheist. Stalin sure, you could try, but he never does any killing in the name of atheism, it all for political power and dogmatic belief in communism. Same with Mao and Pot Pol. Yet it you cannot for once show me an ounce of evidence that they killed due to atheism. I can however show you that they killed for political power and their dogmatic beliefs in their political philosophy, something just as dangerous as religious beliefs at time.
However back to your original question, the reason we debate, fight and discuss is mainly because we live in a religious society, one that I personally believe makes irrational decisions based on those religious beliefs. Much like Gay marriage, abortions, religious/or lack of religious freedoms, decisions regarding wars, medical decisions (like those in which children have died because of their parents stupid religious faith healing beliefs and the common disease kills the child) etc, etc, etc. If religious believer didn't try to affect society at large with their irrational and delusional belief then it wouldn't be a problem. But that is not the case, we have people that have one religious belief or another, like muslims, hindus, buddhists, christians, jews etc, etc, etc who's try to impose their religious beliefs onto everyone in society. Sorry if you don't like the fact that we are willing to fight because just because we don't believe in all the woohoo nonsense.
Hitler was raised Catholic, went to a monastery school and as a youth wanted to become a priest. Stalin was raised in a catholic family, went to a Catholic school in Georgian and then a Georgian Orthodox seminary run by the Jesuits from 1984 to 1899 where he trained for the priesthood. He was an outstanding student in both institutions. Yet this is only part of the equation. When Hitler came into power Germany was approximately 90% Christian. Six million Jews could not have been slaughtered without significant involvement of German Christians. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Russia was predominately Christian.
Joseph Kony is accused of brainwashing countless children across northern Uganda, turning the girls into sex slaves and the boys into prepubescent killers. His Christian movement, the Lord's Resistance Army, has terrorized a corner of Africa for nearly 20 years, killing tens of thousands of people, burning down huts and hacking off lips. Joseph Kony considers himself quite a good Christian, and he wants Uganda to be a Christian nation. So in 1987 he formed a resistance group called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and the LRA has been at civil war against the Ugandan government ever since. If the LRA wins, Kony has promised that Uganda will become a theocracy, with laws based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. Knoy was raised in the Catholic Church. His father was a lay minister in the church and his mother was Anglican. Kony was an altar boy. LRA leaders claim to be fighting to install a theocracy in Uganda based on the ten commandments.
The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.
Genghis Khan's religion is widely speculated to have been Shamanism or Tengriism (both theist), and he was very tolerant religiously, and interested in learning philos ophical and moral lessons from other religions. He consulted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christian missionaries, and the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji.
Then we have an estimated millions killed in the crusades and millions in the inquisition, millions in the conquest of the Americas, millions in the slave trades, millions in Christian religious wars in Europe.
Then there are the Muslims. One web site says “Over the last 1400 years, 270 million non-believers were murdered by Muslim jihadists. Islam destroyed the Christian Middle East and Christian North Africa. It is estimated that upwards of 60 million Christians were slaughtered during this conquest. Also, half the Hindu civilization was annihilated and 80 million Hindus murdered. Islamic jihad also destroyed over 10 million Buddhists. In other words, Islam is a killing machine.I know Christians say the actions of these people prove they are not Christian, or theists, that not only contradicts the belief that once saved you cannot be unsaved but it’s obviously simply self serving. I could say their actions prove they were not atheists because atheists do not do such things.
I think that for some, they are trying to argue their way into being Atheists, rather than having Atheism as something that just comes naturally, like breathing.
For Atheists who talk about how evil G-d is, because they didn't get a new pony for Christmas or they had a bad case of the flu last Winter, it isn't that they don't believe in G-d, it's that they are acting like spoiled-rotten teenagers and trying to get one last swipe in at G-d by saying "I don't love you any more (can I please have that pony?)" I like to ask that sort of Atheist if they could design a Universe in which no one ever died and which all the puppies ever given as Christmas and birthday presents were still living. So far I've yet to run into an Atheist who can design a better Universe than the one we've got. Which I take as proof of G-d's existence
Attempts at formal / logical arguments about the existence (or lack thereof) of god and/or gods is a lot like Pascal's Wager -- stupid from the word "Go" -- but there are quite a few of them running around here.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
Who the fuck said atheist design universes? That's a laugh.
Atheist look at the universe and say all the BS religion has been telling us about their universe is wrong. Their holy books have nothing but bad science in them and they are insane in trying to make reality fit their fairy tale.
The universe AS IS is the starting point for an atheist. The religion start with a fairy tale.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
It's not at all a laugh. There are many Atheists who assert that G-d is somehow "evil" because the way G-d designed the Universe is / allows / causes evil.
When challenged to propose a Universe in which all of the evils they attribute to G-d don't exist there is ... silence.
So, I'll put the challenge to you -- if you were a Supreme Being, design a universe in which all of the claimed evils don't exist =and= which doesn't have any negative consequences as a result of your proposed design.
To wit, one claim is that "illness" and "death" is a sign of "evil" on the part of G-d. To eradicate "illness", you'd have to eradicate every organism which causes "illness", including some (e. coli) which are essential to life. To eradicate "death", you'd have to deal with massive overpopulation, or find a way to prevent massive overpopulation in the first place. Yet "overpopulation" is a natural consequent of any system in which "death" does not happen but reproduction does. And if you =could= find a way to allow uncontrolled reproduction, you'd eventually wind up with resource exhaustion (see Malthus), which would presumably result in starvation and ... death.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
Simple enough, an all powerful god could create a universe of infinite proportion comprised exclusively of people fed by “manna” from heaven. Humans created without the need for lesser forms of life. An all powerful god could surely do such a thing. Wouldn’t the Garden of Eden have had to be such a place if Adam and Eve passed God’s apple test?
Is there some physical limit about god we do not know?
But that is all speculation. Christians, Jews and Muslims give us the real answer. Skip the physical part, just create heaven but allow procreation. Forget earth and hell! Why create people to suffer when he didn’t have to?No lesser life forms? No pets? Just =people=? No digestive tract bacteria, just manna, 7 days a week, 3 meals a day, for all eternity? Never =able= to do anything other than what Puppet Master God had us do whenever our strings were pulled?
And you think this is better than having cheese and yogurt and beer and wine and all the other choices in your diet?
Sorry -- I much prefer the Universe G-d created to the one you just did.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
If I had a dime for every time a theist attempted to shut atheists up by calling them stupid for discussing that which they don't believe exists... I'd have at least $20 by now.
This post or a carbon copy of it has been made dozens of times here. Ironically if this person would spend just 5 minutes researching, the op would have found a post I made a few days ago explaining why we talk up...
Atheists rule the internet!
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I'd pay you $20 just to put them all in the same place
Speaking of which, I'm going to have to send you money because Yet Another Person sent me a message to my secret magic Inbox I can't open because I've not sent you money ...
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
It is laughable because it is too fucking easy.
Tin Foil Hat Premise: I am G-d and I can make any universe I like being all-powerful, all-knowing and all the other all-BS. I can see into the future and can see the results of any of my decisions. I know exactly what will happen. I am a loving and caring g-d.
First, e.coli will not be created or anything harmful. I am not an idiot or incompetent. I make up the rules of what constitutes life (except my own of course).
Second, every planet I make is totally inhabitable unlike what the imaginary genus did in charge now.
Third, There is no reproduction. I blink my eye like "I dream of Jennie" and bam life is there. Just keeping the original story going. Adam...Eve...why fuck it up after that? If I need more living space, bam, there you go.
Fourth, I eliminate the need eat which would be harming something.
Five, since I am not defective or incompetent everyone is delighted and I since I am not embarrassed by my work I show my fucking face.
Takes tin foil off.
OK, I played your game. So the ***silence*** is broken. (I bet that is an exaggeration).
That was easy. I will confess to some plagiarism. The monotheist already proposed this shit before the fall & after death. So while you live in two make-believe worlds, I will settle for the one I have.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
AFAIK that's what most of the christians want.
Furry
tell us why your stupid or malicious G-d/God/Yahweh made Ebola, or the parasites in Africa whose lifecycle involves burrowing into the eyes of children and rendering them blind. Believing in a Creator being is bad enough, but trying to claim it is benevolent in any sense is to be insanely deluded, or wilfully blind to the truth.
And stop being so intellectually dishonest as to respond by pointing to the organisms that do have some positive functions, and ignoring all the ones that are simply not necessary, even in the real universe, certainly would not be in a designed universe. You do this all the time, talking about those few points that can be shoe-horned into being sort-of consistent with the ignorant superstitious beliefs incorporated into your 'holey' (as in full of holes) writings, and simply ignoring all the ones you haven't figured out how to make fit.
In the spirit of the great Douglas Adams (self-described "radical atheist" ), I will amend my description of the Torah - mostly crap. (As in updating the entry for Earth in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: mostly harmless).
Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and the Abrahamic religions all share the Big Evil, dogmatic belief in a simplistic formula to 'fix' the world.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Yup. And that is a =very= scarey thought.
To me, creating a being with the ability to =think=, then limiting their ability to =act= would be sadistic.
In my version of the Apple Test, Eve shakes her fist at G-d and says "You're not the boss of me!" and G-d laughs -- "Ha, ha, ha, you think I've got time to pull your strings for the rest of Eternity? No way, lady -- run your own life!"
That's how I see it going down. For which I am grateful.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
I worry about how others interpret their fairy tales as it impacts all of us. Case in point, Mr Rick Santorum who placed second in the Iowa primary has previously tried to add amendments to laws opeining up ID/creationism to be taught alongside evolution on equal footing in our schools. If Rick wants to be an ignorant religious fanatic on his own time fine, but when he takes some of the worst fairy tales and tries to legislate their teaching to our children it is entirely unacceptable. Thus public and private debate are required on god. Mitt too has his own problems as he was once a fairly high ranking official in the CoLDS. The whole story of the CoLDS and its creation is inane without even adding the explicit racism that existed until very recently.
It is a major problem to me that Rick can suspend rational thought on sundays and believe in ID/creationism and then come to work on Monday and act rationally? I doubt it and he's proven in the past to bring the fairy tales to work with him. Then you've got Mitt who has to believe that some social outcast got handed magical golden tablets that only he could read and see and that starts a new religion? Really? These are the people that may lead our country? Jesus F'n Christ on a stick we are screwed.
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence- Christopher Hitchins
You theists are always limiting your all powerful god to preconceived concepts and ignoring your sacred text for your own interpretations.
As supreme god, why would I create a universe and humans without the ability and authority to reason and to act on reason?? I am an atheist remember, thinking for oneself is our deal.
You made the typical Christian error (I know you are Jewish) and decided you know more about the world I created than I do. Read my gospels and then decide what kind of universe I created instead of making stuff up.
And I am confused, don’t Jews believe in heaven and if so, why is earth preferable as you seem to indicate?
PS: You got me on the pets though, even heaven would be incomplete w/o dogs, and that is the primary proof it doesn’t exist.Furry's premise is you based on this world and she has limited imagination beyond that. She wants to bend her biblical view into this scenario so she can claim victory. So, I imagine when she has thrown out this challenge before the responses are similar to what she is getting now. Since they do not respond in the way she wants to hear she calls that silence and a victory.
Typical theists. Set up the game and make up rules so that you are biblically cornered. Checkmate Atheist!
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Oooo, I dunno. I'm liking this world with beer and pizza and carrot cake.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
beer, pizza and holocausts, oh my.
Right! limited imagination just like G-d.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Because =any= form of death and/or suffering is still death and/or suffering.
This argument is a bit like a man who offers a woman $1M for sex, and after the woman says "Yes" offers $20 instead. Sure, they are at the point where they are negotiating the price for sex, but you're at the point where you're negotiating "suffering" and "death" in order to decide whether or not you like some god-concept.
Have you noticed that there is no virus which causes spontaneous human combustion? Maybe G-d stopped short of allowing some virus to evolve that causes spontaneous human combustion. Aren't you grateful? No? Didn't think so.
"Bad" bugs are simply a result of =any= ability to evolve, which leaves a few basic possibilities --
1). G-d has to "tinker" with our genome manually on a regular basis to account for changes in environment, or else hold the environment fixed, or limit our ability to travel outside the "safe zone".
2). We get some nasty shit from time to time.
I reject any deity that is tinkering in our affairs on a regular basis, which means we get some nasty shit from time to time.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
Oh, ==you== get to pick and choose.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
We don't seem to live in a Universe in which G-d is reaching down and tinkering from moment to moment, so it looks like I chose correctly.
All joking aside, would you =really= want to live in a world in which all your basic needs were met, no suffering, no death, no poverty, no none of those things, but in exchange for having all of that, you're a puppet on a string? Because that's the tradeoff I see -- everything is perfect and we're puppets, or things suck from time to time, but at least we're "free" (for some value of "free"
.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
Furry, i don't know how to break it to you, but...
Your god doesn't exist except as a construct of human imagination.
It's a Frankenstein's mash-up of various Sumerian deities cobbled together by a group of nomadic savages who hovered around the city states in the early bronze age. Likewise the histories and fables told over and over across camel dung fires until they attained a 'Semitic' flavor...
Sorry.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
You are correct that there is little evidence of a god that interacts with this universe. However, your claim that god is good because some good things exist is complete bullshit. It makes far more sense to assume that your God's primary interest was in creating a universe that functions without its intervention. So, we can all thank your God for being benevolent enough to create this universe in such a way that it (the universe) causes no more suffering than it already does.
Also, unless your God has some sort of limit on its power, the tradeoff you see is false: an omnipotent being is perfectly capable of creating a self-sustaining universe in which everything is perfect and it doesn't have to intervene. The fact that we cannot conceive of such a universe is irrelevant: an omnipotent being can do anything.
Don't you think that could have something to do with the fact that this is an Atheist website? If you go to a place where Religion and non-belief is the topic, of course that is what people are going to be talking about.
I am Danish, and here in Denmark almost nobody is religious. I have known only a handful of religious people my whole life, and religion has rarely been the topic of conversation, even with them. Trust me when I tell you, atheists do NOT spend every waking hour discussing religion or lack thereof. They, like you spend most of their time just being a normal human being.
The fact that you feel as though atheists always discuss religion may have alot more to do with you going to places where atheists discuss religion with the intention of discussing religion with them.
Come on a holiday to Denmark some day, not to discuss religion, but just to hang out and meet people, and I'm sure you will find that, even when surrounded by atheists, the topic of conversation will very rarely be religion, unless you want it to be, and you initiate the discussion yourself.
To you point that atheists don't discuss politics and war and such, well I'll have to tell you, how can you argue that religion is not a political discussion?
The only reason I care about other people's personal beliefs is to the extent that they are political in nature. But then, almost any personal belief is just that. I mean, I have a personal belief that hitting children is mean, and that it doesn't help their psychological development, so therefore I have the POLITICAL stance that corporal punishment of children should be outlawed, or at least regulated.
I have the personal belief that support and relief/charity is a better motivator for people down on their luck than being forced to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", and so that affects my economically political stance to lean to the left.
If I believed that masturbation or condom use resulted in murder of millions of potential people, or that abortion was the philosophical equivalent of murdering a child, then of course that would affect my political stance on those issues.
And if I believed God had decreed that Israel belonged to the Jewish people, then how could that not affect my political stance on foreign policy?
You see, I don't object to what you believe just for the sake of doing so. I object to what you believe for the same reason you object to me: because we disagree on things that affect all of us: political things. To the extent that we agree, we are political allies, and I would never dismiss you as such simply for being a believer. I would dismiss you only if we could not come to terms about what politics should look like, and even then I would be willing to amicably agree to disagree unless your opinions were outright vile and dangerous in my opinion.
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
First off, the Jewish god-concept does NOT hold that G-d is "good", whatever "good" means. Good God / Bad God is more of a polytheistic thing where you've got the good gods and the bad gods and they are duking it out up in the Heavens and down here on Earth and wherever else. Just want to clear that up, because the "G-d is good, so why is there this bad stuff?" thing gets tiring.
The way I see things, based on being an old fart and getting older, is that freedom of action and the ability to experience bad stuff go hand in hand. The more "perfect" things are, the less freedom of action we have. And I'll get to that more in a second.
I don't see how we can have a "perfect" Universe which includes the ability to act somewhat freely (short of my being able to flap my arms and fly ...) =and= not have some god reaching down from time to "fix" stuff. If I can =choose= to beat you up and steal your stuff, so that I have more stuff, that's not "perfect". And if I =can't= choose to beat you up and steal your stuff, that's not "free". I prefer "free" to "perfect" and I'd wager real money that more people would prefer "free" over "perfect".
That's the trade-off. We get suffering of some sort (all suffering is relative ...) or we don't get freedom of action. My assertion is that any intelligent creature would find =not= being able to act freely to be a form of suffering in and of itself, which negates the entire "no suffering in exchange for no freedom" premise.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
are all the contrived religious heavens sold to us on the basis of there being no death, no illness, no suffering? It's monotheism that is fixated on ending this terrible life and skipping gaily off to paradise.
The fact is humans are part of a competitive biosphere. Things will happen to us we don't like. Generally only theists will label these things 'evil'. For the typical atheist, such things are part of the competition for space.
As for asking atheists to design an alternate universe with no 'evil' that's easy. When humans go extinct the concept of evil will no longer exist. There's your universe with no evil.
Ed: Yes, I know. Jews don't believe in Paradise...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Again, lack of imagination. I don't see a good tradeoff in believing in an imaginary G-d who loves us yet brings on or allows unimaginable suffering. And the best we can do is justify this absentee father's neglect. I don't think you get any points for Stockholm Syndrome, just cognitive dissonance. We arrest parents who treat their children such. Do you really want your offspring to suffering & die? That is better for them? And all this under the false label of "free will".
Yes. I want a world where our basic needs are met. I want a g-d to show up and visit. 70 years is way to brief to get a good perspective on life. By the time you figure it out if you ever do you are too old to do anything about. Look at the abysmal ignorance of humanity. Our view of the world is way to small to do something real and effective. We push the string back and forth. Yes, I want a world where a child is not raped. Yes, I want a world where there would be no diaspora or holocaust. I showed you the world I wanted above. Problem solving for a brilliant g-d would be a snap. This backwards retrofitting to justify neglect is simply sad to me.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
because it claims to own morality, to comprehend the deeper meanings of molecular existence while offering no coherent proofs, and more pointedly, because those who embrace it are able to dehumanise unbelievers and, as history clearly shows, to kill them in large numbers with a feeling of personal integrity.
Your arguments about atheists being mass murderers based no doubt on Pol Pot (Theravada Buddhist), Stalin (Russian Orthodox), Hitler (Catholic) are laughable. Atheism has no doctrine, no coherent ideology that fosters hatred of our fellow man. It's the humans who commit mass murder. Religion incorporates, encourages and threatens mass murder for this very reason. We contrived religion and it mirrors our moral inconsistency.
One thing is historically clear. That the separation of church and state and the elevation of human law brought an end to officially sanctioned religious murder in Europe. Whether this will happen in the Middle East is something only time will tell.
Ed: Removal of unnecessary spite...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I agree with you. However, the fact that you can't conceive of a perfect universe that includes freedom and doesn't require intervention by a god does not mean it would be impossible for an all-powerful being to accomplish. Besides, much of the suffering we see wouldn't exist even in different, but imperfect, universe. In addition, it's quite possible for an intelligent being who cannot act freely to perceive these restrictions as natural/normal and, therefore, not be bothered by them.
Yet you conviniently miss out that Stalin , Pot and Hitler have killed over 100 million people. Again, i am not saying that Atheism caused these murders, but rather, they didnt believe in a religion, yet non belevers have commited the biggest atrocities in the history of humanity, nothing even comes close.
Therefore, your objection is a false one. If the history of humaity shows that ONLY religious beliefs resulted in atrocities, then your argument has validity to it, clealry this is not the case, therefore your argument doesnt have any legs.
It isn't that =I=, personally, can't conceive of such a "perfect Universe", but that all the proposed alternatives immediately jump to mountains of pizza, fountains of beer, gardens of potato chips and pretzels, and a Godiva chocolate store on every street corner. And cats. Lots of cats.
To me, the only way that "works" is if there is simply so much "plenty" that there is no way to control =any= of it, and none of the side effects of living in Pizza and Beer Paradise happen.
There was a book back in the '60s, "Logan's Run" (made into a movie in the '70s) which had this utopian society in which you got whatever you needed. So long as you agreed to die when your time came. In the end, people chose to leave utopia for the "real world" of pain, suffering and old age. There have been a number of other instances of this theme -- chosing pain and suffering over utopia and I'm not aware that anyone =wants= "utopia" given the limitations that always seem to come along with it. =I= don't want "utopia" as I understand "utopia" would exist. I've had arthritis since my early 40's from too much bodily abuse and while I think I might have overdone it a bit, I'd never trade those experiences for having all my body parts in working order when I kick the bucket in 30 or 40 years.
I'm convinced that the only people who =want= "Utopia" are people who only want to propose "Utopia" as an alternative Universe to the one folks like me assert G-d created.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
I said that they dont kill in the name of atheism, i already said this, why do you bring it up as if i said the opposite? but because they didnt believe in a religion, they still killed over 100 mill people. This is direct evidence that religion is not the sole of cause of atrocoties. If you got rid of religion, people will still committ atrocities, we have direct evidence of this.
Hitler was raised in a catholic hosehold but his private statements show that he hated Christianity. Any comments made publicly were political statements to control and bring in followers. His private statements very clealry show he wasnt a Christian.
But the church is seperated from the state, so the decisions of the church DONT AFFECT non believers. If you are gay, dont believe in God, then why should it affect you. Gay marriages are a decsion made by the state. The curch doesnt make it legal / illegal, but the state does.
Yes, there are a few people who have not seen doctors and relying on natural healing, neiter me or my family have gone down this path, furthermore, i dont know of anyone in my life who went down this path.
Furthermore, when people try to impose their thoughts and view on others, isnt everyone entitiled to their opinion? Why are Christians different to anyone else?
" It's the humans who commit mass murder. Religion incorporates, encourages and threatens mass murder for this very reason. We contrived religion and it mirrors our moral inconsistency".
My point was that Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot all had religious understanding. Stalin studied at a seminary. Hitler thought Jesus wanted him to kill the Jews. Pol Pot was trying to take his country from catholic colonists and return it to the rural Buddhism of its deep past.
These people were not unbelievers, nor were they the trigger-men. Hitler did not personally kill millions of people. Other people did it for him. Was the whole of Germany atheist? What about Gott Mitt Uns and all those stupid carols they kept singing? Silent Nacht.
No different for Stalin. The Soviet Union was one of the most superstitious and uber-religious nations on earth. yet the Soviets merrily slaughtered for Stalin. Were they suddenly all atheists. Did their religious beliefs evaporate? Do you have proof?
Were they unbelievers or were they just men?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Does this sound like a Christian to you?
Some of Hitlers private statements.
"The best thing to do is let Christianity die a natural death, Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity, The only way to get rid of Christianity is to let it die little Christianity by little, Christianity the liar".
Hitlers PUBLIC statememts were aimed at winning the population for control and power, a very clever manipulation. Privately, very clealry, he wasnt a Christian as the statements above prove.
We should all be entitled to our own opinions and for that reason religions should be asked to remove the threats against unbelievers from their doctrines. No original sin, no eternal lakes of fire no need for jesus to come and save us.
You see where it goes wrong though, don't you? For christians to need saving, I must be evil.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Atheists talking about the characteristics of God is an illogical conversation. Like an algorithm, where a decision made is no, the programme generally terminates, therefore for the atheist to continue to talk about the characteristics or personality of God is irrational. You cant talk about the personality or characteristics of a being that never existed.
Stalin, Hitler and POT WERE ATHEISTS, FULL STOP.
I have said that atheism did not cause these atrocities but the people who commiited these atrocities did not believe in a religion, therefore the claim that religion is the sole cause of atrocities is FALSE. We have direct evidence that if religion did not exist, people will still committ atorocities.
What are these threats you talk of? That one will go to hell if they do not repent? If you dont believe a supernatural world, then why does this bother you?
the characteristics of a god. We are talking about that characteristics of your hypothetical god for which we see insufficient data. In any case, most atheists allow the remote possibility of a god. The typical atheist is an agnostic atheist. To be an actual atheist you would need to know everything. It's only certain monotheists who make those sorts of absolute claims.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck