For something that's not supposed to be an attack, you certainly say some hurtful, generalized things. 

To me, here's the difference between an atheist and a theist.

Neither of us kill or rape or steal or cheat on our spouses, or taxes, or tests.

Both of us do good things for other people, we give to charity, we vote, we recycle, we voluteer our time, we give blood.

Only one of us expects an eternal reward for doing these things.

 

 

And, I attack christianity because it attacks me.

Because I can't walk down the street without being witnessed to, because people who think radically differently than I do are making laws and passing bills that impact my life, and they're doing so in the name of their god.

Christians are calling for a return to the old time religion, to an evangalistic state, and if we atheists don't oppose it, who will? 

You have a point about atheists going on the attack. I don't like to act that way myself. 

If I have never adultered or murdered then I am not an adulterer or a murderer whether I believe in god or not. As far as lying and blasphemy: Lying is not always a bad thing. Any god (or person, for that matter) that would hold blasphemy against me or anyone else is an idiot and I wouldn't have anything to do with them.

Your talking about a guy from 2000 years ago. Compared to modern advanced societies he was a total ignoramus no matter how you cut it. I would say that BACK THEN it was much easier to be fooled by superstition and wishful thinking. What I don't understand is why people still fall for it today. 

When did human emotion become our enemy?  Or somehting we have to run away from?  Why can't we be motivated by anger, as well as love?  Anger is not somehting I am ashamed of, but complacency is ...

I think we forget that bitterness and anger are not just necessary emotions that we must deal with maturely - they are also, when coupled with love and compassion, the chief motivator of what we do.  Every movement against colonialism (whether physical or mental) is based partly on the anger and bitterness we feel as subjected people - you don't think, for instance, Toussaint L'Ouverture wasn't bitter about French repression in Haiti, but also driven by love of his fellow human beings?  How about Ibn Warraq after the Rushdie Affair?  Was he not acting out of both outrage and out of love to help expose Islamic Fascism?

Anger is as much a part of the human experience as love and we mustn't, in order to free ourselves from the stereotype of the angry atheist, not claim that anger.  We also must remember to always exclaim and extend our compassion and humanism as well, which I think we do frequently ...

Double post: I'm getting sick of the fatal error.

Uhh, since when did every ancient religion get clumped into the same category...and additionally, since when did buddhism have a savior? As far as I know, very few buddhists actually worship buddha as a god...that would be blasphemous to the original teachings. As for adultery/murdering/etc. in buddhism, none of that really exists...apparently whoever said these things hasn't done their research. If you commit really immoral acts, worst that can happen is that you get reincarnated as an insect. You aren't going to need a savior, or burn in hell, though.

None is needed. As long as there is no positive proof there is god, it is dishonest to presume so in light of absence of evidence suggesting otherwise (which is, anyway, not the case in this debate).

False. Neither atheism or theism are a theory. This is the third time I have to say that to a theist in 24 hours, and I am growing sick of doing that. Occam's razor does not apply to just theories; it is applicable to general explanations, and its underlying assumption is that while the evaluated matters can both be subject to rational questioning, they must have an otherwise equal standing. For this reason, Occam's razor can only be applied to theism hypothetically, if we are to presume that there is some factual basis under theism, which is not the case, and that was the context I was suggesting, for debate's sake.

Yes. It is a moral thing to do when religion poisons minds and destroys the society. If theists kept their religion to themselves, this site would not have been created.

I bet you will try to argue that it is atheism that sponsors immorality, but I would then challenge you to establish clear example of atheist doctrine being a fundamental reason for malice. Not the communist doctrine, not the capitalist doctrine, not the national socialist doctrine, not the pagan doctrine, not the multiculturalism or humanism, but specifically the atheist doctrine. For every example you bring to the table, I promise you to either debunk it or show you at least three heinous crimes by devoted christians which were committed purely out of religious prescription. You in?

Oh, and don't even try to bring up adultery. Unless you observe the Sabbath commandment the way orthodox Jews do, I would hit it so hard missionaries in Africa would cringe in pain and convert to Wicca.

That is very much the reason, since theists want to legislate their morality into everyone's law, and that's only on days when they don't use intimidation by fear and bombs. It is unacceptable to everyone who is an atheist, agnostic, or even a pantheist like me. In fact, it is unacceptable to decent people of all creeds. The social consequences are so severe and so threatening to our liberty that we are willing to go very far to prevent you - the theists - from messing up our world more than it is messed up already. And, we have a demonstrable moral basis for doing so.

Correct.

Whether people like other people doing things in private is completely irrelevant to the argument I am making. You may choose to kill a puppy every time your neighbour mentions the word "vagina". I don't care (well, I do for the puppies). However, you have to be malevolent to legislate a prohibition that prevents your neighbour from using that word.

Law does not exist to set forth morality. It exists to define people's rights according to modern consensus, and protect these rights. This consensus is secular in nature, and is derived from philosophy of democracy and liberty. One of the parts of this consensus is that no person may cause bodily harm to another person but in self defense. For this reason, any attempt to create a law that forces women to carry children - under whatever excuse, be it artificial and fictional personhood of an unborn baby, the rights of a father, you name it - is immoral, because it is a statutory sexual slavery that is being legislated, and our society does not allow slavery and does not view favourably anyone who is promoting it.

You are not being asked to do that. You are being asked to restrain your influence on society so that other people, too, can follow their own perspective of reality, again without infringing on yours.

So, this would not be an actual problem if people were to use contraceptives and monitor they health? Wait, they do, so it is not an actual problem. Even if it was, would you like me to show you how religion and law is not the answer to it?

Correct. That is why it is illegal to drive under influence. However, if I am doing drugs (or screwing a handcuffed prostitute in a furry coat with a cola bottle) in my house, who are you to authorize the police to stop me?

I was interested until the second to last paragraph. You took what could have been a meaningful criticism and turned it into a conversion attempt.

 For shame.

Occam's Razor is soooo abused these days.  Most people don't even know what it really means.  It does NOT say that the "simplest" argument is true.  It ONLY says the the "simplest" argument TENDS to be true.  Of course, "simplest" is relative too without agreeing on some strict standards to judge arguments' "complexity."  Until then, one might say a supernatural explanation is simpler while another might differ.

 Of course, that is all IGNORING the fact that the simplest argument ALSO needs to have good reason to believe is possible.  I could make an even simpler argument based on the powers of the flying spaghetti monster, but I have no good reason to believe in that argument, EVEN IF it is simpler.

For the record, a Christian will not be rewarded for these good deeds either. No amount of good deeds can ever get one to Heaven.

Just wanted to add something to my post:

 

I quotationed "simplest" because complexity of a claim is exceedingly difficult to quantify for comparison. And even if you're able to, complexity would be semantically hidden. Consider these claims:

 

A. The bombadier beetle was created by God.

B. The bombadier beetle was created by evolution.

 

Now how do you grade each claim by level of complexity? To take the side of creationists, we can semantically unravel "B":

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUvLR2yyWuE

 

Does "B" now suddenly become more complex? How about unravelling "A?" And how much more unravelling can we do with each claim, and at what point do we stop unravelling? Or consider how unravelling "B" actually further discredits "A," despite becoming more "complex." Another example of Occam's Razor does not necessarily point to truth.

Concerning Ockham's Razor;

It's my understanding that the razor says that the explanation with the least ad hoc propositions or assumptions is the one that tends to be right.

An explanation is 'simpler' when it has less ad hoc assumptions (or none!) because without these assumptions, you can trace all of the explanations to things that we have evidence for, proof of, etc.

 Thus, when we compare evolution to 'goddidit,' while the god explanation ultimately uses less actual words, it is only simpler in this quantitative sense.  Less words used to explain a concept, a set of data, etc doesn't make the idea simpler or less ad hoc, it just makes it easier to say.

I almost said that it is easier to understand (for example, goddidit is easier to understand than the vast scientific evidence for evolution through natural selection), but this is not the case either.  The fact is that nobody understands god or god's methods because they are, by definition, beyond our ken.  Thus, the god explanation is not simple at all, because we cannot even tackle it to begin with--it's simply an escape route.

In summation, the god of the gaps is not simpler than the complexities of scientific information in any way except in how long t takes to say each in a debate.  This is why a 5-10 second comment by a theist can often require an hour to effectively respond to by their atheist interlocutor.  

Shaun