Hi.

Have you ever actually considered why you are Christian rather than, say Muslim?

In other words, have ever before thought about your faith, why you believe it, and not some other?

You should be thinking about those things, not just why other people reject your God, if you want to really understand us.

Just start with Genesis, by end of first page you should be either mad people believe it or laughing your butt off.

From my point of view, a theist is someone who believes in the existence or one or more supernatural, conscious beings, regardless of any other attributes they may also believe such beings a possess.

So I would draw the line at belief in any supernatural, powerful, conscious being.

It would require all three aspects.

Not supernatural => could be an alien.

Not powerful => could be described as a demon, or something like that. Not a God. Still wouldn't believe in it, because I don't  think 'supernatural' is reasonable.

Not conscious => not a God, but a possibly a 'force' or 'principle', if 'powerful'. Same business about 'supernatural' applies.

If not interested in humans, still a God, just not ours.

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To me, God would be a mystery to be explained, since the idea does not explain what we have established from science, or why and how such a being itself would exist. IOW it raises far more questions than it answers, particularly if you include all the stuff in the Bible which seems inconsistent between different parts of the book, and with what we have since come to understand about Life, the Earth, and the Universe.

It becomes even harder for me to take the Christian God seriously when you bring in moral considerations, when I read about the many hateful things I see that God is supposed to have done, or encouraged his followers to do, and the harmless actions he seems to be prepared to punish us for.

So if you add 'loving' to his claimed qualities, I would find it even harder to take the existence of such a being seriously, when I look at the history and nature of the world we find ourselves in.

Welcome to the forum. I'm an atheist like most folks here and I'm a more than usually rabid anti-theist. I don't just disbelieve in gods but I loathe monotheism deeply. Personally, I'd like to obliterate the idea of god from the face of the earth. Bibles, korans, mosques, cathedrals, chapels, gargoyles, saints, clay popes and all.

Sadly, I'm obligated to put up with theism and all its intolerance by the tedious bindings of social morality. Just to flesh out the nature of my loathing more completely, as part of the process of de-conversion I have long wanted to kill god personally. As some former christians may understand that tortured part of the evangelised child never entirely goes away.

Seems to me you need to pay more attention to the news or you don't live in the US.

Religious based laws (in the US)

1. Any law that interferes with what consenting adults do in privacy.

  Anti-sodomy laws.  Many states in the US have anti-sodomy laws - problem is, which definition of sodomy are they using?

  "Defense of marriage" laws - marriage is one man one woman laws

  Prostitution bans - making prostitution actually reduces sexually transmitted diseases and crime

 For your information, I am a 60 year old heterosexual woman married to a really nice man for almost 26 years now, and we don't have an open marriage.  But I shouldn't have to worry about nosy neighbors peeking in my windows to bear witness we are kinky.

2. Any law that tries to put miracles in the classroom

  Particularly the "teach the controversy" about evolution laws.  There isn't a controversy, get over it.

  Any law that requires prayer in school.  - you think praying about making an A will substitute for studying, go for it, but quietly - to yourself and god and no one else.

3. Anti-abortion laws

  Yes, religion based almost always.  There are atheists who are creeped out by abortions, fine.  I'd say close to 99% of the objections to abortion are religious, however.

There are others, but this brings me to Planned Parenthood funding.

The US House of Representatives removed all funding for Planned Parenthood in the budget.  Never mind that PP provides counseling and birth control to people who do not have health insurance.  And therefore, if they got pregnant, they would cost the rest of the taxpayers even more money.  Never mind that PP provides sexually transmitted disease counseling and treatment to people who can not afford to see a doctor.  Never mind that PP provides counseling and screening for cancer for people who can not afford to see a doctor.  And these people are low income, too young for Medicare, unable to purchase health insurance or health care.  So let's just let all the poor people multiply like rabbits and spread nasty diseases around their neighborhoods.  Way to save money.

Enough for now.

edit:   After the big post on quoting, I got it wrong.  Sigh.

It is perfectly possible to fix up your life and live a good, honest, caring, loving life without god/s/dess.  I've been doing it for years.  But then, if that is the only way you can get sex with this woman, then I guess you have to convince yourself to believe.

I grew out of the need for imaginary friends years ago.

Yes, there are two different versions of the creation story, but they have the same core.  Only chapter 2 goes into more detail about how it happened.  As to say in Chapter 2, let me tell you exactly how I did it.  They don’t contradict each other, but rather one expands on the other.  In Chapter 1, the summary, it just states God created man and woman.  Then in Chapter 2 it fills in more of the story’s details. For something as controversial as the Bible, it would make sense for something as simple as back to back contradicting chapters would have ended this debate a long long time ago.

To explain In Genesis 1:14 we see that God said “ let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night”, v.17” God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. This includes sun, moon, and stars. And thenIn verse 26 “God said let us make man in our image, in our likeness...” so yes he made humans after everything else. Like someone who can create the universe needs our help? See if you can create the Stars or the moon, are separate the water with the land, we can’t.

If you ever have seen sports and read the articles of view different writers you will see different aspects and stick out to you and some things that you might of didn’t see but the writer did. But whenYou look at the score and total it’s the same right? Same way, it just picks up shows different parts, and It still has the same ending . So the truth still hold up that yes the days where the same and yes the same things were created in chapter 1 and 2 and yes he says he made them.

Aside from the fact these are nothing but rank assertions supported by more assertions, evil is a subjective human value judgement and sin is a label applied morally or culturally to a range of acts or behaviours. These might include mixing milk and meat dishes, murdering people, seeking the knowable truth, swearing, dissing your parents or doubting the existence of an unknowable exo-universal deity.  

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.

First, I am sorry, but I would like to point to an obvious mistake in one of your message:

And the rest of that message basically tells us that you are a Christian simply because it is more comfortable for you starting from your early childhood.   The problem with this is that there is no analysis of "why are you a Christian"; your answer is that you are "just a Christian, that's why".  This is confusing for many (atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.).

Now, I would like to briefly comment on your original post.  "Anti-theism" is an ill-defined term. Unfortunately, you could not help us to understand precisely what it means in your definition.   In its broadest sense, this term includes antagonism to any theism, which is perhaps demonstrated by Richard Dawkins.  If I am antagonistic to a few religious only, then I am not an anti-theist by this definition. 

If, this term means antagonism to at least one religion or theistic movement, then you are probably an anti-theist by this definition. 

Obviously, atheism and anti-theism are not at all similar terms.

Would you call Christopher Hitchens a believer? An anti-theist may be a believer or an atheist, but they are opposed to theism in one, many or all of it's forms. Anti-theism is just opposition to theism, whether it be all it's various faces or specific variants and isn't dependent on belief or lack thereof. It's a short description, but the Wikipedia entry is a decent description.

TG, from my reading of your original statement, it seemed to me that you were making an 'only' instead of an 'and' kind of statement, which is why I responded such.

Hi Adam. Welcome to the forums.

First, let me ask you: what are you doing this research for?

If it is for a paper in school or University, then you'll need to get alot more specific than just listening to our oppinions.

From Wikipedia:

An antitheist is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god." The earliest citation given for this meaning is from 1833. An antitheist may be opposed to belief in the existence of any god or gods, and not merely one in particular. The concept allows a distinction to be drawn between the simple indifference or apathy towards theism, atheism, or agnosticism (cf. apatheism), and a position of antipathy or opposition towards such beliefs.

end qoute.

As far as I know, the Term Anti-theism in it's current form in modern academia originates with Christopher Hitchens, so if you are looking for an academic definition of the term, I think you should start by reading his books "Letters to a Young Contrarian" and "God Is Not Great", and papers published about him. Discourse analysis, sociological studies, philosophy papers and the like. As Hitchens is a quite influencial figure today, I'm sure you can find a few people at universities from across the world who have written their PHD's about Hitchens and his work.

If you are simply reseaching this for your own sake, talking to us will surely give you a broader perspective on the kinds of people out there that are opposed to organized Religion and why. As you can allready see in this thread, we are very different, and have very different reasons for what we do, and why we do it.

Me, I am certainly and atheist, and in some specific instances Anti-theism, but generally I have no problem with religion, and never with indiviual religious people. I am quite fond of Shinto and Buddhism, and find that, allthough their metaphysical claims, and mythological claims have little merit, the worldview that shines through in them mirror my own quite alot.

On the flip-side I find Abrahamic Monotheism to be childish, self-rightious, and much more of a political movement than an existential philosophical pursuit. I find myself starkly opposed to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and in that respect I am anti-theistic, since they are all theisms (allthough I still maintain that they are much more like political ideologies for the most part).

At it's core, I find religion to be a philosophical pursuit, intended to make us come to terms with our place in the cosmos, and most importantly with our own mortality. In this regard, I not only think religion is fully merited, but indeed insist that we are all religious in some way, in that nobody can escape contemplating and being confounded by their own existence.

But not only are there some answers to existential questions that I oppose on philosophical grounds more than others (that is: not all conclutions about our place in the cosmos and how to deal with our own mortality are equally wise) , but I maintain that far too much of religion quickly diverges from introspective existiential ponderings into political and cultural ideologies that are mostly concerned with shaping society in the direction the practitioners of said religion want. (that is: some religions don't even try to answer important transcendent questions in any meaningful way, but rather use ancient customs, myths and traditions, and the cultural identeties that they impart, to construct political influence over societies of people, to control how they conduct their personal lives, how they govern themselves, and which out-groups they oppose in war and in peace).

Hitchens has a fairly short bit here that talks some about anti-theism, you might want to have a look at:  

http://videosift.com/video/Christopher-Hitchens-on-Religion-and-Anti-theism