Let me first start off by saying that I have no desire to be part of this group. I'm simply posting this to state something important.

 Let me put it to you simply: you're bullies. You people enjoy ridiculing, and accusing anyone of having faith or belief delusional. Let me give you ll a reality check. A true atheist does not bully, or call people who have beliefs names. A true atheist, which you people are not, shows respect to those who have faith or dogma. They can disagree, but to attack them just shows how vile you people are as human beings. As a psychology major, let me give you some words of advice: attacking believers the way you do just shows that you yourselves are uncomfortable of your beliefs. You attack people who believe because deep down, you have a little belief, but don't want to admit it. That's probably the same for the people the people that you look up to (i.e. Sam Harris).

-None of you have pr oven that God doesn't exist. You may have been successful in finding major flaws in the God of faith, but none of you, no matter how much you say it, has pr oven that God does not exist.

Suppose we have a very, very, very smart atheist. If this atheist were trying to explain something (fundamental to their shared atheism) to a much, much, much less smart atheist wouldn't the lesser of the two be required to accept based on faith the arguments of the genius? (Note: I'm using faith to mean belief with no evidence)
 

Todangst wrote in "God the Ironworker"
"It therefore follows that 'god' cannot be all powerful/all knowing AND the creator of the universe AND create beings with free will AND then find them guilty for their behaviors, because such a god must also be perfectly responsible for every single solitary aspect of existence that determines their guilt, in the first place. An omnipotent, omniscient iron worker is perfectly responsible for his metal, just as a omnipotent, omniscient creator is perfectly responsible for his creation."

The article is a standard boiler plate recap of the "paradox" arguments against God. The short and correct answer is you can not make claims of a paradox unless you have complete understanding of the system in which you claim the paradox to have occurred. You don't. You can not deduce divine omnipotence is paradoxical unless you have the proper set of axioms to start with. You don't.
 

Let's set up a simple game. We'll call it Moral. It is a two person non-zero sum game.

Suppose you have the following conditions for the game:
1) A moral choice that each player agrees exists. Each player has two available strategies: one, make the moral choice (do the right thing), and two, not make the moral choice (cheat).
2) Defined individually preferred payoffs based on adherence to this moral choice, where the payoff is greater for either player if that player can silently cheat the system.

The game does not rely on what the exact details of the moral choice is only that the players agree what it is. As it exists both players when acting with rational self interest will choose to cheat.

Suppose we add a third condition:
3) A third party judge that both players believe exists and is omniscient and fair. Both players also agree that this judge can punish cheating by reducing payoffs to zero.

The game does not rely on the judge actually existing only that the players believe he exists. The judge adds the component of complete knowledge. If the omniscient judge does not exist and there is no notion of complete knowledge the players are more prone to cheat the system.
 

I've recently moved to Birmingham (UK) from London and I've been shocked by how many nut job chrisitans there are wandering around on the street trying to preach.

I've lived in London 30 years and I don't think I've ever been approached by one but I'm seeing in 2-3 times a week up here.

Anyway I was in such shock when one approached me the other day I just couldnt keep quite to the shock of my girlfriend.

Christian: Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour

Me: I don't , I also think you are peddling evil which is all that christainty as ever sold

Christiain : Why do you say this?, looking a little shocked

Me : your myths attack rationality and human progress, you promote hate and ignorance, you damage children and damage human beings by denying our nature. You promote unnatural sexual practices

Christians : now very confused, we promote unnatural sexual practices, like what?

Me : Sex is part of being human and by telling people to restrain from it before marriage you are as bad as paedophiles (thinking back on that there is some truth on that but maybe I exaggerated a bit).

Christian : Where do you get this ideas from?

Me : Education and thinking for myself

Christian :  I hope your education and thinking for yourself makes me happy

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A lot of the material on this site seems to be aimed at convincing theist to abandon their faiths in favour of atheism.

So to the atheists: What would it take to convince you there IS a God?

Evangelists point to Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Chairman Mao, and the multitude of the tens of millions more persons killed by such Atheists, than by Theists.

Aside from the obviuos, how would you respond to the charge?

I've been thinking as to whether religion makes people do what they would not normally do.

But I quickly hit a brick wall, when I noticed that Theists generally tend to personalize everything into their religion.

For example, Hitler thought he was doing the Lord's work, but then again so did Martin Luther King.

A Hamas suicide bomber says he's dedicated to God, but then again, so will the Red Cross worker who is helping with humanitarian aid.

To compound the situation even more, there are secular groups that contribute to the aid [Doctors without borders for example] and secular groups that contribute to the suicide bombings [PFLP for example]

To me, this makes it extremely difficult to determine the underlying cause.

Take a quote like "I feel God has chosen me to do this. This oppertunity is truly a gift from God." without a source, and I cannot tell if it's a terrorist, a humanitarian aid worker, or a guy who really likes working at his job.

So how exactly do we determine if they would or wouldn't have done it if they had not believed?

hello everyone, I was debating someone on another website about how religions are the root causes of most wars. Well someone is trying to convince me that Islam is the exception(i know how funny that sounds). Could you guys help me out and give me some good examples from the quran that show it is not a religion of peace. I keep trying to tell this guy that the only reason it is as big as it is today is because it was spread with war, violence and fear. Does anyone have any quran scriptures memorized. I have already given a couple and I really don't feel like reading through the whole thing for some more.

I noticed in a couple of threads Treat2 has been taking odd, random swipes at Pantheism. I don't know if he's aware that our numbers at RRS include a few pan(en)theists so I thought I'd start a thread where we can out ourselves for those who have a beef, of sorts, with our stuff and nonsense.

Treat2 (and any other atheist who wishes it) you're cordially invited to formally list, or rant if you'd prefer it, your objections to pantheism here so we (well.. in all likelihood it will just be "I&quot can respond to them.

So it begins...