This is an open question to all religious people working to get Intelligent Design/creationism into schools and science classrooms. I have one question. If your superstitious delusions are allowed into the classroom, on what logical basis do you have to deny any and every other creation myth from being presented alongside your own myths? I hear these religious types talk about telling students about BOTH options, between evolution via natural selection (supported by all the available scientific data) and the personal religion (usually fundamentalist Christianity) of the IDiots. Wait a minute, there's only two options? I was apparently unaware that every creation myth ever constructed by the human mind (very good at creating works of fiction, looking at the evidence) had been disproven EXCEPT yours. So either all creation myths are ok for the science class or none are. It's funny, because the religious types will most likely jump through theological hoops to show that while all the other deiti(es) constructed by the human mind are works of fiction, theirs and theirs alone are actually true.

"The closest a theist can get to understanding the mind of an atheist is to think of their delusion as they think of other religions delusions. We don't reject the Christian god anymore then a Christian rejects Allah or a Muslim rejects Buddah. You have to belive they exist to reject them. You simply don't believe. We just add in your sky daddy delusion with the rest of them." Me

Now GET IN THE SACK! 

Wanna know what has been really pissing me off lately?  This argument for theism:

"I don't see how all of this could have happened without a creator."

Really?  YOU can't see it, huh?  Well, I suppose since YOU are so F*****G super intelligent and your enormous brain can't encompass it, it can't possibly be true?  A fact cannot exist outside YOUR immensely extensive experience in this universe?

GODDAM it!  Get your ego under control already!  Just admit that you're fallible!  Admit that there IS a possibility that there may not be a creator!  You have not been right about everything in your life, so you are not an authority on reality!  I fully admit I don't know everything, and I would NEVER claim to KNOW (with a capital "K-N-O-W" ) if there was a god or not. 

It's amazing to me how most major religions teach humility in word, but not in practice.

Now, if you'd like to join us in the imperfect human race, I'd like to talk to you.  Otherwise, you risk a verbal H-bomb from me. 

Robb

P.S. Atheists who claim absolute knowledge on the subject irritate the crap out of me too.

I mean, honestly, why? First off, a theist, specifically Christian. To ones of my thinking, shut the hell up. It is not important to force our beliefs down others throats. The Bible was written so long ago, that most of the ideals in it are outdated. The 10 commandments are the only things people even bother reading anymore, to base what you should/should not do. At least, it is the case where I live. Atheists, why do you care? Now, I understand if you are sick of people trying to convert you, but really, you are trying to persuade us to go to your point of view, so is it any different? Feel free to prove me wrong, I do not mind. I respect your opinion. Also, when we try to speak about our beliefs, some seem to just not care. Seriously? Why even post if you don't care at all. You just seem like gibbering morons. Do not try to persuade some of us, you will fail. I am firm in my beliefs. I care about your view, but I get pissed when you mock us. Just ignore it. Ignore it. Do not go into debates. Why would you waste your time debating on things such as this, when you could be doing actual productive things. You know, like new scientific advances, forming families, helpiing people. Anything but doing this ridiculous debate. Now, I lack in any helpful skills, and am lazy, so I have nothing to do to help people. I could, but I wouldn't be able to do much. Just my humble opinion.

I've met a number of people who have converted from one religion to another.  In fact, this seems to be the primary source of religious converts today aside from birth- other religions.

When I hear of it, I'm always a little bit curious.  Sometimes I think "well, that's *slightly* less crazy", and sometimes I'm blown away by how they've adopted an even more irrational stance.

When a Christian converts to Judaism, for example, I tend to think "Okay, back to the roots-- that at least makes more sense if we're assuming divine inspiration for the OT scripture, given the absurdity of the whole Jesus thing"

Likewise, when a Christian converts to Buddhism, Raëlism, or even Scientology (Christianity is pretty "up there" crazy metric-wise in my book).

In instances such as Muslim to Christian converts, I tend to scoff "Well, that didn't simplify anything at all", and Christian to Muslim converts are about the same.

Somebody went through all of the trouble of firing up his or her brain, and rejecting a religion, only to accept one of approximately equal absurdity?  This seems to mark them, by my estimate, as even more crazy than they started out.

What are some of the more and less rational conversions you've seen?

Could you put a finger on what makes some conversions more rational, and others less?

Do you have a running list of religions in order of absurdity?

Hi guys,

             I was wondering if you could help with something. At the moment I'm trying to 'find my religion' so basically can everyone post stuff proving or disproving god or Jesus or Allah or whatever. I just want to know anything and everything about why you are your religion (or why you don't have one) and why you think it's correct.

Thanks

Hi, my name is paul and I am a "Born Again" Christian and as far as I know I am allowed to post on this sight so long as I'm respectful and polite. Basically what I want to do is test my faith by exposing it to Atheist rebuttal. So if you wouldn't mind please give me your number 1 damaging argument that, you feel, demolishes Christianity. I will try and respond with an answer. Yes I would love to convert you to Christ (is what we do) but still I do want to test the faith and see if it can stand. Thanks in advance. Paul

If any of you haven't read about the legal system in Malaysia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Malaysia

Short summary:  Malaysia basically has two legal systems: A secular one (which is very much like that found elsewhere), and Sharia law, which only applies to Muslims.

There are a few things I take issue with (namely the difficulty of leaving religion all-together, and the cases where the two are in conflict, like custody issues between faiths), but aside from those, it's a very interesting system, and I wonder if it doesn't have some value.

What if religious people were actually required to abide by what they preach or face scriptural/traditional punishment?  The non-religious would be completely exempt (behoven only to secular law), and it would vary by denomination to an extent, but it would be incredibly refreshing in some ways- from my perspective, anyway.

It might make people consider a bit more carefully what they profess to believe before doing so; or reconsider after they realize how tyrannical their beliefs are.

What are your thoughts?  Would this be good, bad, or would it not make any difference at all?  Why?

Ok, I'm prolly not gonna be around on the forum much longer, /cough. But I thought it would be fun to make a thread like this.

If you are an atheist, make one statement trying to defend the theist stance.

Of course if you are a theist, make one statement in an attempt to defend the atheist stance.

I mean actually try too =)

I will start:

The bible if proof, a lot of it's content can be traced back historically as to being well over three thousand years old.

Step 1 - There cannot be an eternity of the past of cause and effects in nature because, having been derived from and approximated into that alleged past eternity, mankind would not still be sinning to the extent we still do along the exponential progression of conscience we are clearly on (many examples given in the link below).

Step 2 - The overwhelming preponderance of evidence is there is a cause and effect to all things in nature, even the first event, and nothing can come from nothing or start up all by itself, so the universe requires a cause.

Step 3 - Don't argue against God by misrepresenting Him. I throw this point in because this is done 99% of the time.

Step 4 -Like Step 1 there cannot be an eternity of the past of cause and effects for the same reason given but applied to supernatural events if they exist.

Conclusion: we are left with no other possibility than there must be an uncreated Creator who is alone from everlasting, nothing was created that was created without Him, and there are no gods before God, no gods besides God, and no gods after God.

The 4 Step Proof for God is a masterpiece of perfection,

http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/perfectproof.htm

There, now I can reply properly.

Seriously, cheaters breaking the ten word rule and expecting me to be able to explain the totality of Quantum Mechanics in ten words...

Bell's inequality proves that the quantum effects in question are without cause of any kind- proven causeless, not just a hidden cause- because if they had a cause, it would create impossible paradoxes in terms of relativity by making possible the propagation of information instantaneously through quantum entangled particles.

To those misguided naysayers:

A negative can be proven far more easily than a positive- I don't know what idiot came up with the "you can't prove a negative" argument, but it doesn't become any rational person.  Negatives are proven by demonstrating something to be contradictory with itself, or a proven positive- positives are the hard ones to prove, because one has to demonstrate that it's the only remaining possibility by proving the alternatives negative, or contradictory in some way.

In regards to the proof, though: