Do Atheists Like Science that Doesn't Suit their Agenda?

Quite so. If you believe something is real, it is real...as far as you believe it. But that doesn't mean it's real to anyone but the believer.

 

Please cite a law that requires the participation of everyone in some religious activity. Be specific.

 

Like most religions, there are many different types of buddhism. Some are more atheistic than others.

You can keep repeating that lie, but it won't make it true.

"Whatever" is not self-worship.

I am a harsher judge and critic of myself than god would ever be. Subjectivity does not mean no standards, and it doesn't mean no accountability... as often as not, it means accountability to the harshest judge of all--yourself. Your claim of no accountability and no standards, cannot explain stoic atheists. They do not fit into your quaint claim that atheism is just self-worship.

Why should we challenge them? That is their own business. Atheism isn't a religion, and atheists aren't bound to a creed. Just like everyday Christians aren't responsible for the actions of Muslim extremists, I am not responsible for a hedonist who happens to be an atheist. I could explain to them that I think they are wrong, but what would be the point? It wouldn't change anything, it wouldn't make them do something different, and it really isn't my place to shame others into changing their minds.

My ethical beliefs involve service to others more than service to self. I am an atheist. How is that a "religion of ME"?

 

Evangelism assumes that the evangelist thinks everyone should participate in whatever he's selling.

Opposition to equal rights for homosexuals comes almost entirley from the religious camp. A clear example of intent to force everyone into the same religious tent.

 

On the other side of that same coin, "Evangelism" does not have the capacity of assuming anything.

"evangelism
noun

1. a preaching of, or zealous effort to spread, the gospel, as in revival meetings or by televised services
2. any zealous effort in propagandizing for a cause"

Of course if you insist on using that as an example of your complaint, then it can be equally stated that 'gay and lesbian rights advocates' "thinks everyone should participate in whatever" they are "selling."

So where is the big difference between groups and group activities?

 

The explain that to Bash.

And no it doesn't. People may dress it up in religious terms, but they will also point to science and say that sex between things that cannot reproduce is unnatural - its just putting sex at the center of your life in a way that, in terms of evolution, should self select itself out of the gene pool.

People make that arguement too, but atheists ignore it.

 

What does that have to do with the reality that atheists reject God and yet embrace a religion with demi-dieties and dieties? Ghosts walking among us?

These are the tenets of Buddhism. And your response is a cop out. As indeed the failure of atheists to point these things out to their fellow atheists when they advocate it points to something other than study behind the emergence of Buddhism in western and atheist culture.

Prove its a lie. You are entitled to an opinion, but thus far, you have defended every statement made by atheists, no matter how contradictory, and proved my point for me.

Yes, it is. Because you left part of it off.

"Whatever" I want!

Offering up subjective standards as the basis of objectivity most definitely means no accountability. It is the rejection of even the possibility of science.

Stoic atheists? You mean obstinate.

And hear we see teh proof yet again.

We can challenge everyone's view but our own. Why? Either skepticism is good, examination is good, or it is not. That is not a subjective thing.

So, when you run around examining others, and someone askd for an ACTUAL comparison of their beliefs to yours ... suddenly you don;t think questioning is good?

Suddenly your beliefs are undefinieable by anyone but you?

See the problem yet?

Sure it does, because you say so. For now.

My borther lives in North Dakota and recently went through a flood. When I arived I saw Moromons, Mennonites, and a innumerable number of churches acting to take poeople in a provide workers for dikes, etc.

Guess how many atheist groups sent people? Zero.

When you follow a DOCTRINE that mandates charity vs. just claiming one when confronted with it (to avoid accountability) we see the difference.

You want the benefist of other people's claims, but you fail to examine yourself to see if charity and service really are part of your beliefs.

Now, where is the atheist doctrine for this? How many atheists ACTALLY follow Gora of India? And how many just use his ethics to raise money to decovert people?

Actions, achievement vs. words alone. That is the reality of belief.

 

Why do theists continue these fallacious arguments? It's BAD LOGIC. You are giving an example of someone who was an atheist and then saying they killed people. They did not kill people BECAUSE of atheism. They did so because of a defective moral character, be it cause of a psychological disorder or something else. The logic you are espousing seems to be if God does not exist, then massive amounts of people must be murdered. No clue where you are getting this from.

The Bible explicitly commands people to be killed. So many times in history when Christians killed people they were motivated by the religion they were currently practicing. That is the big difference. However, most Christians today condemn such actions. So I don't think most Christians would want to kill off heretics if given the chance, but hey I could be wrong.

 

Why do non-theists continue these fallacious arguments? Where is your proof to substantiate your claim regarding the spiritual status of those people who actually did any killing? Where is your proof of claim regarding the 'motivation' that was used by those individual people who did the killings? Empirical evidence please.

 

Verses like Exodus 22:18: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Sounds like the Spanish Inquisition or Salem Witch Trials...

 

#1 - Why don;t read up on the French and Russian Revolutions before you say that atheism had nothing to do with people killing other people.

People kill for all kinds of ideological reasons, including atheism. We do not ignore history simply because atheists have double standards.

#2 - there are specific instances in the old testament where Israleites are commanded to kill people - its called war. Are atheists all pacifists? Please clarify.

#3 - Please show us where Jesus commands us to go kill poeple.

But please do not advance such ignorance while telling other people that they are fallacious. Your claims are simply non-factual, or, at best, so dismissed for the reality of both our religion and the reality of history, that they are simply not honest.

Hitchens is simply wrong.

 

ATHEISM IS THE BELIEF THERE IS NO GOD. That says nothing about killing anyone. You're right people kill for a variety of reasons. The only way you could possibly infer atheism justifies killing is if you believe as an atheist that there is no morality without God and that nobody but yourself matters and you should look to exploit people to the highest extent possible while preserving your own self-interest. In my opinion that would make you a morally defective human being. However, atheism does not condone this either.

So when it says for adulterers and homosexuals to be stoned, and it has nothing to do with a war, what exactly does that mean then? And I don't think all atheists are pacifists. They can be liberal, conservative, socialist, communist, whatever.

Aha. So you follow Jesus and not the rest? OK I like Jesus more so I am with you there. Jesus doesn't command you to kill anyone, and Jesus is more accurately read to be some sort of pacifist, with his own life being the ultimate example.

My point was that if you take some of what the Bible says literally it specifically condones certain actions most of us would find to be atrocious today. But most Christians do not do this. They generally believe in the same type of common-sensical morality as everyone else. Don't steal, kill etc. So Christians today WOULD NOT be motivated to commit the heinous acts that the Catholic Church did in the past, but the Catholic Church did look to the Bible in the past for scriptural support, whereas with atheism there is no support at all to look to in any sense to justify some sort of killing.

 

Oh, then how do explain all the things that atheists say and create that go well beyond the mere statement of "the belief that there is no God."

You don't. You, like most athiests, advocate them, and when called on them, you retreat to blandness and subjectivety.

For instance this dread fasination with religion, and finding moral defect in rebuttal? On one hand, skepticism aimed at others is good, skepiticism aimed at you? That is morally defective?

And of course, if you bothered to study the French or Russian Revolutions, then you know what follow such pedatric de-humanizing ideologies.

Agh, the OT? A list of laws that even Jews acknoweldge was outdated and haev abandoned. We have this book called the New Testament, which gives us grace.

Thise laws remain valid ONLY for atheists, who reject it anyway.

Here is a little missive from the Catholic Church that you could have found if it were curiosity and a geuine search for knowledge, rather than an emotional assault you were seeking

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09071a.htm

For some and not others. Sin remains Sin, not all sin demand stoning. Most does not. Pretty simple.

How many centuries have to elapse before and atheist will acknowledge that simple truth?

My point is that you are lifting things out of context to call us murderers commanded to go kill people, and that:

#1 - Wars happen, are atheists all pacifists (or just believers that there is no God) - no atheist EVER actually discusses the reality of violence sometime being necessary (I suspect because if they do, then they would not be able to bash Christians anymore - and whatever would they do with their lives then?)

#2 - Even in the OT, We see David and Bathsheba commit both adultry and murder without being stoned to death. What the devil, eh?

Where you guys just scream, CONTRADICTION!, we venture in and discover contextual wisdom - indeed wisdom that is found by Jews and confirmed by Jesus when he tells a condemned adulterous woman, "Then neither do I condem you. Go forth and Sin no more."

Of course, we are supposed to ignore this, because YOU quoted one sentence and presented it as if it were the central tenet of our faith?

Well, heh, if YOU feel better running around calling people murderers - more power too you. There is one more Biblical principle you will see the truth of, reaping what you sew.

 

Science is indifferent to superstition. The acceptance or not of science can therefore not be related to the lack of superstitious belief.

 

Yet there are scientists who believe in God..

Consider this :

"I see no conflict in what the Bible tells me about God and what science tells me about nature.

Like St. Augustine in A.D. 400, I do not find the wording of Genesis 1 and 2 to suggest a scientific textbook but a powerful and poetic description of God's intentions in creating the universe. The mechanism of creation is left unspecified.

If God, who is all powerful and who is not limited by space and time, chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create you and me, who are we to say that wasn't an absolutely elegant plan?

And if God has now given us the intelligence and the opportunity to discover his methods, that is something to celebrate."