My Magical Button to Delete Atheism

I'm using your definition: Atheism is the lack of belief in god.

lol So you don't think believing in God is improper or misguided? Atheists don't have any reason for condemning belief in God? So atheism is irrational?

The Old Testament contains some wonderful passages, but also some primitive ideas about God. God doesn't change, but our understanding does. Jesus' understanding of God - that God is forgiving and loving, that He values each one of us - is the basis for Christianity.

Jesus: "Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."

Jesus: "But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also."

But I'm sure you knew this already.

 

No real evidence exists to supply. All we have to show the existence of gods is "belief", supposition, myth and misinterpretation of facts. The misinterpretation of facts is called TRUTH. It amazes me how many people rely on TRUTH, when truth is nothing but an interpretation of facts (most often incorrectly) or just plain make-believe.

A button to eliminate atheism would do nothing, nothing at all.

Oh, by the way, I have heard at least a dozen Christians (personally known as individuals, not online) say, "we should nuke Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan, in the last few years. This to me proves that humans are humans and religion does not change them. Humans are killers, period.

 

Of course I am, and properly so.

More that matters, yes.

 

None of the people you named were Atheists. They were Statist where the leader of the nation is worshiped as the god in place of a typical divine being.

 

THat is one of the worst excuses and copouts I have ever seen.

There are plenty of autocratic rulers of all faiths - including yours.

 

It may be because we actually do rely on a range of so-called a priori truths.

Epistemologically speaking, the only thing anyone can know for sure is that thoughts exist and therefore that a producer of thoughts must exist (what Descartes referred to as "cogito ergo sum"). This producer of thoughts is usually called "I", and to get from the "I" to interfacing with an environment of the "I", also known as reality, we must make a broad range of leaps of faith regarding the nature of our beings and workings and effectiveness of our senses (as wonderfully depicted by the Matrix movies). After laying that foundation, it becomes a breeze to deal with truth by experience, also known as a posteriori truth, or, as you call it, 'interpretation of facts'.

That the same (a priori) mechanism is used where there's no apparent need for it, namely, to create religious realms, is just another indication that religion is nothing but extraordinary uses of ordinary patterns of behavior. Or misfirings of ordinary traits, as Dawkins has expressed it.

Indeed. Since religion is based on misfiring of human traits, it may make a mess of such traits but it does not add any.

 

Atheism is one simple belief, that no god or gods exist. SOME atheists think it is improper or foolish to believe in a god, and SOME Christians think it is improper, foolish, evil, or satanic to believe in Allah, Satan, Zeus, or many other gods. For atheists and Christians, that feeling is NOT internal to being a Christian or atheist, it is internal to that particular individual.

Being an atheist does NOT entail hating people that partake of religion. I am a long time atheist and to the best I can recall, I have never hated anyone, not even the enemy soldiers who were trying to kill me in Nam. I do not hate the individuals behind 9/11. I believe they are cruel, wrong-minded people, that need to be executed or wiped from the face of the earth. I am not sure, why people hate, I am not even sure exactly what hate is. I understand the dictionary definition, but not its application. But, from what I have seen, most Christians, and atheists alike (maybe most humans), not only understand hate, but seem to enjoy partaking of it.

 

I think Jesus was saying that commitment to discipleship must come first, before all other worldly attachments.

quote: The subject here is the word for hate, which is the Greek miseo. One Skeptic is typical of critics when he writes: Most Christians feel obligated to soften the face meaning of the word 'hate' to something like 'love less than me,' even though the Greek word miseo means 'hate.' In line with this comment, Skeptics will stress the meaning of the word "hate" and insist that the word must be read literally, and that Jesus is truly preaching hate. But in fact, the "softening" is correct to do -- and is perfectly in line with the context of the ancient world, and the Jewish culture in particular.

LINK

One more attempt to discredit the message of Jesus ends in failure.

Jesus also said: "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

 

Anyone who believes this is mentally ill.

 

See, here is the difference between you and me. I value truth.

 

It's not a belief.

 

Humorously enough, this is debatable.

Failing to decouple thinking from being, "Cogito ergo sum" appears to assume its own conclusion.

On the other hand, it could be argued that this is true of all logic since truth is identified by tracing from conclusions to premises in a potentially infinite chain backward to the law of identity.

 

On the contrary, since it's a lie, it can't be anything BUT a belief.

 

YES! So you can arbitrarily draw a line in the sand where ever you are most comfortable and LEAVE it at that! OR since you value TRUTH as you say, will you follow that chain all the way? It's not moving towards the infinite, it is moving towards 0. What will you do when it gets to 0? I started going to church. Found it exhilarating. I'm back at the bars now but I had a good run. Doesn't matter anyway. I could be lying about all of this and that wouldn't matter either, SEE?

 

You might want to reprogram the button to delete Stalinism.

When Communism evolved into a totalitarian ideal, one of its tenets was to eradicate religion. This wasn't an idea borne out of atheism itself -- it was a political agenda borne out of hunger for power.

Atheism had been around long before Stalin and had rarely expressed any genocidal desires, so to blame the deaths of Stalin and Mao's regimes on atheism is like blaming all of Christianity for the actions of the Conquistadors.

 

Heh .. perhaps you should know that Descartes made a big deal out of attributing the origin of this first knowledge to God.

 

Assuming that's true, why should I find it noteworthy?

 

Yep. And nevertheless, modern atheism, which disavows Stalin mind you, nevertheless routinely produces works like this.

http://www.atheists.org/religion

http://books.google.com/books?id=Qp...&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

And the problem here is that atheism preports to be less than interested in religion when that kind of thing goes astray, but all atheists write or talk about is how screwed up religion and God is - until someone says, "Yeah, maybe we should do something about that." Those people are not atheists though?

Any atheists out there will point to centuries of anti-Jewish literature in the church as a source that lead to things like descrimination, pogroms, and eventually the Halocaust. Cause and effect if given enough time.

However, with Marx pandering on the same anti-religion (as opposed to anti Jewish) diatribe, people do indeed attempt to put that into practice violenetly, and the result (because you cannot kill religion) are authoritarian states that violently supress religion and other freedoms too boot.

You don't believe in God? Great.

If you want to attack religion or somehow deny the ideological basis of those who do attack religion? Well, there is where we have problems.

 

You really aren't helping.

This is false. Regressions can be ended by naturalistic means.

 

No it isn't.

When it is ended it's no longer infinite, which means you're left with an uncaused first cause.

 

Like God?

___________________

 

Then you are working under the assumption that its infinite.

 

In my opinion something must be infinite. If there was ever something then there has always been something. Otherwise you're stuck with getting something out of nothing. There has never been nothing.

If what I say is correct, the first cause argument is an invalid question as there was no first cause, sort of like asking why elephants can fly. Elephants can't fly. The question is invalid.

 

Then thank you for the admission of the existence of God. God is infinite. God has always been and will always be. Everything that is (exists), exists as an emanation from God.

Your statements in red are very valid.