The New Atheists

[Yao]

Re: The New Atheists

not a belief in a higher being, just a belief in human philosophy, as Sean so humorously explained. I know that my good nature provides, for the lack of a better word, a karma around me and that is returned in kind. Bad attitudes and people get treated badly in return just the same. It's a feeling we get off of people and our actions are adjusted to that feeling. I've seen it play out too many times.

That is exactly how I live my life, and I'm very comfortable with it.

The fact that i oppose organized religion for various reasons doesn't mean that I deny people the right to it...I just don't like it. I will never push my views on life on someone, in return I expect others to respect my views and leave me to it.

I got most pissed off though at the church when I was in Ghana, and saw people engage in donation contests on sundays for their local church while they couldn't their kids to school. And the local parish wasn't going to help them do that either. Reverends in Nigeria speak to stadiums and load postal bags full of money in the back of an extended Benz for fucks sake (saw footage of that, not on the net but i'll see if i can find some). That is fucked up. That is deceit. That is treachery. One of them preachers had a multi-million mansion, lots of cars, hot chicks (prolly with the A-Z of STD's) surrounding him. Don't tell me religion and the church are helping those people. I'll laugh right in your face.

[Miroslav]

Re: The New Atheists

^^ Don't take this the wrong way..I tend to be on the opposite of you in my perspectives, but I'm not personally attacking you and I appreciate your thoughts. Just a healthy debate here:

Saying that you know the Truth - i.e., that there is no God...that's quite a loaded statement Wouldn't it be more accurate to characterize this as a belief, which you accept with a certain level of faith?

[Yao]

Re: The New Atheists

You mean that there is no God? I think you could characterize any view on life, God or no God as a belief. The difference is that a Darwinist (like me) is always looking to find substantial proof for his views and tries to minimize the influence of blind belief in the formulation of his/her views and ideas.

[Miroslav]

Re: The New Atheists

I was actually aiming that comment at JahRasta...you snuck in there and posted before I was done! But I actually do agree with your response.

[JahRasta]

Re: The New Atheists

I agree Miroslav....it is just my opinion.....just my point of view..and saying that there is no God...is a pretty loaded statement. I just like to make decisions based on fact, not mere blind faith.

[Miroslav]

Re: The New Atheists

I understand what you mean. I just think that ultimately, atheism can begin to look a lot like religion...extremes tend to resemble one another

[jay813]

Re: The New Atheists

faith to me is the lack of knowledge. we believe something to be true until we can PROVE it, usually methodically through science. we could go on forever that you cant prove god doesnt exist but the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim (that god exist). i have yet to see one shred of proof. wishing something to be true is not the same as actualy being true(in reality)

i will say this, as an atheist, that i grew up pentecostal, most of my family still are (poor souls,lol) and ive had many great conversations. we can usually agree to disagree. and i told my mom, that when i die and if there is a god, i will tell it that i used the brain he gave me that came to my conclusion. is it such a bad thing to demand evidence so that we dont follow anything blindly? faith is really an insult to my intelligence. and before you say well we all have faith in things like when i turn my ignition, i have faith that it will start. no, i can explain why my car starts, and why it wouldnt, since i have knowledge of this, there is no faith at all. i could go on forever, but we all know that doesnt exist either!

[Miroslav]

Re: The New Atheists

faith to me is the lack of knowledge. we believe something to be true until we can PROVE it, usually methodically through science. we could go on forever that you cant prove god doesnt exist but the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim (that god exist). i have yet to see one shred of proof. wishing something to be true is not the same as actualy being true(in reality)

i will say this, as an atheist, that i grew up pentecostal, most of my family still are (poor souls,lol) and ive had many great conversations. we can usually agree to disagree. and i told my mom, that when i die and if there is a god, i will tell it that i used the brain he gave me that came to my conclusion. is it such a bad thing to demand evidence so that we dont follow anything blindly? faith is really an insult to my intelligence. and before you say well we all have faith in things like when i turn my ignition, i have faith that it will start. no, i can explain why my car starts, and why it wouldnt, since i have knowledge of this, there is no faith at all. i could go on forever, but we all know that doesnt exist either!

That's all fine...but, don't you see that you're making an opinionated claim too (that there is no God)? You can explain why your car starts, but where's your proof for you claim that there is no God? And if you don't have proof...then don't you implicitly have faith in your claim?

Expressed atheism is as much of a belief and faith exercise as religion.

[rubyraks]

Re: The New Atheists

That's all fine...but, don't you see that you're making an opinionated claim too (that there is no God)? You can explain why your car starts, but where's your proof for you claim that there is no God? And if you don't have proof...then don't you implicitly have faith in your claim?

Expressed atheism is as much of a belief and faith exercise as religion.

You have a point there, but I think there's a pretty big difference between faith in your car starting up and faith in god.

No matter how far you choose to follow the chain of events of humanity and earth and whatever may be used to prove that god exists, at some point you have to make a leap of faith in terms of cause and effect. This isn't necessary when it comes to a car. I could explain it based on empirical evidence...in fact you could watch the chain of events should you choose to.

Where I do agree with you is that to be an atheist is to express a form of faith...which is why I call myself an agnostic. I can't prove it one way or the other, so how could I honestly call myself an atheist...unless I have faith that god doesn't exists?!

[Miroslav]

Re: The New Atheists

^^ exactly The irony is that the passionate atheist and the passionate religious person actually have some key things in common...

Faith in your car working is certainly different from faith in God. I just also think that faith in your car working is not the same as faith that there is no God.

[malayday]

Re: The New Atheists

socialism has promise but i dont know the extent to which it could really work out practically in todays day and age...i mean perhaps smaller sligtly isolated countries may be able to make it happen, but it seems impossible... plus there are inherent problmes with socialism even though i am more for it that this shit democracy ideal....
but equal poverty doesnt seem to be the answer...that being said however, i do wish and hope that a system may be devised where we can atleast eliminate the ridiculous shit the poorest of the poor (which is actually like fukin 2/3 of the world) have to deal with....
welfare..... circulation of wealth is answer..not tax....but a reliable consistent 'relatively' fair system of circulating wealth to ensure no one dies of fuked up shit like drinking contaminated water, or hunger and preventable disease...and the hoarding and accumilating needs to stop...but then i mean its all good to say this stuff...but how it would really work im not sure yet....i doubt however that socialism the way it stands would provide the key....

[malayday]

Re: The New Atheists

dammit....quick replied to the page before.....sorry.......you may ignore

[jay813]

Re: The New Atheists

i dont think you are understanding what im trying to say, now everytime i begin these types of conversations, its best to discuss the term of which we are talking about, if we can agree on what the word means then we can move on. if we disagree on definitions then we cant go any further.

i disagree with the word "god". no one has ever really defined to me what that means, theyve tried but i get all sorts of answers that are really subjective to the person, even when the bible tries to explain, it doesnt make sense to me. i also have heard many times that "god" will reveal him/herself to me and then ill understand. these revelations that these people have can be explained through science( you will probably argue that its my belief, perhaps you are right at that point) but since they cant quite explain it, they attribute it to god. i have no belief in the supernatural nor have i experienced anything supernatural to suggest a "higher power".

to me god is no different than lets say, santa clause. when i was a kid, i could not reason like an adult. i believed what i was told. hey there were presents under the tree, it must have been santa! now as we get older and our reasoning skills develop, and some of us will see through the facade ourseves when we catch our parents doing it themselves (empirical evidence) or we are just flat out told, its only then do we realize its a sham and learn to accept it, because its not really a big deal we know were still getting presents.
now how are people supposed to react when someone tells you god doesnt exist? this creates many problems as we built our lives around this supposed fact. questions of purpose and morality and immortality come to mind, we were happy with thinking that if i do good, i will live forever in paradise! how do you throw that away? it took me a long time to get to the point i am today. there was no switch in my head that made me atheist from christian. id say its a collection of my personal experiences and everything i have read and learned. i know that everybody is different nor do i expect everyone to come to the same conclusion i do.

there have been hundreds of thousands of gods throughout humanity. i just choose to believe in one less god than you do.

this post is long enough, i wont even go into why i dont agree with the term "faith" either,lol

[Miroslav]

Re: The New Atheists

socialism has promise but i dont know the extent to which it could really work out practically in todays day and age...i mean perhaps smaller sligtly isolated countries may be able to make it happen, but it seems impossible... plus there are inherent problmes with socialism even though i am more for it that this shit democracy ideal....
but equal poverty doesnt seem to be the answer...that being said however, i do wish and hope that a system may be devised where we can atleast eliminate the ridiculous shit the poorest of the poor (which is actually like fukin 2/3 of the world) have to deal with....
welfare..... circulation of wealth is answer..not tax....but a reliable consistent 'relatively' fair system of circulating wealth to ensure no one dies of fuked up shit like drinking contaminated water, or hunger and preventable disease...and the hoarding and accumilating needs to stop...but then i mean its all good to say this stuff...but how it would really work im not sure yet....i doubt however that socialism the way it stands would provide the key....

Your comments show a keen assessment of the subtler issues, which I do agree with... if only I had the answer!..

[Yao]

Re: The New Atheists

i dont think you are understanding what im trying to say, now everytime i begin these types of conversations, its best to discuss the term of which we are talking about, if we can agree on what the word means then we can move on. if we disagree on definitions then we cant go any further.

i disagree with the word "god". no one has ever really defined to me what that means, theyve tried but i get all sorts of answers that are really subjective to the person, even when the bible tries to explain, it doesnt make sense to me. i also have heard many times that "god" will reveal him/herself to me and then ill understand. these revelations that these people have can be explained through science( you will probably argue that its my belief, perhaps you are right at that point) but since they cant quite explain it, they attribute it to god. i have no belief in the supernatural nor have i experienced anything supernatural to suggest a "higher power".

to me god is no different than lets say, santa clause. when i was a kid, i could not reason like an adult. i believed what i was told. hey there were presents under the tree, it must have been santa! now as we get older and our reasoning skills develop, and some of us will see through the facade ourseves when we catch our parents doing it themselves (empirical evidence) or we are just flat out told, its only then do we realize its a sham and learn to accept it, because its not really a big deal we know were still getting presents.
now how are people supposed to react when someone tells you god doesnt exist? this creates many problems as we built our lives around this supposed fact. questions of purpose and morality and immortality come to mind, we were happy with thinking that if i do good, i will live forever in paradise! how do you throw that away? it took me a long time to get to the point i am today. there was no switch in my head that made me atheist from christian. id say its a collection of my personal experiences and everything i have read and learned. i know that everybody is different nor do i expect everyone to come to the same conclusion i do.

there have been hundreds of thousands of gods throughout humanity. i just choose to believe in one less god than you do.

this post is long enough, i wont even go into why i dont agree with the term "faith" either,lol

I for me have for some reason never even believed in a higher power, but then again my parents have always left me free to think of life what I want. All it takes for me to discard the possible existence of a god is looking around, and especially looking at people. It may sound strange, but seeing how fearful people are in general, how easily they can be influenced, how much they need something to hold on to...or to justify the way they live their life. it just doesn't work for me, but it does for many - and it's not that hard to imagine that religion might also be something grown from the need for explanations for terrible, frightening or strange things that could not be explained from an understanding of natural processes. Heck, imagine a Neanderthal in a cave looking at the lighting in the sky during a heavy storm, hearing the thunder rolling by...we all know what happens, but that guy probably didn't have a clue! So...enter higher powers that can be used to attribute certain inexplicable things to. I cannot prove it, but to me it sounds pretty damn logical (through reasoning and looking at people in an anthropological way) that religion is something that literally evolved from humanity in a quest to find answers or at least get an all-covering explanation.


I think I'll stick to not believing in a god or higher controlling power and simply take the world as it is, and how I experience it.