Anonymous wrote:Oh PP, if an atheist is vitriolic in their opposition to religion it's only because we have watched religion destroy countless lives. There's justification. Heaps and heaps of justification. It's a negative force in the aggregate. Sure, it gave my grandmother peace when she died, but I don't consider that a good enough reason for all the other shit it does.

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Anonymous wrote:OP: Yes of course atheists fancy themselves non-conformists even if they keep their atheism to themselves. The whole point of labeling onesself "atheist" is to set ones self apart as a discriminated against minority.

There's no need for the label "atheist" if someone doesn't believe in God, because non-belief is an absence. "Atheist" implies someone who doesn't just not believe in God, but is "anti-religion." Atheists contradict their own definition since atheism is a lack of belief, yet most atheists spend an awful lot of time telling other people what they don't believe in.

Boom goes the dynamite. You just summed it all up

Should you not blame the Greeks for coining the term, atheism? It means without god - or gods in the Greeks' case.

So I find it odd that you would blast us for the label we didn't create. Or would you prefer we had the term eliminated from the dictionary?

I think the dynamite was a dud this round.

But just because I as an individual don't believe in god or gods doesn't suggest I need to be anti-religion. By far the vast majority of atheists aren't simply people who don't believe in god(s). They are people who are vitriolic in their opposition to religion, specifically the organized kind, and usually focused on Christianity (perhaps because America has lots of Christians).

There are lots of terms coined by Greeks that have a different usage in English. Most atheists absolutely hate religion with a passion. That's far beyond merely disbelief in god. They hate the institution of religion. But hating religion has nothing to do with being "without god." I can be "without god" and not care at all about what someone else believes.

Most atheists are struggling with spiritual issues and going around in circles because they're trying to find a logical answer for why we exist, and that's not going to happen. Since you brought up greek, think Aristotle, "first cause." Science just gives us an infinite regress to the Big Bang and "undefined" before that, which isn't particularly satisfying to be told there is no first cause. People who believe in god believe god is the first cause. Atheists, they're still not going to find any answers in the rejection of someone else's answer (god).

At least religion tries to answer the question "Why do we exist?" That's what religion really is, an attempt to answer why we exist in something other than a purely materialistic or mechanistic clockwork result of the random collision of trillions of atoms over billions of years. If all we are is a bunch of randomly aggregated atoms it's kind of hard to inject much ultimate meaning in our lives, and we're all looking for meaning, even atheists, even if they don't want to admit it.

It's fun to mock people who bake Jesus Cakes and so forth but atheists tend to attack very easy targets, that is, "religion" in its most insanely literalist, simplistic version, as a set of arbitrary rules of behavior supported by authority figures relying on a false mythology of fairy tales of super powerful supernaturalistic beings. When viewed in that light of course it's easy to make religion look silly.

Go outside and look up at the Milky Way on a really dark evening away from the city lights and as far as I'm concerned that's a miracle. The fact that I as a human being, a small piece of protoplasm, has self awareness and consciousness enough to on some level be aware of my little place in a vastly greater whole, the Universe, where did all this come from? A miracle. Some attribute it to "god" but it doesn't matter what you call it. Let that sink in, calm your mind, remove the rationalizations and intellectualizations and other b.s., and if you're honest with yourself you at least have to give consideration to the possibility that maybe we don't know all the answers, maybe we never can, and maybe we never can get close.

So it's inherently spiritually, psychologically and emotionally unsatisfactory to say "my answer to the miracle of existence is that your belief in a superbeing called god is nonsense." You've refuted the superbeing mythology, perhaps, but you haven't come any closer to answering the fundamental question. Science doesn't satisfactorily answer the question either since it's not meant to answer that question. Science answers "what is" but not "why do we exist"? (Existentially speaking).

That's why I think most atheists come off as angry and frustrated. Refuting someone else's beliefs isn't a belief and doesn't fulfill a human being's emotional/psychological/spiritual need to impose some semblance of order and meaning and understanding on the randomness of the universe.

If life is meaningless then I'll still win the argument by kicking you in the nuts. Since life is meaningless, you can't complain if I kick you in the nuts.

YOUR life might be meaningless without your faith, but that doesn't mean my life without faith is meaningless. I find it sad and uncreative that you have put so much thought and guesswork into defining us, yet you are stuck within the parameters of your faith so it's just more of the same preaching that turns people away from the churches.

But you just contradicted yourself, didn't you?

You claim to have life without faith--whatever you think "faith" means--yet you think your life isn't meaningless.

The "meaning" you think your life supposedly has is just your arbitrary overlay of your mind attempting to recognize patterns whether or not there is actually a pattern to be seen, because on an evolutionary basis, there's survival benefit in pattern recognition skills. But humans often see patterns where none exist at all.

There's no fundamental difference in your claim that you see a "meaning" in your own life, arbitrary defined by yourself, according to patterns you think you see; and that of a religious person who claims to see a "meaning" and "patterns" created by an arbitrary mental construct or organizing principle which the religious person calls "god." They are both equally superstititious or they are not.

You WANT to believe your life is not meaningless, so you declare that it has meaning. "That doesn't mean my life without faith is meaningless." "Meaning" has to come from SOMEWHERE, even if that is faith in what you believe you perceive to be meaningful. Your answer is just as arbitrary, no more and no less, than a religious person's. Your life doesn't have "meaning" just because you say it does, unless you have faith that it does. Because I guarantee you have no "scientific method" to "prove" that your life has "meaning."

Some atheist you turned out to be.

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Anonymous wrote:No, you got Aristotle, or more exactly his follower Saint Thomas Aquinas, wrong. When he spoke of first causes, he meant ontological first causes, not temporal ones. St. Thomas did not think that it was philosophically provable that God did not create the universe from eternity. The Big Bang has nothing to do with it. Descartes claimed to have proven God exists, but his proof was refuted by Kant. Whether Kant's refutation refutes St. Anselm's proof is another matter because Anselm never actually claimed to have proved God's existence, he merely claimed to have proved that it was impossible to believe God does not exist. No one has ever really refuted his argument. Some say Kant did but many philosophers disagree. In any case I'm an atheist. When a very Catholic judge for whom I clerked found out, he said he would have to fire me. He relented, but I always had his animosity even though he said my work was first rate.

Actually based on what you wrote there you can't possibly be an atheist:

1. You stated that St. Anselm proved that it was impossible to believe God does not exist.
2. You stated that you believe that "no one has ever really refused his argument."
3. An atheist is someone who does not believe that God exists.
4. If 1. and 2. are true, then 3. cannot also be true--if St. Anselm proved that it was impossible to believe God does not exist, then St. Anselm proved that no one believes that God does not exist, because it is impossible for anyone to have that belief.
5. If no one can be an atheist, since St. Anselm proved that it is impossible for anyone to believe that God does not exist, then you can not be an atheist, either.

Q.E.D.

Anonymous wrote:I'm an atheist because I fancy myself smart.

Anonymous wrote:No, you got Aristotle, or more exactly his follower Saint Thomas Aquinas, wrong. When he spoke of first causes, he meant ontological first causes, not temporal ones. St. Thomas did not think that it was philosophically provable that God did not create the universe from eternity. The Big Bang has nothing to do with it. Descartes claimed to have proven God exists, but his proof was refuted by Kant. Whether Kant's refutation refutes St. Anselm's proof is another matter because Anselm never actually claimed to have proved God's existence, he merely claimed to have proved that it was impossible to believe God does not exist. No one has ever really refuted his argument. Some say Kant did but many philosophers disagree. In any case I'm an atheist. When a very Catholic judge for whom I clerked found out, he said he would have to fire me. He relented, but I always had his animosity even though he said my work was first rate.

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Anonymous wrote:OP: Yes of course atheists fancy themselves non-conformists even if they keep their atheism to themselves. The whole point of labeling onesself "atheist" is to set ones self apart as a discriminated against minority.

There's no need for the label "atheist" if someone doesn't believe in God, because non-belief is an absence. "Atheist" implies someone who doesn't just not believe in God, but is "anti-religion." Atheists contradict their own definition since atheism is a lack of belief, yet most atheists spend an awful lot of time telling other people what they don't believe in.

Boom goes the dynamite. You just summed it all up

Should you not blame the Greeks for coining the term, atheism? It means without god - or gods in the Greeks' case.

So I find it odd that you would blast us for the label we didn't create. Or would you prefer we had the term eliminated from the dictionary?

I think the dynamite was a dud this round.

I'll take it up with the people who use their lack of religious beliefs as a cornerstone of their identity. That's what's grating.

We are not going away. And we will continue to remind you of the times you religious folks persecuted us and shamed us, all for our mere refusal to fall into line to worship the same and judge the same way you do. If that is nonconformity, so be it.

Anonymous wrote:Pp who keeps talking about what "most atheists" think and do, be honest... do you know any nonbelievers IRL? Ones who you would feel comfortable talking to? Because if you are really looking to understand, not just troll and call atheists nonconformists/state who you don't care about, you might want to take your inquiries offline and try a human-to-human discussion.

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Anonymous wrote:OP: Yes of course atheists fancy themselves non-conformists even if they keep their atheism to themselves. The whole point of labeling onesself "atheist" is to set ones self apart as a discriminated against minority.

There's no need for the label "atheist" if someone doesn't believe in God, because non-belief is an absence. "Atheist" implies someone who doesn't just not believe in God, but is "anti-religion." Atheists contradict their own definition since atheism is a lack of belief, yet most atheists spend an awful lot of time telling other people what they don't believe in.

Boom goes the dynamite. You just summed it all up

Should you not blame the Greeks for coining the term, atheism? It means without god - or gods in the Greeks' case.

So I find it odd that you would blast us for the label we didn't create. Or would you prefer we had the term eliminated from the dictionary?

I think the dynamite was a dud this round.

But just because I as an individual don't believe in god or gods doesn't suggest I need to be anti-religion. By far the vast majority of atheists aren't simply people who don't believe in god(s). They are people who are vitriolic in their opposition to religion, specifically the organized kind, and usually focused on Christianity (perhaps because America has lots of Christians).

There are lots of terms coined by Greeks that have a different usage in English. Most atheists absolutely hate religion with a passion. That's far beyond merely disbelief in god. They hate the institution of religion. But hating religion has nothing to do with being "without god." I can be "without god" and not care at all about what someone else believes.

Most atheists are struggling with spiritual issues and going around in circles because they're trying to find a logical answer for why we exist, and that's not going to happen. Since you brought up greek, think Aristotle, "first cause." Science just gives us an infinite regress to the Big Bang and "undefined" before that, which isn't particularly satisfying to be told there is no first cause. People who believe in god believe god is the first cause. Atheists, they're still not going to find any answers in the rejection of someone else's answer (god).

At least religion tries to answer the question "Why do we exist?" That's what religion really is, an attempt to answer why we exist in something other than a purely materialistic or mechanistic clockwork result of the random collision of trillions of atoms over billions of years. If all we are is a bunch of randomly aggregated atoms it's kind of hard to inject much ultimate meaning in our lives, and we're all looking for meaning, even atheists, even if they don't want to admit it.

It's fun to mock people who bake Jesus Cakes and so forth but atheists tend to attack very easy targets, that is, "religion" in its most insanely literalist, simplistic version, as a set of arbitrary rules of behavior supported by authority figures relying on a false mythology of fairy tales of super powerful supernaturalistic beings. When viewed in that light of course it's easy to make religion look silly.

Go outside and look up at the Milky Way on a really dark evening away from the city lights and as far as I'm concerned that's a miracle. The fact that I as a human being, a small piece of protoplasm, has self awareness and consciousness enough to on some level be aware of my little place in a vastly greater whole, the Universe, where did all this come from? A miracle. Some attribute it to "god" but it doesn't matter what you call it. Let that sink in, calm your mind, remove the rationalizations and intellectualizations and other b.s., and if you're honest with yourself you at least have to give consideration to the possibility that maybe we don't know all the answers, maybe we never can, and maybe we never can get close.

So it's inherently spiritually, psychologically and emotionally unsatisfactory to say "my answer to the miracle of existence is that your belief in a superbeing called god is nonsense." You've refuted the superbeing mythology, perhaps, but you haven't come any closer to answering the fundamental question. Science doesn't satisfactorily answer the question either since it's not meant to answer that question. Science answers "what is" but not "why do we exist"? (Existentially speaking).

That's why I think most atheists come off as angry and frustrated. Refuting someone else's beliefs isn't a belief and doesn't fulfill a human being's emotional/psychological/spiritual need to impose some semblance of order and meaning and understanding on the randomness of the universe.

If life is meaningless then I'll still win the argument by kicking you in the nuts. Since life is meaningless, you can't complain if I kick you in the nuts.

YOUR life might be meaningless without your faith, but that doesn't mean my life without faith is meaningless. I find it sad and uncreative that you have put so much thought and guesswork into defining us, yet you are stuck within the parameters of your faith so it's just more of the same preaching that turns people away from the churches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But just because I as an individual don't believe in god or gods doesn't suggest I need to be anti-religion. By far the vast majority of atheists aren't simply people who don't believe in god(s). They are people who are vitriolic in their opposition to religion, specifically the organized kind, and usually focused on Christianity (perhaps because America has lots of Christians).

There are lots of terms coined by Greeks that have a different usage in English. Most atheists absolutely hate religion with a passion. That's far beyond merely disbelief in god. They hate the institution of religion. But hating religion has nothing to do with being "without god." I can be "without god" and not care at all about what someone else believes.

Most atheists are struggling with spiritual issues and going around in circles because they're trying to find a logical answer for why we exist, and that's not going to happen. Since you brought up greek, think Aristotle, "first cause." Science just gives us an infinite regress to the Big Bang and "undefined" before that, which isn't particularly satisfying to be told there is no first cause. People who believe in god believe god is the first cause. Atheists, they're still not going to find any answers in the rejection of someone else's answer (god).

At least religion tries to answer the question "Why do we exist?" That's what religion really is, an attempt to answer why we exist in something other than a purely materialistic or mechanistic clockwork result of the random collision of trillions of atoms over billions of years. If all we are is a bunch of randomly aggregated atoms it's kind of hard to inject much ultimate meaning in our lives, and we're all looking for meaning, even atheists, even if they don't want to admit it.

It's fun to mock people who bake Jesus Cakes and so forth but atheists tend to attack very easy targets, that is, "religion" in its most insanely literalist, simplistic version, as a set of arbitrary rules of behavior supported by authority figures relying on a false mythology of fairy tales of super powerful supernaturalistic beings. When viewed in that light of course it's easy to make religion look silly.

Go outside and look up at the Milky Way on a really dark evening away from the city lights and as far as I'm concerned that's a miracle. The fact that I as a human being, a small piece of protoplasm, has self awareness and consciousness enough to on some level be aware of my little place in a vastly greater whole, the Universe, where did all this come from? A miracle. Some attribute it to "god" but it doesn't matter what you call it. Let that sink in, calm your mind, remove the rationalizations and intellectualizations and other b.s., and if you're honest with yourself you at least have to give consideration to the possibility that maybe we don't know all the answers, maybe we never can, and maybe we never can get close.

So it's inherently spiritually, psychologically and emotionally unsatisfactory to say "my answer to the miracle of existence is that your belief in a superbeing called god is nonsense." You've refuted the superbeing mythology, perhaps, but you haven't come any closer to answering the fundamental question. Science doesn't satisfactorily answer the question either since it's not meant to answer that question. Science answers "what is" but not "why do we exist"? (Existentially speaking).

That's why I think most atheists come off as angry and frustrated. Refuting someone else's beliefs isn't a belief and doesn't fulfill a human being's emotional/psychological/spiritual need to impose some semblance of order and meaning and understanding on the randomness of the universe.

If life is meaningless then I'll still win the argument by kicking you in the nuts. Since life is meaningless, you can't complain if I kick you in the nuts.

Um....who's the vitriolic one here, PP?