Hey yo can we stop this argument? I'm not sure what's going on and honestly I don't care to find out, i just want to stay on topic and not have this thread end up like the feminism one.
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Serious The Atheism/Agnosticism thread
- Thread starter Adamant Zoroark
- Start date
TheValkyries
proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Why is the onus on athiests to disprove god's existence? Science has never worked in such a manner throughout its history. Unicorns and Santa Claus factually do not exist, yet they are not scientifically falsifiable.
Note that I quoted, and referred to, Blajaran's post as arrogant. I don't see anything arrogant about your post.
I don't think you've explained who has authority or how they've obtained it, so I have nothing more to add here.
In context, talking to two people who are self-proclaimed agnostics, a decision to believe in a religion or not to is inconsequential. People who are 'relatively apathetic' have not fought over, much less died over, wondering if there is a god or not. As I said before, depending on how you approach the question of religion is related to how you approach different moral issues. The strict answer itself 'yea there's probably a god' or 'nah, I doubt it' is insignificant.
YO YOU GOTTA DEFEND YOURSELF ON THE INTERNET
I don't think you will meet many reasonable Atheists which actually make the positive claim that no God exists. As I mentioned before, most serious Atheists are just in the position of not affirming the existence of a God claims. You are conflating the more extreme Anti-Theist side with Atheism as a whole.
Can either of you explain what type of authority you're appealing to? No one has any idea 'WHAT THE FUCK IS UP' but that doesn't prevent them from making decisions. Do you have to be some sort of famous before you can decide if there is a god?
What ideal are you referring to.
blitzlefan
shake it off!
IDK why you're getting all mad.
Why are people required to make decisions? Can't we just leave it at "I don't know that God is real; I don't know that God is not real. However, I believe that the answer doesn't really impact my life all that much nor do I feel a strong need to make a decision. Therefore, I'll just be accepting of others' beliefs and keep my personal opinions to myself." TADA. Question solved.
Why are people required to make decisions? Can't we just leave it at "I don't know that God is real; I don't know that God is not real. However, I believe that the answer doesn't really impact my life all that much nor do I feel a strong need to make a decision. Therefore, I'll just be accepting of others' beliefs and keep my personal opinions to myself." TADA. Question solved.
People use religion as something that keeps everyone in line, explains things we can't explain, and provides comfort for those deprived of it. A God doesn't physically appear when someone held at high-regard are a religious authority says so, however the delusion of one does. They ways of which people think religiously are determined based on what someone or some people held in this case at high religious authority thinks, eventually making people feel pressured to think that way, because they don't want to go to hell.
Then what the fuck would the point of this thread be? To agree universally that no one knows for sure? This thread is to share our opinions to enhance our own, educate others, and defend what we think is correct.
it's not an appeal to authority, it's a belief in the lack of personal authority to make the decision. higher authority has nothing to do with it. perhaps, if i had an interest in religion and studied it then i would be able to come to a conclusion. in no way, however, am i saying that i would take the word of a 'higher authority' on religion on whether there's a god or not. as i do agree with you that the existence of a god should be something entirely decided by oneself (at least i think that's what you're getting at).
By high religious authority I was referring to someone like the Pope if that's what you mean.
I do agree, and perhaps could have chosen a better word than "adamant," though I was going for that extreme minority when I described it - though, not all of them are anti-theists necessarily, but rather profoundly against the idea that a god could exist.
That said, it's quite the minority, and I don't believe I said that most "atheists" are like this. Maybe I did not write out my thoughts properly; I apologize.
nah ceelan i was replying to billymills
Lavos
Banned deucer.
im fairly certain they arent saying who has the authority to tell them if theres a god because no one has that authority lol...they dont know, you dont know, i dont know, none of us are ever gonna know so why waste time worrying about it
if you have nothing more to add then stop posting
On the whole confusion that Atheists think no God exists because they do not agree with God claims, here is a rather nice video explaining exactly what Atheism is. The "Gumball Example" can be found at 5:30-7:35, I think it excellently explains the logical flaw quite a few people have said in this thread particularly in the beginning.
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well it should be.
however many of you say religion still teaches us morals. religion is no longer required to teach us moral values, anyone who is a working part of society should know basic right from wrong. why do we learn our morals from something which has a history of being violent and oppressive? you described it yourself: "fought and died" - where is the morality in that? i don't plan on raising my children with morals learnt from an establishment with thousands of years of history littered with bloodshed. religion is becoming a relic in modern society, and rightfully so in my opinion.
blitzlefan
shake it off!
IDK you tell me! Is it impossible for people to simply not know? Can that not be a appropriate opinion? Not everything's black and white; it's not; "I'm religious" vs. "I'm not religious". There can be a middle ground. Did I argue or even state that nobody knows for sure if God exists? No, I said that's what I believe. And for a controversial topic like this based almost entirely on opinion, I doubt any enhancing or educating has occurred, with the exception of differentiating between atheism and agnosticism. People aren't going to say "oh man I read in that Smogon thread about atheism / agnosticism I learned so much guess it's time to be religious / atheist / whatever".
don't
Just because we can't know for certain doesn't mean people can't converse about it, and I never said there was a dividing line between atheists and theists to make it a "black and white" argument per se. I also didn't mean educate others in the literal sense of which you put it either, I was merely giving generalized examples of what i had experienced, and what a few others potentially experienced as well from what I had observed. It is an appropriate opinion that i do agree, but you're not just going to get the whole range of opinions here to unanimously agree on it. I'm getting tired and irritable, please excuse grammatical errors.
If you don't want this thread to turn out like the feminism one, ceelan, I can tell you a really quick way to make that happen. You seem to be one of the only people getting mad but are telling everyone to quit arguing.
There was a lot of information and "arguing" over the last two pages.
I promised a person I would write down my life experience.
My science is better than your science.
In short:
Was born
13 Agnostic
14 Atheist
17 Hater of Christianity
18 Testing God to see if he was actually real and forgiving
19 His friend.
---------------------------------------------
Why do some people believe that atheist, pedophiles, murderers, rapists, etc. cannot be forgiven.
(I'm sad I wasn't able to keep a live update on this thread today. I would've liked to made a few comments, but it seems my time for that has passed.)
I'm also unsatisfied with this current post. I'm just going to wait until someone tears apart my life experience or trololol on it.
#Jesus Saves.
I promised a person I would write down my life experience.
My science is better than your science.
Born into this world in 1993. My mother had me Christened. (It wasn't my choice.) Growing up I didn't have any religious influences. I did my best to stay out of churches. By the time I was 14 I made my choice. I didn't believe in a god. The concept of god didn't make sense and thus couldn't exist. And up until that point I saw how the catholic church was. Nothing but child rapist. That was what I thought of all priest (because I watched nothing but cartoons n the news when I was a kid.)
Evolution, and aliens made more sense to me. A god who loved wouldn't allow such suffering right? That was my logic. After 4 years of denial a friend asked "why don't you give it a try?"
By 18 I started to finally accept that there was a God, or two or three, and was like "this dude don't love no body." I fought him so much. I had no interest in being a "Christian" bunch of liars I would tell myself, and have discussions with my atheistic friends.
Never in my life would I think there was a God that actually cared. He forgave me for all my wrong doings. I was so anti-Jesus, I was like the Bill O'Riley of Atheist. I often mocked Christians hard, and "practiced" my own "beliefs." Eventually the more I fought against him was the more I realized I needed Him. In short me practicing my own beliefs lead to some very dark stuff. (I hope this post does not damage my "creditability" as a Jesus Lover.) The dude forgave me of everything I ever done.
Evolution, and aliens made more sense to me. A god who loved wouldn't allow such suffering right? That was my logic. After 4 years of denial a friend asked "why don't you give it a try?"
By 18 I started to finally accept that there was a God, or two or three, and was like "this dude don't love no body." I fought him so much. I had no interest in being a "Christian" bunch of liars I would tell myself, and have discussions with my atheistic friends.
Never in my life would I think there was a God that actually cared. He forgave me for all my wrong doings. I was so anti-Jesus, I was like the Bill O'Riley of Atheist. I often mocked Christians hard, and "practiced" my own "beliefs." Eventually the more I fought against him was the more I realized I needed Him. In short me practicing my own beliefs lead to some very dark stuff. (I hope this post does not damage my "creditability" as a Jesus Lover.) The dude forgave me of everything I ever done.
In short:
Was born
13 Agnostic
14 Atheist
17 Hater of Christianity
18 Testing God to see if he was actually real and forgiving
19 His friend.
---------------------------------------------
Why do some people believe that atheist, pedophiles, murderers, rapists, etc. cannot be forgiven.
(I'm sad I wasn't able to keep a live update on this thread today. I would've liked to made a few comments, but it seems my time for that has passed.)
I'm also unsatisfied with this current post. I'm just going to wait until someone tears apart my life experience or trololol on it.
#Jesus Saves.
Mmm. This is why I normally stay away from threads like these.
All in all, people will believe what they will. You'll very rarely have much of an impact on a person's religious values, because a person's faith is ultimately their own decision to make. Whether you believe in a God or not, it shouldn't be too difficult to speak courteously to others. I hate to be that "can't we all get along?" person, yet seeing things like this is a real shame coming from some of you.
Anyway, though my faith is loosely Christian, my stance is basically: you may believe in anything you'd like. That is your choice, and it's not my place to tell you any different. I don't believe any one thing (atheism, Christianity, Islam, Shinto, etc) is the wrong choice. The best we can do in life is to live it both morally and freely.
All in all, people will believe what they will. You'll very rarely have much of an impact on a person's religious values, because a person's faith is ultimately their own decision to make. Whether you believe in a God or not, it shouldn't be too difficult to speak courteously to others. I hate to be that "can't we all get along?" person, yet seeing things like this is a real shame coming from some of you.
Anyway, though my faith is loosely Christian, my stance is basically: you may believe in anything you'd like. That is your choice, and it's not my place to tell you any different. I don't believe any one thing (atheism, Christianity, Islam, Shinto, etc) is the wrong choice. The best we can do in life is to live it both morally and freely.
Its actually interesting, because I have never particularly hated the Catholic Church after leaving it. Idk, perhaps it is because there never really was a blatant attempt at blind indoctrination, as a kid I went to Sunday school and learned about it, but generally they encouraged questioning and we often had long discussions about the bible and its context. This may be because I am up north, and in general the entire region is more liberal, I here other Catholics are much worse. The only time I felt pressured into anything was some retreat camp which they though I should go to and I just didn't want to go. Also, we occasionally use to get this wacky priest from Scranton that hated abortions and use to make speeches about them every time he came. In short I don't actually vehemently disagree with the church's policies strangely, I have never had a bad relationship with them. I actually still like some of the things that other Christians complain about the church, in particular being able get forgiven of your sins rather easily, or the death bed confessions they like to complain about, and an emphasis more on good actions in life than communing with the Holy Spirit for the average man. Overall its a positive factor on the community, tieing it together at the least, and if it makes people happy, who am I to complain.
For me though, all of this is separate from me simply not seeing any evidence for a God, let alone the Catholic one. I have no problem with the community, I just can't logically subscribe to the message anymore.
For me though, all of this is separate from me simply not seeing any evidence for a God, let alone the Catholic one. I have no problem with the community, I just can't logically subscribe to the message anymore.