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#29–Boxie, Boxie, Boxie==atheism is “not believing” not “believing in not”. Knotty logic there, but there is.
So–are you agnostic about Santa Claus? Apply the logic of same to other flying present givers.
#16, Uncle Ben,
It is particularly interesting the way Dawkin’s … thus inferring that anyone who is religious is either ignorant, stupid or both.
Yes, you have a point. I attribute that to a scientific demand for evidence instead of arrogance. That those demanding evidence, and found it lacking, have renounced religion just demonstrates the weakness of the religious crowd.
As more and more of what used to be explained away by religion is not explained by science, watch these numbers to grow. I never accepted that my niece suffers from spina bifida because “god” is testing her. She was developed like that in the womb because her fat assed religious mother didn’t like to eat green vegetables. I never accepted that my aunt died from cancer or my friend died in a car accident because “god” was calling them home. My aunt died because some cells went crazy and my friend died because drinking and driving don’t mix.
I guess the most ironic thing in my life is that our physician is a devout catholic.
#31, Bobbo,
So–are you agnostic about Santa Claus? Apply the logic of same to other flying present givers.
Are you trying to do me out of my December gig every year?
[Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]
#33–Oh Mr Catshit==I believe in you and Santa Claus because I have seen the presents left behind. Some say I should remain agnostic about it given the level of “logic” involved, but somehow I just “sense” the rightness of my position.
Wow… Even I am getting tired of the semantic arguments.
At some point you’d think everyone would figure out what the words atheist, agnostic, and theist actually meant.
At some point you’d think we could quit hearing irrelevant bullshit about China and North Korea when we talk about this issue.
The only issue we all have to figure out is how are we going to neutralize fundamentalism so it ceases to be a threat to our life and liberty? And how do we do it without giving up freedom in the bargain?
#36–OFTLO==so, how do we have our cake and not get any crumbs? How do we make an omelette and not break any eggs? How do we clean our houses of vermin and not kill any rats?
You pose a real puzzler. Maybe we just have to recognize that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step D’OH!!! Cant reference China in any of our solutions. That makes it as hard as finding a fat whore in North Korea. D’OH, D’OH!!!!!!
Agnostics are confused cowards. An agnostic MUST give as much weight to EVERY theory imaginable.
Was earth seeded by martians? Possibly.
Does Zeus exists? Possibly.
Is allah the one true god? Possibly?
Is there a dozen or more gods who rule by committee? Possibly.
In light of all the trillions of possibilities that can be dreamed up, is it more reasonable to reject them all and base our lives on empirical evidence? I think so.
C’mon bobbo. What DO you believe?
#38–Julieb==I’m game but whats the question? Your position is only a weaker restatement of my own. Its pretty clear I’m an atheist. a human secularist. In fact, I am a strong-atheist, a technical term of art meaning in fact I actually do come pretty close to actually “believing” in NO GOD. That is because I am also actually “anti-theist” meaning if God did exist in one form or another I would not submit to his authority. No worshipping. Whether or not that barred me from heaven would be a test of god, not me.
Its good every once in a while to sit down and think about what you really are, what you really believe. If you are over 30 years old and still changing your mind everytime a subject comes up, you are doing your experience in life an injustice.
Sorry bobbo. My comment in #38 was meant for Boxie.
You are an upstanding citizen, bobbo. My apologies.
Hmmm–maybe I made the question “personal.” On topic, I think the video is probably accurate. I see no reason for “atheists” to lie. Whether a certain study show positive or minus whatever==THAT is the story. No interest in hyping a “fact” one way or the other.
I kinda suspect that polarization might actually be going on. I would be thinking atheism would be growing except that has been predicted for a hundred years and hasn’t happened. It seems like as a culture loses religion, it gets taken over by another culture that does have religion==see the EU for that process going on right now.
There is something deeply emotionally ingrained in man seeing patterns in random events and finding causation therein. Biggest random pattern==the universe. Biggest causation==god. I can only hope the also deeply ingrained hypocrisy in man continues to blunt the religious impulses leaving way for rationality to win by a hair, but I doubt it.
#40–julieb==that makes sense. I truly hope she is off thinking about why she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus but is only agnostic about God. I’m thinking she is coward agnostic in break away mode from her family roots. Fun to project on minimal infomration==its actually just my own prejudices being projected.
Could these stats just be written down and posted somewheres? Did we REALLY need a video with fractals telling me these things?
#37 – #36–OFTLO==so, how do we have our cake and not get any crumbs? How do we make an omelette and not break any eggs? How do we clean our houses of vermin and not kill any rats?
While there is value in not breaking eggs or killing rats… I’m not necessarily opposed to there being some damage, either.
#24 – Personality,
I did. It took me a number of years. However, after a number of debates it was pointed out to me that atheists do not assert that there is no god and no amount of proof will sway me.
Atheists merely state that there is no reason to give any more credence to the god hypothesis than any other hypothesis for which there is not a shred of evidence.
So, The Great Pumpkin, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Unicorns, Elves, The Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, Jesus Christ, and God are all equally false. Until a shred of evidence, good hard scientific evidence, is presented, there is no reason to give any credence to any of these.
Some agnostics will realize this over time if they care to continue to really evaluate the situation. Some will be content with the lower energy required to simply say “dunno”. I don’t think hard fast rules will ever apply to something as individual as human beings.
Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
Dennis: I’m not…
The Crowd: Shhh!
#36 – OFTLO,
Part of the problem lies with the religious moderates. Sam Harris does have a point in saying that when religious moderates demand the right to believe their bullshit, it gives equal right to the fundamentalists (those who think with their fundas) to believe in their bullshit.
I do not want to take away anyone’s right to believe. I would like to spread the word though that religion is far from harmless. In fact, as I’ve said before, it has a quite deleterious effect on humanity, as evidenced by its large number of deleted humans.
Perhaps a good start would be for the atheists and agnostics (who should really stop our backbiting) to refuse to grant sacred status to the topic of religion. If politics can be discussed and marriage and other personal topics can be discussed, why not religion?
If we at least start asking questions, perhaps it will open up a few minds to some learning.
For example, why did god create 100,000,000,000 galaxies and 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets if the intent was just to dump humans on one tiny insignificant rock somewhere in the uncharted backwaters of the western arm of the milky way galaxy?
Or, why is it that only non-theists feel comfortable asking where god came from? Wouldn’t the religious be deeply interested in getting closer to understanding of the mind of god in this way?
#46–Scott==that Sam Harris idea is profound.
thanks.
#47 – bobbo,
You’re welcome. If you have the stomach for it, you might try reading The End of Faith, the book from which the idea comes, or at least the book that spread it to me.
Sam Harris makes Dawkins seem positively peaceful toward religion. He’s a much more vehement antitheist than Dawkins.
18. Bob Further==what is “fundamental-atheism?”
Okay, I know this is only one of the questions you asked, but its been a busy day and so much has been said I thought I’d just address this one for now: “fundamental-atheism” is what happens when you take a perfectly reasonable belief that there is no god, then build it into a dogmatic ideology that believes everyone who doesn’t hold onto their views is not just wrong, stupid and evil as well. I wanted to make a distinction between the sort of atheism that would ban all religions and jail its followers (fundamental-atheism) and the more common form atheism where people are happy enough to not believe in a god but don’t seem to attack people who do.
The above video isn’t an attack against the existence of God on “there are reasons why God can’t exists”, but rather an attack on religious people themselves by suggesting that poor dumb criminals are religious while rich smart people are atheists and therefor atheism rules. Which seems a bit of a fundamentalist approach to atheism (much along the lines of those evangelists that believe their wealth is proof of God’s bless on them).
#46 – Really… Is there a right to believe?
If there is, it implies that such a right could be revoked. How would you revoke it?
If the edict came down, “Your right to like The Rolling Stones is hereby revoked!” It would only lead to me and others like me huddled together around barrels of fire in the back of dirty alleys, all trading bootlegs of Gimme Shelter and sharing headphones.
You simply cannot take such a thing away… But you can sure as hell debate the point over generations until one day, we wake up and the world is filled with happy little atheists… And even if the Golden Atheist Utopia is a pipe dream… the ensuing political and social upheaval alone will be worth the effort.
There is nothing better than a debate that threatens to riot in the streets.
I have known many atheists over the years and never has one supported banning religion and jailing people. I think you just made that up Uncle Ben.
Atheism has no dogmatic ideology. Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they want to enforce by law their viewpoint. Religion however does attempt to push its way into laws.
#49–Uncle Ben==big meal, small bites.
I know you won’t be insulted when I say in all good faith I find your thinking completely muddled on this particular subject.
You, like Mustard, like Mac Guy are almost to be pitied rather than jeered. I’m just about to make a paradigm shift.
What you think is completely appropriate “if” the words/concepts you use actually meant what you say they do. But sadly, they don’t. So, are you as crazy as you sound, or just carrying around some bad vocabulary?
To Illustrate:
Name ONE PERSON who is a “fundamentalist-atheist” as you describe. Fact is, there are NO SUCH PEOPLE. So, if you walk around thinking about categories of people that don’t exist, what is to be thought??? Paranoia, bad Sunday School, off the meds, deep cover? What is it?
You can tell, I think you are completely WRONG on this subject. I think you are nuts. But I have no list of horribles to visit upon you. I wish you a long and happy life. I only ask for these moments of your time to let you know other people disagree with you==hopefully giving you an opportunity to rethink the subject. Each morning, we wake up and unconsciously or not, choose to be who we are. We in fact do have free will. But you have to will yourself free of bad ideas. Only you can do it. People who disagree can only be a catalyst.
You make the same mistake in your assessment of the Video that uncle Ben does==equating a weak correlation with an absolute judgment/reality. That is not stupid, it is rather not understanding what is being presented. There is a STRONG correlation between height and age and sex. But not every 6 year old boy is shorter than every 6 year old girl. Only a correlation==a strong correlation meaning it is more often true than a weak correlation–but still not true all the time.
The video only presented a number of VERY WEAK correlations. I didn’t see it as attacking religious folk, but I’m not interested enough to go look again because surveys are only loosely correlated to the truth as well. So how many links in a chain of correlations does it take to be anything but a curiosity like the “Joke of the Day.”
Tell me what group you are a member of, and what valid accurate correlations apply to that group, and you have told me NOTHING ABOUT YOU!!!
Anybody giving this video much meaning beyond a weak corRelation, is either propagandizing, or an idiot. Neither category is good.
Interestingly, the debate sprouted in the comments isn’t really, technically, about “religion” vs. “atheism.” It’s even really about theism vs. atheism. It’s about one particular type of religious practice vs. the right to be free from said practice.
I consider myself a Christian, and I think serious reform is necessary for the Church in a new century. Too long has the church espoused an ideology of “keeping them stupid”, for I think they fear what the content of the message here is (that this weird crazy thing we call “ideas” lead, inevitably, to the conclusion that there is no God). But I don’t think that’s necessarily true – if we engage in theological and philosophical discussion, we can ultimately only fall back upon the “safe” stance of agnosticism, and from there it’s just a leap of faith one way, or a simple resignation to the other. Of course, that would be terrible for the Church’s numbers, Lord knows we don’t want people actually believing what they say they believe, they just care about lip service…
Ahem.
Interesting video, though it’s vaguely insulting, in that it insinuates that you’re not intelligent if you’re not an Atheist (or, even worse, Atheism leads to Intelligence, which is just plain idiocy.) Certainly, questions (and the lack of answers) can lead to atheism. But, as stated, they can just as easily lead back to theism. (For those of you unconvinced, I suggest you pick up some Kierkegaard.)
An earlier commentor posted that “only non-Theists ask the question of where God came from” – that’s patently untrue. Take a Philosophy 101 course and the first three months you’ll be knee deep in Theist thinkers and philosophers asking themselves that fundamental question. Granted, we don’t see that kind of thought anymore, because I think largely the world of philosophy has turned into a kind of post-modern absurdism where there is no point to philosophizing anyhow…
Also, point of interest, nowhere in the Bible does it say that there aren’t humans anywhere else in the galaxy. Or little green men for that matter. Just because it doesn’t mention them doesn’t mean they’re not there.
#5 – “What country would that be #4. Wouldn’t be the US. The philosophy of the founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, etc) was not based on religious principles.”
I guess you haven’t read much of Jefferson…
“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”
“I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.”
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
“It [the Bible] is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.”
@11 Gary, the dangerous infidel – “A carefully considered personal moral code can be a little too “thinky,” with a less certain outcome.”
Not really.
Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, act with transparency and treat others with respect. The way someone acts when they think no one is looking is the way they truly are.
^^ It serves me well.
Nice try pat.
We are not talking about Jefferson’s PERSONAL OPINION.
Jefferson firmly believed that gov’t should not impose religion on anyone. He wrote the Va. Statue of Religious Freedom that includes this line.
“Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.
”
This statute was a big influence on the 1st Amendment. Why then does gov’t money fund religionists agendas?
Again, nice try.
#4, Iran is founded on a religious doctrine. Are you proud of them too?
Come on Boxie, everyone knows that Agnosticism is a gateway drug.
#54 – Pat,
I think you’re reading very few of Jefferson’s quotes try a few dozen of these.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm
As for the need for a public figure to promote atheism, I vote for Jesse Ventura. The guy makes pretty good sense every time I hear him.
“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you’d want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live.” — Gov. Jesse Ventura, Playboy (November, 1999)
On a side note, what is the music in this video. I seem to recall it from a movie, maybe “The Matrix” but I’m not sure. Anybody know?