Why Are Atheists So Obsessed With Christians?

[CrossCuT]

His only purpose in coming to PM is the ridicule. Its too bad that he cant represent himself better because his actions make all atheists look bad.

[Chestertonian]

My question to members of this forum is, Do you believe in other gods, and if not, then why? and please refrain from addressing YOUR god, I'm not asking anything about the deity you do believe in, just the other gods.

 

I've never understood this question. I mean, there are tons of people out there who acknowledge that the world had to have been created by a higher power, but haven't settled on a particular religion.

[Chestertonian]

I have answered several questions you have asked of me and only asked one in return, if your goal was to be a flaming [mod]Language - BG[/mod]then congratulations you have succeeded. It's disappointingly obvious that you and your ilk are void of any intelligence. I wont be wasting any more of my time on your stupidity. Have a good one you [mod]Language. - BG[/mod].  and with that ban me and go [mod]Language and personal attacks. - BG[/mod] yourself. ;) ta-ta

 

You're in over your head. You might try the 'religion' section on Yahoo Answers or the comments section on You Tube. 

[Amppax]

Well I can see that discussion was a waste of time. He was much nicer when I PM'd him.

[stevil]

Now that's an interesting statement. How is your non-belief in God not a belief? You believe something, you just don't believe in God.

 

- Belief is making the choice to ignore plausible alternatives.
- Non believe is recognising the plausible alternatives rather than ignoring them.

Do you see the difference?

[Anomaly]

- Belief is making the choice to ignore plausible alternatives.
- Non believe is recognising the plausible alternatives rather than ignoring them.
Do you see the difference?

I think it's quibbling over semantics.
Theist - Believes there is a god.
Atheist - Believes there is no god
Agnostic - Holds no belief in a god, NOR holds a belief there is no god.

People try to get fancy with redefining what the three mean. Either way, a person should be able to rationally explain their belief or disbelief.

[CatholicsAreKewl]

I've never understood this question. I mean, there are tons of people out there who acknowledge that the world had to have been created by a higher power, but haven't settled on a particular religion.

 

It's easier to understand if you don't believe these other religions have a different understanding of the same divine reality. If you claim Muslims, Jews, and Hindus worship different gods, then one could argue that the way you feel about these faiths is the same way an atheist feels about Christianity.

Edited August 6, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[CatholicsAreKewl]

I think it's quibbling over semantics.
Theist - Believes there is a god.
Atheist - Believes there is no god
Agnostic - Holds no belief in a god, NOR holds a belief there is no god.

People try to get fancy with redefining what the three mean. Either way, a person should be able to rationally explain their belief or disbelief.

 

I don't think this is accurate tbh. An atheist does not believe in a God. I don't think the majority of atheists would say "there is no god". Agnostics can also be atheists. There is such a thing as an agnostic theist as well, making the definition provided above nonsensical.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism

 

I understand that a lot of people (including atheists) make this mistake. Hell, I didn't even know about these differences until I was corrected and looked it up for myself.

Edited August 6, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[Anomaly]

LOL. True. But labels are shorthand and always fruitful for bickering off topic. A specific philosopher, Rowe, is generally who is referred to in explaining agnosticism. Any word can have multiple meanings. Consider "g a y".

Edited August 6, 2013 by Anomaly

[Socrates]

Atheism means whatever you want it to mean!

[Socrates]

What I find most perplexing about the atheist position is that the search for ultimate truth is focused on a purely material explanation of the world, which with no irony is then argued in the realm of ideas– a place not of substance and measurement, but of phantoms and dreams.

Where is the scale upon which I can weigh the logic of an argument? Or the surface potential microscope that can observe the breathtaking beauty of a formula? Even if these are phenomena inexorably emerging from the structure of objective, quantifiable reality– they still are quasi-hallucinatory ephemera which exist on a level different than that of the mere physical. And so then, how is pure reason any less superstitious and outrageous than a supernatural God? Is not thought itself the very substance of angels?

 

Even numbers, those logical bulwarks of the rational mind, trail off into absurdity at the ends, dissolving into the twin mysteries of the infinitely large and the infinitely small. Why does the circumference of a circle generate a never-ending quagmire when divided by its diameter? Why is an incorporeal God so hard to swallow, when ordinary, sensible things make up such a small subset of our existence, which is daily filled with patriotism and love and longing and anguish and pride and sorrow and joy?

 

Focusing on the improbability of the Big Mystery, atheism misses the innumerable little mysteries which are taken credulously at face value. It is a bigger leap from a bag of amino-acid rich waters to Christopher Hitchens, than it is from Christopher Hitchens to God.

 

I suspect that the true proof that God exists is the very fact that the question can be posited at all.

 

Good points, and I've often brought this up in the past.

 

If atheistic materialism (that there is no reality beyond the purely physical) is indeed true, then all human thoughts, reason, and ideas (including atheism itself) are in fact nothing more than the purely physical movements of particles in the brain (electrical firing or neurons and such).

 

As these movements of particles are purely physical, the  causes of these movements must also be purely physical (think one gigantic pinball game), and both free will and reason are ultimately illusory - all there is is the random physical dance of atoms.

 

If we accept the tenets of materialism, there is no reason to believe that the purely physical motions of particles in the brain have any actual relation to ultimate reality.

Atheism and religion then are themselves nothing but two different patterns of purely physical activity in the brain, and there is no actual reason to consider one of these physical patterns "true" and the other "false."

 

While atheists like to talk about "reason," if followed to its logical conclusions, atheistic materialism undermines the basis of reason itself.

 

 

 

It is a bigger leap from a bag of amino-acid rich waters to Christopher Hitchens, than it is from Christopher Hitchens to God.

 

 

Technically, false.

 

Christopher Hitchens = finite

God = infinite

[Anomaly]

Atheism means whatever you want it to mean!

Ditto for Theism.

[Socrates]

Ditto for Theism.

 

I identify myself as a Catholic, rather than a "theist."

[CatholicsAreKewl]

I identify myself as a Catholic, rather than a "theist."

 

I identify myself as an Acatholic, rather than an atheist.

[stevil]

I think it's quibbling over semantics.
Theist - Believes there is a god.
Atheist - Believes there is no god
Agnostic - Holds no belief in a god, NOR holds a belief there is no god.

People try to get fancy with redefining what the three mean. Either way, a person should be able to rationally explain their belief or disbelief.

 

Atheist - Lacks a belief in any god
Agnostic - Holds that there is no knowledge of gods.