Haaaaahahahaha
Nice try.
Still applies. You have your answer to the whole “atheism/atheists” question. Now answer some of the questions other posters have asked if you.
This is a discussion.
This isn’t your board. Go set up your own if you don’t like it.
This is the second time you’ve tried manipulating and controlling.
What is it about YOU can post in this thread along these lines BUT not carry it over to the other threads that your “superior” mind can’t comprehend? 
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to dedicate this next smash-hit musical favorite to our good buddy @Sherlock-Holmes It is his participations in several active threads that has allowed us to repeat the definition and meaning of “atheism” a bazillion times so that there is no possible way for any other person visiting this site to miss it. Thank you, Shirley, for all your hard work and dedication.
(Edit to ingest a handful of dramamine.)
If atheism were just an antithesis, this site wouldn’t exist. However, the site does exist and therefor it describes a belief system. You can’t raise a flag saying Christians are stupid (a very benign description for your persecution of them) and then claim that it’s not a belief system.
I’m late to this particular party, so forgive me not wading through all the other posts beforehand, but I’ll deal with this topic simply and succinctly.
Is atheism a belief system? No.
Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, is nothing more than suspicion of unsupported mythology fanboy assertions. That is IT. Equivalently, it consists of “YOU assert that your magic man exists, YOU support your assertions”, preferably with something resembling proper evidence. “My mythology says so”, and vacuous apologetic fabrications that an astute primary school child would point and laugh at, do not constitute “evidence”.
Quite simply, NOT treating unsupported mythological assertions uncritically as fact, is the very antithesis of a “belief system”, though of course the usual suspects continue peddling the familiar lies in this vein.
As for the usual canards that are resurrected with tiresome regularity by the usual suspects, let’s deal with some of these, shall we?
Item one: I, and many other atheists here, do NOT assert that a god type entity in the most general sense, does not exist. Instead, we recognise that the question is unanswered. Not least because if a genuine answer had been presented in the past, said answer would now be part of our mainstream body of knowledge, and no one would be arguing about the issue. What we do state, and with good reason, is that cartoon magic men from pre-scientific mythologies are absurd and incompetent candidates for the “god role”, as it were. If someone presents to us a non-mythological candidate, one bereft of the absurdities attached to mythological cartoon magic men, one that is either consonant with known physics or provides consistent extensions thereto, and the existence of which can be tested, then we’ll sit up and take notice. Until this happens, we’re not obliged to treat vacuous assertions about mythological cartoon magic men with anything other than amusement or disdain.
Item two: As for the duplicitous and darkly amusing hilarity that is the appeal to “design”, I’ve already dealt with this mendacious edifice in detail here. If you think a cartoon magic man is needed to explain the observable universe and its contents, then be prepared to be woefully and wonderfully surprised, when several million peer reviewed scientific papers present to you, the evidence presented therein in exquisite detail, that testable natural processes are sufficient to explain the vast body of observational data obtained over the past 350 years. As a corollary, cartoon magic men from pre-scientific mythologies are superfluous to requirements and irrelevant.
Of course, I understand that the above does not rule out an entity that actually uses testable natural processes to achieve a given outcome, because humans do this on a regular basis - indeed, the entire basis of human science and technology is grounded in understanding and applying testable natural processes, so the existence of another entity employing the same methods isn’t a particularly remarkable idea. We still need evidence for that other entity of course, but such an entity is going to be somewhat less improbable than a cartoon magic man. Which brings me to:
Item three: The mistaken and frequently dishonest coupling of ethics to religion.
But of course, such an entity - one that deploys testable natural processes, even if with greater virtuosity than humans, isn’t emotionally satisfying to mythology fanboys. Many of whom want a cartoon magic man to exist, and one moreover that delivers misery, suffering, horrific deaths and and “afterlife” consisting of eternal torture to people they don’t like. In short, these are people who engage in a metaphysic in order to impose an ethic upon the universe, a practice that was treated with well-deserved scorn and derision by no less a person than Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote the following words on this topic:
Indeed, he expanded upon this in Beyond Good And Evil. From pages 12-13 of my own print copy, we have this in the preamble to the text proper:
On page 36, we find what Nietzsche himself wrote on the topic, viz:
Personally, I find the idea of an ethic being an intrinsic part of the fabric of the universe to be a laughable notion, not least because an ethic requires the existence of ethically aware beings to justify itse existence. A universe in which it was impossible for neutral atoms to exist, let alone any structures more complicated, for the first 370,000 years of its existence, and within which ethically aware beings did not appear until after 13.5 billion years had elapsed, would hardly be a suitable candidate for the existence of an intrinsic ethic. That’s before we cover the matter of the evolutionary and biological basis of [1] our capacity for ethical thought, and [2] the motivation to act thereupon, which renders the whole ludicrous edifice of “divine command theory” farcically null and void, and with it any idea that we need a cartoon magic man in order to function a ethical beings. Another refutation of this absurd notion is thoughtfully provided by this academic paper:
Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies by Gregory S. Paul, Journal of Religion & Society, 7:
which can be downloaded for free from here.
From that paper:
[quote][19] If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, proevolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developed democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards.
The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data – a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.
[20] The United States’ deep social problems are all the more disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third to two or more, than in any other developed democracy (UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism.
It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions?
There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the responsibility of the research community to address controversial issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies need to chart their future courses.[/quote]
I think that wraps up several canards in one go quite nicely.
How silly of you to say. No one is persecuting xtians on here.
Of course it’s another religion - Satanism. Because it’s based on Christian persecution .
Where did you get Satanism from?
Huh?
This makes no sense to me.
Riches, are you a theist?
He’s been here before. 
It’s a miracle …he has returned.
Yes. He comes around once in a blue moon and goes on a religious tangent. When he gets knocked back by all of the replies on here, he then disappears until we get one or more theists like Sherlock Holmes ranting and raving.
I know…I’ve asked him the question because I want him to supply an answer 
Well now how did @Richeydale67 suddenly pop up after a long absence, and just when @Sherlock-Holmes is given a mandatory time out to calm his ruffled feathers?
Circular reasoning fallacy by the way, try again.
Sure you can, and if theists of any stripes don’t like their cherished beliefs being subjected to critical scrutiny, then it’s pretty stupid to seek out atheists to express those beliefs to. Persecute indeed, how you Christians love to play the victim, but then look at who you worship.
Another circular reasoning fallacy.
Most definitely, he is pretending to be an agnostic, I have seen no evidence he even knows what agnostic means.
Hot on the heels of @Sherlock-Holmes’s departure, suspiciously so?
Ahhhh, ahhhhhh, my eyes my eyes, the grammar, the reasoning, ahhhhhhh!!! 
I am just going to allow Captain Cat to laugh helplessly at this nonsense. I have seen it all before but this is a new low in theist diversion, CC enjoys a good laugh.
Quote me please where I have said that?
However if you know where you could get a flag like that online CC is very interested.
And again, please give instances of my “persecution” of “christians”?
I think you are using what a politician once called “terminological inexactitudes” but then he had an intellectual depth and experience I don’t think you could equal.
Wrong. One of the reasons this site exists, is so that those of us who paid attention in class, can demolish the canards and outright lies peddled about us by mythology fanboys. Of which there are plenty. Examples being:
“You reject my god because you want to sin”
“It takes more faith to be an atheist than to believe in my god”
“Atheists believe the universe came from nothing” (and variations thereof, including the fatuous description of the Big Bang as an “explosion”)
“Atheists believe life arose by random chance for no reason”
“Atheists can’t be moral because they don’t believe in my god”
These, and several other simila canards, have been destroyed here and elsewhere repeatedly.
Indeed, it’s a measure of how worthless mythology fanboyism is, that its proponents have to peddle such lies, and repeatedly peddle them even after they’ve been comprehensively carpet bombed all the way back to the primaeval slime.
Crap. Read my post above, covering the rigorous definition of atheism. Here’s a clue for you - NOT treating unsupported mythological assertions uncritically as fact, is the very antithesis of a “belief system”.
Bullshit.
First of all, many of the mythology fanboys who gatecrash this and other atheist forums, demonstrate that they are stupid, not least by regurgitating the canards I listed above. Not to mention their peddling of fatuous strawman caricatures of scientific postulates, such as the one I mentioned above, referring to the Big Bang as an “explosion”.
Second, pointing out the absurdities in their output isn’t “persecution”, it’s the application of the proper rules of discourse to their assertions. Do learn the elementary concepts at work here.
Indeed, in order to deal with mythology fanboy canards about the origin of life, and alleged atheist views thereof, I’ve just posted an extensive dissertation on the actual science involved, including references to 82 peer reviewed scientific papers. When you can match that level of diligence, you’ll be in a position to talk.
I will give you a hint ‘Richeydale67’ The typical belief system around this place is 'Naturalism, Skepticism, Humanism, some Scientism, I personally like Existentialism. There are of course theists among us. I probably did not mention everyone’s core belief system. We have seen a couple of anarchists pass by. Some of us are more liberal and others more conservative in our beliefs. I know I am influenced by Zen but I hold nothing true in the Zen tradition outside of individual insights (I can say the same for any religion). I believe people can grow and change. I like stoicism I think. I’ve not read enough about it. I am familiar with empiricism and tend to think it is a fine way of making sense out of the world. NONE of this has anything to do with Atheim. Atheism is the RESULT of inquiry into the nature of the universe and everything using some method of inquiry. (Not just ‘faith’ for there is nothing one could not believe based on faith.) The rejection of god claims is the result of the search and not the CAUSE of anything. Nothing is rejected as a presupposition for atheism. Everything you say will be critically evaluated according to each persons own individual belief system. After that evaluation the person will reassert their atheism by stating they do not believe your claim. Or, they will tell you that they have been convinced by your evidence. So what have you got? I would love to hear it.
I’ve just learnt not to trust my imagination or confuse it with reality.
