Indeed, and since the word convert is defined as “change one’s religious faith or other belief”, it is clear when theist say this, they are implying atheism is itself a belief, but it is not of course.
That’s because it is impossible to become a theist, unless you were an atheist, the statement makes no sense, so again I suspect theists and apologists are using this meaningless claim to imply something. Why not speak plainly I wonder, why use such vapid rhetoric?
Dealing with substantive issues requires diligence and effort. Let’s see how much of both you deploy here, shall we?
And already the absence of even elementary levels of discoursive rigour are showing. You mean “a believer in intelligent design”. You’ll shortly be introduced to multiple reasons why those of us who paid attention in class, toss “intelligent design” into the bin. But more immediate matters demand attention.
And it’s this tiresome trope yet again.
Look, mythology fanboys gatecrashing this site to proclaim that they “used to be” atheists, only for this trope to be exposed as a sham on every occasion, are almost as common as flies around a turd here. No one here is fooled by this assertion of yours, which will almost certainly be falsified the moment that:
[1] You demonstrate that you know nothing of substance sbout atheism or atheists, in particular what atheism actually IS;
[2] You begin regurgitating the same tired old mythology fanboy canards and outright lies on the subject we’ve seen so often here.
Those of us who paid attention in class, are rubbing our hands at the prospect of shredding amother chew toy. You have been warned. I suspect your “deep dives” consisted of watching a couple of feculent YouTube apologetics videos, and I suspect this prediction will soon be validated.
Here’s a clue for you: I’ve been reviewing scientific papers on relevant topics for 15 years, and as a corollary of that labour, am in an excellent position to know when you’re talking out of your arse.
Oh this is going to be good … I shall enjoy this, and you’ll discover why shortly.
And here is the first part where you fail dismally. Determining this matter isn’t a contest of apologetics (oh, how many mythology fanboys think apologetics counts for more than data), but a matter of examining the FACTS.
One of the most embarrassing and inconvenient facts you have to face, is that “intelligent design” is a sham and a fraud, concocted by lying American corporate creationists (specifically, the professional liars for doctrine working for the Duplicity Institute), in a failed efgort to smuggle Christiam mythological nonsense into American science classes, in violation of the Establishment Clause.
This fraud was exposed at the Dover Trial, where, for example, the infamous Wedge Strategy document compiled by the Duplicity Institute was made public. The authors thereof explicitly stated that their aim was to replace science with Christian mythology. Then we have the hilarity involved in the hasty attempt to rewrite creationist textbooks in a failed attempt to hide the creationist origins of “intelligent design”. This gave us that amusing literary transitional fossil known as “cdesign proponentsists”, which led to much chuckling among the degenders of genuine science when it was revealed in open court.
Then of course, there was the wholesale destruction of Behe’s canards in the witness box under cross examination. In case you wish to dispute this, the full transcripts of the Dover Trial are available in the public domain here.
For example, Behe arrogantly asserted under oath, that the blood clotting cascade purportedly presented such insuperable problems for evolutionary biology, that evolutionary biologists would never find an answer thereto. Im ediately after he uttered this hubristic assertion, the cross examining counsel presented as exhibits to the court, fifty-eight peer reviewed scientific papers and nine university textbooks, documenting the answer that Behe asserted would never be found.
Oh, and ask for his canards about “irreducible complexity”, these were known to be canards before Behe was even born, courtesy of the contents of a 1918 scientific paper by the evolutionary biologist Hermann Joseph Muller, covered in more detail in this excellent exposition on the subject. Oh, and yes, that 1918 scientific paper is a part of my extensive collection.
Indeed, during the Dover Trial, the creationists were found to have engaged routinely in bare faced lying about the issues, and were also declared in Judge Jones’ trial summation to have perjured themselves under oath. This is not looking good for your “beliefs”, is it?
But even if we ignore the seething level of mendacity that is endemic to the whole “intelligent design” enterprise, and concentrate instead upon what science actually postulates on relevant matters, what do we find? We find that the essential view of science is that the biosphere and its contents, is the product of testable natural processes, involving well-defined entities and interactions, and an entire warehouse full of peer reviewed scientific papers document the evidence for this.
By contrast, there is ZERO evidence for “Magic Man did it”.
Indeed, I’m aware of successful direct experimental tests of evolution, that can be performed in a high school laboratory. Such as Diane Dodd’s generation of an incipient speciation event in Drosophila pseudoobscura, Mavárez et al’s laboratory replication of a speciation event in Heliconius butterflies, and Ole Seehausen’s direct experimental test of sexual selection in Cichlid fishes.
The last of these three examples, incidentally, is one that YOU YOURSELF can conduct in your own home, if you exert the effort required to maintain two fish tanks containing some Lake Victoria Cichlid fishes, specifically members of the Pundamilla nyererei species complex. Yes, that’s right, you can test an evolutionary postulate experimentally in your oen home if you exercise the effort.
So, already, your assertions are found seriously wanting.
Time to move on …
My above exposition suggests that this assertion of yours is as false as every other creationist assertion.
I suspect detailed examination of your behaviour may reveal something entirely different.
You didn’t “convert from atheism”, because atheism isn’t a “religion”. You’re ticking all the usual mythology fanboy boxes here in such a short space of time.
Since you obviously require the education in question, atheism, in its rigorous formulation, consists of nothing more than suspicion of unsupported mythology fanboy assertions . That is IT.
If you want to trot out the usual mythology fanboy lies about atheism being “denial” of your merely asserted cartoon magic man, you’ll find I’ve devoted plenty of column inches here to destroying this class of canard as well, amd indeed, I am on public record here as expounding ideas on the subject that mythology fanboys are incapable of even fantasising about.
So you’re going to ignore the evidence I presented in detail? How typically creationist of you.
Already dealt with this above. Your pathetic recourse to the “No True Scotsman” fallacy is duly noted.
That’s because FACTS don’t support “intelligent design”.
But once again, FACTS override rhetoric. Do learn this lesson sometime.
I would prefer not to be called a Christian as I am not one. I don’t have a problem with Christians quite the opposite I don’t want to be an ambassador and have people judge Christians based on me. I believe in an Outside Intelligent Agent. A creature, a being, an entity … whatever it is we commonly call that thing with its properties as God or a God. That OIA has to be outside of the universe and its properties, laws, limitations and so is an entity that kinda scares me at times because of how powerful it must be.
Now Atheism is a very powerful belief system or foundation that you build the rest of your belief system on. Thats why I took the question of whether or not there was an OIA very seriously. Our belief systems are the most important thing we have. We trust them to keep us safe. To give us the best chance of success. To insure that we are right about as many things as possible and they way in which we filter out and filter in information. How we make sense of things. The way in which the Universe came into existence and how we came into exisstence is very important. How you look at these things can help you understand or be more curious for example. Can help you learn things faster.
There are many atheists that believe and treat atheism as a religion. In fact several decades ago a prominent atheist and founder of the woman’s lib movement filed and took her case to the Supreme Court to make sure that atheism was recognized as a religion. There are atheist churches, atheist songs, there is the atheist bible (origin of the species). Hell one of my favorite bands is an atheist band and kicks a$$$. Also
Wow relax man. It’s not that serious. First off I’m not here to crash the party or whatever. I really don’t care what you guys believe. But I am curious why the knee jerk reaction to think that opposing side are all liars? What’s that about? Anyways I’ll get to stuff a bit later when I get a chance but actually the thing I was most interested in when coming here was your opinions and take on some developments. I’ll post that separately as I want to hear from as many atheists as possible.
Sigh….no. No, it’s not. You obviously don’t know what you are talking about.
Many?
What quantity is that?
Define your usage of the word religion.
Please specify those treatment methods.
@scrappykoala, in your initial outing here on these boards, you’ve made a number of assertions. You will be challenged. You will be asked to provide details, definitions, and data. Requesting that a poster, “relax man” will not protect you from the scrutiny of others.
I wonder if any of this “science” will be shared at any point? Though a larger curiosity is why atheism rises among scientists, and rises even more sharply among elite bodies of scientists, if as you imply, there is scientific evidence for any deity? You surely must see how incongruous your claim is, alongside the fact that 93 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most elite scientific organizations in the United States, do not believe in God.?
Either you better understand science than they, an unlikely scenario, or you are making a subjective claim, and given you haven’t evidenced it at all, and you;re not the first to dangle this caim, only for it to turn out to be a subjective belief, and not scientific evidence at all, I am leaning towards the latter, but I’ll try and keep an open mind.
Done, now witch deity do you imagine to be real, and why?
Well I can’t speak for others, but since I am an atheist I don’t assign properties to things I don’t believe exist. perhaps you could accurately define this deity, and then objectively evidence that as well?
Well you have demonstrated such an entity is possible yet, let alone that it exists and thus how scary you perceive the idea is largely moot.
Nuh uh, wrong. Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, feel free to Google the primary dictionary definition.
No, and no, so maybe stop speaking for others?
I think you mean ensure, unless you are talking about protect against loss, damage, or injury?
beyond the big bang we can say and understand very little, so unless you’re claiming the BB theory evidences a deity I don’t see your point, and we like all living things evolved slowly overt time, no deity or creator of any kind is evidenced in, or required by, the theory of evolution.
I seriously doubt this, it has zero relevance to your claim, and I don’t do this, so are you going at any point to start evidencing your claim?
I could care less, look it up in any dictionary, and atheist and atheism are two different things. again this has no relevance to, nor does it evidence your claim.
anyway off to the pub since you have an empty bag thus far…
That’s exactly how I feel. It’s a tactic and it’s a lie.
I don’t believe you. You’re using Christian Apologist arguments. So I conclude that you are one until you can prove otherwise.
In other words “I’m not a Christian, but I am a Christian”.
I don’t care what you believe in. What I do care about is that you’re presenting this belief to a group of Atheists who do not believe you. If you are to sell and distribute, then you need to provide admissible evidence for these claims that you are parroting.
I don’t believe this claim. Provide objective evidence.
Wrong again. Atheism is not a belief system. I highly doubt you ever were one.
This has nothing to do with Atheism. Atheists don’t believe in the existence of deities. Christians rely on a god belief to make them feel safe at night.
Irrelevant bullshit.
Says you. I’ve never met an Atheist who did. Most wouldn’t. Now you’re just making things up to push a postulate.
That doesn’t make it one. The reason behind that was to protect Atheist rights as stated in the Constitution itself. The government doesn’t actually recognize Atheism being a religion. If it did, Atheist Foundations wouldn’t be taxed. The IRS does not recognize Atheism as a religion.
Under current IRS policy, churches automatically qualify for 501(c)(3) status, though nonreligious 501(c)(3)s must go through an extensive application process to get the same tax benefits. In addition, religious organizations do not have to fill out annual Form 990 returns reports, which detail charities’ finances so the IRS or nonprofit watchdogs can identify possible fiscal wrongdoing and law-breaking.
And? It doesn’t make Atheism a religion.
A science book is not an Atheist bible. There isn’t one.
Irrelevant to the debate.
You could have fooled me.
If you had exercised some diligence in the matter of stating exactly what your status is with respect to various ideas, none of us would have needed to guess, would we?
Once again, learn the basic lesson that diligent effort is requiired in order to conduct discourse properly.
You obviously haven’t encountered the ones that turn up here. Whose obnoxiously vocal mendacity is obvious to anyone with a minimum of ten functioning neurons.
For which, as I have already stated, we have ZERO evidence. As opposed to the evidence for testable natural processes, documented in several million peer reviewed scientific papers, and which have been demonstrated to be SUFFICIENT to explain the vast body of observational data obtained over the past centuries.
Again, ZERO evidence exists for such an entity. Your inability to understand testable natural processes and their operation, does not validate fantasies about magic tinkerers.
Mere blind assertion. If a “designer” genuinely exists, there is no reason for said entity to use anything other than testable natural processes. Which have already been demonstrated to be sufficient for the purpose. Drop the infantile magical thinking.
Plus, what doesx “outside the universe” even mean? Apparently you’re blissfully unaware that you’ve opened up not just a can of cosmological physics worms with this assertion, but an entire cannery thereof. If the term “universe” is used as a shorthand for “all that exists”, then there is no “outside” BY DEFINITION.
If on the other hand, you want to ride on the coat yails of multiverse ideas from cosmological physics to prop up your apologetics, you have a ferocious level of labour awaiting you if you want to succeed at this.
Incidentally, choosing this route will see you being regarded as a heretic among the ID crowd, who rail against multiverse cosmology vehemently if the subject arises. Not least, because once again, ID is a product of fundamentalist Christian creationism, the cloaking of Christian mythology in a stolen lab coat, and I’ve already cited the Dover Trial as a venue where this was exposed. Though once again, evidence is revealed to be a fatal weak point in “design” apologetics.
All you’re doing here, is parading your gullibility before a global public audience. Was that your intent upon coming here?
Complete and utter poppycock.
NOT treating unsupported mythological assertions uncritically as fact, is the very ANTITHESIS of a “belief system”. Do learn the elementary concepts applicable here.
“I don’t treat your assertions uncritically as fact” isn’t “belief”.
Plus, atheism is a minor part of my understanding of the universe and its contents. A far greater contributor thereto has been the excellent scientific education I enjoyed, which has introduced me to concepts, entities and interactions thst most mythology fanboys don’t even know exist.
Wrong, you took the idea of a magic tinkerer seriously because you don’t understand even elementary scientific concepts.
Wrong.The most important thing we have, are ideas that can be rigorously tested to ensure their correctness. Without these, you are wallowing in epistemological quicksand.
You can entertain whatever fantasies you choose, but if REALITY says that your fantasies are wrong, it’s tough - those fantasies belong in the bin.
Just because pre-scientific humans concocted fantastic mythologies in the past, doesn’t mean for one moment that any of those mythologies, or the assertions contained therein, are correct. Indeed, one of the benefits of that scientific edication I enjoyed, was the ability to determine for myself how many of the assertions in question were not merely wrong, but fatuous and absurd.
We all saw how well that worked, or rather didn’t, during the Black Death.
Between 1348 and 1351, the Black Death ravaged comtinental Europe. Fully 25 million Europeans suffered an unpleasant death from the disease during this period. During this period, believers in a magic man from a particular Middle Eastern mythology kept begging said magic man to bring an end to the Black Death. NONE of their oleas resulted in any action.
Bear in mind that you can’t blame “atheists” for this one, because thanks to murderous enforcement of conformity to doctrine by the requisite mythology fanboys, most Europeans at the time, especially among the peasantry and indentured serfs, didn’t know that such a concept as atheism even existed. Belief in the magic man of a particular Middle Eastern mythology was effectively the only game in town.
As a corollary, 25 million devout believers in said magic man were snuffed out by a disease, that said magic man, if it existed, did nothing to stop.
Quite simply, treating unsupported assertions uncritically as fact, is not only foolish in the extreme, and a rampant abnegation of reason, but it’s dangerous.
Just recently we’ve had our own miniature version of the Black Death teach those ofvus who listen to reality the same lesson, but unfortunately we have a significant number of swivel-eyed loons entertaining various cretinous fantasies, some of whom paid the price for doing so. See for example Bob Enyart, former AM radio propagandist for fundamentalist Christianity, anti-vax loon and pedlar of lethal medical misinformation, who ended up dying from the disease he sneered at. He isn’t an isolated case.
Already covered why “belief” is worthless here above.
Apparently this has had no measurable effect upon you.
Poppycock. For the reasons I’ve already provided.
Oh, it’s this duplicitous apologetic faeces again. Wrong. The reason that the petition in question was presented, was to put in place legal protections against discrimination .
Do stop lying.
Poppycock. A couple of parody versions might exist, but that’s all they are.
Ahem, ANY song that doesn’t feature a religious deity as its conceptual centrepiece is an “atheist song” BY DEFINITION. That encompasses about 90% or more of the entire world’s lyric musical output.
And here my response is going to be forceful. Your assertion is BULLSHIT.
On the Origin of Species isn’t an “atheist bible” (this favourite trope of mythology fanboys being both an oxymoron AND moronic), it’s the first detailed scientific account of processes shaping the biosphere. One whose central concepts remain valid, even after 160+ years of continuous scientific advancement since the publication thereof, though additional mechanisms have subsequently been elucidated that were beyond Darwin’s remit.
This tiresome bullshit about his work being an “atheist bible” needs to die, because it’s a pathetic snd infantile creationist lie. Those of us who actually bothered to study evolutionary biology, regard his work simply as an important historical foundation upon which a gigantic body of subsequent knowledge, most of which Darwin would have marvelled at, was built. Indeed, when dealing with creationist lies snd bullshit, m9y first port of call isn’t Darwin, unless the lies in question relate specifically to his writings. Instead, my first port of call is relevant modern peer reviewed scientific papers documenting appropriate research.
Indeed, the three examples of successful direct experimental tests of evolution that can be performed in a high school laboratory, that I informed you about in my previous post, date back no earlier than 1989, and I suspect more recent speciation experiments awsit me in the post-2020 literature when I have time to search it properly
Indeed, if you bother exerting even the most elementary level of diligence with respect to my posts here, you will find I’ve devoted a LOT of column inches to exoositions of moder peer reviewed scientific papers, in direct response to creationist lies.
You are perfoming dismally here.
.
Three lies in three sentences.
Oh and 4) you’re trolling champ, and poorly at that.
False equivalence fallacy, pointing out mendacity in a particular type of argument, need not be, and is not here, a “knee jerk” reaction, again the trolltacular nature of your irrational lie speaks for itself. Still not one shred of evidence for any deity, quelle surprise.
Nothing you’ve posted thus far supports this mendacious claim.
Well why wouldn’t you focus on unevidenced claims, and mendacious trolling, and leave the “proving god” thing until later, you are funny fair play, but sadly too many other theist trolls have beat you to it.
Of course, trolls like to spread their nets wide, you’re not fooling anyone, well maybe yourself of course, but that’s for you to ponder. Oh look, I left almost three hours ago, and you have failed to offer anything but trolling, I shan’t even feign surprise.
Liar liar pants on fire seems apropos, and might save a lot of bandwidth here, this one is trolling, or I am a Jedi master.
Thats fine challenge away but you are not the high court of how I express myself. I’m not going to change who I am or go nuts worrying about every word because someone wants to be the English and grammar police. That sounds rude and harsh but isn’t meant to be. I’m just not that concerned about creating a perfect post. The ideas I make are good enough on their own weight without the need for me trying to achieve perfection. What quantity … enough that they can fill churches. I see the four apostles of atheism as absolutely religious. They seem like evangelists to me.
Oh yeah I actually took down a quote from one of the four apostles of atheism Sam Harris:
Like science, every religion makes claims about the way the world is.
there are two “magisteria” given for human contemplation, and, as luck would have it, they do not overlap
There is a conflict between science and religion, and it is zero-sum. Surely it is time that scientists and other intellectuals stopped disguising this fact
Those things said in critism of Francis collins because he is a christian and believes that science and religion can coexhist. And so Harris said: “Collins’s scientific reputation is immaculate. And yet his reconciliation of reason and faith would be stunning for its stupidity even if Noah’s Ark had been discovered on the slopes of Mount Ararat, intact and bursting with fossils. Sounds like dogmatic faith to me.
So it seems to me he is saying that even if there is serious proof of christianity … christian scientists need to shut up. He treats his belief in atheism as a superior belief that can and should replace religions making it a freaking religion hahaha.
If you’ve come here to ignore facts on what Atheism is and push your opinion on your belief that Atheism is a religion, then you’ve come to the wrong place.
Actually champ @CyberLN has more absolute powers than any high court, in order to curtail the latitude you are allowed to express anything on these forums.
That is always the way with an utterly closed mind.
I am sure we can all agree, there are few things more impressive than self congratulatory posts.
I see mendacious bullshit.
Nope, it is because he champions unevidenced superstition. though I notice few creationists recognise his scientific credentials, and his life work, unlike atheists, who always do. You see the difference is objective evidence, and a method designed to remove subjective bias, as opposed to religions which champion the selective bias of faith.
Tell that to creationists.
I doubt it, more likely you’re trolling again.
That’s a lie, atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities. Do you imagine you are the first troll to peddle this lie on here?
It’s apparent that you did not understand the words I used in the post to which you replied with this.
Oh, and before quote mining Sam Harris, try learning in detail what his views actually are. A proper, rigorous overview is provided here.
For that matter, try reading Harris’ words in full, and with proper context in place. Which is easy to do: he makes that full exposition available in the public domain here.
Thanks for the link C. I needed something to read.
Exactly. You proved my point in light of the fact the universe is fine-tuned and the fine-tuning was not done by humans.
MrDawn:
According to the American courts, it is Religion. And I’m not just talking about Torcaso v. Watkins. As I told an Atheist Religionist at another website, there are other lawsuits that were filed by Atheists who claimed their religious rights were being violated. One such person, James Kaufman, was serving time in prison and wanted to start an atheist group. After hiis request was denied he filed a lawsuit claiming his religious rights were being denied. He lost the case in the lower court and appealed the decision. Below is part of the court transcript from the Appeals Court.
United States Court of Appeals,Seventh Circuit.
James J. KAUFMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gary R. McCAUGHTRY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 04-1914.
Decided: August 19, 2005
Without venturing too far into the realm of the philosophical, we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of “ultimate concern” that for her occupy a “place parallel to that filled by ․ God in traditionally religious persons,” those beliefs represent her religion. Fleischfresser v. Dirs. of Sch. Dist. 200, 15 F.3d 680, 688 n. 5 (7th Cir.1994) (internal citation and quotation omitted); see also Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 340, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970); United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 184-88, 85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733 (1965). We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. See Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir.2003) (“If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion.”). Kaufman claims that his atheist beliefs play a central role in his life, and the defendants do not dispute that his beliefs are deeply and sincerely held.
The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a “religion” for purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions, most recently in McCreary County, Ky. v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 162 L.Ed.2d 729 (2005). The Establishment Clause itself says only that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls “nonreligion.” In McCreary County, it described the touchstone of Establishment Clause analysis as “the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.” Id. at *10 (internal quotations omitted). As the Court put it in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985):
Fine Tuning: to make very small To make small changes to something to make it work as well as possible.
Things in the universe do not work “AS WELL AS POSSIBLE.” Anyone designing a fine-tuned universe would have designed it without disease, predators, or beings as illogical as us. The planet would have been created as a hospitable environment for life and not a place of hurricanes, floods, tidal waves, lightning from the sky, tornadoes, and plagues. Whatever you call this place, you ‘cannot’ call it ‘Fine Tuned.’ Certainly not fine-tuned for life as we know it.
You can not call the universe ‘Fine-tuned.’ If we step foot off this planet we die. It’s quite simple. If the lack of oxygen does not kill us, the solar radiation and temperature variations will. The idea of calling this rock we live on ‘fine-tuned’ is ludicrous.
