Welcome to Atheist Republic susanh, I hope you have a good time in here.
I am an atheist and I consider myself one because I am not convinced a god or gods exist. Please note I am not stating that a god does not exist, only that I have not been convinced. Compared to the standards of evidence in a court of law, the evidence/proof of a god or jesus are incredibly flimsy. That is all I am asking, provide valid evidence/proof.
I wish to address your position that atheism is insane.
Would you buy a house without having a lawyer perform a deed search? Would you buy a new car without checking out some basic facts, such as passenger capacity, fuel mileage, and so on?
In the examples I described above, one verifies certain facts before making a commitment. And that also applies to the god question. I do not blindly accept, I require some form of evidence or verification.
So if you label anyone who checks things out first before committing, from buying a house or car as insane, I regrettably disagree with your labeling of atheism.
Iāve mentioned before that went to a catholic boys school. As a teen, I was very curious and wanted to read the bible. We were actively discouraged from reading the bible, āLest you become confusedā (Hand on heart, I swear thatās
true) So naturally, I read the whole thing. I immediately understood why they didnāt want us to read it. Itās full of contradictions and some of it is just plain loopy. āPretty much all of of the Torah, and in he gospels Revelations especially.
Saul and his hallucinations are a special case. Several books are claimed to be forgeries by many reputable scholars.
Further, without Saul the very Jewish sect which came to be called christianity would probably not exist. Saul went against Jesusā claim that he had not come to change the law. Perhaps the most important change was abolishing the ritual commandments ,such as circumcision and the dietary laws. That meant gentiles could join. A large proportion of early members were from marginalised groups, especially women and slaves.
Of course the power of the new church became significant after it was made the state religion by the emperor Theodosius in the fourth century. With the approval and encouragement of the emperor, these holy people began murdering anyone who disagreed with them. They also burned any books which disagreed with their
recently established canonā¦ Those practices continued with gay abandon for over 1000 years.
I happen to agree with Susanhās (heretical for a catholic) idea that the historicity of Jesus is irrelevant. I think the same can be said for the founders of virtually all ancient religions. The reason is that religious belief is based on faith, not facts, reason or science.
Justas well, over the last year or so, my positions has ben slowly changing from an historical one to that of the mythicist . IE from: A wandering rabbi called something like Yeshua bar Yusuf may have existed in first century Judea.
To; itās beginning to look to me as if Jesu was not an historical figure. That Christianity is a synthesis of Judaism and the Greek mystery religions***
Thatās a known common logical fallacy, called argumentum ad ignorantiam. This fallacy is most often used to reverse the burden of proof, as you have done here.
Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, and nothing more.
Firstly, a terminated foetus is not a baby, itās a very important distinction that those who wish to deny women autonomy over their own bodies deliberately and dishonestly ignore, in my experience.
The god of the bible is depicted as committing, and encouraging elentless and indiscriminate murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, it even tortured a new born baby to death over 7 days, just because it was conceived in an adulterous relationship. When a foetus or blastocyst is terminated it cannot suffer its termination. Whilst all morality is subjective, I think the best morality would try and avoid, and as far as possible prevent, all unnecessary suffering.
Satanists claim there is no Satan? That seems like an absurd claim, not that it matters. Atheism is not Satanism.
Agnosticism is the belief that nothing is known, or can be known about the nature or existence of god.
Sorry to be noodge, but āagnosticā simply means āwithout knowledgeā. Although it tends to be used to describe a religious position, the word is not restricted to religion.
One can be agnostic about anything. I know a bit about a few things. I know nothing (am agnostic) about thousands of other things. As are all human beings. As far as Iām aware the age of the polymath ended well before the end of the nineteenth century.
While Iām being pedantic, theists either donāt know or donāt want to know that that they are only atheist about one less god than atheists.
Indeed, I was using it in the context of the current discussion, but it can apply to any concept that is unfalsifiable.
A lot of theists tend to defend deism on here for some reason, rather than theism. It seems many theists think that being unfalsifiable someone lends credence to a claim.
@Sheldon I previously (and erroneously) thought that Deism is just another form of theism, that is āsupposedā to be an improvement of theism. After much investigation, I have come to the conclusion that Deism is just as bad as theism. Deismā¦theismā¦religionā¦no thank youā¦Iāll pass.
Both theism and deism is nonsense. The practitioner begins with a position, then constructs arguments to support that position.
A rational mind examines all of the evidence, and then constructs a proposition built on the facts. All true scientists understand that the results may be awkward, even contrary to their intended goal.
While the so-called pro-lifers condemn abortions, we hear absolutely nothing about natural miscarriages, although the end result is the same - the blastocyst or the foetus dies. Even if the foetus is diagnosed with severe defects or serious diseases, it MUST be born, because reasons. Nooo, no matter what the outcome (spontaneous miscarriage or baby that is unfit to live) that is āthe will of Godā, āit was fateā, āit was not meant to beā or similar shit.
That aside, time for some random musings. I just came across a quote from the novel[1] I just started reading, that made me think:
That morning, the ocean and the sky were so close to me that I could almost hear the whispers from forefathers, gods and spirits. For there is a soul in all things, and every soul has a voice. Christians do not understand this, they believe everything is created by an almighty god-king and that everything is for the benefit of humans. [ā¦] āThe animals were placed on earth to feed the humans,ā theyād say. āThatās what they are for.ā
(my translation)
This makes a lot of sense to me, and it made me realize that this is exactly the thinking of the Abrahamitic monotheistic religions, and how they appear from the outside. Being monotheistic, Abrahamitic religions have very little acceptance and tolerance of other world views (since only their god and his scriptures matter) - there is one and only one way. On the other hand, polytheistic religions would more easily accept other gods and ways of conducting life, and history shows that they have indeed assimilated other foreign gods into their pantheon; after all, itās just yet another god with some other set of rules. Could this explain some of the āhell-bentnessā of followers of the Abrahamitic religions?
Now, discuss.
[1] Jomsviking, the first in a series of historical novels set to the last decades of the Viking age.
You are going to get the best results when you can stick to one topic at a time. Your blathering ramble of nonsense creates issues when one attempts to reply logically and accurately. Why not start your own thread on 1. Creationism. 2. A womanās right to her own body. 3. The Existence of the Holy Spirit. 4. Whatās actually in the Satanic Bible and which one are you referencing? 5. Where did God come from? 6.
Without adding a damn thing to the end of this statement, it is the most intelligent thing you have uttered in the entire post. āHOW DO WE KNOW?ā Go back to every single assertion you have made so far and simply ask that question.
Was the Old Testament the Mean God? There is no Hellfire or Brimstone in the Old Testament. The Jews do not believe in Hell. Hell, "Eternal Punishment for the crime of simply not believing the same way as a Christian, is a Christian invention. Hell is the invention of the Christians. Eternal damnation is the invention of the Christians. They no longer need to punish people on earth because their God does it āAfter They Die.ā Christianity just took Godās punishments, relocated them, and made them more extreme. You think this is āKINDER?ā Really?
Faith is not, nor has it ever been a path to truth. Saved from what? The Christian invention of Hell? They invent the disease and then they invent the cure? Utter and complete silliness. There is absolutely nothing that I can not hold as truth based on faith. I can have faith in UFOs, faith in any god on the planet, faith in the prophecies of Nostradamus, and regardless of the amount of faith I have, faith does nothing to the truth of the claim. āFAITHā is as useless as a fart in the wind.
EVERYONE IS AGNOSTIC: It makes sense because it has nothing to do with what you believe. Agnosticism is about knowledge. āWhat can be known.ā The response to this is āNothing.ā We have no good evidence for the existence of god or gods. We have millions of failed gods. There is no good reason to believe in a god. You can count yourself among the Agnostic-theists. You believe in your god without good reasons to do so. Agnosticism is about what you know, what you can assert with evidence. Theism and Atheism are about what you believe to be true. Belief is often held without knowledge. Atheism is simply a lack of belief. Non-belief.
Hopefully at this point you can see how confounded your post is. Your thinking process is random, disorganized, and extremely murky. You spout out nonsense as if you understand it and yet you have not looked deeply into any of it. You donāt even know what an agnostic is.
My very best advise to you, and the way you can get the best out of a forum like this, is to simply choose one topic that you wish to look deeply into. Something that you really want to explore. Start your own thread and then do your best to stay on topic without all this added bullshit and mind hopping that you seem to like doing.
Very true, and the scientific method also requires those results remain tentative, and open to revision in the light of new evidence. One of scienceās greatest strengths is its insistence that no idea, no matter how well established ever be ring-fenced from critical scrutiny. Theists and religion hold the opposite position, that absolute truth was communicated thousands of years ago, and can never be challenged or refuted.
So while science has expanded human knowledge exponentially in just a few centuries, eradicating diseases and putting humans on the moon, and continues unabated to discover invent and explain, religion clings stubbornly to erroneous creation myths that estimate the universeās age at a few thousand years, roughly when humans were domesticating wild dogs. Or the erroneously idiotic notion that humans and all other living things were created in an instant in their current form.
The alternative is no less intellectually egregious, with an astonishing display of mental cartwheels and cognitive dissonance, as one after another desperate rationlslisations are clutched at in order to preserve archaic superstition, just as the objective evidence science tentatively uncovers, shows those same ancient texts bear all the hallmarks of primitive human invention.
Without theism. atheism is non existent and meaningless. IMO atheism is a creation rooted from theism. It is a response and a rebuttal to theism. On the other hand theism has proven itself to be insane at times by using their deity and religious beliefs to persecute and kill innocent people to say the least.
If you want to get rid of atheism, get rid of theism first. Atheism needs theism to exist. Without it it is dead. What a beautiful world that would be.
Not all Catholics will agree with you. Each one will quote specific quotes while avoiding other quotes to make their point seem as truth.
The doctrine of salvation through faith and works is controversial among Christian churches. Many protestants believe that salvation is from faith alone***
Below is brief summary of the protestant and Catholic opinions. I cite them both only to show that Christianity is not yet an homogeneous collection of believers.
*** James 2 14:26 " What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, āDepart in peace, be warmed and filled,ā but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is deadā¦ "
*** Paul said that ,as did later theologians such as Augustine and Lutherā¦
āGodās Word says that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus and not by our own efforts or works (Ephesians 2:8-9)ā
Of course Catholics have a different interpretation:
Paul is writing to people who said that faith in Jesus alone does not save a person, but one has to also obey Godās law in order to be justified (Gal 3:3, 5:4). To counter the false idea that what we do in keeping the law must be added to faith in what Christ did for us. Paul often emphasizes in his letters (esp. Galatians, Romans, Colossians) that we are saved by grace through faith alone. James is writing to people who felt that believing in Jesus saved a person, but that having faith did not mean that a person necessarily would keep Godās commandments out of love for God (James 2:14, 17). To show that faith is not really faith unless it leads a person to thank God for salvation in a life of glad and willing obedience to Godās holy will. James emphasized that a faith which did not show that it was living faith was really not faith at all.[76]
Sola fide - Wikipedia).&text=Paul%20often%20emphasizes%20in%20his,by%20grace%20through%20faith%20alone.
That is pretty much Catholic Dogma. āWorksā are an essential part of the Catholic religion. You might qualify as some sort of Catholic oriented sect without āworks;ā but works are pretty much sewn into the fabric of Catholicism.
Ah this argument brings me back to freshman year. I asked my theology teacher why the Bible was āhistorically accurateā. He told me itās because there are a lot of copies with similar stories dating over 2000 years. Well, if we are determining historical accuracy off of popularity, then I could claim that the Harry Potter series is real and 2000 years later and consider it proof.
Wouldnāt be surprised if some one did, and it wonā take 2000 years. Thereās already been the case of an idiot Catholic cleric banning Harry Potter books at his school. Because the spells are real.
In a recent post I opined that Theologians are not real philosophers because their discipline is presuppositional. Your post has demonstrated that quite nicely.
Having said that, a smart theologian trained in apologetics can be mentally very nimble.
I agree about teaching logic to kids. Should be age appropriate from their first year at school. By the time they finish high school at least some should be accomplished critical thinkers. IMO that would change society. Right now, itās my opinion that very few people are either smart enough or interested enough to regularly engage in critical thought. Certainly the case with most true believers***
PS As a teen, I formed an active dislike of all team sports, although I played everything on offer. I played and enjoyed one on one sports. Have never had any interest in watching most sports as a spectator.
People believing in alternative medicine, antivaxers, conspirational theorists, alt-righters and new-agers of all sorts all believe that they engage in critical thought, and it seems they believe that the ācriticalā part of critical thought being opposed to something and imply disbelieving (and even opposing) public information, especially health related information, engaging in conspirational thinking, and doing group think on the big issues while at the same time claiming to think individually (think the āYes, we are all individuals!ā scene in Life of Brian).
I used to be a Jehovahās Witness a long time ago. Faith will make you believe really fucked up things. It was not an easy process for me to completely give up belief in a big man in the sky or in those idiots who call themselves the governing body.
Even when I knew 100% there wasnāt a God because all rational thought was against it, some part of that belief still lingered anyway.