My thoughts? My thought is that you certainly do enjoy religion bashing. Seriously, we don't need another religion bashing thread every week. That said, here goes.
Creepoc Infinite wrote:So, to everyone, religious and otherwise.
What are your thoughts on atheism, and why?
I think it's a group of well meaning people who seek an alternative solution to the universe to God. Some are assholes toward religious types, some are not.
My reasoning behind knowing Christians and likely all other religions are wrong is this:
The reasons why we cannot prove or disprove the existence of a god is because of this:
God is only a word. If you wrote on a piece of paper the word "GOD" other people would look at it and see different things, interpret the word as meaning something different. If you wrote a word like "GUN" everyone knows what it is.
God is a word with no clear definition, that's why we can't prove or disprove it. We don't know anything about this god to take any definitive stance on the issue of whether or not he exists.
That's why I am an Agnostic Atheist in that regard.
I don't know if there is a god, because we have no information on what the hell a god is.
By this logic, there are no abstract concepts at all. No love, no courage, no justice, no beauty. Ultimately false and a poor argument.
However, the problem arises when you take away the mystery and ambiguity surrounding the very basic and abstract concept of god.
If you define god in a way that we could test the definition, we wouldn't really disprove the existence of a god, we would just disprove the existence of that particular definition of a god.
Religions go as far to describe how god thinks, what he wants, what he looks like, how he operates, his personality, his involvement in human affairs.
These thing are described in the holy book or scriptures of this god.
Now we have something testable!
The Christians' problem is that they make positive assertions about what their god is like! If you can prove that god doesn't fit into just one of the Christian criteria, he becomes null and void no longer applicable for consideration.
They call god all powerful, this is impossible because can god create a boulder so massive even he himself cannot lift it?
A paradox. Lovely. A straw man really. God is restricted by a few common sense principles. Nearly every Christian you ask will acknowledge this.
They say he's omniscient, yet if he is all knowing, can he know that he doesn't know something? And if he did, he still would not know something
That doesn't even make sense. Your argument is that he doesn't know everything, because he wouldn't know if there was something he didn't know. You offer no reason that he wouldn't know everything, so you really didn't even make an argument here.
They say he's omnibenevolent, yet he has caused so much suffering and death and evil to transpire. You may argue that what he says is good, is good by definition, but when we say something is benevolent, we are applying it to the standards of today's morals, not the bible's
Caused is not the right word. He gave people free will, which is equal to allowing evil to happen, but he himself is not the cause of it. Also, there's an error in your logic. You don't get to decide whose morals we are talking about. People's morals change over time, but God's have not. This is the reason people ridicule them. God's morals will not conform to the rest of the world's arbitrary and ever-changing morals.
They say he's omnipresent, but he isn't because that means we would be him by definition and would have to both worship and not worship ourselves and him, he also Is described as not being omnipresent in the bible.
He's everywhere, and therefore that makes us God. Those are two unrelated variables, mate.
They say he makes miracle happen, yet there are more reasonable and more likely explanations for "miracles" occurring then the idea of a god intervening, and even so, there is no evidence of him actually committing these miracles.
Many of these alternative explanations are still in doubt. But beside that, there's this aspect of Christianity that atheists love to hate. It's called faith, and it is an integral part of Christianity. Perhaps this is foolish, and perhaps not. See, God doesn't want to interfere with our free will. He could reveal himself to everyone, but that would negate the faith aspect that has been the core of the religion for millennia.
Top this off with disproven ideas contained within the bible, stories with parallels with other, older mythologies that denotes some degree of plagiarism, the unreliability of the bibles's information, archaic rituals, magic, etc.
See, above comment.
They thought the earth is flat, diseases could be cured with spitting in the wound, dragons, sea monsters, unicorns, zombies
Thought Earth is flat: So did atheists, and everyone else. Remember Columbus? The guy who was convinced the Earth was round? He was Catholic.
Spitting: Also not solely a religious belief. Dragons, Sea Monsters, Unicorns, and Zombies: Are you even serious?!?! Learn something about Christians before you criticize them!
It is clearly false. The god of the bible cannot exist by definition because of the paradoxical nature of the Christian definition of god, as well as the unreliability, and clear plagiarism found in the bible.
That's why the Christian definition of god is not the right one, it is false because the definition makes no logical sense and the dogma and stories are clearly ripped from older religions.
You find it wrong because you made up reasons to convince yourself that it's wrong. That's fine, I don't judge you. I merely wish to point out that your arguments don't hold water, and it is obvious that you have no real understanding of Christianity or Christians.