What are your thoughts on Atheism?

[Risottia]

As long as this doesn't become deep distaste or hate for atheists, fine.

As a whole? I don't. There are plenty of Atheists who I really don't like, due to their personalities.

I assume there's also a lot of Theists whom you really don't like due to their personalities.

Disliking a person because of his personality is quite normal. Disliking a person because of his beliefs or lack thereof is another story.
Looks like this isn't your case, so... we cool.

[Manisdog]

You know the most logical argument for the non existence in god is an emotional argument, the truth the nature of the universe too imperfect, this earth is devoid of all beauty, nothing in this world is perfect, everybody is miserable the rich and the poor, kings and queens, men and women. We are all unhappy, unhappy about things ranging from the most trivial to the most immense. You know we believe in a god because we fear death, when we see close people dying, we recognize that they will never come back to life. Deep down inside, we cannot accept the fact that the bodies and brains of our sisters, grand fathers, mothers have decayed, they have just turned dust. You know things fall apart and people just die, there is no god or heaven where they are going, they are fucking dead.

That being said, we need to invent a belief in a god, it is necessary so that we can fucking live with ourselves, to give some meaning to our lives, I think it would be cruel of those who do not believe in a god, to spread this disbelief because lets just admit it, If you have the choice between the red pill and the blue pill, most of the people would like to take the blue pill and stay in a state of continuous ignorance. We are too fucking weak to accept reality and the strong should never try to show the weak, something that will just shatter there reality. The guy who invented god was a pure fucking genius, he gave thousands and millions of people across centuries hope, when there is clearly none.

Atheists should keep the truth to themselves

[Risottia]

Adaptation is not evolution. Have you seen ANYTHING change into a new species

Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches

[The Rebel Alliances]

I have no uniform thoughts on Atheism, I am a Christian, I take atheist, like anyone else one at a time. Plus Atheist is not a specific group of people. There is a huge diversity within them. It's not like say the Catholics or Sunni Muslims where you can look at basic principles and then forge a general viewpoint.

[Transyl]

So, to everyone, religious and otherwise.
What are your thoughts on atheism, and why?

Also, if you're not an atheist, what would convince you to be one?
If you are one, what convinced you to be atheist?

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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
They thought the earth is flat, diseases could be cured with spitting in the wound, dragons, sea monsters, unicorns, zombies
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.

I have a deep distaste for atheism. That is, I hate it.

You hating Atheism kind of has no reason, Atheism is a religion just like any other and should be treated as such. Sure some Atheists go hating on those who believe in god, but they only do that because those who do believe in god act the same way towards them. If you start hating against someone or a group of people your going to get hated on back, thats how it works in this society. Being an Atheist people ask me all the time why i dont believe in god, and everytime i go past a church or someone who is against my beliefs, i get bibles literally thrown at me. Last time i checked doing damage to the bible was a horrible thing to do, it disgraces god himself right? I dont know i dont believe in him, but i'm sure thats a fact. The reason why i dont believe in god is because when i was young i did believe, my life sucked back then. I saw my mom get beaten almost to death every night, My mom, and brother and I lived in fear, and everynight i prayed to god for him to help me and my family. Did anything get better you may ask, no it didnt. So one day i finally thought to myself, If God was real and was so caring and loving and loved everyone, wouldnt he help me and my family, i sure thought so. And that is when i realized he must not of existed, so from then on i have been Atheist. And my life has improved but still i am struggling with my life, but its better no thanks to 'God' or 'Jesus', what got my life better was me realizing that praying to so called 'God' was just as pointless as a ostrich with wings (why have wings if you can't fly?).

[Crysuko]

I have a deep distaste for atheism. That is, I hate it.

Atheism is a religion just like any other and should be treated as such.

ha ha ha no. if atheism is a religion, then off is a TV channel. Atheism is a lack of religion, to call it one goes against the definition of the term.

[Anayahland]

my thoughts:

Athesim itself has become a religion. and sometime sadly atheists argue/act same as religious fanatics.

[Vazdaria]

As a whole? I don't. There are plenty of Atheists who I really don't like, due to their personalities.

I assume there's also a lot of Theists whom you really don't like due to their personalities.

Disliking a person because of his personality is quite normal. Disliking a person because of his beliefs or lack thereof is another story.
Looks like this isn't your case, so... we cool.

Nope all theists I've ever met have been very likable.

[Kilobugya]

Adaptation is not evolution.

Saying that "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution" are two wholly different things is like saying walking down the street and crossing the whole country are two wholly different things - no, they are not, they just require different time to be done. But claiming one does happen quickly (and is witnessed regularly in just a few generation) but the other can't happen even in billions of years, without giving any argument why, is pretty ridiculous.

Have you seen ANYTHING change into a new species (as in completely abandons it's original species and is literally something entirely different where it can't even breed)? Didn't think so.

But it is NOT something entirely different ! We share more than 90% of our DNA with all other mammals. Our body structure is exactly the same - we use exactly the mechanism to provide energy to our cells (the mithocondria), the same mechanism to transport oxygen in the blood (hemoglobine), we have the exactly same bones (their shape and size vary, but the actual number of bones don't), ... There really is a lot in common - and how different species are is directly correlated to how long apart they separated in the evolution tree of life, which is itself correlated to which fossils we find in which layer and close to which ones.

No one knows what made the footprint. You are talking in the same manner as a theist (A footprint! Evolution! = A Footprint! God!)

So, when you see a footprint in the sand, you don't belief another person made the footprint, but that's it's exactly as likely to be a Yeti, the wind, aliens, robots or Harry Potter's spells ?

In fact, not only can you infer rationally from seeing the footprint that someone did make it, but you can also, by actually studying the evidence, infer a lot of other details - measuring the size to say if it was a child or an adult, seeing a difference between the left and right footprint and infer that the person was wounded or otherwise walking weirdly, know that due to the tides, this part of the beach was under water 8 hours ago and infer the footprints were made less 8 hours ago, ...

That's the kind of reasoning we use constantly in life - from trying to solve a crime, to trying to fix a bug in software, to trying to cure diseases, to trying to figure out which of your kids stole the Nutella.

Also consider that the theory of evolution doesn't only infer things from evidence, it also makes _predictions_ which are then validated by experiments. Darwin wrote before we knew about DNA and the genetic code. And yet, from Darwin's theory, you can predict the number of silent mutations (mutations which don't change which protein is generated, because like, CCA and CCG both code for Proline) in various species depending how remote they are in the tree of evolution. And guess what ? After making those predictions, we measured the number of silent mutation, and it's a perfect match for the theory of evolution's prediction !

Show me anything similar from "creationism" or any other theistic nonsense, show me any other prediction that can be actually verified (or falsified). There is none.

Literally no difference. Oh, and go ahead and show me your "evidence", but don't waste your time if you can't show any creature that has, in human history, become a new species (and I don't mean has so many adaptations that it appears to be, but really isn't, a new species)

So, if you're a member of jury, you'll never consider anyone guilty until you're actually a direct witness of crime ?

I'm open to evolution, it's just none of the arguments are valid. That is science, not blindly eating up evolutionist propaganda with a spoon.

You really don't have the slightest understanding of how science works. Almost nothing works with "direct evidence". There is no "direct evidence" of the existence of atoms, nor of photons, nor of fields, nor of bacteria, nor of ... but only indirect evidence, which is equally valid, and of falsifiable predictions that are then verified. Einstein's General Relativity wasn't proven because we actually saw distorted spacetime, but because we saw tiny differences in the orbit of Mercury and slightly displaced stars during a solar eclipse.

[Dyakovo]

You know the most logical argument for the non existence in god is an emotional argument,

As usual, you're wrong.

[Manisdog]

You know the most logical argument for the non existence in god is an emotional argument,

As usual, you're wrong.

How so ?

debunk it

[Dyakovo]

Adaptation is not evolution.

False.

[Crysuko]

As usual, you're wrong.

How so ?

debunk it

claiming the only arguments against god are emotional ones says that you haven't done any research on the matter

[Manisdog]

How so ?

debunk it

claiming the only arguments against god are emotional ones says that you haven't done any research on the matter

No I never said that

read my argument

prat

[Crysuko]

claiming the only arguments against god are emotional ones says that you haven't done any research on the matter

No I never said that

read my argument

prat

I've seen backpeddling, but this is something else entirely.

[Dyakovo]

Atheism is a religion

False.

[Dyakovo]

my thoughts:

Athesim itself has become a religion. and sometime sadly atheists argue/act same as religious fanatics.

Your thoughts are wrong.

[The Rich Port]

You know the most logical argument for the non existence in god is an emotional argument, the truth the nature of the universe too imperfect, this earth is devoid of all beauty, nothing in this world is perfect, everybody is miserable the rich and the poor, kings and queens, men and women. We are all unhappy, unhappy about things ranging from the most trivial to the most immense. You know we believe in a god because we fear death, when we see close people dying, we recognize that they will never come back to life. Deep down inside, we cannot accept the fact that the bodies and brains of our sisters, grand fathers, mothers have decayed, they have just turned dust. You know things fall apart and people just die, there is no god or heaven where they are going, they are fucking dead.

That being said, we need to invent a belief in a god, it is necessary so that we can fucking live with ourselves, to give some meaning to our lives, I think it would be cruel of those who do not believe in a god, to spread this disbelief because lets just admit it, If you have the choice between the red pill and the blue pill, most of the people would like to take the blue pill and stay in a state of continuous ignorance. We are too fucking weak to accept reality and the strong should never try to show the weak, something that will just shatter there reality. The guy who invented god was a pure fucking genius, he gave thousands and millions of people across centuries hope, when there is clearly none.

Atheists should keep the truth to themselves

I think our dependence on a God has made us weak, then.

I don't need a God. I need friends, a family that loves me, a good job, to find meaning in my own life.

God is an excuse, a cop-out. We don't need it.

I don't know what's more irresponsible: believing in it sincerely because of intentional ignorance, or believing in it insincerely because of intentional ignorance.

[Manisdog]

You know the most logical argument for the non existence in god is an emotional argument, the truth the nature of the universe too imperfect, this earth is devoid of all beauty, nothing in this world is perfect, everybody is miserable the rich and the poor, kings and queens, men and women. We are all unhappy, unhappy about things ranging from the most trivial to the most immense. You know we believe in a god because we fear death, when we see close people dying, we recognize that they will never come back to life. Deep down inside, we cannot accept the fact that the bodies and brains of our sisters, grand fathers, mothers have decayed, they have just turned dust. You know things fall apart and people just die, there is no god or heaven where they are going, they are fucking dead.

That being said, we need to invent a belief in a god, it is necessary so that we can fucking live with ourselves, to give some meaning to our lives, I think it would be cruel of those who do not believe in a god, to spread this disbelief because lets just admit it, If you have the choice between the red pill and the blue pill, most of the people would like to take the blue pill and stay in a state of continuous ignorance. We are too fucking weak to accept reality and the strong should never try to show the weak, something that will just shatter there reality. The guy who invented god was a pure fucking genius, he gave thousands and millions of people across centuries hope, when there is clearly none.

Atheists should keep the truth to themselves

I think our dependence on a God has made us weak, then.

I don't need a God. I need friends, a family that loves me, a good job, to find meaning in my own life.

God is an excuse, a cop-out. We don't need it.

I don't know what's more irresponsible: believing in it sincerely because of intentional ignorance, or believing in it insincerely because of intentional ignorance.

Nor do I, as I have seen the godlessness of the world, now it would be cruel to let those who believe loose there believe, the guy who lied about god was a very great man as he stopped humanity from drowning into a sea of despair, it would be cruel an harsh to destroy the joy and life of the people that is god

[Crysuko]

I think our dependence on a God has made us weak, then.

I don't need a God. I need friends, a family that loves me, a good job, to find meaning in my own life.

God is an excuse, a cop-out. We don't need it.

I don't know what's more irresponsible: believing in it sincerely because of intentional ignorance, or believing in it insincerely because of intentional ignorance.

Nor do I, as I have seen the godlessness of the world, now it would be cruel to let those who believe loose there believe, the guy who lied about god was a very great man as he stopped humanity from drowning into a sea of despair, it would be cruel an harsh to destroy the joy and life of the people that is god

this raises an interesting question, ignorance with bliss or knowledge with despair.

[The Rich Port]

Nor do I, as I have seen the godlessness of the world, now it would be cruel to let those who believe loose there believe, the guy who lied about god was a very great man as he stopped humanity from drowning into a sea of despair, it would be cruel an harsh to destroy the joy and life of the people that is god

this raises an interesting question, ignorance with bliss or knowledge with despair.

I have knowledge, and the only thing I despair about is other peoples' ignorance.

[Vazdaria]

Nor do I, as I have seen the godlessness of the world, now it would be cruel to let those who believe loose there believe, the guy who lied about god was a very great man as he stopped humanity from drowning into a sea of despair, it would be cruel an harsh to destroy the joy and life of the people that is god

this raises an interesting question, ignorance with bliss or knowledge with despair.

that is utter bullshit, as it assumes G-d doesn't exist.

[Crysuko]

this raises an interesting question, ignorance with bliss or knowledge with despair.

that is utter bullshit, as it assumes G-d doesn't exist.

and why is that such a difficult assumption? not even hypothetically?

[Kilobugya]

Nor do I, as I have seen the godlessness of the world, now it would be cruel to let those who believe loose there believe, the guy who lied about god was a very great man as he stopped humanity from drowning into a sea of despair, it would be cruel an harsh to destroy the joy and life of the people that is god

Atheism doesn't lead to despair - it leads to hope. If all of our sufferings, failings, the decay of old age, the injustice of children born blind, ... are the result of the will of an omnipowerful being, then we can truly despair, for there is nothing we can do against it. But if they are the product of blind, careless, mindless forces of nature, then we can actually outsmart them and fix most if not all of those problems.

[Manisdog]

Nor do I, as I have seen the godlessness of the world, now it would be cruel to let those who believe loose there believe, the guy who lied about god was a very great man as he stopped humanity from drowning into a sea of despair, it would be cruel an harsh to destroy the joy and life of the people that is god

this raises an interesting question, ignorance with bliss or knowledge with despair.

Be honest with me

now if I tell something that is a lie but you will be happy for twenty years of your life or I tell you the truth and you will be bitter for the rest of your life