America Becoming Less Christian, Survey Shows

[Republic of the Cristo]

Perhaps because we were destined to bring the true religion to the people. Perhaps we were the better Darwinists. I don't know, and I accept that

Why is Islam not just as valid? Or Buddhism? They're still going strong.

In my belief? Because Islam follows the teachings of a false prophet, and Buddhism lacks a God. And, I suppose that we have not yet beaten them for their populous. I don't know, and I accept that. What are you going to do about it.

[Neutraligon]

...considering that many Christians use god to fill in the gap of we do not know, you are very much wrong about that.

I am not filling up a gap here. It actually says in the Bible " God created the Heavens and the Earth" This is true across all denominations. This is not a gap filler, this is a core tenet.

God is a gap filler, since again there is no reason to claim that god did it. You are filling in the unknown with the unknown and unknowable. You are even taking it a step further by not just saying a god did it, but even giving that god traits and a story, and actions.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

Why is Islam not just as valid? Or Buddhism? They're still going strong.

In my belief? Because Islam follows the teachings of a false prophet, and Buddhism lacks a God. And, I suppose that we have not yet beaten them for their populous. I don't know, and I accept that. What are you going to do about it.

wtf is your problem

You are just blatantly throwing facts and logic out the window, not even stealthily, you're doing it loudly and recklessly and happily

it's fucking frightening

how can someone like this exist

[Arach-Naga Combine]

Why is Islam not just as valid? Or Buddhism? They're still going strong.

In my belief? Because Islam follows the teachings of a false prophet, and Buddhism lacks a God. And, I suppose that we have not yet beaten them for their populous. I don't know, and I accept that. What are you going to do about it.

Hey, look at that! What you think about other religions, we think about yours. What a coincidence.

Oh wait, it's not a coincidence. It's the natural consequence of competing yet related constructed belief systems based on myth and lie.

[Lumeau]

Good.

It's fine if you want to be Christian, but way too many people use it to justify telling people how they can and cannot live their lives, and it's been a convinent tool for politicians to lie and pull the wool over the eyes of our voters.

Hopefully this trend continues, or if not, hopefully fewer people will use their faith to be dicks to other people.

[Republic of the Cristo]

I am not filling up a gap here. It actually says in the Bible " God created the Heavens and the Earth" This is true across all denominations. This is not a gap filler, this is a core tenet.

God is a gap filler, since again there is no reason to claim that god did it. You are filling in the unknown with the unknown and unknowable. You are even taking it a step further by not just saying a god did it, but even giving that god traits and a story, and actions.

You are saying because I was not there that it is unknown and unknowable? And that any thing written about it that also says the same thing is wrong? That is just ignorant.

[Neutraligon]

God is a gap filler, since again there is no reason to claim that god did it. You are filling in the unknown with the unknown and unknowable. You are even taking it a step further by not just saying a god did it, but even giving that god traits and a story, and actions.

You are saying because I was not there that it is unknown and unknowable? And that any thing written about it that also says the same thing is wrong? That is just ignorant.

No I am not, your own religion claims god is unknowable.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

God is a gap filler, since again there is no reason to claim that god did it. You are filling in the unknown with the unknown and unknowable. You are even taking it a step further by not just saying a god did it, but even giving that god traits and a story, and actions.

You are saying because I was not there that it is unknown and unknowable? And that any thing written about it that also says the same thing is wrong? That is just ignorant.

What the fuck are you trying to say

As far as we are able to figure out, there is no 100% accurate way to know how the universe began. But the existence of "god" is a placeholder, because gods were invented by humans to explain various things we can now explain scientifically - like the weather.

[Nierra]

Yes, because leftism relates to either the reforming of social hierarchy or the abolition of it. Atheism calls for abolition of a religious hierarchy be removing religion so it is fundamentally left wing. You can be right wing and have left wing viewpoints, and your willingness to outright declare yourself intellectually superior by way of emoticon is fairly ridiculous.

You don't know me too well, that is obvious. Atheism does NOT call for abolition of religion. In fact, I am both and Atheist and religious as well. If anything I am a right leaning centrist, politically, and I fully support the social hierarchy.

Hmmm...did I miss anything? Oh, yeah, intellectually superiority: Lacking the delusional belief in something for which there is NO evidence means I am superior.

You abolish religion in your head, because you dismiss it all as fairy tales and nonsense, which is fine until you deny it any social value that is creates and insult those who firmly believe in it as a moral guideline to be ignorant people believing in moral guidelines set by religion.

[Arach-Naga Combine]

God is a gap filler, since again there is no reason to claim that god did it. You are filling in the unknown with the unknown and unknowable. You are even taking it a step further by not just saying a god did it, but even giving that god traits and a story, and actions.

You are saying because I was not there that it is unknown and unknowable? And that any thing written about it that also says the same thing is wrong? That is just ignorant.

Define god. I guarantee that I will call it into question, and you will end up with a god that cannot be defined because a every trait shatters at there merest presence of logic and evidence. Your childish views on the subject are the only ignorance present.

[The Merchant Republics]

What evidence would that be?

Because anthropology kinda seems to disagree, what with the every ethnic group on the planet having some form of religious belief.

It's foolish to make the case though, you can only argue for atheism being the blank slate in the vacuum of any other prior beliefs. Yes, if you took a child and sealed him off from all outside influence he might never believe in a God or at least develop a coherent sense of him, but the spontaneous evolution of religion across all cultural groups on the planet, says I would argue that faith is a naturally occurring phenomenon.

Not all religions have a god. A more accurate way of saying this is that most if not all ethnicities formed some sort of supernatural belief.

Note: I never made any specific theistic claim, only pointed out that religions and therefore faith have arisen naturally. Faith is a key component to all religions, gods are not.

Humans creating not only god, but the whole god concept.

That just goes back to my whole naturalistic worldviews can limit the ability to see the whole picture for what it is worth. It would not be enough for the whole world to at the same time have the illusion of God parting the sky and speaking to them, if that could be seen to have been caused by a single phenomenon (say an a hallucinatory gas descending on the Earth) it would render that shared vision meaningless in naturalistic eyes.

Humanity must have invented the concept of God, but I would make the argument that the invention was divinely inspired. It's a poor comparison but similarly humanity invented the concept of mathematics, but does that mean mathematics did not exist before we created it, clearly it did exist but we lacked the conception of it. So it is I would say with God.

So are greed and lust. What we can say about all three is that we know for a fact that they are natural processes that result from our particular psychology and mental faculties, and for those particular traits we can even point to the particular evolutionary advantage that they provided to various ancestral groups.

Certainly, it without arguing that could have necessarily must have arose as a part of natural processes. All things must have a cause and such. With exception to either God or the Universe (whichever you please to start with); nothing comes about ex nihilo.

[Dyakovo]

I would also point out that it is a good piece of evidence for atheism being the default state of humanity.

I think you're assuming quite a bit here.

If there is a God, I'm fairly certain atheism wouldn't be the default state of humanity.

That's a really big "if"... One with no rational reason to believe it to be true.

[Imperial Esplanade]

Eh, it's not exactly that straightforward.

Atheism, if we both are understanding it to be the denial of the existence of a God, is reliant on the existence of theism. Ever heard of Anti-sldskdjfasdfsopgfsag? It doesn't exist because there's no sldskdjfasdfsopgfsag. Atheism (if we both take it to essentially mean Anti-Theism - or the outright denial of a God) needs theism in order to exist. One could have never thought of, or heard of, God... but that doesn't necessarily make him or her an atheist, just means that he or she never really pondered on the existence of a God or has heard of anything about the existence of a God. So while in retrospect, one can say that simply because someone doesn't know of God or that they didn't really consider the existence of God... it's really not the case. It's unfair to declare a monkey an atheist simply because it never had the ability nor the knowledge to determine whether there is a God or not... and thus as a result, instead of there being Christian monkeys and Islamic monkeys, there are just... monkeys... monkeying around and doing monkey stuff.

No atheism is not the denial of the existance of a god. Ahteism is simply the lack of belief in a god, for whatever reason. So there can be an atheist who states that there definitely is no god, there can be the atheist who has never learned about the concept of a god, there can be the atheist who states that there is no evidence and thus no reason to think there is a god, and there can be the atheist who just does not care. As long as a person cannot claim to be a theist they are an atheist.

Most people will limit atheism to those tings capable of actual thought, but then by the same idea most children cannot be called Christian or Muslim until they too are capable of actual thought.

Which brings me back to the point in that it's not that straightforward. There are multiple ways one could define atheism, as some take it to mean the denial of a God or simply just the lack of a general belief in a God. It all depends on how the atheism/theism dichotomy is defined. Human beings are naturally curious and hungry for knowledge, and we're hardwired to try to understand what is going on in the world around us. We aren't 'hardwired' to be atheist if we're using my definition, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that if there is indeed a God... that we could be hardwired to be mentally inclined toward theism. This whole discussion is an intellectually difficult one, because some of the very definitions of the words involved to some perspectives entirely revolve on whether or not there is indeed a God.

[Neutraligon]

You don't know me too well, that is obvious. Atheism does NOT call for abolition of religion. In fact, I am both and Atheist and religious as well. If anything I am a right leaning centrist, politically, and I fully support the social hierarchy.

Hmmm...did I miss anything? Oh, yeah, intellectually superiority: Lacking the delusional belief in something for which there is NO evidence means I am superior.

You abolish religion in your head, because you dismiss it all as fairy tales and nonsense, which is fine until you deny it any social value that is creates and insult those who firmly believe in it as a moral guideline to be ignorant people believing in moral guidelines set by religion.

First while religion can offer some social value, I doubt that it is the only thing that can offer the same social value, and religion also has some massive social problems, or can be used in ways that create massive social problems. Second I debate that anyone who simply follows the dictates of a god or holy book are moral agents; instead they are more like robots.

[Nierra]

Yes, because leftism relates to either the reforming of social hierarchy or the abolition of it. Atheism calls for abolition of a religious hierarchy be removing religion so it is fundamentally left wing. You can be right wing and have left wing viewpoints, and your willingness to outright declare yourself intellectually superior by way of emoticon is fairly ridiculous.

No, it doesn't. Atheism doesn't call for anything. It is not an ideology.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity or deities. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fine, the specifically mentioned atheists in this thread though bash organized religion, which espouses certain principles upheld in leftism that I mentioned.

[Arach-Naga Combine]

Not all religions have a god. A more accurate way of saying this is that most if not all ethnicities formed some sort of supernatural belief.

Note: I never made any specific theistic claim, only pointed out that religions and therefore faith have arisen naturally. Faith is a key component to all religions, gods are not.

Humans creating not only god, but the whole god concept.

That just goes back to my whole naturalistic worldviews can limit the ability to see the whole picture for what it is worth. It would not be enough for the whole world to at the same time have the illusion of God parting the sky and speaking to them, if that could be seen to have been caused by a single phenomenon (say an a hallucinatory gas descending on the Earth) it would render that shared vision meaningless in naturalistic eyes.

Humanity must have invented the concept of God, but I would make the argument that the invention was divinely inspired. It's a poor comparison but similarly humanity invented the concept of mathematics, but does that mean mathematics did not exist before we created it, clearly it did exist but we lacked the conception of it. So it is I would say with God.

Mathmatics didn't exist before we invented it(assuming no other intelligence life previously), so your analogy supports your opponent.

[Neutraligon]

No atheism is not the denial of the existance of a god. Ahteism is simply the lack of belief in a god, for whatever reason. So there can be an atheist who states that there definitely is no god, there can be the atheist who has never learned about the concept of a god, there can be the atheist who states that there is no evidence and thus no reason to think there is a god, and there can be the atheist who just does not care. As long as a person cannot claim to be a theist they are an atheist.

Most people will limit atheism to those tings capable of actual thought, but then by the same idea most children cannot be called Christian or Muslim until they too are capable of actual thought.

Which brings me back to the point in that it's not that straightforward. There are multiple ways one could define atheism, as some take it to mean the denial of a God or simply just the lack of a general belief in a God. It all depends on how the atheism/theism dichotomy is defined. Human beings are naturally curious and hungry for knowledge, and we're hardwired to try to understand what is going on in the world around us. We aren't 'hardwired' to be atheist if we're using my definition, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that if there is indeed a God... that we could be hardwired to be mentally inclined toward theism. This whole discussion is an intellectually difficult one, because some of the very definitions of the words involved to some perspectives entirely revolve on whether or not there is indeed a God.

I would leave it up to the atheists to define their own term then. Most atheists I have met are the ones who explain that atheism is a lack of belief in a god. I agree it is not outside the realm of possibility, but then there is very little that is not outside the realm of possibility.

I never said we are hardwired to be atheist, look at my response to Big Jim P for that little conversation.

[Republic of the Cristo]

In my belief? Because Islam follows the teachings of a false prophet, and Buddhism lacks a God. And, I suppose that we have not yet beaten them for their populous. I don't know, and I accept that. What are you going to do about it.

wtf is your problem

You are just blatantly throwing facts and logic out the window, not even stealthily, you're doing it loudly and recklessly and happily

it's fucking frightening

how can someone like this exist

I see now I am not talking to thinking reasonable persons. I am speaking to a group of blind faith zealots of atheism, whom throw anyone else's opinions out the window by calling it Ignorant, oppressive, bigoted, frightening, stupid, etc. for the mere matter of nothing more than disagreeing with your own ( no matter how much sense it made). You claim to be in the fight against zealots, yet you your selves are zealots. If you ever wish to have an open, mature, and logical ( that means not disregarding any statement contradictory to yours as stupid) then please, contact me! Until then, work on tolerance, maturity, and debate skills. Until then, if ever, good bye.

Oh, and one more thing..... God bless you!

[Prussia-Steinbach]

No, it doesn't. Atheism doesn't call for anything. It is not an ideology.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity or deities. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fine, the specifically mentioned atheists in this thread though bash organized religion, which espouses certain principles upheld in leftism that I mentioned.

Most Rand-types are atheists and they certainly aren't leftist.

[Imperial Esplanade]

I think you're assuming quite a bit here.

If there is a God, I'm fairly certain atheism wouldn't be the default state of humanity.

That's a really big "if"... One with no rational reason to believe it to be true.

Big Bang Theory: something (or someone) had to trigger the creation of the Universe.

Not all that irrational to believe that it could've been God. The Universe couldn't just create itself out of nothing, that would fly against virtually every single known, observed, and established law of physics.

[Neutraligon]

Fine, the specifically mentioned atheists in this thread though bash organized religion, which espouses certain principles upheld in leftism that I mentioned.

Most Rand-types are atheists and they certainly aren't leftist.

Big Jim already asked since when he became an leftist.

[Nierra]

You abolish religion in your head, because you dismiss it all as fairy tales and nonsense, which is fine until you deny it any social value that is creates and insult those who firmly believe in it as a moral guideline to be ignorant people believing in moral guidelines set by religion.

First while religion can offer some social value, I doubt that it is the only thing that can offer the same social value, and religion also has some massive social problems, or can be used in ways that create massive social problems. Second I debate that anyone who simply follows the dictates of a god or holy book are moral agents; instead they are more like robots.

If you espouse and popularize your belief in a political philosophy are you a robot? Is what you do on NSG espousing robot like behavior? If anything scientists are more robotic, there are literally steps they must take before doing anything that is uniform in any circumstance.

[Neutraligon]

That's a really big "if"... One with no rational reason to believe it to be true.

Big Bang Theory: something (or someone) had to trigger the creation of the Universe.

Not all that irrational to believe that it could've been God. The Universe couldn't just create itself out of nothing, that would fly against virtually every single known, observed, and established law of physics.

why did something have to trigger it? The rules of this universe only apply to this universe, and that includes the principal of cause and effect.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

wtf is your problem

You are just blatantly throwing facts and logic out the window, not even stealthily, you're doing it loudly and recklessly and happily

it's fucking frightening

how can someone like this exist

I see now I am not talking to thinking reasonable persons. I am speaking to a group of blind faith zealots of atheism, whom throw anyone else's opinions out the window by calling it Ignorant, oppressive, bigoted, frightening, stupid, etc. for the mere matter of nothing more than disagreeing with your own ( no matter how much sense it made). You claim to be in the fight against zealots, yet you your selves are zealots. If you ever wish to have an open, mature, and logical ( that means not disregarding any statement contradictory to yours as stupid) then please, contact me! Until then, work on tolerance, maturity, and debate skills. Until then, if ever, good bye.

Oh, and one more thing..... God bless you!

First of all, I'm not bothered by the "God bless you" in any way. Thank you.

Second, it is impossible to have blind faith in atheism. Atheism is a lack of faith. It isn't even a belief system, it's the very opposite. I'm a zealot for truth, education, and rationalism. Your opinions have no scientific or empirical backing and you haven't given a single valid reason for me to believe in a god. So go on deluding yourself if it makes you happy, just don't try to convince others of your bullshit, please.

[The Merchant Republics]

Note: I never made any specific theistic claim, only pointed out that religions and therefore faith have arisen naturally. Faith is a key component to all religions, gods are not.



That just goes back to my whole naturalistic worldviews can limit the ability to see the whole picture for what it is worth. It would not be enough for the whole world to at the same time have the illusion of God parting the sky and speaking to them, if that could be seen to have been caused by a single phenomenon (say an a hallucinatory gas descending on the Earth) it would render that shared vision meaningless in naturalistic eyes.

Humanity must have invented the concept of God, but I would make the argument that the invention was divinely inspired. It's a poor comparison but similarly humanity invented the concept of mathematics, but does that mean mathematics did not exist before we created it, clearly it did exist but we lacked the conception of it. So it is I would say with God.

Mathmatics didn't exist before we invented it(assuming no other intelligence life previously), so your analogy supports your opponent.

I'm trying to find a way to non-sarcastically let you know how far and away that misses my point.

The laws of mathematics existed previously to our discovery and description of it. Did the circumference of a wheel equal 2 × π × radius only after we realized it did? No, it was true long before we knew it.

Edit: Because I fail at math formulas