how many atheists here ?

[CallieJo]

Why is this even a question? What difference does it make if someone believes in God or not? How is that going to affect YOUR life?

I cannot understand the reasoning behind those spreading the message that there is no scientific proof. What is your point?

There never is scientific proof of anything at first. We have no scientific proof that there is a sweet spot planet exactly like earth YET...but, YET is the key here. It doesn't mean that there isn't!

We had no scientific proof of many things over the years. As technology progressed, so did our knowledge. Who would have guessed 100 years ago that we would have the internet today?

Why anyone would argue against believing in a God is beyond me. What's your real motive? Why would you want to take that away from someone? Why would you want to take God out of someone's life?

For those of us who believe in God, we want God in our lives. That is our right just as it's your right to not believe.

I don't need scientific proof to tell me what I feel either. I feel God's presence. That's all the proof I need.

It's not my job to "prove" God to anyone. If you let Him in your life, you will know. If you don't, you may never really know. That's your choice. It's not up to anyone (including scientists) to prove or disprove otherwise to you. It's a choice we make for ourselves. Pretty simple, really.

 

[woei]

@CallieJo It's indeed a choice to make for myself. It's only annoying if "believers" or "non-believers" are trying to convince you of their point. The problem lies that whatever someone chooses, there will be contempt from both sides. The problem for me in most religions is that children don't get the choice to believe or not. Kinda hard to have a free choice if you risk the love of your parents.

I can believe there is something there, maybe divine that has created all of us. But I also believe in the theory of Darwin. I just can't believe that there was such a thing as Jezus, Boedha or Muhammed (or insert every other god/child of god that has walked the earth). There are different stories told/taught depending on the place where you came to this earth. Therefore, sure there can be something beautiful. But saying there is only one God (and living by a set of rules) is strange. Not accepting other religions because they are "wrong" isn't right.

Strange how people can be indoctrinated.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

It's just as relevant today. As dumb as the Ken Ham VS Bill Nye debate was; there is still a rather striking response to a single question that was asked which encompasses all I've tried to explain in my previous posts:

View attachment 71218

This is what I am talking about with "god" being the "end of the road". Both science and religion claim to be searching for "truth"; but when it comes down to it, science finds truth, and continues to search for more truth. Religion claims truth, and demands no other truths before it. The moment you decide "god is responsible for it", that is where the discovery of science ends.

BTW, I'm not trying to "convert" anyone with these posts. I like to believe this thread was made to be an outlet for people to discuss this topic; and that is what I am doing.

BTW, I also hated the first episode of Cosmos well. And I commented in a previous post about the clear atheist agenda of the show.

Bill Nye was debating a crazy person who thought the World was only 4000 years old and that Noah's Ark was real.

One must wonder how well he would have done against someone who didn't have those ridiculous believed but still believed in God and not in macroscopic evolution.

 

[Paul B]

Bill Nye was debating a crazy person who thought the World was only 4000 years old and that Noah's Ark was real.

So because you don't believe in what he believes you consider him to be "a crazy person".

Got it.

 

[John]

I was pretty ignorant of who Jesus is (and yes, He was a real person who lived a real life @woei , check it out ) before I sought Him out and surrounded myself with people who knew more on the subject than I did. It took many years to develop a knowledge and a relationship with Him...one that continues to evolve and grow and bring me new knowledge every day. I said this to say, it takes some effort. One other thing I hear used as an excuse to bash Christianity is this "those poor kids being indoctrinated by their parents" nonsense. Parents are charged with all sorts of responsibilities when it comes to raising/teaching their children, not the least of which is their spiritual growth and well being. It's okay to teach them healthy eating, rest, schooling, etc. but spirituality is off limits? Really?

 

[Jaxel]

Why would you want to take God out of someone's life?

This is where I have to disagree. People's choices of religion do make a difference to you.

Governmental policy is often made by people who have bizarre views on both religion and science. We see this everyday in the tech-industry and the internet. We have politicians making laws based on their ignorance and completely wrong understanding of tech.

Lets say you're gay. The position of the politicians in power definitely affect your life. Pretty much the majority of politicians fighting against gay marriage are doing it purely based on their religious beliefs.

 

[Jaxel]

Myself, I have no problems with people having different and bizarre beliefs. Be who you want to be, worship the gods you wish, and stand by our own set of morals and ethics. That is great; just don't let it affect the lives of those around you.

Where I have a problem is when I see people teaching things that have been proven wrong to others. Children are very susceptible to ideas; and don't have the ability to determine fantasy from reality. If you teach them wrongly, they will believe it to be true and end up teaching their own children wrongly. Teachers teach as they have been taught before them. I'm not talking about parenting here, and teaching kids to be religious; I'm fine with that. I'm talking about things like teaching kids that science is a lie.

And my issue with this isn't specifically with religion; it has to do with anything, even technology. I have made one of my college professors cry on two separate occasions because I berated her for straight 40 minutes for teaching the class incorrectly on one subject or another. And this was a tech class; no religion involved. I'm also an umpire, and as such have to attend a lot of meetings to re-affirm my certifications every year. And every year, I find myself yelling at the instructors for teaching outright wrong rules.

When I see people teaching wrong; that pisses me off. If you try to tell the class that 2+2=5; I'm going to take you to task for it.

 

[John]

Where I have a problem is when I see people teaching things that have been proven wrong to others. Children are very susceptible to ideas; and don't have the ability to determine fantasy from reality. If you teach them wrongly, they will believe it to be true and end up teaching their own children wrongly.

Do you agree, however, that it is no one's business but the parents what their children are taught to believe when it comes to religion?

 

[Jaxel]

Do you agree, however, that it is no one's business but the parents what their children are taught to believe when it comes to religion?

I got no issues with people teaching religion to their children. Do what you wish. I myself grew up Jewish and I harbor no resentment for that. In fact, I do believe people should be taught religion at some point in their life; for me, it taught me morals and ethics. And when I chose to abandon judaism, I was allowed to do so; I have friends who remain Jewish, and I say good for them! However, with many other religions, free-thought is suppressed and rejected. In several religions, apostasy is punishable by death.

I'm really talking about the public sector here. Public schools should not be teaching kids that science is a lie; that evolution is a "theory" and creationism is a "controversy".

As an atheist, I recommend Hinduism.

 

[DRE]

To quote Susan Jacoby's review:

‘Heaven is for real’ and the immature American mind
By Susan Jacoby

There really is such a thing as American exceptionalism: we are more gullible than the public in the rest of the developed world. Sitting pretty at No.1 on The New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list is a secondhand memoir, Heaven Is For Real , describing a four-year-old boy’s visit--when he nearly died from a burst appendix--to a heaven complete with clouds, winged inhabitants, and a baby sister his parents had lost to a miscarriage. Only in America could a book like this be classified as nonfiction.

The account of ColtonBurpo’s visit to heaven was written by his father, Todd, an evangelical pastor in Nebraska, and Lynn Vincent, who collaborated on another work of so-called nonfiction, Sarah Palin’s immortal Going Rogue. Of course, none of these good Christian folks produced this nonsense about a little boy in heaven for financial gain. Only atheists write books for money.comment of Barnes & Noble’s vice president for marketing, Patricia Bostelman.

“When you buy the religion subject,” Bostelman said, “you are presented with many stories about heaven, personal experiences about near-death and the afterlife. “But what was unusual about this book was that it was the story of a little boy. It deactivated some of the cynicism that can go along with adults capitalizing on their experiences.”

This is an adult woman with an influential job. The little boy wasn’t the one capitalizing on his fantasies (not experiences, Ms. Bostelman). The boy’s father, his Christian literary agent, Christian publisher, and Sarah Palin’s collaborator were the ones doing the capitalizing.

No doubt the boy’s memories are as vivid and sincere as the memories of all of those preschoolers, coached by adults and “recovered memory” therapists in the 1980s, who claimed that they had been sexually abused en masse in nursery schools by teachers practicing Satanic rituals.

This book, and its commercial success, remind us again of the effectiveness of religious indoctrination early in life. They recall the truth of the Jesuit saying, “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man.” Can there possibly be any child raised by devout Christian parents who does not, well before kindergarten, have images of winged beings and puffy clouds embedded in his or her brain? Small children believe in Santa Claus for the same reason--because their parents, whom they love, teach them to believe in Santa. The difference is that, at an appropriate age, parents admit that the Santa story isn’t true. They never admit, however, that heaven is the same sort of story.

What is truly disturbing about this book’s huge commercial success is that it attests to the prevalence of unreason among vast numbers of Americans. (The book is way down in the ranks on Amazon.com in the United Kingdom.) The Americans buying the book are the same people fighting the teaching of evolution in public schools. They are probably the same people who think they can reduce the government deficit without either paying higher taxes or cutting the military budget, Social Security and Medicare benefits. In this universe of unreason, two plus two can equal anything you want and heaven is not only real but anything you want it to be. At age four, the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality is charming. Among American adults, widespread identification with the mind of a preschooler is scary.

She sounds like a hater. I got the perfect Dr. Dre song for her.

 

[EQnoble]

In the end a theory can not disprove a theory because that takes science and hard evidence based fact and with that science can not disprove the beliefs of most religions because there isn't much hard evidence to examine against it by any scientific means thus nothing can be concluded to be a belief in a non truth.

I don't see what all the fuss is about, you believe something or you don't; like the existence of the tooth fairy or the fact that the earth is spherical. Then there comes an age where you get all the information and in one case or the other you are either dead wrong or exactly right.

I am not going to get into my personal beliefs because they are besides the point, I would rather observe facts without judgement of the encounters over my lifetime with folks who were or were not religious, were very open and forward or quiet and to themselves about it and compare that with the same distribution of random interactions of those who were of the same sets of differences but associated with a non-religious orientation as well as the 'idgaf-lmtfa' crowd of people I know.

Generally speaking with a rough canvas covering all of that information, I can say that for the most part without including any extreme positions that most individuals I have come across are equally unreliable in that regardless what they practice or preach I would not willingly trust my life in their hands. Most from all groups are equally as cordial when encountering strangers and almost all groups of people know how to treat a house guest and when they need to can mind their manners. All groups in their own fashion can let loose in whatever fashion their lifestyle permits and at the frequency that their lifestyle determines or doesn't. In all groups there are those who carry out acts of kindness as well as those cast acts of malice.

To make it simple.....chart it out and it looks like this:
_______________________

Not much data there, just a straight line representing a bunch of people who for the most part as a whole act the same and may or may not have different beliefs, the absence of having a belief, or lack giving enough of a damn to even get in the whole argument about it.

I do find the fact amusing that scientists who if anyone would be the mythbusters of religion, are religious in the way they operate by following a specific code of operations and standards, and while able to have their own beliefs maintain a practice of putting data and real world results before bias and prejudgement.

At the end of the day believe what you want to believe as long as your belief isn't invasive to those who would not want to be exposed to it. Science or religion, go ahead, make a tv show supporting your belief, I am free to change the channel or shut the tv off or even be entertained of informed by it. Totally and completely noninvasive.

On the other hand don't knock on my door, or step onto my property, or scatter your print material feces on anything that is mine in a messy or otherwise disrespectful entry into my private space. Don't think that you are not a federal criminal when you open my mailbox and insert stuff in it when you are not an employee of a federal institution (if you are my neighbor or are actually a friend to the family feel free to drop a party invitation or our wrongly delivered mail to the right address) just because you personally feel that your mission will be mine. This goes for pizza menus, complimentary issues of news prints that have been told not to deliver their paper to this address and in general anyone who interrupts my dinner by ringing my door bell to ask me if I have heard the good news about anything other than shakeups milkshakes from the 80s are coming back to the market and I get the first one at that moment to wash down my dinner.

It's all about boundaries, if someone doesn't want to pick up what you put down don't throw it on their back, practice what you practice and just try to do so in a way that observes that other people may not practice the same as you and respect that personal boundary that each person should be allowed to draw if they so choose. If everyone did that, there would be no problem and someone would get the right answer (if there even is one) sooner or later and done this way nobody would end up hurting anyone in the process and then maybe just one person will do something awesome like find a way to make prepackaged portions of instant self-baking cookies and give everyone a package for playing nicely.

 

[woei]

I was pretty ignorant of who Jesus is (and yes, He was a real person who lived a real life @woei , check it out ) before I sought Him out and surrounded myself with people who knew more on the subject than I did. It took many years to develop a knowledge and a relationship with Him...one that continues to evolve and grow and bring me new knowledge every day. I said this to say, it takes some effort. One other thing I hear used as an excuse to bash Christianity is this "those poor kids being indoctrinated by their parents" nonsense. Parents are charged with all sorts of responsibilities when it comes to raising/teaching their children, not the least of which is their spiritual growth and well being. It's okay to teach them healthy eating, rest, schooling, etc. but spirituality is off limits? Really?

Well I could explain how I think about your points and try to prove you are wrong, but I won't because I respect your opinion in it. I was wondering what you find about my point about the "other Gods" and that believing in a religion is influenced on where you came to this earth. Would you have found Jezus if you lived in India? Possible, but not likely. More likely you would have become a Hindu or Buddhist. Is that wrong? I don't think so, but makes you wonder about religion...

 

[BirdOPrey5]

So because you don't believe in what he believes you consider him to be "a crazy person".

Got it.

There is an incredibly wide amount of beliefs and opinions I can respect that reasonable people can have. I may not agree with it but I will fight for your right to your opinion.

However, there are some that are unreasonable. If someone seriously was arguing the moon was made of cheese for example... Sane people would never believe that. The virtue of believing that would indicate they were not sane.

Tell me you saw Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster- more power to you. Tell me you saw the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy and it's time you get tested to see if you're a danger to yourself or others.

 

[Paul B]

A lot of "sane and reasonable" people file religion in the same drawer as the tooth fairy.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

I will agree those people are sane. But I would disagree about them being correct.

 

[Wing]

So I take it if you believe that it means you absolutely do not believe in any type of psychic phenomena, remote viewing, ghosts, or those who claim to be able to communicate with the dead? My problem is I know some of these things do exist so I can't conclude that everything stops when we die- although it would certainly be convenient to believe that.

My thoughts as well.
Our old house in Colorado was forsure haunted. 3/6 of our family members within the time while in that house saw a ghost. And no, we were not "hallucinating" or "seeing things".
Legitimate things would happen out of no where, for example... coming home from trips seeing furniture re-arranged. Doors were still locked.

Or coming home from work, and boiling some water for dinner before getting in the shower. Coming back into the kitchen after showering, and seeing pepper poured into the boiled water.
(no one was in the house, besides myself. And doors were locked).

Worst was hearing footsteps coming downstairs to our master bedroom, and seeing a glowing white figure look into the room. Then turn around and walk back upstairs. (once again, doors were locked. It was 4am. And no one was upstairs after checking minutes later).

There is something else out there in this world that we cannot see. Therefore Atheism is a bunch of bull IMO.

 

[whynot]

Tell me you saw Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster- more power to you.

If I WANT to see them I WILL see them.
(Provided I have nothing else to do)

 

[Dark Knight]

And are you @gary420 ?

I'm a Sunni Muslim and proud of be!

 

[garry420]

Also, just because I am atheist, doesn't mean I am anti-religion. I'm okay with people being religious, as long as they don't try to convert me. Don't try to convert me, and I won't try to convert you.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is hosting "Cosmos" right now, and the biggest complaint I have about it is the obvious atheist agenda in the show. Every episode, it is markedly clear how much they are pushing atheism, and they are constantly taking jabs at religion. I do have a problem with that.

well but majority of atheist will try converting you..likewise religions will also try to convert you..only thought process that doesn't believe in conversion is hinduism (sanatan dharma) it believes in tranformation...but strangest part of hinduism is that it never promotes conversions yet millions are joining eternal dharma

 

[garry420]

And are you @gary420 ?

I'm a Sunni Muslim and proud of be!

well thats great ...but why do you have to say that you are proud ?
have you seen lion telling everyone that he is king ? no coz his actions speak louder than words..this is discussion post hence ..i would not like to go any step further..by the way do research on bhavisya puran. but from some credible site not any islamic site..coz translation from sanskrit cannot be done by anyone so easily