religion

[Myweponsg00d]

I believe that the universe as it exists, including life as we know it, is too improbable, and there must be an explanation for its existence. I believe that God satisfies this explanation. That explanation is logical, is good enough for me, but you've rejected it and are belligerent about getting a different explanation. I'm sorry, but I don't have to waste my time to take your abuse.

 

Why is it abuse? This is all just such crap. I hate it. I hate the "respect" that theistic views about the origins of the universe demand. If you thought that the chemical formula for water was H3O and a scientist explains to you that the scientifically accepted formula is H2O, would you be like "Its MY explanation, stop abusing me! H3O makes sense to me!"?

 

See, wep, I think your problem is that you can't distinguish between logical and physical proof.

 

Is there a difference between the two when we are figuring things out about the physical world? Name something that we accept about the physical world that isn't based on physical evidence.

God can make logical sense, but you're not going to find definitive scientific proof of his existence (just as you're not going to find the same to the contrary).

 

It could also make sense if telekinetic fairies existed inside matter and caused gravitational attraction. That makes sense. But theres no reason for anyone to believe that it is true.

 

Also many things about the physical world DON'T "make sense". Does it make sense that an object gets shorter the faster it moves? Does it make sense that subatomic particles don't follow normal trajectories but instead follow probabilistic wave functions? No. Neither of these important scientific facts would have ever been discovered if we used "common sense" to explain the world. What you think makes sense has no bearing on reality.

I think you are quite comfortable with your belief(which is a belief by the way, since you cannot ever know if you are right, only agnostics can truthfully say they have no belief).

 

You might want to re-examine your use of terminology. An agnostic thinks that the question of God is completely unanswerable. Not just unanswerable at the moment, but that it could never be answerable. An atheist is anyone who says anything except for "I believe a god (or gods) exists"

 

Also you again miss the point, in saying that I can't know if "I am right". I have nothing to be right about. This is an issue of burden of proof. When an idea is suggested by somebody, the person who supports this idea has the burden of proving that the idea is acceptable. I'm not proposing anything. All I'm saying is that I have no reason to accept your idea.

 

You've demonstrated to me that you've no interest in actually looking at the situation objectively and therefore continuing to argue only serves to waste my time.

 

I have looked at it completely objectively. You have provided your arguments, I have responded and I have pointed out where they break down. If you think that my counterarguments are flawed, then point out the flaws and defend your argument.

 

The only subjective thing I may have said is that I doubt you have any real reason to believe in a god. I guess you may have some proof that you still haven't shared with anyone, but I have found that it is best to assume that any theist has made some type of logical error. The only reason I say this is just because I have been debating creationists for so long and I have heard all of the flawed arguments before. It has been a very long time since I have heard any pro-God arguments that I never heard before.

[sees_all1]

I believe that the universe as it exists, including life as we know it, is too improbable, and there must be an explanation for its existence. I believe that God satisfies this explanation. That explanation is logical, is good enough for me, but you've rejected it and are belligerent about getting a different explanation. I'm sorry, but I don't have to waste my time to take your abuse.

 

Why is it abuse?

I don't know, maybe I'm mistaken in thinking stuff like:

This is all just such crap. I hate it. I hate the "respect" that theistic views about the origins of the universe demand.

is abusive.

 

Its abuse because you keep telling me my views are stupid, full of crap, incorrect, etc. over and over again.

 

Its also abuse because you frequently contradict yourself, and refuse to budge an inch on your views. Remember a few pages back where we had that discussion on mutations? Two or three pages before that you were acting as if there were no such thing as a "mutation," and that anyone who believed mutations happened must have thought that "the only reason people look different is cause some kind of carcinogen interfered in our reproduction?? :blink:", followed by "Go back to high school and pay attention in Biology class"

[Maulmachine]

See, wep, I think your problem is that you can't distinguish between logical and physical proof.

 

God can make logical sense, but you're not going to find definitive scientific proof of his existence (just as you're not going to find the same to the contrary).

 

I think you are quite comfortable with your belief(which is a belief by the way, since you cannot ever know if you are right, only agnostics can truthfully say they have no belief). You've demonstrated to me that you've no interest in actually looking at the situation objectively and therefore continuing to argue only serves to waste my time.

Listen, if you are questioning me as well, I find your statements thoroughly contemptible. You're thoroughly offensive to those who share a contrary belief, going as far as to infer that atheism causes people to become genocidal. And now you're pretending that you're knowledgeable on a subject which you aren't. If you take philosophy 101(if you happen to go to Columbia one of my relatives is the professor) then you would know that atheism isn't a belief system. It's a lack of belief towards god. That isn't a belief system, it's unorganized, unstructured, and there is a well classified and known set of requirements that something must meet to be classified as a belief. Your statements are formed out of sheer ignorance, and you've yet to pose a response towards me.

 

Secondly, you mistake the purpose of discussion. Religion isn't discussed to persuade others to switch to a different side. It's discussed so that we can better understand each other and our separate viewpoints. I sure hope everyone is comfortable with their view(not belief) regarding religion. The point isn't to show someone the light, it's merely to clarify the misconceptions we hold about each other.

[Myweponsg00d]

I believe that the universe as it exists, including life as we know it, is too improbable, and there must be an explanation for its existence. I believe that God satisfies this explanation. That explanation is logical, is good enough for me, but you've rejected it and are belligerent about getting a different explanation. I'm sorry, but I don't have to waste my time to take your abuse.

 

Why is it abuse?

I don't know, maybe I'm mistaken in thinking stuff like:

This is all just such crap. I hate it. I hate the "respect" that theistic views about the origins of the universe demand.

is abusive.

 

Its abuse because you keep telling me my views are stupid, full of crap, incorrect, etc. over and over again.

 

If I tell you something is full of crap, I then provide a reason as to why it is full of crap.

 

And again, answer my question. If you insisted that the chemical formula for water was H3O and I told you that it was H2O, am I abusive if I tell you that your "view" makes no sense?

 

Its also abuse because you frequently contradict yourself, and refuse to budge an inch on your views. Remember a few pages back where we had that discussion on mutations? Two or three pages before that you were acting as if there were no such thing as a "mutation," and that anyone who believed mutations happened must have thought that "the only reason people look different is cause some kind of carcinogen interfered in our reproduction?? :blink:", followed by "Go back to high school and pay attention in Biology class"

 

This is correct. The reason there are different lifeforms has nothing to do with radioactive elements or carcinogens. The problem I had with your use of the word "mutation" is that you seem to have the idea that it refers to something like how in cartoons there will be a fish with 20 eyes after it swims around in nuclear waste. This process has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution did not occur due to genetic contamination, it occurs due to random variations. We are not the offspring of millions of generations of ****ed up freak babies.

 

 

 

Secondly, you mistake the purpose of discussion. Religion isn't discussed to persuade others to switch to a different side. It's discussed so that we can better understand each other and our separate viewpoints. I sure hope everyone is comfortable with their view(not belief) regarding religion. The point isn't to show someone the light, it's merely to clarify the misconceptions we hold about each other.

 

Actually my purpose is to convince people that there is no reason to believe in a god. I'm not saying you can't be moral or practice a philosophical religion, but pretending that an intelligent creator "guy in the sky" exists is just unreasoned. I have never heard a convincing case for why people need to hold unwarranted beliefs about the physical world

[obfuscator]

 

Listen, if you are questioning me as well, I find your statements thoroughly contemptible. You're thoroughly offensive to those who share a contrary belief, going as far as to infer that atheism causes people to become genocidal. And now you're pretending that you're knowledgeable on a subject which you aren't. If you take philosophy 101(if you happen to go to Columbia one of my relatives is the professor) then you would know that atheism isn't a belief system. It's a lack of belief towards god. That isn't a belief system, it's unorganized, unstructured, and there is a well classified and known set of requirements that something must meet to be classified as a belief. Your statements are formed out of sheer ignorance, and you've yet to pose a response towards me.

 

Secondly, you mistake the purpose of discussion. Religion isn't discussed to persuade others to switch to a different side. It's discussed so that we can better understand each other and our separate viewpoints. I sure hope everyone is comfortable with their view(not belief) regarding religion. The point isn't to show someone the light, it's merely to clarify the misconceptions we hold about each other.

Well, I wasn't questioning you as well, but ok.

 

I never said atheism causes people to become genocidal. What I do believe is that atheism allows people to become genocidal.

 

The reason I'm not responding to you is because I don't feel like it. I don't expect you to be convinced by my lack of argument, but I have read somewhat into the history of the soviet union and other atheist states and I have come to the belief that atheism allows people to behave immorally - as peter hitchens puts it:

Atheism is a license for ruthlessness, and it appeals to the ruthless.

 

I'm curious to see what qualifications a belief must have. As far as I'm aware, if you think something is true without being able to provide reasonable proof it is a belief rather than fact. As the existence or nonexistence of God cannot be proven, anything but agnosticism must be considered some sort of belief. I've never heard that a belief had to be inherently structured.

 

Any argument I make that atheism is responsible for criminal actions is no more fallacious(indeed, markedly less so) then the common atheist arguments that religion itself is evil and immoral.

 

 

There can be many purposes of discussion...in general I think most people, when entering into a debate, hope to persuade the opposing side that their argument is correct or at least valid. I haven't seen any attempt from anyone to clear up misconceptions on this thread.

 

And now, a definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

 

atheist - 3 dictionary results

a·the·ist   

[ey-thee-ist] Show IPA

–noun

a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

 

The very definition of atheism dictates that an atheist has come to a negative conclusion regarding the existence of "a supreme being or beings". If you truly "are not sure", then agnosticism would be a much more appropriate label.

[sees_all1]

This is correct. The reason there are different lifeforms has nothing to do with radioactive elements or carcinogens.

Have you not learned anything?

Chemicals and radiation have EVERYTHING to do with evolution.

 

But I don't have the time nor the inclination to teach you basics in biology and evolution, especially when you refuse basic, accepted facts from the scientific community because they don't agree exactly with your "truth"

[Zierro]

Not true. If someone says "My cat is orange." this is naturally nothing more than an utterance of speech. It is not naturally true or false. It is a human distinction that makes us interpret this speech as true or false. We invented the classification of "true"

 

What are you talking about? The event of a person purposely telling another person a falsehood occurred multiple times before someone decided to label it a "lie". In order for there to be a label, an idea is required first. The idea has been conceptualized because it was observed in the physical world first. Someone telling another person a falsehood would be just as "objectively true" as a god existing.

 

Not to mention, we also invented the classification of "truth" and "existent" too. This doesn't mean nothing can ever be "true" unless humans say so.

 

Again, just because you haven't seen spaghetti move doesn't mean it can't.

 

And again, a triangle is not something in nature. We define "triangle" into existence.[

 

My argument was not, "If you haven't seen it, it must be not true." My point is that spaghetti doesn't even have the potential to perform such feats because it does not possess the necessary components to. The fact that a triangle is a triangle means it has no potential to be any different shape, thus an impossibility.

 

Yes. Possible

 

Yet another completely unfounded claim. I don't even think most of your arguments warrant a rebuttal, as you're not even bothering to add anything new to the table other than persistently rejecting all of my claims without good reason to. Actually, I do have a response to reciprocate your "arguments": I DISAGREE.

 

You don't know for certain that you will be experiencing a great force.

 

Yes, it is possible for you to be uncertain and doubt it all you want, but that doesn't mean you won't splatter into millions of pieces, every single time - at least nomologically speaking (in terms of our universe's laws instead of some parallel universe crap).

 

What word other than "great force" can describe an average sized man falling 10,000 feet (with earth's gravity included) and smacking onto the hard pavement? Hell, there's even mathematics proving this. Now you're going as far as rejecting the scientific laws of physics in order to cling onto your argument that nothing but abstract knowledge can be impossible.

 

I'm calling something impossible if it can literally never happen. It sounds like you are calling something impossible if it has an extremely low chance of happening.

 

This is why I brought up the laws of nature needing to be changed in order for some things to be possible. It's called nomological possibility. In a different universe with different rules, we have zero idea of what to expect. However, I'm talking about the real world.

 

All of this could be possible. We have no way of knowing for certain.

 

But we do know. We know for certain that a raisin weighs much less than 100 lbs, therefore has no potential to instantly make you 100 lbs larger. We know for certain that lungs are required in order to take a breath, just like a brain is required to have a thought. We know for certain that 1.) a normal fishing rod is not nearly long enough to reach the sun, 2.) the sun would burn up any matter even close to it, and 3.) no human is strong enough to pull that weight.

 

I handpicked some of the most basic contradictions to reality, and yet you're still desperately trying to deny basic science for the sake of leveraging your already-debunked arguments. Again, in terms of nomologically possibility, these things just cannot happen in the realm we live in. If you wish to assert that these are possible, then you must find a way to get past these things, but all you are doing is making hollow claims that they are possible.

 

I already said that a claim without evidence that would be congruent with what we expect to see in nature is more probable than one that contradicts our expectations.

 

Then you have no reason to support the argument that, "If two things both have no evidence, they are equally plausible," which is the logic I've been refuting this whole time. There are more things to take into account than absences of evidence, and I've shown you multiple things that should be taken into account if you wish to make a logical deduction in contrast to Santa and a deity.

 

Okay. There are trillions of things in the universe and none of them show evidence of needing an intelligent creator. Is this evidence for falsehood?

 

No, evidence for falsehood would be us legitimately finding out that the origin of the universe was caused by something other than god, or that it has no cause, etc. (Go figure there's probably no way to find this out.) It simply comes down to there being no evidence for god, and none against, therefore it would be illogical to claim anything other than ignorance.

 

Look at his response. "You're comfortable with your own belief" LOL

 

This is typical crap that I get from a theist walking away from an argument. "Oh well I guess we all just have different beliefs!" Yea except you have no reason to have yours and you can't logically explain to me why you believe what you believe.

 

Yeah... and now look at yours. You seem to be very content on believing all of your assertions, even after I pointed out multiple ways how they break down. It all boils down to you having a false sense of reality and believing the magical Santa Claus and breathing skeletons fossils are possible. This is the typical crap I see from atheists who love to slither away from the fact that some of their assertions can be just as illogical as a theist's.

 

The very definition of atheism dictates that an atheist has come to a negative conclusion regarding the existence of "a supreme being or beings". If you truly "are not sure", then agnosticism would be a much more appropriate label.

 

Exactly - it's amusing how fervent some will get over their supposed "lack of belief". I'd have to say though that it's pretty apparent what they actually believe when they EQUATE GOD TO SANTA CLAUS. =D>

[Myweponsg00d]

The very definition of atheism dictates that an atheist has come to a negative conclusion regarding the existence of "a supreme being or beings". If you truly "are not sure", then agnosticism would be a much more appropriate label.

 

The very definition of atheism SAYS THAT IT IS DISBELIEF. It is the disbelief of the god hypothesis. It is NOT a belief of the opposite. Someone says "Theres a god" and we say "I dont believe you" Thats it.

 

It DOES NOT SAY "A person who believes there is not a god and cannot be a god"

 

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Have you not learned anything?

Chemicals and radiation have EVERYTHING to do with evolution.

 

But I don't have the time nor the inclination to teach you basics in biology and evolution, especially when you refuse basic, accepted facts from the scientific community because they don't agree exactly with your "truth"

 

Chemicals, yes. Everything relates to chemicals. But NOT in the sense that the DNA gets "contaminated" by something. Variation of lifeforms isn't anything like when a baby gets born with 6 toes due to the fact that his mommy lived next to the nuclear plant. This type of DNA alteration is very different from the type that occurs naturally.

 

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What are you talking about? The event of a person purposely telling another person a falsehood occurred multiple times before someone decided to label it a "lie". In order for there to be a label, an idea is required first. The idea has been conceptualized because it was observed in the physical world first. Someone telling another person a falsehood would be just as "objectively true" as a god existing.

 

Not to mention, we also invented the classification of "truth" and "existent" too. This doesn't mean nothing can ever be "true" unless humans say so.

 

The part you just said, in bold, was my very point. It isn't a truth or a lie until we call it that. Until then it is nothing but sound. Determining something as a truth or a lie is a completely man made system. If we somehow managed to never think of these classifications, a statement could never be anything but a statement (basically). On the other hand, something like a baseball flying through the air has its outcome dictated by the natural world. Something being true vs. false is decided by us. Something sitting still vs. moving is "decided" by nature.

 

My argument was not, "If you haven't seen it, it must be not true." My point is that spaghetti doesn't even have the potential to perform such feats because it does not possess the necessary components to. The fact that a triangle is a triangle means it has no potential to be any different shape, thus an impossibility.

 

Again, you don't know that the spaghetti for sure cannot come to life. Maybe there IS a god and he is going to decide to randomly make it come to life, despite the fact that it is made up of all the wrong stuff. It isn't an impossibility.

 

And again, the triangle thing is an impossibility by definition. Triangles play by our rules because we invented them, and we get to decide what is and is not a triangle. It is an abstract creation of mankind. We don't get to decide how physical objects behave, because they are not a product of our minds. We didn't create the rules, so we can never know them for absolute certainty.

 

Yet another completely unfounded claim. I don't even think most of your arguments warrant a rebuttal, as you're not even bothering to add anything new to the table other than persistently rejecting all of my claims without good reason to. Actually, I do have a response to reciprocate your "arguments": I DISAGREE.

 

Fine. It is possible because we have no way of coming to any sort of absolute knowledge about the physical world around us. We can develop good enough predictions to serve for all practical purposes, but we can NEVER call something impossible. We just don't have a system that does that. Science is not a source of absolute knowledge. It is a source of knowledge that gets us as close as possible.

 

Yes, it is possible for you to be uncertain and doubt it all you want, but that doesn't mean you won't splatter into millions of pieces, every single time - at least nomologically speaking (in terms of our universe's laws instead of some parallel universe crap).

 

What word other than "great force" can describe an average sized man falling 10,000 feet (with earth's gravity included) and smacking onto the hard pavement? Hell, there's even mathematics proving this. Now you're going as far as rejecting the scientific laws of physics in order to cling onto your argument that nothing but abstract knowledge can be impossible.

 

I think you misunderstand the way that science works. Its not like we can see something and then instantly know the truth. It is a system of predictions and likely conclusions. If you want to talk about "the laws of physics" how about this? You are walking down the road, when all of a sudden you split into a human and an anti-human (basically just two humans). Sound impossible? Sound like it defys some "law" of physics? Well, it doesn't. In fact, you can use physics to predict the chances of this happening to you. Luckily the odds are less than 10^-100, but it is still technically a possibility.

 

Stuff like that happens all of the time to subatomic particles (spontaneously splitting into a particle and anti-particle). It happens way more frequently for these particles since their mass is so tiny. As things get more massive, it is less likely for these types of things to happen. Yet still possible.

 

This is why I brought up the laws of nature needing to be changed in order for some things to be possible. It's called nomological possibility. In a different universe with different rules, we have zero idea of what to expect. However, I'm talking about the real world.

 

You seem to have some understanding of the fact that properties of our universe dictate the outcomes of events around us. Well, its not like these properties are absolute. Like, its not like there is a universal "on" or "off" position for "Can things pass through each other?". The liklihood of certain events occuring is set by constants that have a value (for example, Planck's constant, one of the most important constants for understanding the behavior of objects in our universe). The objects in our universe behave according to probability equations, not absolute equations. Some of these effects are totally, completely, absolutely negligible for daily life. However, to say that there is a ZERO percent chance of you being able to jump through your wall is a slight misnomer.

 

But we do know. We know for certain that a raisin weighs much less than 100 lbs, therefore has no potential to instantly make you 100 lbs larger. We know for certain that lungs are required in order to take a breath, just like a brain is required to have a thought. We know for certain that 1.) a normal fishing rod is not nearly long enough to reach the sun, 2.) the sun would burn up any matter even close to it, and 3.) no human is strong enough to pull that weight.

 

I handpicked some of the most basic contradictions to reality, and yet you're still desperately trying to deny basic science for the sake of leveraging your already-debunked arguments. Again, in terms of nomologically possibility, these things just cannot happen in the realm we live in. If you wish to assert that these are possible, then you must find a way to get past these things, but all you are doing is making hollow claims that they are possible.

 

"Basic" science is a complete oversimplification of the real nature of objects in our universe. If you are interested in learning more, google something about quantum physics.

 

Then you have no reason to support the argument that, "If two things both have no evidence, they are equally plausible," which is the logic I've been refuting this whole time. There are more things to take into account than absences of evidence, and I've shown you multiple things that should be taken into account if you wish to make a logical deduction in contrast to Santa and a deity.

 

What do you want to compare then? The fact that Santa does many "magical" things or that God does many "magical" things? What is there about God that is more congruent with the reality we see around us than Santa claus is? Have we ever seen an infinitely intelligent force? Have we ever seen a being create a universe? Have we seen a being that doesn't need a beginning? What is it about God that makes him MORE likely to exist than a magical guy who can fly around the world in a night? Tell me instead of just repeatedly saying that the comparison sucks. All you have done is spit out stuff about reciepts, which doesn't do anything to make it seem more unlikely that a man in a magical sled can fly around with raindeer.

 

No, evidence for falsehood would be us legitimately finding out that the origin of the universe was caused by something other than god, or that it has no cause, etc. (Go figure there's probably no way to find this out.) It simply comes down to there being no evidence for god, and none against, therefore it would be illogical to claim anything other than ignorance.

 

:mellow: Which is my entire point for why you should not be a theist. It makes more sense to be atheist.

 

Yeah... and now look at yours. You seem to be very content on believing all of your assertions, even after I pointed out multiple ways how they break down. It all boils down to you having a false sense of reality and believing the magical Santa Claus and breathing skeletons fossils are possible. This is the typical crap I see from atheists who love to slither away from the fact that some of their assertions can be just as illogical as a theist's.

Exactly - it's amusing how fervent some will get over their supposed "lack of belief". I'd have to say though that it's pretty apparent what they actually believe when they EQUATE GOD TO SANTA CLAUS. =D>

Again you still haven't shot down the comparison to Santa yet you seem to be under the impression that you have. All you do is say "But theres no photos, no reciepts...etc..." all that stuff. When I say that maybe we just don't have the story right, you just start from the beginning again and say "The Santa comparison sucks!" All your evidence shows is that if Santa exists, he must not be exactly who the stories say he is.

[Stragomagus]

Just as there is no evidence for a god outside of any divine text(circular reasoning) or outside the mind of mankind for that matter, there also is no evidence to support a pink unicorn flying around my head.

 

Did I mention that the pink unicorn is just as omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent as yours is?

 

What do the two have in common?

 

One is something that has been around ages, while the other I just made off the top of my head. Does this make the former anymore true(ignoring the fallacy when one answers "Yes") just because the other is more recent?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism (pay close attention to the following links and see if your definition of atheist still holds true). Anti is the same as saying "In direct opposition to"

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismatheiststheism/a/AntiTheism.htm

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism <---- 1

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism <------ 2

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1223551#m_en_us1223551 <------ 3

 

belief

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/belief <--- I like this only half as much as this next one.

http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&q=belief&hl=en

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1225787#m_en_us1225787

 

evidence

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evidence

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/ <---- I think this one is a dissertation for someone's PH.D.

 

Again Y_Guy, you can hold all the beliefs you want on the subject matter that Atheists are genocidal, but until you have something to assert as fact keep it in your head unless you want to be lain into. What little you have delved into(probably just excerpts in a wikipedia article and a little bit from US history books) is not enough to constitute even a basic understanding of the underlaying factors behind the fall of Soviet Russia.

 

If you really wish to understand communism then read "Karl Marxs'" book on the matter(he created the term afterall). It is apparent you haven't based on what has been said so far.

 

Capitalism is in direct opposition to Communism. In other words the anti-thesis.

 

By the way, Stalin was raised catholic just as Adolf Hitler was(read Mein Kampf).

 

Do you know what the two have in common in their ideologies, besides both being raised in such a way?

 

Absolutely nothing aside from the dogmatic beliefs they used, that religions in general use, to manipulate the masses. One just happened to be Atheist and the other was Catholic(Christian). Do you see a trend here?

 

I never said atheism causes people to become genocidal. What I do believe is that atheism allows people to become genocidal. <--- watch what I do to your argument here

I never said theism causes people to become genocidal. What I do believe is that theism allows people to become genocidal.

 

Any argument I make that atheism is responsible for criminal actions is no more fallacious(indeed, markedly less so) then the common atheist arguments that religion itself is evil and immoral. <---and again.

 

Any argument I make that theism is responsible for criminal actions is no more fallacious(indeed, markedly less so) then the common theist arguments that atheism itself is evil and immoral.

 

"There can be many purposes of discussion...in general I think most people, when entering into a debate, hope to persuade the opposing side that their argument is correct or at least valid. I haven't seen any attempt from anyone to clear up misconceptions on this thread."

 

The problem here though is that you choose to cherry-pick everything.

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Since you very clearly are a troll See_All1 this will be all you get from me.

 

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=evolutionary+biology&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C18&as_sdtp=on

 

Abiogenesis - relates to the origin of life.

Evolution - Relates only to the diversity of life.

 

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Crusty, do you not understand the base definition of abstract?

 

Clearly not as here is an example.

I have an object with 3 sides, therefore I shall call it a "Triangle". <---- notice what I do here to the next one.

I have an object with 3 sides, therefore I shall call it a "Square". <---- If you can't find the difference don't reply.

[sees_all1]

Have you not learned anything?

Chemicals and radiation have EVERYTHING to do with evolution.

 

But I don't have the time nor the inclination to teach you basics in biology and evolution, especially when you refuse basic, accepted facts from the scientific community because they don't agree exactly with your "truth"

 

Chemicals, yes. Everything relates to chemicals. But NOT in the sense that the DNA gets "contaminated" by something. Variation of lifeforms isn't anything like when a baby gets born with 6 toes due to the fact that his mommy lived next to the nuclear plant. This type of DNA alteration is very different from the type that occurs naturally.

Baby gets born with 6 toes, allows it to run faster and thus has a better probability of surviving. Baby becomes adult, has many children that all survive better. All of a sudden our species has 6 toes instead of 5.

How is that not evolution? Mutations are the basis of evolution, and mutations occur because of chemicals or radiation. Get your facts straight.

 

 

 

EDIT:

Since you very clearly are a troll See_All1 this will be all you get from me.

 

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=evolutionary+biology&h l=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C18&as_sdtp=on

 

Abiogenesis - relates to the origin of life.

Evolution - Relates only to the diversity of life.

I appreciate you taking the time out of your very busy day to give me a broken link to a search result.

Allow me to respond, with my sources of infinite knowledge:

www.bing.com

 

/sarcasm

[Myweponsg00d]

Have you not learned anything?

Chemicals and radiation have EVERYTHING to do with evolution.

 

But I don't have the time nor the inclination to teach you basics in biology and evolution, especially when you refuse basic, accepted facts from the scientific community because they don't agree exactly with your "truth"

 

Chemicals, yes. Everything relates to chemicals. But NOT in the sense that the DNA gets "contaminated" by something. Variation of lifeforms isn't anything like when a baby gets born with 6 toes due to the fact that his mommy lived next to the nuclear plant. This type of DNA alteration is very different from the type that occurs naturally.

Baby gets born with 6 toes, allows it to run faster and thus has a better probability of surviving. Baby becomes adult, has many children that all survive better. All of a sudden our species has 6 toes instead of 5.

How is that not evolution? Mutations are the basis of evolution, and mutations occur because of chemicals or radiation. Get your facts straight.

 

 

Mutations CAN occur because of these things. Radiation is not the only source, and it is not the most common source. Well. Wait. You slipped chemicals in there. All biological things are made of chemicals, so I suppose chemicals are definitely the cause.

 

But not in the sense that "Oh wooops my lemur got exposed to some crazy chemical and now its a fox"

 

Most evolutionary changes only occurred due to random variation. DNA replication randomly varries for no real reason at all. These variations produce small, helpful changes to the organism. (they could also be harmful) I just want to get this straight because it is important that you understand that things weren't running around with no toes, then all of a sudden something got hit by a cosmic ray, and its children had 5 toes.

 

The development of beneficial traits takes a lot more time than that. For example, it might be beneficial for a short-tongued animal to develop a longer tongue. This doesn't mean that a few lucky animals developed really long tongues due to toxic exposure. The theory of evolution suggests that this process happens far more gradually. Say that some of the animal has a 5 centimeter tongue. Well, this thing can give birth to children that have something like 4.5 centimeter to 5.5 centimeter tongues. After many many years the ones with slightly longer tongues have slightly higher survival rates and these become the new standard for the species.

 

These changes happen randomly. Think of it this way: are you shorter than your parents? If you are an inch shorter, does that mean your mom stood too close to the microwave when you were in her? No. Offspring vary randomly in small ways. These small variations in a system of natural selection will eventually breed themselves into dominance.

 

 

Furthermore I would just like to add that the radiation crap doesn't even do anything to help your claim. There was plenty of radiation hitting the Earth.

[Hamtaro]

The Bible told us all we need to know about our creation so we shouldn't be wasting money on studying the myth of evolution. My pastor told our congregation of how the Bible proves GOD's existence of when he prayed to GOD and received an answer. Maybe if you guys had faith in the Lord GOD he would give his grace to you. I also know a popular argument of you guys is some non sense about dinosaurs (and you say we believe in fairy tales... LOL). The thing is, the devil put dinosaur bones in the Earth to test our faith in GOD because the Bible already told us that that can't be true. If we truly had faith in the Lord, then we would know that the fossils means nothing, yet some of y'all decide to display them in one of them atheist ("science") museums.

 

I also find it ironic about that Darwin fellow. He had his cute little THEORIES about natural selection and all that garbage and made a hypothesis about the bottleneck effect. What island of inbreeders did he come from? And on this island of inbreds, what is the dominant (lack of) religion? Atheism. What a shock :rolleyes:

 

inb4someone doesn't pick up on the massive sarcasm

[sephiroth_king]

Studio, no need to troll. Though it seems not every discussion in this thread has been fully civil, it looks like its somewhat going towards that route. We don't need flamebait. :/

[Hamtaro]

Nice to see you missed the inb4. It's cute that you think someone with different beliefs than you is a troll. "Tolerance" at its finest...

[sephiroth_king]

Nice to see you missed the inb4. It's cute that you think someone with different beliefs than you is a troll. "Tolerance" at its finest...

 

It isn't a matter of different beliefs as it was you having agitating comments in your post. AKA, Flaimbait. But you are right, I missed the inb4, then again it still wasn't a matter of there being different beliefs rather than the post containing flaimbait comments in it. It still is a trollish comment, though.

[Zierro]

The part you just said, in bold, was my very point. It isn't a truth or a lie until we call it that. Until then it is nothing but sound. Determining something as a truth or a lie is a completely man made system. If we somehow managed to never think of these classifications, a statement could never be anything but a statement (basically). On the other hand, something like a baseball flying through the air has its outcome dictated by the natural world.

 

And to which my response was and still is, "A 'god'/'mug' does not exist until we call it that." Do we really have to go in another circle? I mean, I already have my response to what I'm pretty sure your rebuttal will be. ("But the physical object in front of my desk is there no matter what we call it." "But the act of someone intentionally telling another a falsity is there no matter what we call it.")

 

Something being true vs. false is decided by us. Something sitting still vs. moving is "decided" by nature.

 

Something sitting still is either a truth or a falsehood. We ascribe what it takes to constitute as "sitting still" or "moving", just as we ascribe what it takes to constitute as a "truth".

 

Again, you don't know that the spaghetti for sure cannot come to life. Maybe there IS a god and he is going to decide to randomly make it come to life, despite the fact that it is made up of all the wrong stuff. It isn't an impossibility.

 

And again, the triangle thing is an impossibility by definition. Triangles play by our rules because we invented them, and we get to decide what is and is not a triangle. It is an abstract creation of mankind. We don't get to decide how physical objects behave, because they are not a product of our minds. We didn't create the rules, so we can never know them for absolute certainty.

 

Again, you are speaking of nomological possibility, since you claimed the laws would need to be altered in order for these things to actually occur. This is as obvious as saying a "square" would be a "triangle" if we decided to call it such. It's saying nothing but, "If things were different, things would be different!"

 

I'm talking about actual possibilities in reality - not possibilities in different dimensions of time and space.

 

Fine. It is possible because we have no way of coming to any sort of absolute knowledge about the physical world around us. We can develop good enough predictions to serve for all practical purposes, but we can NEVER call something impossible. We just don't have a system that does that. Science is not a source of absolute knowledge. It is a source of knowledge that gets us as close as possible.

 

We actually do have a system that dictates this is impossible - it's called logic. Do you think it is logically possible for these cogs to spin?

 

 

If you can provide a logical explanation as to how these three cogs can turn, you win the debate. I'll be waiting.

 

I'll even link you to a few hints: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/impossible.htm

 

I think you misunderstand the way that science works. Its not like we can see something and then instantly know the truth. It is a system of predictions and likely conclusions. If you want to talk about "the laws of physics" how about this? You are walking down the road, when all of a sudden you split into a human and an anti-human (basically just two humans). Sound impossible? Sound like it defys some "law" of physics? Well, it doesn't. In fact, you can use physics to predict the chances of this happening to you. Luckily the odds are less than 10^-100, but it is still technically a possibility.

 

Stuff like that happens all of the time to subatomic particles (spontaneously splitting into a particle and anti-particle). It happens way more frequently for these particles since their mass is so tiny. As things get more massive, it is less likely for these types of things to happen. Yet still possible.

 

You seem to have some understanding of the fact that properties of our universe dictate the outcomes of events around us. Well, its not like these properties are absolute. Like, its not like there is a universal "on" or "off" position for "Can things pass through each other?". The liklihood of certain events occuring is set by constants that have a value (for example, Planck's constant, one of the most important constants for understanding the behavior of objects in our universe). The objects in our universe behave according to probability equations, not absolute equations. Some of these effects are totally, completely, absolutely negligible for daily life. However, to say that there is a ZERO percent chance of you being able to jump through your wall is a slight misnomer.

 

I wouldn't claim something like that is impossible, as I really do have no idea. However, there are certain things that I do believe to be impossible because of logical contradiction. We can start with a cliched coin flip argument. A coin can land on heads, tails, or maybe if you are very lucky, the side. There are three possible outcomes. It is impossible for the coin to have any outcome that isn't one of those three.

 

Same goes for my other examples. It is a logical contradiction for a traditional fishing rod line (a couple meters long) to reach the sun which is millions of miles away. It is a logical contradiction for a 1 gram of food to instantly make you gain 100 lbs. It is a logical contradiction for something dead (a fossil) to also be alive (breathing). By saying these are possible, you are merely asserting a baseless claim. When I say say they are impossible, I am asserting a logically supported claim.

 

Again, this is why I love debating with atheists. They prove to act just as religiously and imaginative as the people they make a passionate hobby out of ridiculing. The irony of the situation knows no bounds.

 

What do you want to compare then? The fact that Santa does many "magical" things or that God does many "magical" things? What is there about God that is more congruent with the reality we see around us than Santa claus is? Have we ever seen an infinitely intelligent force? Have we ever seen a being create a universe? Have we seen a being that doesn't need a beginning? What is it about God that makes him MORE likely to exist than a magical guy who can fly around the world in a night? Tell me instead of just repeatedly saying that the comparison sucks. All you have done is spit out stuff about reciepts, which doesn't do anything to make it seem more unlikely that a man in a magical sled can fly around with raindeer.

 

Are you kidding? I've answered these questions before, but you just swept them under the carpet.

 

I do have a new one though: Either the universe has a first cause, or it has an infinitely recurring amount of causes. Neither seem to make logical sense to us, so whatever the answer is, it probably transcends our traditional logic. Now don't take this as evidence for god - take it as evidence that god is allowed to break more rules than Santa Claus. Like I said, the origin of the universe is a much bigger mystery than who gives us presents. Of course there are flaws in this reasoning - just not as much as there are for Santa Claus.

 

These changes happen randomly.

 

Lolwat.

 

Crusty, do you not understand the base definition of abstract?

 

Clearly not as here is an example.

I have an object with 3 sides, therefore I shall call it a "Triangle". <---- notice what I do here to the next one.

I have an object with 3 sides, therefore I shall call it a "Square". <---- If you can't find the difference don't reply.

 

But the thing is, we didn't. For all intents and purposes, in our world, a triangle has three-sides. A "triangle" cannot have anything more or less than three sides. The whole point I'm trying to get at is this: It is physically impossible for something to have three sides and four sides at the same time. Now why can't this apply to other fields of knowledge?

[Hamtaro]

@sephiroth_king

Huh? The only sarcastic part was the second paragraph. Instead of addressing what I had to say, you call me a troll or my post flamebait. What is that called... an ad hominem attack?

[Maulmachine]

I'll start off with saying that I don't agree with what wep says the majority of the time, and his posts are probably fallacious. He's a poor example of an atheist, and I'd immediately question anyone who's goal is to persuade anyone to believe any ideology. For example, the variation in the changes associated with DNA replicated is known, not unknown. It's simply due to error in a large number of cases. Evolution states that a creature with a trait which inhibits development will be less likely to produce offspring, and that the family line will be less likely to survive. On the flip side, creatures which have traits which are advantageous are more likely to produce more healthy offspring, and such pass on the acquired characteristic. Wep seems to be arguing some form of quasi-lamarckism. There is no need to debate evolution, it isn't up for debate. Evolution is a scientific theory, meaning that the amount of evidence in it's favor is incredibly strong. Scientific theories are explanations that are based on lines of evidence, enable valid predictions, and have been tested in many ways. In contrast, there is also a popular definition of theory—a “guess” or “hunch.” These conflicting definitions often cause unnecessary confusion about evolution.

 

 

I never said atheism causes people to become genocidal. What I do believe is that atheism allows people to become genocidal.

This is contemptible. Atheism is a lack of religion, it's inherent. It isn't a subscription to any certain ideology which would license anything. You think that in an atheistic society people have an inclination toward genocide? I contend that the vast majority of us are atheists in regards to most deities. It's ignorant to assume that a lack of a belief in your god would illicit any measurable sort of change in people. Are immoral people at a higher risk to commit genocide? Perhaps, but atheism isn't a moral code. Nor is it a lack of a moral code, atheism is typically related to Secular Humanism. An ideology which would spurn any genocidal statements.

 

I'm curious to see what qualifications a belief must have. As far as I'm aware, if you think something is true without being able to provide reasonable proof it is a belief rather than fact. As the existence or nonexistence of God cannot be proven, anything but agnosticism must be considered some sort of belief. I've never heard that a belief had to be inherently structured.

Right, as far you're aware. Meaning, you never bothered to maybe look it up, but just assumed you were right. As far as I'm aware the qualifications to be an idiot is ignorance. But y'know, I'm not gonna look it up or nothin', cause I gots me knowledge. Of course there's a structure associated with a belief, and of course it's been studied in philosophy... Perhaps you were ignorant of epistemology, unfortunately I've left my '69 volumes of philosophy at my parents house, as such I will have to use the SEP. It's good, but not as good. As such, this may be a tad wayward, but it defines belief well enough.

 

It is common to assume that belief is a relation between an epistemic agent at a particular time to an object of belief. Degree of belief is then a relation between a number, an epistemic agent at a particular time, and an object of belief. It is more difficult to state just what these objects of belief are. Are they sentences or propositions expressed by sentences or possible worlds (whatever these are: see Stalnaker 2003) or something altogether different?

 

The received view is that the objects of belief are propositions, i.e., sets of possible worlds or truth conditions. A more refined view is that the possible worlds comprised by those propositions are centered at an individual at a given time (Lewis 1979). Whereas a(n) (uncentered) possible world completely specifies a way the world might be, a centered possible world additionally specifies who one is when in a given (uncentered) possible world. In the latter case propositions are often called properties. Most epistemologists stay very general and assume only that there is a non-empty set W of possibilities such that exactly one element of W corresponds to the actual world. If the possibilities in W are centered, the assumption is that there is exactly one element of W that corresponds to your current time slice in the actual world (Lewis 1986 holds that this element not merely corresponds to, but is identical with, your current time slice in the actual world).

 

Centered propositions are needed to adequately represent self-locating beliefs such as Sophia's belief that she lives in Vienna, which may well be different from her belief that Sophia lives in Vienna (these two beliefs differ if Sophia does not believe that she is Sophia). Self-locating beliefs have important epistemological consequences (Elga 2000, Lewis 2001, Titelbaum to appear) and centered propositions are ably argued by Egan (2006) to correspond to what philosophers have traditionally called secondary qualities (Locke 1690/1975). Lewis' (1979, 133ff) claim that the difference between centered and uncentered propositions plays little role in how belief and other attitudes are formally represented and postulated to behave in a rational way can only be upheld for synchronic constraints on the statics of belief. For diachronic constraints on the dynamics of belief this claim is false, because the actual centered world (your current time slice in the actual uncentered world) is continually changing as time goes by. We will bracket these complications, though, and assume that, unless noted otherwise, the difference between centered and uncentered possibilities and propositions has no effect on the topic at issue.

1.3 The Structure of the Objects of Belief

 

Propositions have a certain set-theoretic structure. The set of all possibilities, W, is a proposition. Furthermore, if A and B are propositions, then so are the complement of A with respect to W, W \ A, as well as the intersection of A and B, A∩B. In other words, the set of propositions is a (finitary) field or algebra A over a non-empty set W of possibilities: a set that contains W and is closed under complementation and finite intersection. Sometimes the field A of propositions is assumed to be closed not only under finite, but also under countable intersection. This means that A1∩…An∩… is a proposition (an element of A), if each of A1,…,An,… is. Such a field A is called a σ-field. Finally, a field A is complete just in case the intersection ∩B = ∩A∈BA is in A, for each subset B of A.

 

If Sophia believes today (to degree .55) that tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna, but she does not believe today (to degree .55) that tomorrow it will not be not sunny in Vienna, propositions cannot be the objects of Sophia’s (degrees of) belief(s) today. That tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna and that tomorrow it will not be not sunny in Vienna is one and the same proposition (if stated by the same person at the same time). It is merely expressed by two different, but logically equivalent sentences. (Some philosophers think that propositions are too coarse-grained as objects of belief, while sentences are too fine-grained. They take the objects of belief to be structured propositions, which are usually taken to be more fine-grained than ordinary propositions but less fine-grained than sentences. For an overview see the entry on structured propositions. Other philosophers think that ordinary propositions are just fine, but that they should be viewed as sets of epistemic rather than metaphysical or logical possibilities, although some philosophers think these do not differ.)

 

Sometimes sentences of a formal language L are taken to be the objects of belief. In that case the above mentioned set-theoretic structure translates into the following requirements: the tautological sentence ⊤ is a sentence of the language L; and whenever α and β are sentences of L, then so are the negation of α, ¬α, as well as the conjunction of α and β, α∧β. However, as long as logically equivalent sentences are required to be assigned the same degree of belief — and all accounts considered here require this — the difference between taking the objects of beliefs to be sentences of a formal language L and taking them to be propositions from a finitary field A is mainly cosmetic. The reason is that each language L induces a finitary field A over the set of all models or classical truth value assignments for L, ModL: A is the set of propositions over ModL that are expressed by the sentences in L. A in turn induces a unique σ-field, viz. the smallest σ-field σ(A) that contains A (σ(A) is the intersection of all σ-fields that contain A as a subset). A also induces a unique complete field, viz. the smallest complete field, call it γ(A), that contains A (γ(A) is the intersection of all complete fields that contain A as a subset). In the present case where A is generated by ModL, γ(A) is the powerset of ModL, ℘(ModL).

 

σ(A), and hence γ(A), will often contain propositions that are not expressed by a sentence of L. For instance, let αi be the sentence “You should donate at least i dollars to the Society for Exact Philosophy (SEP)”, for each natural number i. Assume our language L contains each αi and whatever else it needs to contain to be a language (e.g. the negation of each αi, ¬αi, as well as the conjunction of any two αi and αj, αi∧αj). L generates the following finitary field A of propositions: A = {Mod(α) ⊆ ModL: α ∈ L}, where Mod(α) is the set of models in which α is true. A in turn induces σ(A). σ(A) contains the proposition that there is no upper bound on the number of dollars you should donate to the SEP, Mod(α1)∩…∩Mod(αn)∩…, while there is no sentence in L that expresses this proposition.

 

Hence, if we start with a language L, we automatically get a field A induced by L. As we do not always get a language L from a field A, the semantic framework of propositions is more general than the syntactic framework of sentences.

 

Using this definition, we may choose to classify atheism, perhaps, as a dispositional belief. A belief which isn't considered. That would be the only classification of atheism as "belief" which would have merit, and I think that a competent individual would be able to make a fair argument that atheism could be considered a dispositional belief. However, it's slightly inane to hold that atheism is, by definition, an antagonistic stance towards religion. Denial and disbelief are completely different. Denial may be associated with antitheism,and disbelief associated with atheism. Disbelief would simply be the lack of an inclination in a certain direction towards a specific object. As such, disbelief is not a belief, and this is the argument which an epistemologist would make for atheism not being a belief. In my opinion(as a jew, mind you) is that the latter is a sounder argument. Either way, atheism is not a belief system by any means, it is at the most a dispositional belief.

 

Any argument I make that atheism is responsible for criminal actions is no more fallacious(indeed, markedly less so) then the common atheist arguments that religion itself is evil and immoral.

Unfortunately, many acts have been committed in the name of religion. The pursuit of justice for an associated god is fairly well documented throughout history. Atheism isn't a belief system, and as such nobody kills for atheism. It's rather silly to contend that atheism can be responsible for criminal acts, as there isn't a set of guidelines or structure to atheism.

 

There can be many purposes of discussion...in general I think most people, when entering into a debate, hope to persuade the opposing side that their argument is correct or at least valid. I haven't seen any attempt from anyone to clear up misconceptions on this thread.

This isn't a debate, is it? You went from discussion(your 7th word) to debate(your 18th word). You really don't think that anyone has a clearer knowledge of an opposing viewpoint following this discussion? That's what I meant by misconceptions being cleared up.

 

The very definition of atheism dictates that an atheist has come to a negative conclusion regarding the existence of "a supreme being or beings". If you truly "are not sure", then agnosticism would be a much more appropriate label.

What people choose to label themselves as is a matter of sociology, as would be the discussion of appropriateness. I don't know enough about the sociological ramifications of calling oneself an atheist as opposed to an agnostic. So, I can't really respond which would be the more appropriate label.

[sephiroth_king]

@sephiroth_king

Huh? The only sarcastic part was the second paragraph. Instead of addressing what I had to say, you call me a troll or my post flamebait. What is that called... an ad hominem attack?

 

I never said anything about your paragraphs being...sarcastic?

 

No, the Ad Hominem attack fallacy is a direct attack on your character that has nothing to do with the current debate at hand. AKA, attacking you instead of the argument. You had what would be considered flaimbait in your comments; i.e., telling people they are ridiculous for believing dinosaurs. I conceded to you that I missed the inb4. But I'm not going to address someone who has a bunch of fallacious statements wrapped up into a post which, without the inb4, would sound like someone who is not interested in intelligent debate. It had nothing necessarily to do with belief than it did me looking at a post after what was largely a (for the most part) intelligent discussion about beliefs/non beliefs etc.

 

Despite all of this, posting inb4 at the end of the post just to see how many people will miss that one part and then call them out on it is a form of trolling as well.

 

EDIT:

I'll start off with saying that I don't agree with what wep says the majority of the time, and his posts are probably fallacious. He's a poor example of an atheist

 

This is truly the one thing I find bothering about this thread. Being an Atheist =/= being enlightened. One can be a stupid Atheist as there can also be an incredibly intelligent Christian. Its a label on non belief, not a label on enlightenment. However, most of the questioning and logical arguments formulated are by Skeptical Agnostic Atheists, or simply just Skeptics, which is by far a more accurate name in my opinion.

[Stragomagus]

Crusty, do you not understand the base definition of abstract?

 

Clearly not as here is an example.

I have an object with 3 sides, therefore I shall call it a "Triangle". <---- notice what I do here to the next one.

I have an object with 3 sides, therefore I shall call it a "Square". <---- If you can't find the difference don't reply.

 

 

But the thing is, we didn't. For all intents and purposes, in our world, a triangle has three-sides. A "triangle" cannot have anything more or less than three sides. The whole point I'm trying to get at is this: It is physically impossible for something to have three sides and four sides at the same time. Now why can't this apply to other fields of knowledge?

 

I was working under the assumption that you could deal with implied redefining.

 

Here is what I did:

1. tossed out the old meaning for "tri"

2. This in turn tossed out the old definition for triangle.

3. Which then replaced the old definition of "4-sided" with "3-sided"

4. Thus I now have "square" for the new definition of "triangle".

[Hamtaro]

So you're saying that since you can't refute anything that I said with reliable evidence, you claim my statements are:

-Flamebait

-Trollish

-Fallacious

-Not intelligent

 

I should try that sometime. With an elitist attitude, I can make myself believe that I am better than anyone who disagrees with me without having to refute anything. That would make this a lot easier, actually. Give me a chance to try it on you and watch as you say the same thing as I.

[sephiroth_king]

So you're saying that since you can't refute anything that I said with reliable evidence so you claim my statements are:

-Flamebait

-Trollish

-Fallacious

-Not intelligent

 

I should try that sometime. With an elitist attitude, I can make myself believe that I am better than anyone who disagrees with me without having to refute anything. That would make this a lot easier, actually. Give me a chance to try it on you and watch as you say the same thing as I.

 

Whatever, Studio. My point was that someone who comes in during a broad discussion and starts putting a tone of what I felt was rather elitist and asks to get attacked, yes, that is trolling to me. One doesn't post in that tone if they want an honest and civil discussion. THAT'S why I thought it was a troll comment. Again, I DID NOT see your inb4. I was in the wrong. But that doesn't excuse, either way, that your comment was trolling, with or without the inb4.

[Hamtaro]

I can't tell if I'm being trolled now or not so I'll refrain from continuing so I don't look stupid for taking the bait. If you want to participate in an intelligent discussion, feel free to discuss what I had to say in my first post. If not, I'll assume you're a troll and ignore you.

[sephiroth_king]

But as I've said before, the only thing that I find kind of wrong in some wording in this thread is using the term atheist as it is supposed to be something of an enlightened state of mind. There can be stupid atheists and smart Christians, and I think the more correct term would be more of a skeptic than anything else; one who uses logic in every day life and takes everything with a grain of salt until proven with concrete evidence. Atheist simply means lack of a deity, and while an Atheist can be/is probably already a Skeptic, they aren't synonymous with one another.

[Hamtaro]

Oh, I never saw it that way. I guess that's true. It seems like we intentionally separate ourselves from each other instead of working together to form solidarity as one human race. Maybe wars caused by differences in religion and other prejudice could be avoided if we didn't label each other as Republicans/Democrats/Christians/Atheists/Muslims/Jews then we could just be human to each other to attain some sort of mutual respect for one another. I think that's really what all religions (including atheism) really boil down to in their core beliefs. When we label each other as different, be it by race, creed, gender, or political affiliation, we lose that true meaning when it has to become a competition of who's right and who's wrong. This is effort that could be used to solve the world's problems like child labor in Asia, starvation in Africa, lack of strong education for the poor (thus, keeping them poor), and war in general.