The Atheist - Agnostic - Non religious thread

rushfan4 wrote: I once heard a comment from a radio DJ that hit its mark with me.  "Given that I am not religious, the whole issue in the Middle East between the Muslims and the Jews comes across as childish behaviour in the guise of my imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend".

"God is imaginary" - I liked that way of putting it, heard it first in the "10 questions for a Christian person" video on YouTube.

Well, religion is quite absurd from an outsider's perspective - the movie "Religulous" will hopefully remind people of that. Someone pointed me towards the movie a few days ago ... apparently it's even already out on DVD.


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - December 12 2009 at 15:38

No it isn't.

Not every video is a dogmatic teaching. Of course you would have to watch them in order to say something about their content.

And lastly: Did you count them? I doubt that I posted 25 videos.

I did count them and I did watch all or at least a large part of most of them (and I've seen a good many more besides these) and dogmatic is exactly what they are.

CPicard wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:   Four horsemen...Four Evangelists...Don't you see the connection Mike?   Iván Well, if you still think there are only four evangiles...

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - December 12 2009 at 16:56

Just one question Ivan.. you say it takes faith to believe god doesn't exist.... to disbelieve, you said we need faith...

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: CPicard wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:   Four horsemen...Four Evangelists...Don't you see the connection Mike?   Iván Well, if you still think there are only four evangiles...   Not talking about the apocrypha Gospels.

This is what pisses me off with the so-called catholics: to keep talking about "apocrypha" gospels while other Christian thinkers take them as "official".
But, again, neither the catholics, nor the protestants, not even the orthodoxians, know the history of the Bible and its true content.

I still don't understand how you can support evidence for a negative, for the non existence of something....

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Faith (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof  So You can't prove God doesn't exist You believe there's no God Then it's faith As simple as that

If you see it as simple as that, then have it your way. Did you see my post regarding the celestial teapot?

Some things can't be proven, but a certain probability can be assumed. You can collect hints and clues that make a proposition more or less likely to be true. So when something can neither be proved nor disproved, it doesn't automatically follow that there's an equal chance for it to be true or false.

And especially for the Christian God there's the problem with the Bible and its inconsistencies. For example, take the Second Coming of Christ. AFAIK Jesus said that it would happen in the lifetime of his contemporaries (apostles) ... we're still waiting for it to happen. It's many little nuggets like this which - for me - shift the probability for God's existence near zero percent. Another point is that there are many competing religions on this planet, and most of them claim that their solution is the only valid one. But they can't be all true. These consistencies make much more sense when you assume that God is a delusion, a false belief without any basis in reality, than when you assume that all those people are right and the Atheists are wrong.

Aren't you the slightest bit worried about all these discrepancies?

CPicard wrote: Why don't you have a pagan/Wiccan thread?

There just aren't enough Wiccan's who believe in Prog. Go to Alt.Gothic or uk.people.gothic and you can't move for them.

The T wrote: So, ok. Let's pick any other religion, sect, cult, whatever. One of the craziest. Scientology. "Among these advanced teachings is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as the tyrant ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy." According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. " Ok I definitely don't believe in any of that nonsense. You probably don't either. Then, we both have faith that said things never happened? Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Faith (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof  So You can't prove God doesn't exist You can't prove Xenu isn't (or wasn't ) real You believe there's no God We believe there is no Xenu Then it's faith We both need faith not to believe in Xenu As simple as that So, you not only need faith to believe in things, but also not to believe in them?  You may say that it is your faith in the catholic god what then eliminates any other belief, not faith. So, in the end, is the positive belief what is faith. Not the negative! Come on... Believing that something doesn't exist doesn't require faith. believing that something does is what requires it...

Back in the 70s when I was a christian not believing in god was called lack of faith and anyone who did not believe was called faithless. Funny how times change.

Edited by Dean - December 12 2009 at 20:12