Is this the Atheist Fanatics Forums Off-Topic?

[Seon]

For a lot of agnostics and weak atheists such as myself, it's more a case of "I don't know and I usually don't care"

As a strong atheist, I usually take the view of "I know, but I don't care unless you do"

Meaning I never talk people out of agnoscticism, Christianity or atheism unless they are set on doing demonstrations against other people,call each other mentally ********, or doing other idiotic and completely evilthings.

 

[Lillefix]

Why is that?

The way I look at it, is that they already have a well defined ethical stance before they open the Bible, and then choose from the Bible whatever suits their ethical stance.

It's like having a book with all the numbers in the world and say that by using this book alone you can get the answer to any numerical mathematical problem.

The bible has ethical opninions in all kinds of directions, so sooner or later you will always find something reasonable.

 

[Danielos]

Explain...

I explained it earlier in this thread...

 

[Nylan]

The way I look at it, is that they already have a well defined ethical stance before they open the Bible, and then choose from the Bible whatever suits their ethical stance.

Where did that ethical stance come from?

It's like having a book with all the numbers in the world and say that by using this book alone you can get the answer to any numerical mathematical problem.

Not really, no.

The bible has ethical opninions in all kinds of directions, so sooner or later you will always find something reasonable.

Of course you can read anything you want into a text, that is why there must be interpretation that can be trusted. Being all-or-nothing on whether or not the Bible is literal has nothing to do with it.

 

[Danielos]

This would have been so great in a recent thread. Damn, you were totally predictable & textbook in your response too!
1. Since you can't deny the the woman's credentials you have to attack her attitude, because you are unable to disprove her faith.
2. Continue to obscure the difference between evolution within a species & the Theory of Evolution pertaining to where man came from.

Isn´t that the point of a religious faith? That is it very hard to prove or disprove? I didn´t attack her religious faith here though, I attacked her Biblical Young Earth Creationist beliefs.

Well she also said that drowning the entire planet was justified because of the original sin and because people had become "decadent" (what were the animals guilty of?), and that it didn´t matter much anyway since humans have eternal souls. I think it´s fair to be able to consider such an attitude somewhat arrogant...

 

[Lillefix]

Where did that ethical stance come from?

That's not my department says Lillefix.

Of course you can read anything you want into a text, that is why there must be interpretation that can be trusted. Being all-or-nothing on whether or not the Bible is literal has nothing to do with it.

The fact that the "interpretation" of the bible has gradually changed over the last 2000 years, should be evidence enough that wherever those who interprets the bible gets their ethics from, it is not the bible.

 

[Nylan]

The fact that the "interpretation" of the bible has gradually changed over the last 2000 years, should be evidence enough that wherever those who interprets the bible gets their ethics from, it is not the bible.

Indeed, it does suggest that mankind has been without direct guidance in that department for quite some time.

 

[Danielos]

Indeed, it does suggest that mankind has been without direct guidance in that department for quite some time.

Isn´t it kind of insulting to humanity to imply that we need teachings from supernatural entities to develop into good, moral characters? Do we need the reward of eternal life and the fear of eternal punishment to not develop into nasty, immoral persons? That seems to be the basic Christian idea...

 

[Steph]

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf

France is the EU country with the largest proportion of atheist

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I've always seen agnosticism as a sign of hypocrisy and cowardness. Being an agnostic is like "OK, I don't believe in God, but I hope there is one".

No, thanks. If there's God, there must be proof of his existence. If the religious people can't prove it (by using a scientific method), the God-theory is unsubstantiated and thus irrelevant.

Agnosticism doesn't make any statement towards hoping there is or is no God. The rational way of going about invisible pink unicorns for instance is also one of agnosticism. But accurately stating you have no knowledge on the existence or non-existence of something, doesn't mean you can't make decisions on the probability of such a thing existing.

I don't know whether God exists, but I find it highly unlikely, so I rationally choose to not believe in God.

I noticed you yourself avoided an outright statement: God does not exist, my dear fellow agnostic.

See, that's what I am talking about - agnostics are believers in their hearts, they pretend to be neutral to keep their chances, that if there's something after life, they'll be eligible.

I find that hypocritical.

I'm pretty damn far from neutral

 

[Danielos]

Agnosticism doesn't make any statement towards hoping there is or is no God. The rational way of going about invisible pink unicorns for instance is also one of agnosticism. But accurately stating you have no knowledge on the existence or non-existence of something, doesn't mean you can't make decisions on the probability of such a thing existing.

I don't know whether God exists, but I find it highly unlikely, so I rationally choose to not believe in God.

I noticed you yourself avoided an outright statement: God does not exist, my dear fellow agnostic.

I would like to ask any of the devoted religious people here to list your best arguments in support for the existence of God. It´s not a provokation, I´m just curious to see why you believe in God.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Isn´t it kind of insulting to humanity to imply that we need teachings from supernatural entities to develop into good, moral characters? Do we need the reward of eternal life and the fear of eternal punishment to not develop into nasty, immoral persons? That seems to be the basic Christian idea...

In the immortal words of MobBoss: /shrug.

In a metaphor, Christianity is like a doctor for the soul saying "You are sick. You need healing." Saying "I'm insulted to be called sick" to a doctor is unlikely to make the doctor change his opinion as to whether you are sick, but may change his opinion of how well you can be trusted to estimate your own health.

In summary, truth trumps insult.

This answer should not be taken as an admission of the implications of your post (which I think is off the mark on a number of details), only as an answer to what I believe to be your main argument.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I would like to ask any of the devoted religious people here to list your best arguments in support for the existence of God. It´s not a provokation, I´m just curious to see why you believe in God.

Not really sure why you quoted me there

You do realise that the best arguments for being religious are personal. It's not unlike asking someone why he enjoys steak or hates spinach or loves his parents. Those questions are pretty difficult if you want to explain them in rational terms.

 

[Steph]

I've always seen agnosticism as a sign of hypocrisy and cowardness. Being an agnostic is like "OK, I don't believe in God, but I hope there is one".

That's not agnosticism as I define it. I consider myself agnostic, it doesn't mean I hope there is a God.
It means

1) I don't think the existence or non existence of God can be demonstrated. Therefore trying to do it is pointless.

2) If God exists, giving the size and complexity of the Universe, his power or motivation are far beyond human understanding, and so trying to unterstand it is pointless.

3) Because of 2, religious book, prophet or whatever claiming to preach the will of God are fraud and therefore irrelevent.


So, Agnoticism is not about hoping God exists or not. For me it's about not caring, in the sense it's hopeless and irrelevent to try, and so I better focus on something else.

 

[Danielos]

Not really sure why you quoted me there

You do realise that the best arguments for being religious are personal. It's not unlike asking someone why he enjoys steak or hates spinach or loves his parents. Those questions are pretty difficult if you want to explain them in rational terms.

Yeah, sorry, that was a mistake...

I guess you are right. Alister McGrath has published entire books to counter Dawkins books, and the only thing he does is to (lamely) counter Dawkins claims. He has no real proof of his own to back up his own beliefs...

 

[civ_king]

In the end, I just think that the question of whether a deity exists or not is too difficult for mankind to answer. We're trying to understand something which if it exists, we cannot understand.

So yeah. Agnostic here.

Madoff was saying that it was too difficult for outsiders to understand, very similar

In the immortal words of MobBoss: /shrug.

In a metaphor, Christianity is like a doctor for the soul saying "You are sick. You need healing." Saying "I'm insulted to be called sick" to a doctor is unlikely to make the doctor change his opinion as to whether you are sick, but may change his opinion of how well you can be trusted to estimate your own health.

In summary, truth trumps insult.

This answer should not be taken as an admission of the implications of your post (which I think is off the mark on a number of details), only as an answer to what I believe to be your main argument.

yeah? well the "doctor" doesn't charge into every house in the neighborhood screaming to everyone that they are sick and that they have the cure, that sounds like snake oil to me


it can be very hard to disprove a negative, take space cheese monkeys (SCM), your sister/brother/whoever says that there are SCM outside Earth's atmosphere, you reply that people have been there, so that person says that they live on Mars, and then you say that probes have been to Mars, the person then says, they must not have liked it there so they moved to Pluto, you say it is likely too cold there for anything to live there, so the person says "But they are magical!", you give up because they are too locked into their belief to change, then the other person thinks that they "won" because the other person couldn't disprove SCM

do you understand?

 

[Fr8monkey]

In a metaphor, Christianity is like a doctor for the soul saying "You are sick. You need healing." Saying "I'm insulted to be called sick" to a doctor is unlikely to make the doctor change his opinion as to whether you are sick, but may change his opinion of how well you can be trusted to estimate your own health.

But I don't need other people to tell me I have to see the "doctor" or I will die on a daily basis In this way I an Homeopathic...
I can take care of my own health.

 

[civ_king]

But I don't need other people to tell me I have to see the "doctor" or I will die on a daily basis In this way I an Homeopathic...
I can take care of my own health.

in English please?

 

[Aegis]

in English please?

ie, being told "Go to church & accept Jesus, or else you'll burn in hell" daily.

 

[GenMarshall]

Well, I think atheists are more open to realise they might be wrong than most theists. Many Christians have a very cocky attitude about their religion and the "evidence" for it. It is almost as they seem to think: "Yeah, yeah, go ahead and insult me and my beliefs. I know where you will finally end up"

Atheist too can be cocky in their beliefs, cockyness does not know any bounds.

Up until your post I was enjoying reading this thread. Congratulations starting a flamewar!

Please, cry me a river. I'm allowed to post in this thread just as anyone else. Take off your tinfoil hat and quit being reduculous for once. For the record, I have not started any flamewar whatsoever.

I was being facetious.

It did not looked facetious to me

I still couldn't bring myself to worship it honestly and faithfully.

That's you're perogative. You have the right to be an atheist just as I have the right to be a Christian.

There is simply no way to disprove the existence of a god. Even anti-religion spokesperson Richard Dawkins admits he thinks the possiblity would be a 6.9 on a scale of 1-7, where 1 means a god must exist and a 7 means he didint

This is just my opinion, but Richard Dawkins is just a downright jerk. His rants is enough for me to punch him in the face. IMO, he does not help atheism in the PR department.

I personaly go with the tanker steaming into a storm .