Atheism versus God

First topic message reminder :

It is Atheism against God but God is not against Atheism.
 
That is a one-sided sword which cuts only one way.
 
It is important to give a general definition of Atheism as like on Wikipedia HERE.
 
Atheism is a negative concept, as in saying "no" as in no God, no Deity, no conscious higher power, etc.
 
So just because some one hates Christianity then that is not Atheist, or hating the scary Muslims is not Atheist, as one must reject the presence or the reality of any God by any name or form.
 
I myself declare the real existence of the "Creator Father God" but to use other names for the "Theo or Thea" is fine with me.  
 
My view is that Atheism is simply a form of self-righteousness, because without the judgements of a God then people get to create our own righteousness, and that appears to be the true motivation for being an Atheist.
 

polyglide wrote: To generalise is silly to say the least.

Polyglide wrote: by polyglide on Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:17 pm
Atheists by definition are people who have very little to offer the world, other than selfishness

I fear another irony meter is about to head for the tip.....

Always contradictions are there not Sheldon,says one thing exactly the opposite next post.

Perhaps Polyglide meant it's silly for others to generalise, but it's ok for him to do it?

Dr, Sheldon,
To get back to the subject.

The belief in God offers salvation to those who believe in Jesus and his purpose and also they have been promised everlasting life.

However, this does not preclude everyone else from being judged, God will judge all according to their behaviour.

Ask most people what atheism is and many will have no real idea.

I feel many people are not very interested in anything other than survival. it is no good just considering the Western World with all the technology etc; there are millions of humans suffering throughout the world in the most deplorable manner and many of those are devout Cristians, yet there is enough of everything to provide for everyone and you can only blame mankind for not taking the appropriate steps to see that everyone's needs are catered for.

You cannot blame God even if he was not at the present time restricted [By agreement] man has all that is necessary and yet through selfishness [ mainly atheists ] we have the present situation.

Atheism offers nothing, God offers everything.

Polyglide I may be an atheist, yet please do not ever call me selfish, because that is one thing that I AM NOT. All you have to do is ask the people who live around me and they would tell you.

polyglide wrote:Dr, Sheldon, To get back to the subject.

I never deviated from it.

Polyglide wrote: The belief in God offers salvation to those who believe in Jesus and his purpose and also they have been promised everlasting life.

Just as many other religions claim to, and literally thousands of versions based on the one that spawned yours, this doesn't make it real, quite the opposite it as it is compelling evidence that humans create myths they find comforting.

Polyglide wrote: However, this does not preclude everyone else from being judged, God will judge all according to their behaviour.

Yes it does if your religion is a complete fiction, like the many thousands of others you seem happy to reject that are no less evidenced than your own.

Polyglide wrote: Ask most people what atheism is and many will have no real idea.

 

by polyglide on Wed Jun 03, 2015 11:59 am
To generalise is silly to say the least.

   

Ahem, you really do have the memory span of a goldfish, that aside your claim is another of those bombastic and unevidenced factoids you so love to make up, and is of course demonstrably false as anyone who can press a mouse button can find the dictionary definition in seconds. In fact I have posted that definition several times in direct refutation of Cusick's and your erroneous assertions.  

Polyglide wrote:I feel many people are not very interested in anything other than survival.

 

Bully for you, however this is yet another unevidenced factoid you're making up, and the irony is that the vast majority of people are theists, so your claim if it were true is a doubly ironic own goal. Though I fail to see what is wrong with being interested in survival, to be not interested in it is asinine, and even dangerous.         

Polyglide wrote: it is no good just considering the Western World with all the technology etc; there are millions of humans suffering throughout the world in the most deplorable manner and many of those are devout Cristians,

1. Not one poster has ever suggested considering only the western world that I have seen, care to link a post to back this up.
2. There are indeed, but then you are claiming a benevolent being with limitless power has designed, created, and is allowing this, and your best rationalisation for this obvious contradiction is some satanic deal for which you have zero evidence and which an omnipotent deity need not be bound by.
3. Unlike you I don't care what they believe, only that they are suffering.

Polyglide wrote:yet there is enough of everything to provide for everyone and you can only blame mankind for not taking the appropriate steps to see that everyone's needs are catered for.

I can not blame a deity as I am an atheist, you however are claiming an omnipotent deity is allowing this, that it designed and created it, and being omniscient, another of your claims, knew exactly what would happen before hand. I accept the fact that humans are culpable for how they treat each other, you on the other hand create a fantasy which is both irrational and contradictory.

Polyglide wrote:You cannot blame God

I don't blame a god, I am an atheist, why do you keep making the same absurdly stupid claim Cusick opened with?

Polyglide wrote:even if he was not at the present time restricted [By agreement]

He's not restricted according to you, you said and I quote "he cannot be bound by anything." You keep moving from one claim to the other of two mutually exclusive claims, if he chooses to adhere to this pact you've made up then he's not benevolent, if he has no choice then he's not omnipotent.

Polyglide wrote: man has all that is necessary and yet through selfishness [ mainly atheists ] we have the present situation.

Another made up lie, I shan't hold my breath waiting for you to evidence how the atheist fraction of the 14% of the worlds population that represent non-religious is responsible, whilst a being with limitless knowledge and power that designed and created everything, according to you, is blameless. I will however point out that science has allowed us the ability to provide for everyone, whereas your god has according to you and your religion stood mute and impotent while countless billions died in need of basic want, while men, women, and children suffered and died, mostly from their teeth, only to appear a few thousand years ago to ignorant superstitious humans with puerile messages about talking snakes and magic apples. All this doesn't touch the hundreds of millions of years of animal and dinosaur predation your deity would have willed into existence, or why he wasted billions of years meddling with black holes before even forming our solar system, or why an omnipotent being took 6 days according to you to create everything? Or equally bizarrely why that same omnipotent being required rest on the 7th day?
           

Polyglide wrote: Atheism offers nothing, God offers everything.

Atheism can offer reality, rational and reasoned existence, mutually beneficial human rights, an end to prejudice and freedom of thought and expression, an end to the blind faith of dogma, and the liberty of critical thought, and the responsibility of accepting our moral obligation to each other and the planet as equals. It doesn't offer the warm blanket or safety crutch of absurd delusions that we are immortal.

I think the late great Christopher Hitchens summed this up nicely.

Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

Cristopher Hicthens

Remember that the Christian inquisition murdered it's last victim well under 200 years ago roughly when Darwin set sail on the Beagle, and when Faraday was discovering the link between electricity and magnetism.

stuart torr wrote:Polyglide I may be an atheist, yet please do not ever call me selfish, because that is one thing that I AM NOT. All you have to do is ask the people who live around me and they would tell you.

The fact he is reduced to making up antagonistic lies just shows how little he has to offer in way of erudite reasoned polemic.

He has been making up antagonistic lies in most of his posts to us today Sheldon.

Dr, Sheldon,
Firstly, if a person makes a perfect engine and tells the user that certain maintenance has to be done on a regular basis or the engine will fail and the person ingnores the information, whose fault is it?.

He cannot be bound by anything, does not mean that he cannot choose to bind himself to something, it means no outside influence can determine anything for him, that is what you cannot understand.

Atheism can offer nothing because it believes in nothing other than self, I do not mean that all atheists are selfish
but all in my opinion are deluded in believing there is nothing beyond life as we know it, if that were so, what a terrible waste.
,

polyglide wrote:Dr, Sheldon,
                Firstly, if a person makes a perfect engine and tells the user that certain maintenance has to be done on a regular basis or the engine will fail and the person ingnores the information, whose fault is it?.

Who cares, what's your point?

Polyglide wrote:He cannot be bound by anything, does not mean that he cannot choose to bind himself to something, it means no outside influence can determine anything for him, that is what you cannot understand.

If god chooses to allow evil then it's not benevolent, that's the contradiction in your religions claims. Theodicy is predicated on the premise that the Christian deity is claimed to be omnipotent and omni-benevolent.

If it chooses to allow suffering it's not benevolent, if that choice is limited in any way it's not omnipotent, that's the paradox, and yet again it is you who can't grasp this simplest of concepts, I have never claimed there is something god can't do, as I don;t believe a god exists, why is this beyond you to grasp?

Polyglide wrote:Atheism can offer nothing,because it believes in nothing other than self,

I've dealt with this stupid lie already, I suggest you go back and read it. The definition of atheism is solely that a person rejects the existence of a deity, beyond that they may believe whatever they wish, and act as their morals dictate, and all the evidence shows that atheists are at least as moral as theists. Some research like the ones into prison demographics shows atheists are disproportionately under-represented in prison populations, put simply it indicates that atheists may be far better more decent people on the whole than theists.

Polyglide wrote:I do not mean that all atheists are selfish, but all in my opinion are deluded in believing there is nothing beyond life as we know it, if that were so, what a terrible waste.  

 

Firstly you can't tell atheists what atheism offers them, and since I've already refuted this erroneous lie I'll simply repost it.

Atheism can offer reality, rational and reasoned existence, mutually beneficial human rights, an end to prejudice and freedom of thought and expression, an end to the blind faith of dogma, and the liberty of critical thought, and the responsibility of accepting our moral obligation to each other and the planet as equals. It doesn't offer the warm blanket or safety crutch of absurd delusions that we are immortal.

Your opinion however is duly noted, but demonstrably erroneous as atheism is not a belief, it is a rejection of belief, amongst other things it is based on the fact that there is no tangible or compelling evidence that living things survive their own physical deaths in any meaningful way. If you choose to view life as a waste that's sad, but I don't. In fact it's all the more precious precisely because it is so fleeting. I don't think many theists really swallow the myth of an afterlife anyway, one has only to see them suffer the loss of a loved one to see the same emotional trauma that atheists feel, the same sense of loss, of finality, if they really believed it was going to be just a few years separation then they certainly don't show it at such times when the mask of delusion slips and the trauma of such loss removes the faith required to maintain the delusion. I've seen it time and again in my lifetime.

I think at such times the knowledge that a person has at least lived their lives to the full, unrestrained by dogma. superstition and prejudice is a great comfort. When I go it'll be the end for me, but my life had meaning to me while it lasted, and will have meaning to those I leave behind, at least for a while, and my physical remains can go to medical science for the advancement of human knowledge.

Who cares, what's your point?

Good point

boatlady wrote:Who cares, what's your point?

Good point

It was a silly analogy the first time he used it, to compare human intellect and choice with the do's and don'ts of car maintenance is such an absurd oversimplification it speaks for itself I think.

Shouts out loud Sheldon I do believe.

But, actually, what's the point of this 'discussion'? Seems to me, you're comparing apples and pinecones - no point of contact - nothing in common

boatlady,even when I ignore him, he aims arguments that are meant for Sheldon to me even in emails?

boatlady wrote:But, actually, what's the point of this 'discussion'? Seems to me, you're comparing apples and pinecones - no point of contact - nothing in common

I think that may be a tad pessimistic, I think we've made real progress here. I mean Polyglide claimed he thinks atheists are basically selfish, but he added the caveat that not all atheists are selfish. I think this is real progress, no? Then again he earlier claimed it was silly to generalise, so this latest generalisation about atheists is sending me a mixed message. tbh.

Well I did say I was an optimist. A glass is half full kind of person if you will.

Incidentally I think reason and rational thought should always be heard when blind faith in superstition and ignorance is being advocated.

Interesting quote:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote:"I realised I had left Allah behind years ago. I was an atheist. An apostate. An infidel. I looked in a mirror and said out loud, in Somalia "I don't believe in God."

I felt relief. There was no pain but a real clarity. The long process of seeing the flaws in my belief structure, and carefully tiptoeing around the frayed edges as parts of it were torn out piece by piece - all that was over.

The ever present prospect of Hellfire lifted, and my horizon seemed broader. God, Satan, angels: these were all figments of human imagination, mechanisms to to impose the will of the powerful on the weak.

From now on I could step firmly on the ground that was under my feet and navigate based on my own reason and self respect. My moral compass was within myself, not in the pages of a sacred book.

This perfectly illustrates what atheism offers. Freedom from oppression, a life affirming and liberating experience that lifts the shackles of guilt, dogma, and oppression, and frees the mind to think critically of any idea or claim. The mutually beneficial act of accepting you are solely responsible for your actions, ethics, and morals.

Free from sexual repression and from blind adherence to ignorance and superstition.

DR, Sheldon,
How on earth can you debate Atheism against God when you do not believe in God?.

polyglide wrote:DR, Sheldon,
                 How on earth can you debate Atheism against God when you do not believe in God?.

I don't understand the question.You seem to be suggesting that one can not argue against theism unless one believes it? If someone claims the moon is made of cheese you can dispute the claim without believing it to be true. In fact it's absurd to dispute it unless you think it's untrue. So Im not sure what you're saying or why?

Cusick made what I consider to be demonstrably false claims about atheism, as did you. I have refuted those claims in my posts using evidence and testimony from atheists where apropriate.

Dr, Sheldon,
Another stupid reply.

Of course I believe in atheism as a fact, you are a prime example, just when are you going to realise the significance of anything?.

What on earth are you babbling about? Nothing in my post suggests you don't believe atheism exists. Are you insane?

Dr, Sheldon,
Do you actually know what you post.

You cannot argue against theism unless you believe in it?

Exactly the same applies to atheism

It is a none brainer.

Dr, Sheldon,
I have just been looking up the number of scientists who feel that there is an intelligent force in creation, they include:-

Edmond Whittiker, Jastrow, George Smoot, [Nobel Prize Winner], Francis Crick, Davies, Hoyle[ says there must be intellect involved} and many others all say the odds of creation being as a result of chance are too great to even be considered.

Now these are all scientists, your best friends, perhaps you should start taking note.

I do think you are very close Sheldon,but I was going to say senility.

polyglide wrote:Dr, Sheldon,
                I have just been looking up the number of scientists who feel that there is an intelligent force in creation, they include:-

                 Edmond Whittiker, Jastrow, George Smoot, [Nobel Prize Winner], Francis Crick, Davies, Hoyle[ says there must be intellect involved}  and many others all say the odds of creation being as a result of chance are too great to even be considered.

Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.

I think that speaks for itself, though it's worth again pointing out that you are ignoring the difference between scientific opinion and the opinion of a scientists. I'll see if I can dumb this down a little more then as it's not hitting home:

If a scientist claims his favourite colour is blue he is neither wrong nor right, since his claim is just his or her own subjective opinion, and that is precisely what your tiny list shows, personal opinion based on subjective belief. As you have been told science validates claims, evidence, research, and theories in a very specific way, and creationism has never ever once achieved this, ever. Now surely even someone as blinkered as you can see what this means for your ridiculous attempts to dishonestly claim scientific validity for the hokum of creationism?

Robert Jastrow - a cosmologist and:
His expressed views on creation were that he was an "agnostic, and not a believer" Oh dear....
There is no evidence that i can see that George Smoot believes in creationsim, and what I have read indicates creationists misinterpreting what he has said, nothing new really, but by all means show a statement of his unequivocally claiming what you have said.

Francis Crick, you really are kidding? Do you even bother to check these creationist lies before bothering to parrot them? I have even covered his atheism on here before.

Crick referred to himself as a humanist, which he defined as the belief "that human problems can and must be faced in terms of human moral and intellectual resources without invoking supernatural authority." He publicly called for humanism to replace religion as a guiding force for humanity, writing:
"The human dilemma is hardly new. We find ourselves through no wish of our own on this slowly revolving planet in an obscure corner of a vast universe. Our questioning intelligence will not let us live in cow-like content with our lot. We have a deep need to know why we are here. What is the world made of? More important, what are we made of? In the past religion answered these questions, often in considerable detail. Now we know that almost all these answers are highly likely to be nonsense, having sprung from man's ignorance and his enormous capacity for self-deception... The simple fables of the religions of the world have come to seem like tales told to children. Even understood symbolically they are often perverse, if not rather unpleasant... Humanists, then, live in a mysterious, exciting and intellectually expanding world, which, once glimpsed, makes the old worlds of the religions seem fake-cosy and stale... ":
Crick was especially critical of Christianity:
"I do not respect Christian beliefs. I think they are ridiculous. If we could get rid of them we could more easily get down to the serious problem of trying to find out what the world is all about."

Priceless, you really are laughable......

I am not going to waste my time guessing who "Davies" is.  

Fred Hoyle: While having no argument with the Lemaître theory (later confirmed by Edwin Hubble's observations) that the Universe was expanding, Hoyle disagreed on its interpretation. He found the idea that the Universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, resembling arguments for a creator,

Oh dear....

So only one on your list, a scientist who was also a Roman catholic, now correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you opposed to his church? You keep saying you are. You have included at least one well known atheist, you're making a fool of yourself yet again.

polyglide wrote:Dr, Sheldon,
                Do you actually know what you post.

                 You cannot argue against theism unless you believe in it?

                 Exactly the same applies to atheism

                 It is a none brainer.

Do you perhaps mean believe it exists? As that is entirely different from believing in it.

Your grasp of English is utterly risible, and the expression is a no brainer, christ on a bike. You really don't know how embarrassing your posts are do you? You genuinely don't know, WOW!

stuart torr wrote:I do think you are very close Sheldon,but I was going to say senility.

He's actually claiming that Francis Crick believed in creationism and the man was an outspoken atheist even by contemporary standards, here are some quotes:

"I do not respect Christian beliefs. I think they are ridiculous. If we could get rid of them we could more easily get down to the serious problem of trying to find out what the world is all about."

He publicly called for humanism to replace religion as a guiding force for humanity, writing:
"The human dilemma is hardly new. We find ourselves through no wish of our own on this slowly revolving planet in an obscure corner of a vast universe. Our questioning intelligence will not let us live in cow-like content with our lot. We have a deep need to know why we are here. What is the world made of? More important, what are we made of? In the past religion answered these questions, often in considerable detail. Now we know that almost all these answers are highly likely to be nonsense, having sprung from man's ignorance and his enormous capacity for self-deception... The simple fables of the religions of the world have come to seem like tales told to children. Even understood symbolically they are often perverse, if not rather unpleasant..

It's difficult to know what to say to anyone that ignorant and deluded that they think Francis Crick was a creationist, the others on his list aren't much better. He could have Googled this himself in a few seconds, but this amply displays how religion destroys utterly any capacity for critical thought, or desire for knowledge or learning. All very sad really...

stuart torr wrote:I do think you are very close Sheldon,but I was going to say senility.

Well his posts are very often nasty, petty, childish and vindictive stu, and those are not symptoms of senility, though wilful ignorance is never likely to endow anyone with grace, intelligence, humility or tolerance. Sadly dogmatic strident and fundamentalist religious beliefs are always more likely to produce the former characteristics than the latter.

Now Sheldon,you have got to the point where I was yesterday when inundated with his posts and you were/are getting frustrated,that you got to use the same eoticon as I at the end of your post. I have had an email from him about you again,I have told him to stop posting to us and post a question or all of them to Ivan if he thinks ours are biased.

Deleted due to duplication.

Did you delete that yourself Sheldon? was you just going to say exactly what you had said to him before then?

stuart torr wrote:Did you delete that yourself Sheldon? was you just going to say exactly what you had said to him before then?

I deleted it stu, I was trying to edit a typo, but I accidentally quoted the post instead, so deleted it. My bad....I was cooking food for my wife and myself and not paying enough attention.

Oh well as long as the food was ok mate.

Is Redflag ok do you know Sheldon? as she has not been posting very much these last few days as she?

stuart torr wrote:Is Redflag ok do you know Sheldon? as she has not been posting very much these last few days as she?

Sorry stu I don't know about redflag, food was lovely though.

Stu,
You are not up to date regarding the thoughts of some scientists including our friend Francis Crick.

However, lets consider the most famous of all.

Albert Einstein.

The Encyclopedia Britanica.

Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognised the impossibility of none-created universe.

Science without religion is lame.

He also made the mistake in thinking the universe was not expanding but realised the significance later.

If you look in the right places all the scientists I quoted all say they belive in some kind of creation, I have no intention of doing your work for you.

As new evidence comes forward so minds change.

Stu,
Thak you Stu, a very intelligent reply.

It was what your post deserved as you have again lied about Francis Crick who was an outspoken atheist who criticised religion.  I even showed you quotes of his.

That quote you attribute to Einstein is a well known fake. So more creationist propaganda.  Einstein did however make a well known comment in a letter saying he found biblical tales childish and unbelievable.  You even know yourself he didn't believe in a personal god and laughed the idea humans survived their own deaths  in "any meaningful way."  

He absolutely was not a creationist.

This is why stu is laughing at your post,  and because despite being shown research that proves only a tiny fraction of scientists favour the superstition of creationism over the science of evolution, and that in related fields that tiny fraction all but disappears,  you have lied again in claiming the scientist you quoted believed in creation.  They don't except one as I showed above.

Even if they do the belief is faith based and not scientific.  As I tell you each time you repeat this lie that science validates creationism, creationists have failed to satisfy the requirements of science and get even one single piece of evidence validated.

Yet you shamelessly ignore this fact and deny species evolution which has satisfied that strict scientific criteria repeatedly over 150 years of scientific scrutiny.  

I have asked you to name the Nobel prize winners that falsified evolution and why we haven't even heard this news. I asked you to link the peer reviewed evidence, and it would have to be peer reviewed as science validates everything in this way. I pointed out that creationism is not falsifiable and so is rejected as unscientific.  


All of these I have pointed out each time you repeat this lie and you just go on lying.  Then protest when your behaviour is called a lie. On what grounds one wonders?

polyglide wrote:I cannot see how God can be in any way considered evil, other than by someone with less brains than an ant, no that would be an insult to the ant.

Is this the same god that purportedly flooded the entire planet killing EVERY SINGLE LIVING THING, barring one family and the contents of the Ark? If that kind of global genocide doesn't represent evil to anyone then they'd be very wise not to make strident and pejorative comments on other people's perception of what is or is not evil. As perhaps they have no moral compass themselves. The bible endorses genocide, murder, rapine, torture, infanticide, in it God tortures and kills an innocent baby for being conceived out of wedlock, and on and on it goes. How anyone couldn't conceive such actions is evil is truly baffling. Theists talk of love, but ignore or rationalise away the bulk of the bible's message.