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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@ Sushi
And sushi wins the interweb star today. *rises to applaud*
Another excellent post if I may say so.
It's odd the overly credulous don't recognise the liberties these men take after their claim of a revelation, though I suppose that's the purpose of the claim in the first place.
Then again anyone who accepts unevidenced that a deity that created everything for an ultimate purpose, not only needed two attempts at communicating its message, and a personal appearance, but was waiting on the hot dusty rd to Damascus to let Paul know what it failed to tell us itself in person just a few decades earlier, will I'm afraid believe just about anything.
If only they'd take off their faith giggles fora minute, and pull at that nagging thread, the whole shaky house of cards would disintegrate for them quick smart.
Ah well you can take a horse to water etc..
@isobel: an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
Yes, you need not justify your belief. You do not need facts or evidence to accept something as true. "I believe because I want to believe," is a completely valid position. This is the most logical of Christian positions. No one can claim that you do not believe and no one can stick words in your mouth asserting that you believe for this or that reason. This is called the "Argument from personal experience." It only works until you make an empirical claim. Something like "I believe in the God of the Bible." Obviously that is not the God you believe in as there are 30,000 gods of the bible. So now you must define your version of the god of the Bible. What you want to do is stick to your guns. Do not make any empirical claims. Any time you assert anything outside your own personal experience, you can be proved wrong.
You are entitled to belief without proof and personal experience but when you make assertions about the world around you (I believe in the God of the Bible) you must prove your assertion or look really ignorant.
So, which God of the Bible do you assert you are believing in. And when you select that God are you asserting that all religions who hold to a different God are incorrect? The Mormons think God lives on Golob and that Satan and Jesus are brothers. JW says you had a life with god before you got here. Catholics have Saints and Idols you can pray to. Their version of the Ten Commandments do not say "Do not make graven idols." Once you make a statement about reality, you must defend it.
Personal experience is a fine reason for you to believe. Refusing to examine facts and evidence is your choice, just like the dictionary says. Atheists tend to want to believe things based on facts and evidence and that is why you are asked for facts and evidence.
This is getting long but here is a question for you. "Is there any belief at all that I can not hold based on faith or personal experience?" It is my experience that aliens are real, that rain is harmful, that global warming is not real, that..... There is no position I can not hold based on your dictionary definition of belief. It is only through evidence and facts that our beliefs become justified.
"an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists." leaves out any statement on evidence. u can believe that socks r the most healthy things to eat, or you can believe that the sun gives off light. one has no evidence, one has overwhelming evidence. both r beliefs. thats all im saying. no one can not believe anything is true, therefore they must have beliefs. agin if u would like to be interviewed just contact me.
Yes, there is no statement involving "evidence" because "belief" is basically accepting something without any verification. Blind faith.
For most of us atheists, we require more than a person of authority making pronouncements with the congregation meekly nodding their heads like sheep. Without thinking things through, without asking for proof.
The sun emits light. That is not a statement of belief, that is a statement of fact, verified by numerous studies.
do u believe the sun emits light?
The sun produces light photons. They are created deep within the sun, take approximately 100,000 years to work their way to the surface, then 8 1/2 minutes later arrive at this planet.
The sun emits about 3.86 x 1026 watts of energy, but about 1.74 x 1017 watts strikes the earth.
If it was not for the ozone layer, the UV light from the sun would turn this planet into a burned wasteland within days.
Have you ever experienced or witnessed sunburn?
right so u BELIEVE the sun emits light. it doesn't matter that there is obvious evidence for a belief; it is still a belief. that's all im saying. i can't waste more time on this. it's meaningless and silly.
Well rather proves that using beliefs in a generic sense is nonsense, believing the sun is hot and believing Jesus rose from the dead are very different precisely because one is a belief based on reasonable objective evidence and the other on claims in a book that no one can demonstrate any objective evidence for.
How do you feel about one of your teachers claiming that evidence is useless for establishing the veracity of claims, and is just circular reasoning?
evidence is not useless, but why do u believe it is God?
"evidence is not useless, but why do u believe it is God?"
*face palm*
i think i'm having seizure reading this post...(*bubbles comes out of my mouth*)
........
(edited)
isobel "evidence is not useless, but why do u believe it is God?"
I think you need to re-read my question, here it is again verbatim...Clearly I don't believe in a deity as I am an atheist.
How do you feel about one of your teachers claiming that evidence is useless for establishing the veracity of claims, and is just circular reasoning?
i thought it was obvious i was just being cheeky in saying its was ur god lol, but i meant why is evidence the decide-er of truth. esp since evidence is collected by humans (imperfect beings)
Evidence does establish truth and facts. In every aspect of your personal life you use science and evidence on a daily basis. You get a bill in the mail, you pay it. You decide to cross an intersection, you look both ways. Your cell phone just died, you look at the battery meter and see nothing. You get in your cart to drive down to a bank, the gas gauge is banging against empty. You go down to the bank to negotiate a mortgage, all the numbers and interest rates are based on evidence. Your child comes in for dinner, you examine their hands, they are dirty.
For the great majority of your life you use science and evidence. Yet for the most important aspect of your life, the religion question, you discard logic, evidence, and science? Why?
I will tell you why. It is because your god claim can not stand up to scrutiny.
Objective evidence has been demonstrated to unequivocally provide the best results in ascertaining the truth of claims. Our best method by some runaway mark for establishing objective evidence is empirical science.
What method are you and your "teacher" challenging this method with, and what unequivocal facts can you cite as it's successes?
By the way don't type your answer using technology established using empirical science and objective evidence, that would hardly be fair. Pray for your deity to enlighten me and see how that compares to the few seconds science takes to communicate via the internet.
"esp since evidence is collected by humans (imperfect beings)"
Imperfect methods that demonstrate massive success are surely preferable to no method at all? Which is what religions provide, they establish no objective facts that are beyond science to test, despite religions existing for thousands of years. Those imperfect humans created religions as well don't forget, and you're dedicating empiricism which has successes too innumerable to measure in just a few hundred years in favour of superstition which hasn't advanced human knowledge once in thousands.
@isobel: "no one can not believe anything is true, therefore they must have beliefs.
You are obviously wrong. I don't believe you. And - I HAVE NO OTHER BELIEFS ABOUT YOU.
I DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR VERSION OF GOD. I do not believe any of the Gods of the bible are worth worshiping. THESE ARE ALL NON-BELIEFS. They say absolutely nothing about what I do believe.
We agree: A statement of belief "LEAVES OUT ANY EVIDENCE." When you say "You believe in the god of the Bible." You are saying, "I believe socks are nutritious to eat." You can make the assertion but without facts and evidence you sound quite ignorant.
Which god of the bible? You must explain any empirical assertion. If you are unable or unwilling to do that, you need to stick to the "The argument from personal experience." Don't spew out facts that can be disputed if you are going to use the dictionary definition of belief. You can believe what you like but if you make assertions about the world, you do need evidence.
@ Original post:
I am an atheist.
An atheist is someone that is not theist. Definition of theist? Someone that believes in god(s) --paraphrased for brevity.--
What are my beliefs? Well I have lots, but more specific to which you are seeking information about: I believe in evidence of the world around me that is tangible, supported, tested, repeated.
I also believe in being a happy person that is satisfied and enjoys life, sharing my brief finite life and all its experiences with people I care about and building something for myself and people I do care about.
I do not believe in wasting my time and energy for something that there is no evidence for. (Like various religions.)
@ LfTW
Succinctly put as usual . 100 Likes awarded to you...
if u would like to be interviewed, just contact me. i could always use more people! :)
I would be happy to consider your questions, but they will have to be here on the forum. I prefer an open, two-way discussion.
@isobel
Like greensnake replied, I am happy to answer some questions you post here in this thread in response to me. (Please use an @LogicForTW or @LFTW
But unfortunately, I do not wish to commit to a more personal interview. Fortunately it sounds like you already have plenty of volunteers if asking the questions in this thread does not work for you.
i do apologize, but i find it much easier to interview through message and without others joining in. i do have plenty of people, but could always use more. sorry to hear u cant use the pms.
I can, I just do not wish to. It feels more restrictive and I rarely check my inbox here, plus I prefer the openness of it being posted here. I am here to debate and learn, not so much going out of my way to check my pm and having to check my inbox every so often to see if the conversation moved forward.
I do understand the distraction and general noise that occurs here that definitely does preclude a private conversation.
Also, kind of a hilarious (at least to me,) your sentence: "sorry to hear u cant use the pms."
I know you mean private messages, but most people would read pms as shorthand for premenstrual syndrome. I most certainly cannot use that kind of pms ;)
omg lol i didn't even notice
Have you considered other options? For example, an invite to Discord for a quick 5 minute discussion?
Or are you heavily restricted in what you can or can not do?
we're supposed to stick to this website as much as possible
Sounds like we have agreed. We put the "God of the Bible" in the "no convincing evidence category." You can certainly believe it for yourself but your belief does not justify belief for others. I think we are in basic agreement.
where did i say that?
Ho hum! If you want to debate your beliefs then you are in the right place, an Atheist debate forum! If you want help with your homework I charge by the hour for tutoring!
ok good for u i guess? other people r willing soooo idk y u felt the need to tell me this lol
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