Donating = Loving
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.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
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.
Donating = Loving
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.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
@ DAE
You have demonstrated everything you are as a person from your first post. Don't start crying because you got called out on it.
Who for? Oh and the "I was only joking, Mum..I didn't mean.." most people stop doing that by the age of twelve or so, we all know it is a lie.
Of course you can say what you fucking like, but be prepared to be called out on it. That's called free speech. I told you in my first response to you that you will be treated with the respect you deserve and at the intellectual level you display. When no one agrees with your mendacious posts you get your petticoats hitched up and complain? Fuck me dead, I have heard more sense from a fucking galah.
You have but one opportunity to make a first impression. Now you have to live with it.
DoesAtheismEven... it sucks when you can't weasel out of a situation you created yourself. This isn't a religious forum where you can bugger a few boys, pay a tithe, say a few hail Mary's and walk away unscathed.
DoesAtheismEven...
"And when my life is threatened for my belief, I will gladly die. Until I am convinced that God doesn't exist."
OK, you may believe that the biblical Jealous exists. But it is 100% obvious that you do not have any real faith in Yeshua (Jesus since 1630). So why are you a Christian when Jealous said that you are not to worship any other gods but him?
As for me it does me no good to believe in Jealous. I did some genealogy research and discovered that I come from a very long line of Ammonite bastards so, according to the fairy tale, I can never join Jealous's congregation.
Not sure what any of this means. Please clarify and I will respond appropriately.
Neutron star, dude.
rmfr
@ DAE
And we are the intellectual dullards? LOL.Oh the irony burns so hard.
Nonsense, it is you is cherry picking the bible, and trying to ignore huge swathes of what it says and teaches.
Do you believe there is any context in which slavery is moral? The bible endorses slavery again and again, even gentle Jesus meek and mild, stating definitively "slaves obey your masters, even the cruel ones".
Ethnic cleansing, rapine and the sex trafficking of virginal girls and women, genocide, infanticide including your deity torturing King David's newborn baby to death because it was angered at his adultery, slavery, stoning unruly children, human sacrifice including this deity's own son, and on and on...
"you don’t have enough proof God exists and that’s why you’re atheist,"
I am an atheists because no one can demonstrate a shred of objective evidence for any deity, and it is a demonstrable fact that humans create fictional deities and always have.
See those Goal Posts slipping further and further away --- You gotta study the bible genuinely. Just like the other 30,000 Christian sects who can't agree on a damn thing. We got us a genuine Christian here. Everyone take a picture before it runs away.
Don't you think it is arrogance to tell people that only specialists can have valid opinions on a book? If that Bible is the word of God, a God that is omniscient and understands exactly what his target audience are capable of, why would he create something that needs to be interpreted by a chosen few. I don't see why the Bible is not open to people reading it and taking it at face value and reacting on that. The process you are taking part in is wrongly called "apologetics" because whenever the supposed word of God is cruel, unthinking or contradictory, you make excuses rather than just apologising.
@doesatheismeven
I don't hate any gods, you can't hate something that doesn't exist.
You theist have failed to provide objective evidence that any god is real.
Troll
Well this should be fun.
I do not know nor give a rat's ass whether Elizabeth Warren is a Native American or not. I'm not a "leftist" as I am not a liberal. I am still however an atheist.
You can believe in whatever deity you want. You can't tell me or anyone else to believe in this deity. You can't pass laws favoring your deity. You can't ask society to change itself to accommodate your deity. Passing anti-gay laws or "codes" is included in that. If the science taught in public schools go against your religion, then send your kids to a private religious school, don't ask the public schools to change science to accommodate your mythologies.
If religion followed those principles there wouldn't be a problem. The second your religions invade the rest of government or public society, then there are problems.
You don’t think theirs value in learning both sides? That’s not arrogance? You entire premise is “there’s not enough evidence to believe.” But that doesn’t suppose the conclusion that God doesn’t exist. What’s wrong with teaching that in schools?
Should we also teach that babies come from storks? Or that headaches can be cured by drilling holes in the skull? That lead can be turned into gold? I mean, we have to teach both/all sides right? There's no evidence for these ideas, but that doesn't suppose the conclusion that these things don't exist, right?
And if we're getting into gods, then can we teach that Zeus makes lightning, or Ra controls the sun, or that Lolth created spiders? Both sides after all.
DoesAtheismEven...,
"What’s wrong with teaching that in schools?"
Historically in America only Protestants have pushed for teaching the biblical fairy tale in public schools. The Catholics have always resisted it because they didn't want idiots screwing up the fairy tale. They were against people reading the fairy tale for themselves. They wanted to teach it in their own religious schools. Most people couldn't identify the real Ten Commandments if their lives depended on it. Now go sacrifice a lamb or break your donkey colt's neck.
As Thomas Jefferson once said,
DoesAtheismEvenMakeSense: "You don’t think theirs value in learning both sides? That’s not arrogance? You entire premise is “there’s not enough evidence to believe.” But that doesn’t suppose the conclusion that God doesn’t exist. What’s wrong with teaching that in schools?"
Because it is NOT science. If you want to teach this in the class of "Mythology" then that would be OK. The Bible and Christianity is based on a man-made myth. There is no truth in it.
Until one of you Religious Absolutist Trolls show me irrefutable OBJECTIVE HARD EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that I can take into 101 labs to perform 1,000,001 tests to prove it is fact, I shall forever say that I do not believe your preposterous presupposed assumptions of any deity existing. Show me some God damned evidence that cannot be refuted and I just might believe you. Until then, go suck a pickle.
rmfr
Okay Okay, I get it. My comment was really rhetorical, maybe I should've known better than to post it (I was 200mL of Jim Beam whiskey deep at the time of posting) It also distracts from the point of this thread. I will give you all this one, because I also, in trying to be consistent, don't believe Christianity should be taught in schools as "fact". I am a reasonable man. I also believe in evolution. And I also believe people can be born gay. I am formally educated in biology/chemistry so I understand a lot of this stuff. I would be happy to talk about this topic in another thread if someone makes it, but let's stick to the topic going on. (I know I'm the one who changed the subject : / )
@ DoesAtheismEvenMakeSense
Wow! You seem to be opening your mind some. Go back to school (secular university) and earn a degree in a physical science. My degrees are numerous: Child Psychology, Geographic Information Science and Technology (you could I am the only here who got the GIST of it), Astrophysics with focus in Celestial and Orbital Mechanics, Geography with focus in Cartographic Science, Geology with focus in Volcanology, Volcanology, and Global Climatology. Damn I quit. This is the last I list those damn things. Just too damn many ranging from ASc to BSc to Msc to ScD.
In all honesty, I have actually been a scientist for over 50 years. Starting when Star Trek: The Original Series first debuted on TV. My greatest hero of all time was Mr. Spock. And he still is.
“Searching for knowledge and learning is what it means to be human and not a religious robot being force fed only the data they wish you to know. There is no shame in being self-taught, to search for learning and knowledge. The only shame is not searching in the first place.” — Arakish
rmfr
DoesAtheismEven: Holy Shit!!! A Christian that admits to a mistake! Dude! You are a rare breed around here! We may keep you. You may actually get a few of us to treat you civil. And you are redirecting back to the topic instead of dancing all over the frigging place? WO! I may begin believing in miracles. Hope you can continue in this light and enjoy the site.
"You don’t think theirs (sic) value in learning both sides? "
Has anyone else noticed the level of illiteracy is nearly always directly proportional to the idiocy of the claims?
I'm starting to think you are the real "Sheldon". Smart, but socially inept.
Neutron star, dude.
rmfr
@DAE
If you can't prove a god is real, by giving objective evidence, then there is no place for a lie to be taught in school.
@DoesAtheismEven...
"What’s wrong with teaching that in schools?"
Science is based on evidence and logical and rational thinking. Religious topics are based on barbaric tribes from over two thousand years ago and unproven pure woo woo.
So based on that theory we should be teaching our kids about Yeti's, unicorns, faeries, hobgoblins, REAL trolls etc etc. If we do that, Hollywood are either going to go out of business or start to make feature films about Biology or Math!
Welcome to this forum DoesAtheismEven... , even though your initial comments are definitely prickly, confrontational, and provocative.
"I mean, aside from the fringe “Christian” group (westboro baptist church) Christians generally are pretty well mannered."
Actually, no. Christianity is nasty, does harm, and is exclusive. Even for those you label as "well mannered". These people are politically active and push their religious agenda on everyone. Some hot topics they interfere in are abortion, gays, feminism, even politics. In the past those same types of "well mannered" christians supported slavery and cruelty to animals.
Too often I encounter a sad story of someone coming out as an atheist and being completely cut off from their family. Just because they disagree on one topic.
I can only speak for myself, but I attempt to be polite. But all too often we see theists be extremely dishonest in their debate. And they get treated as they deserve. For example, it has been pointed out to AJ777 many times that the definition of an atheist is a lack of belief in a god. Yet his post on this very thread is "a creature they believe doesn’t exist". That means AJ777 is being dishonest and also insulting.
DoesAtheismEven... how would you treat someone who conducts themselves in this manner? If I maintained that all christians were pedophiles, despite being told otherwise, you would be more than irritated by my comments. If you called me a dishonest asshole, I would have earned that response.
We atheists are not ignorant about the bible. Many (myself included) of us spent many years as being theists, and have extensive knowledge of the bible. And no, this bible which is basically a rule book and also one of moral stories does not need interpreters. If a passage (such as Deuteronomy 21:18-21) states that unruly children are to be taken "And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die" is pretty darn specific.
I studied the bible, what you disagree with is that my interpretation does not agree with yours. The simple fact that there are literally thousands of different sub-sets of christianity (over 20,000) points out that the bible is open to a multitude of different interpretations. It is not my fault my interpretation disagrees with yours, it is the fault of the bible. There are thousands of biblical scholars and they do not all agree.
You will quickly learn that some in here are extensively well-versed in the bible. Gird your loins and prepare to defend your bible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz7PD-0s3rc
Very honest reply DK, Thank you.
I will concede that many of you have extensive knowledge of faith (some more than myself) and acknowledge that many of you come from theistic backgrounds. That's what makes these conversations more interesting. To relate, I also have been atheistic, or atleast agnostic to some level. I've had countless conversations with theists and actually find this (mentioned below) to be of great frustration.
What I found in my conversations with theists is that almost all of their beliefs (religious and secular/political) are rooted in their religious worldview. Every time I thought I would make a sound, secular argument on why God couldn't exist, the response was somehow "negated" with a statement about God. Now I quickly realized, if you break this down to philosophical logic, an agreement can never take place because the original premises aren't agreed upon. If a Christian wants to explain how the great flood was NOT evil, the atheist has to first agree that the premise of "God exists" is true, since this is what the theist is basing their arguments on. My thought is, (although I am now contradicting my previous post about not distracting from the OP) do you think it would be beneficial for an atheist to accept this premise for the sake of argument. Once the premise is established as true, then the Christian can provide reasons and examples as to why the great flood isn't evil, and the atheist may or may not have a harder time defending their atheism. To reiterate the point: I know an atheist doesn't believe that God exists, but in order for a theist to make their point, the atheist has to accept this premise and argue from that point of view. Only then can the conversation be fruitful.
"Too often I encounter a sad story of someone coming out as an atheist and being completely cut off from their family. Just because they disagree on one topic."
This is true. But let us be honest and not equate religion for the reason this occurs. It is deep rooted in human biology/psychology that we most closely associate and trust people who hold similar beliefs/goals. This is true in small hunter-gatherer societies, and in groups as large as states or countries. People are separated from families for a thousand reasons; coming out as gay, telling your parents you don't want to go to college, associating with friends that don't align with current family values, using drugs, wanting to marry someone from a different ethnic background, admitting to your politically conservative parents that you voted for Hillary Clinton, just to name a few. Yes, religion separates family, but it is not religion that does it. It is human nature, a maybe a bit of societal shame.
DoesAtheismEven... if you take the time to peruse a few threads, you will discover that myself and many others argue with the premise that a god exists. Of course we do not, but for the sake of a healthy exchange of opinions, we must all share that same premise. So that hurdle has already been cleared.
I treat such interactions as two parties sharing the same information but arriving at different conclusions.
Societal shame? Maybe the root cause of such a stigma is created by religion? Just about every reason you listed (differing family values, drugs, political inclination, gay) are all in conflict with religion. I suggest that you ponder this, that societal shame is created and driven by religion.
I have a close and dear friend from Sweden (owns a very successful and lucrative business) who is a card-carrying member of the communist party. That information has not changed our relationship in any way. What would be your response, and why? What drives your responses and opinions? He does not feel any shame on his political bent, neither do I, despite the fact I am very conservative on most issues. And definitely not a communist.
FYI I was born in 1950 and raised by a devout protestant mother and father. My father was a Mason, my mother Eastern Star. I attended all services and Sunday School. I abandoned organized religion in my early 20's but always clung onto, and searched for spiritual comfort. I have done as much as one could do in my spiritual search, including the classic "open thy heart and ask" on my knees many times. I have engaged and been in deep discussions with priests, seminary students, and many very devout religious practitioners. After spending over 40 years in that search, I have arrived at the conclusion that there is no sign of any deity, just like any imaginary construct like fairies farting pixie dust. It was not the result I had hoped for or wanted.
@DoesAtheismEvenMakeSense
To be an atheist does not require an explicit belief against the notion that gods exist.
DoesAtheismEven...,
"If a Christian wants to explain how the great flood was NOT evil, the atheist has to first agree that the premise of "God exists" is true, since this is what the theist is basing their arguments on."
The great flood (of Noah) never happened as depicted in the Bible. It is simply a war story that used water flood imagery in a story to describe the First Commandment in action. It shows how the Israelites are to invade other people's land and scrub it clean of their existence and to make it their own. The basic story of total war and ethnic cleansing is repeated numerous times throughout the Old Testament.
Now if you actually would read the fairy tale you will see that countries such as Assyria, Ethiopia, Arabia, and Persia were around the Garden of Eden when Adam & Eve were running around naked. And guess what? Those same countries (as well as Egypt) were around after the flood. The only thing that had changed was that the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews were in the area as genocidal killers.
Pages