Atheists Come Out! Stop Tip-Toeing Around as Agnostics
While we cannot absolutely disprove the existence of Unicorns, Gnomes, Mermaids, Zeus, Aphrodite, Santa, The Tooth Fairy, The Boogey Man, etc. and must remain technically Agnostic about them, it is okay to proclaim oneself an Atheist when discussing such things. Most people do so easily. Thus, it is intellectually okay to proclaim one's Atheism when it comes to any of the popular supernatural beliefs of today. Just do it.
Proclaiming one's Atheism is a statement about the importance of evidence in your thinking. We should not appease those who believe in the supernatural by being wishy-washy and identifying only as Agnostic if we would easily identify as Atheists about Mermaids, Unicorns and Talking Dogs.
Would you do the same if the Supernatural Set were to begin insisting that the world is flat based on an ancient text? Would you appease them by not insisting on evidence and reality in such matters? Would you appease them by calling yourself an Agnostic despite the overwhelming evidence?
It is irresponsible to tolerate nonsense especially in front of children. Naturalism (Atheism, Zoology, Geology, etc.) is to SuperNaturalism (Heaven, Gods, Curses, Withcraft, Hell) as the scientifically trained Medical Doctor is to the superstition based Witch Doctor. In both sets, one is easily and obviously discredited by the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of the information it gives us about reality. They ought not ever be equated.
God Beings are imaginary. Prayer is superstition like horseshoes or finger crossing. The Bible is repulsive, medieval, barbaric. Faith in the supernatural is bizarre and indefensible. An Afterlife is nothing more than wishful thinking. Sorry.
The Universe, just as we know it with our senses and with our technology, is more than enough for me. Its infinite awesome mystery, beauty and depth easily renders feeble and puny the various mythologies of man.
(Written in response to "Atheist groups are on the rise" from The Sun-Sentinel of South Florida.)
This reminds me of Richard Dawkins in "The God Delusion" talking about the teapot in orbit above Earth, and I don't think it's possible for me to agree more.
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
To me "cocksure" applies to religious fanatics as well as closed minded Atheists.
Yes, please. Atheists should stand up and acknowledge themselves for who they really are.
Atheists are amoral (having no moral standards). Its hard to explain objective good or evil when one is an atheist, since atheists recognize no objective basis for morality. Since there is no objective basis for morality, subjective morality rules the day. Subjective morality means that Hitler's moral values are exactly the same as Mother Teresa's.
We see this in Atheists; atheists decry close-mindedness when it is found in people of faith, but not when it is found in people of no faith. Such is subjective morality.
Atheists are close minded. To believe in a metaphysical universe is to believe in myth, or unicorns, and tooth faeries. Apparently, human's are foolish and unscientific to believe in the 'unseen' or the un-provable. And yet, Gödel with his incompleteness theorem has showed no logical system is complete, or if it is complete it inconsistent. Hence, there are unprovable truths. Unfortunately the existence of unprovable truths is an unfortunate logical (and hence scientific consequence) for those closed minded atheists, since they are not permitted to believe in unprovable things.
We must all simply believe in things we can experience first hand (I know of no atheist that has experienced a black hole first hand); or is that we can only believe things we see direct or indirect evidence of (I know of a few atheists that believe in multiplicity of universes, and string theory). Ah yes - here we are again, back at subjective morality.
Perhaps that old axiom is true 'that man does what is right in his own eyes'. Tsk tsk. To bad; that last bit almost sounds religious.
I agree - atheists should stand up and not shy away from admitting that they are close minded and amoral.
The Bible quite simply is a guideline on how to live your live. If you find it and its rules/suggestions "repulsive, medieval, barbaric" then your are against organized law completely.
As far as "God beings" are concerned - regardless of religion - if you believe that something comes from nothing than you are ignorant. Given that the "big bang" happened, evolution proceeded, and here we stand today - you still have the problem of what started it? Where does all of that start? Sure a big ball of mass could have exploded to form the universe as we know it, but where does that come from? You can't get something from nothing, it was CREATED - don't be ignorant.
Where did God's 'moral law' come from?
If it is simply an objective moral law that has always existed, telling us right and wrong - then it must have come from outside God.
The only alternative is that God arbitrarily made up this moral law out of nothing.
Neither of these is particularly convincing.
It can be seen from observing animals that their behaviour is governed somewhat, albeit by a less developed system of instincts and societal norms than we have, but for instance cannibalism is not widely practised by most species. Much of their behaviour is consistent with the principles of natural selection, i.e. in many animal populations, cooperation and putting the flock/herd first can increase the chances of survival of each individual member.
Human morals are possibly just a more evolved version of this same process.
So who created the creator then, smartass? Before you open your big mouth and call all atheists ignorant look at what you are asserting yourself.
So you say nothing can come out of nothing?! Well then, where the fuck did your God come from? Nothing? Oh, he was "always there"? Well guess what then, maybe what caused the big bang was "always there" too and suddenly the need for a God vanishes and suddenly you are the one who appears to be the pompous twat?
There's so much confusion here it's difficult to reply.
Firstly, to Andrew above: atheism is not the same as and does not imply amorality. You are confused or misinformed and should google on the subjects a bit before airing an opinion that reveals your ignorance and embarrasses you publicly.
Belief in a God or lack thereof is a choice. And people make choices to suit their own paradigms. Until someone dies and comes back with irrefutable proof of an afterlife, a black void, heaven or hell, this debate is merely a pointless exercise in verbal masturbation.
There is a saying "There are no atheists in foxholes", which is very true. Even the most ardent, verbose atheist or agnostic faced with great personal tragedy or loss is likely to offer up a prayer to God in the hope of alleviating his anguish. Does this mean all atheists are hypocritical cowards? Makes you think...
Oh confused Sheldon. LOL.
Unless you claim to be a god being yourself - omniscient - you have no idea whatsoever about the actions of atheists in foxholes, now do you? Come on Sheldon, you know about that certain thing called honesty now don't you? Be honest... you're not a god being, right?
You do realize you're not a god being, right? LOL.
In fact, you don't speak on behalf of a god being, you don't know the mind of a god being and you don't have a relationship with a god being. You do realize that, right? LOL.
Oh confused Sheldon you make me laugh. Thank you.
"So who created the creator then, smartass? Before you open your big mouth and call all atheists ignorant look at what you are asserting yourself."
Once again you are only proving your ignorance. If you recall 6th grade science you will remember the phrase "Matter cannot be created or taken completely out of existence." so in essence you cant create a material from nothing or remove a material from existence. Thats a fundamental and basic law of nature. Not a theory, a law. So if you believe this than nobody or nothing can create ANYTHING and no matter what you say about the big bang the matter could not have been present to create such an explosion by itself. This is where faith comes in. God created this entire universe and created all the laws in them. Think of it as a programmer creating an extremely complex computer game. You have to code the physics, the materials, the objects, etc. Think of God as the best programmer ever :) Programmers can create and break the rules of their own game, God of course can do the same. Like i said this is all based on faith, you have faith that the universe was just always here or created from a big explosion, i have faith that God created the laws of the universe as well as the universe itself.
Morality came first. Religion came later.
As long as people and their ancestors have been living in herds, they followed imprinted moral codes (eat the four-legged furry hoofed thing or a cabbage, but not your wife). Morality is a set coded survival rules for the group and / or the invidual. Most of the biblical 10 commandments can be read as an instruction set for a stable society, no divine instructions needed.
If morality was the result of religion of a god, of which one? Why do all societies, irrespective of the dominant religion, basically have the same set of moral vaules (no killing of your fellow man (unless of another relgion), no stealing (idem), etc.)? Hence, it seems likely that morality is not just given by one particular god. It appears to be a general human trait.
Atheist are not necessarily amoral. I am the living proof. I do not eat my children, donate to charities, wait for red traffic lights and even say hello to christians. Assume that respect for fellow humans is of a higher moral stature than disrespect. Then, the fact that the christian above claims to be morally superior and dismisses all atheists as close minded and amoral (= disrespect) is proof that this particular christian is morally less weel developed than this particular atheist.
Another related point is this: to say that there can be absolutely no morality without religion is to do a disservice to morality, in effect, making it a petty system of pluses and minuses, rather than something people ought to follow for its own sake, regardless of whether this or that supernatural being is telling them to.
The argument that people happen to be *incapable* of morality without religion may have some interesting psychological weight to it, even if it's kind of condescending to "the masses." But to say that morality truly vanishes whenever God does is just plain empty. That's like saying you can't be a good person unless you believe Mahondas Gandhi is your nation's president. I know he was an awesome guy and all, but does denying such power to him actually deny the goodness of his work, or the possibility of reproducing it?
As far as I'm concerned, the only thing morality's existence depends on is that of multiple sentient beings, generally people. Where there are people, there are good and evil actions, regardless of their rulers' commands, deities or no.
What disheartens me is when I see so many people lump together ethics and religion (particularly Christianity) that as soon as they reject the latter (based on various inconsistencies and moral problems), they discard the former and become full-blown nihilists. So maybe what the atheist community really needs is some more cooperation without giving in to notions of overlap in the belief structure — in other words, to say "You feel this way, I feel that way, we're never, ever going to agree on how the universe works; let's be friends anyway."
Didn't read it all because I'm SO TIRED right now, but...
I'm out! I'm out! I'm an atheist! Out and proud! :D
Hello everyone, i am a Mulsim,you still there? If so i'll continue, well as far as disbelievers in Gid are concerned; Muslims can't force any belief on them, they just have to invite them to Islam.
See islam-guide.com and please tell me what you make of it.