In the simplest of terms, one cannot gain much traction championing a negative.
It is rarely what you believe, but how you behave that maters to others. Your actions create their reactions.
Others are much more interested in what you do believe in that what you do not believe in.
People find their center or anchor in what they do believe. They are usually buffeted around and unbalanced when they have a dis belief.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
…And Hitler was a Christian…[/quote]
Ummm…no.
Ol’ Dolphie was an occultist.[/quote]
Hmmm… kinda… sorta… I think a more accurate way to say it is that he believed in perverted version of Christianity that was in part influenced by the occult, but mostly by his racist and overall prejudiced views. Although, some the leaders he put in charge were definitely occultists.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
…And Hitler was a Christian…[/quote]
Ummm…no.
Ol’ Dolphie was an occultist.[/quote]
It’s complicated.
Yes, there was occult stuff. Yes, he seems to have had some private dislike of Christianity. On the other hand, he did hit explicitly Christian notes in Nazi propaganda. He’d be an unorthodox Christian (and definitely not a “true Christian” if you understand that to mean virtuous behavior) but he did not live his life as a non-Christian.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
In the simplest of terms, one cannot gain much traction championing a negative.
It is rarely what you believe, but how you behave that maters to others. Your actions create their reactions.
Others are much more interested in what you do believe in that what you do not believe in.
People find their center or anchor in what they do believe. They are usually buffeted around and unbalanced when they have a dis belief. [/quote]
I think you’re right to a large degree. As I’ve mentioned in passing in this thread, there is more than one type of atheist each standing for different ideals (often with more overlap than differences). On the one hand, you have the nihilistic atheist such as what Nietsche describes, but on the other you have the more hopeful secular humanists and yet still there are other types of atheist. Some sort of unifying force and as was mentioned earlier a PR machine, and common values/beliefs would make atheism better understood and perhaps less feared by the public.
The term “atheist” is not well understood. People assume it means a certainty that there is no God when really all it means is a lack of belief in a God. That’s why I prefer Bill Mahr’s term: “rationalist.” As Bill puts it, he preaches the gospel of “I don’t know.” Bottom line is this: there is no solid evidence for the existence of a supreme deity.
All I want is evidence - is that too much to ask? And don’t give me that tired old cosmological “where did everything come from” argument. At most that argument suggests the possibility of some sort of force that started everything. It proves nothing, other than that it is possible for a universe to exist.
Now that we got that out of the way, there is a simple reason why people don’t like atheists/agnostics/rationalists or any other variety of non-believer. It’s called denial. A handy psychological mechanism that allows people to avoid anything unpleasant. The non-believer is a constant reminder that maybe, just maybe, there really is no invisible being who loves us and watches over us. This is a very, very unpleasant thought. I can sympathize.
Read over what AlisaV wrote. Questioning the existence of a supreme being is not easy. The idea that atheists/agnostics are “mad” at God, or don’t need a God, or somehow don’t want God in their lives is ridiculous. I could think of nothing more wonderful than having an all-powerful, loving, forgiving being watching over me and once in a while helping me out of tough situations. Believe me, I really truly wish there was a God. I simply do not see sufficient evidence to justify a belief in a God.
[quote]PimpBot5000 wrote:
“I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ” - Mahatma Gandhi
[/quote]
That quote is misused in so many situations.
Oh thanks, I guess I’ll disregard the 1500-1700 years of record keeping and historians, along with the philosophers, theologians, priests, laity, and I’ll just believe your belief that you probably picked up in some atheist “historian” book on the Bible that it was written in fragments, sometimes hundreds of years apart, based on hearsay of illiterate people. Yeah I’m sure Jesus would say the words fucked up too. What crassness. Maybe you should actually pick up a history book, instead of reading fiction on shit that you don’t know about.
You obviously have never picked up a Bible because even though part of the fundamentals are in the 10 commandments, the whole ten commandments are not the basic fundamentals. And there is more to being a Christian than just the fundamentals. Sorry, as a Christian you don’t get to pick a choose what you follow, in the Catholic Church we have a name for those people. Cafeteria Catholics. Mormons have a name for the same thing in their church, Jack Mormons. Secular Jews in Judaism, and I’m sure Muslims the same thing. As I say, if you’re not going to follow the damn instructions fuck it. Might as well go through the thing blind.
And if you really did know anything about the Bible, even just learning about the Torah would be good in this instance you’d see that Leviticus is for the LEVITES, which are the priests of Israel, the Pharisees thought everyone that was Jewish should have the level of cleanliness as the priests as well, but if ya knew the history you’d know that little tid bit about the Bible.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Yep, the world is hard on us.
What do you want? It’s a minority view. It’s historically unnatural. It’s mildly subversive. People are not as open-minded as they like to think they are. Resignation’s my first instinct, but it isn’t right, and I’m trying (in my weenie internet way) to fight that instinct.
Atheism is what happens when you think about the notion of a God, and take it seriously, and realize what it would imply, and worry at it like a terrier until it gives way. And then – the hard part – you actually have to stand by that sense of incredulity, and not imagine your doubt away. And you have to profess it publicly to a world that thinks you’re either monstrous or weak. I’m not ready to do that, but maybe someday I will be. I know someone who has done it in a situation where it’s VERY hard to be openly atheist. There’s courage in that.
The whole Stalin thing is ludicrous, as I hope everyone realizes. (You do know the Czars were Russian Orthodox, don’t you? And Hitler was a Christian.) Atheists are not as a class inclined to become or sympathize with mass murderers. And even if they were – would that have any bearing on whether there is or is not a God? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we’re all thoroughly horrible people. Would that put a God in heaven? I may be as lousy as can be, but, you know, e puor si muove.[/quote]
Yeah…and Castro is Catholic…I’m sorry but Neither Stalin or Russian Czars or Hitler even hold a resemblance of what is supposed to be a Christian. Just because someone uses something to persuade people (propaganda) doesn’t mean they believe it.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]carbiduis wrote:
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
What do you call some one that believes in God but not in Religion ?[/quote]
Agnostic.
I’m an athiest, and very morally sound. I don’t believe in god, but I believe in the golden rule.[/quote]
You obviously don’t understand the meaning of the word agnostic.[/quote]
That is not the correct use of the word agnostic. Anti-religion is more appropriate. However, it is possible to be an “agnostic atheist.” See this handy chart:
http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/
My guess is that most of you here proclaiming to be theists are “agnostic theists” - you believe in a God but realize that you cannot ultimately know whether or not God exists. If you do “know” then I would be interested in your evidence supporting such knowledge.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
…And Hitler was a Christian…[/quote]
Ummm…no.
Ol’ Dolphie was an occultist.[/quote]
Hmmm… kinda… sorta… I think a more accurate way to say it is that he believed in perverted version of Christianity that was in part influenced by the occult, but mostly by his racist and overall prejudiced views. Although, some the leaders he put in charge were definitely occultists.[/quote]
He also put in Jewish doctors as leaders of his human experiment departments, so he was Jewish too.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
The term “atheist” is not well understood. People assume it means a certainty that there is no God when really all it means is a lack of belief in a God. That’s why I prefer Bill Mahr’s term: “rationalist.” As Bill puts it, he preaches the gospel of “I don’t know.” Bottom line is this: there is no solid evidence for the existence of a supreme deity. All I want is evidence - is that too much to ask? And don’t give me that tired old cosmological “where did everything come from” argument. At most that argument suggests the possibility of some sort of force that started everything. It proves nothing, other than that it is possible for a universe to exist.
Now that we got that out of the way, there is a simple reason why people don’t like atheists/agnostics/rationalists or any other variety of non-believer. It’s called denial. A handy psychological mechanism that allows people to avoid anything unpleasant. The non-believer is a constant reminder that maybe, just maybe, there really is no invisible being who loves us and watches over us. This is a very, very unpleasant thought. I can sympathize. Read over what AlisaV wrote. Questioning the existence of a supreme being is not easy. The idea that atheists/agnostics are “mad” at God, or don’t need a God, or somehow don’t want God in their lives is ridiculous. I could think of nothing more wonderful than having an all-powerful, loving, forgiving being watching over me and once in a while helping me out of tough situations. Believe me, I really truly wish there was a God. I simply do not see sufficient evidence to justify a belief in a God.[/quote]
But those darn rationalists will kill all those Christians if they miss behave an out law Christianity! If they don’t know there is no God why would they explicity call themselves atheists which means in no uncertain terms non-believer of God.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
… and we all know atheists hate being wrong.[/quote]
Really? Based on what? Stereotypes? I’ve participated lots in these religious threads and no one seems to read what I write. You’d rather cling to your stereotypes that all atheists are bad. But I’ll try again. As I mentioned in my other post, I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong about my belief, or lack thereof, in a supreme being. All I want is some solid evidence. That’s it. Show me that, and I’ll become a priest (I guess I’ll need to find a Latin Rite as they allow married priests).
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
The term “atheist” is not well understood. People assume it means a certainty that there is no God when really all it means is a lack of belief in a God. That’s why I prefer Bill Mahr’s term: “rationalist.” As Bill puts it, he preaches the gospel of “I don’t know.” Bottom line is this: there is no solid evidence for the existence of a supreme deity. All I want is evidence - is that too much to ask? And don’t give me that tired old cosmological “where did everything come from” argument. At most that argument suggests the possibility of some sort of force that started everything. It proves nothing, other than that it is possible for a universe to exist.
Now that we got that out of the way, there is a simple reason why people don’t like atheists/agnostics/rationalists or any other variety of non-believer. It’s called denial. A handy psychological mechanism that allows people to avoid anything unpleasant. The non-believer is a constant reminder that maybe, just maybe, there really is no invisible being who loves us and watches over us. This is a very, very unpleasant thought. I can sympathize. Read over what AlisaV wrote. Questioning the existence of a supreme being is not easy. The idea that atheists/agnostics are “mad” at God, or don’t need a God, or somehow don’t want God in their lives is ridiculous. I could think of nothing more wonderful than having an all-powerful, loving, forgiving being watching over me and once in a while helping me out of tough situations. Believe me, I really truly wish there was a God. I simply do not see sufficient evidence to justify a belief in a God.[/quote]
But those darn rationalists will kill all those Christians if they miss behave an out law Christianity! If they don’t know there is no God why would they explicity call themselves atheists which means in no uncertain terms non-believer of God.[/quote]
Chris, have you been drinking the sacramental wine? You seem quite hostile tonight. No, I don’t wish to outlaw religion. I’d prefer to see religion die off on its own and be replaced by reason and logic. Give it another 100 or so years.
I’m not going to argue semantics. As I’ve explained, most atheists just want evidence. Without that, there can be no certainty. Most atheists are very much against “gnostic atheism” - the idea that it is an absolute certainty that there is no God. Their position is “I’m not certain whether or not God exists, but the evidence is against there being a God so I choose to not believe in a God.” Agnostics usually call themselves that because “agnostic” sounds better than “atheist,” which is fine. At the end we’re all in the same boat.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
… and we all know atheists hate being wrong.[/quote]
Really? Based on what? Stereotypes? I’ve participated lots in these religious threads and no one seems to read what I write. You’d rather cling to your stereotypes that all atheists are bad. But I’ll try again. As I mentioned in my other post, I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong about my belief, or lack thereof, in a supreme being. All I want is some solid evidence. That’s it. Show me that, and I’ll become a priest (I guess I’ll need to find a Latin Rite as they allow married priests).[/quote]
See you just proved my point, you can’t help but prove people wrong and make yourself look right, even though we know that just because one person is wrong doesn’t make the other person right. It’s sarcasm my friend, if you really want me to put those little tags around me being sarcastic I will.
I can’t do anything myself, if you knew anything about my belief you’d know that I believe that anyone that is willfully against seeing the possiblity of God, will not see God no matter how much logic, reason, miracles are thrown at them.
BTW Chris - Regarding your argument that atheism someone lead to Hitler, Stalin, and all that. As a student of philosophy, I’m sure you know the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. In statistics, this is known by the maxim that correlation does not equal causation. Even if Hitler, et al., were atheists, you cannot say that this is what caused their murderous nature.
Hitler was a sociopath. He probably viewed himself as somewhat of a deified being and he created a whole religion around himself, with the SS as the priests, and the Jews and other people he considered undesirable as Satan. I would argue that he was not a true atheist because most atheists don’t care at all for organized religion.
From my own experience, I can tell you that what started me on the road to disbelief was the realization that organized religion was just another bullshit bureaucracy created by humans. I may one day decide that God religion exists, but I’ll never go back to an organized religion. They always seem to need money.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
… and we all know atheists hate being wrong.[/quote]
Really? Based on what? Stereotypes? I’ve participated lots in these religious threads and no one seems to read what I write. You’d rather cling to your stereotypes that all atheists are bad. But I’ll try again. As I mentioned in my other post, I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong about my belief, or lack thereof, in a supreme being. All I want is some solid evidence. That’s it. Show me that, and I’ll become a priest (I guess I’ll need to find a Latin Rite as they allow married priests).[/quote]
See you just proved my point, you can’t help but prove people wrong and make yourself look right, even though we know that just because one person is wrong doesn’t make the other person right. It’s sarcasm my friend, if you really want me to put those little tags around me being sarcastic I will.
I can’t do anything myself, if you knew anything about my belief you’d know that I believe that anyone that is willfully against seeing the possiblity of God, will not see God no matter how much logic, reason, miracles are thrown at them.[/quote]
I am not trying to prove you wrong - you’re not reading what I write. I am not willfully against seeing the possibility of God. I will admit, however, that any evidence would need to be very compelling. And rightfully so. The bigger the claim, the bigger the evidence. We’re talking about the existence of an almighty supreme being. That is a huge claim. Really, it is The Claim. So yes, the evidence must be compelling. Perhaps you think that my needing compelling evidence makes me willfully against seeing the possibility of God. And perhaps you are right on some level.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
The term “atheist” is not well understood. People assume it means a certainty that there is no God when really all it means is a lack of belief in a God. That’s why I prefer Bill Mahr’s term: “rationalist.” As Bill puts it, he preaches the gospel of “I don’t know.” Bottom line is this: there is no solid evidence for the existence of a supreme deity. All I want is evidence - is that too much to ask? And don’t give me that tired old cosmological “where did everything come from” argument. At most that argument suggests the possibility of some sort of force that started everything. It proves nothing, other than that it is possible for a universe to exist.
Now that we got that out of the way, there is a simple reason why people don’t like atheists/agnostics/rationalists or any other variety of non-believer. It’s called denial. A handy psychological mechanism that allows people to avoid anything unpleasant. The non-believer is a constant reminder that maybe, just maybe, there really is no invisible being who loves us and watches over us. This is a very, very unpleasant thought. I can sympathize. Read over what AlisaV wrote. Questioning the existence of a supreme being is not easy. The idea that atheists/agnostics are “mad” at God, or don’t need a God, or somehow don’t want God in their lives is ridiculous. I could think of nothing more wonderful than having an all-powerful, loving, forgiving being watching over me and once in a while helping me out of tough situations. Believe me, I really truly wish there was a God. I simply do not see sufficient evidence to justify a belief in a God.[/quote]
But those darn rationalists will kill all those Christians if they miss behave an out law Christianity! If they don’t know there is no God why would they explicity call themselves atheists which means in no uncertain terms non-believer of God.[/quote]
Chris, have you been drinking the sacramental wine? You seem quite hostile tonight. No, I don’t wish to outlaw religion. I’d prefer to see religion die off on its own and be replaced by reason and logic. Give it another 100 or so years.
[/quote]
Never happen, know why? Because even some of the biggest thinkers (that were right) were proponents of the Christian belief. Augustine, Aquinas, and other big hitters that helped with “reason and logic” were Christians. The Catholic Church is heavily about reason, hell even the Catholic Church states that you can come to God through reason and faith. We even invite the likes of Christopher Hitchens as our personal Devil’s advocate, well he fell sick so I pray that he gets better so maybe I can hear/read a few more debates between him and the Catholic Church before I am dead.
Oh and the 100 years or so, people have been saying that for the passed 2000 years. At first the outside tried to bring us down for about 300 years, then for the next 1800 years the people on the inside have been trying to take us down. If 1800 years of the most ravenous monsters trying to take down the Catholic Church while it was in their powers and still it stands, what do you think reason and logic will do? I mean reason and logic have been around for a long time, and if anything it has brought more people to the Church than taken away.
oh and the little snide about the sacramental wine, ad hominem. stop the bullshit.
And, most Christians would love to give evidence if it wasn’t a dead end. You can check out the MOC:2 thread if you want and see what giving clear evidence to a Christian brother can do when they do not want to believe in it no matter what and are just asking for you to give them something so they can try and tear through your logic.
Maybe for you, but the only reason I believe in God, is because of reason. I’ve said it here before in other threads, but I don’t hear God, I don’t feel the Holy Ghost, I don’t feel warm inside when I take communion. However, I’d die because of the fact that I know there is a God. I’m a callused bastard, I don’t apologize for that. Maybe one day I’ll feel like I’m praying into something more than darkness.
gnostic atheism? Do you know what gnostics are? They are very much not atheists. I’m a theist, specifically a Catholic. If someone is an atheists this means that they believe that there is no God. Gnostics usually believe there is an imperfect god. So if they are a gnostic atheists that is almost as close to an oxymoron without being a full oxymoron as you can get.
I guess you are writing new definitions for the English langauge. The position you described is agnostic, not gnostic.
If someone is calling themselves agnostic it is because they don’t believe there is enough evidence to determine if there is or isn’t a God. If you are an atheist you believe there is evidence that there is no God, or you just do not believe there is a God. Pick up a fucking dictionary.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
BTW Chris - Regarding your argument that atheism someone lead to Hitler, Stalin, and all that. As a student of philosophy, I’m sure you know the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. In statistics, this is known by the maxim that correlation does not equal causation. Even if Hitler, et al., were atheists, you cannot say that this is what caused their murderous nature. Hitler was a sociopath. He probably viewed himself as somewhat of a deified being and he created a whole religion around himself, with the SS as the priests, and the Jews and other people he considered undesirable as Satan. I would argue that he was not a true atheist because most atheists don’t care at all for organized religion. From my own experience, I can tell you that what started me on the road to disbelief was the realization that organized religion was just another bullshit bureaucracy created by humans. I may one day decide that God religion exists, but I’ll never go back to an organized religion. They always seem to need money.[/quote]
Yes, I’ve heard of it. However, you don’t see Christian leaders that actually follow Christian tenets doing stuff like mass killing thousands of people at a time. Yeah atheists don’t believe in organized religion…and atheist communism… which is pretty dang close to what Hitler had set up.
He was not a true atheist? Who knows, he said he was Christian, but I can tell you he would definitely have to be a sociopath to think that he was a Christian and doing what he was doing.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
… and we all know atheists hate being wrong.[/quote]
Really? Based on what? Stereotypes? I’ve participated lots in these religious threads and no one seems to read what I write. You’d rather cling to your stereotypes that all atheists are bad. But I’ll try again. As I mentioned in my other post, I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong about my belief, or lack thereof, in a supreme being. All I want is some solid evidence. That’s it. Show me that, and I’ll become a priest (I guess I’ll need to find a Latin Rite as they allow married priests).[/quote]
See you just proved my point, you can’t help but prove people wrong and make yourself look right, even though we know that just because one person is wrong doesn’t make the other person right. It’s sarcasm my friend, if you really want me to put those little tags around me being sarcastic I will.
I can’t do anything myself, if you knew anything about my belief you’d know that I believe that anyone that is willfully against seeing the possiblity of God, will not see God no matter how much logic, reason, miracles are thrown at them.[/quote]
I am not trying to prove you wrong - you’re not reading what I write. I am not willfully against seeing the possibility of God. I will admit, however, that any evidence would need to be very compelling. And rightfully so. The bigger the claim, the bigger the evidence. We’re talking about the existence of an almighty supreme being. That is a huge claim. Really, it is The Claim. So yes, the evidence must be compelling. Perhaps you think that my needing compelling evidence makes me willfully against seeing the possibility of God. And perhaps you are right on some level. [/quote]
Yes, and all I am saying is trying to convince someone who is willfully against the possiblity is futile and will never work. Plus, it is not my job to give you conviction, that’s the Holy Ghost in my belief. I have spent days giving fellow students evidence of God, and they’ll scramble to prove me wrong, and that is fine except unless someone comes to me and wants to learn I usually just keep quiet.