Thread: Any Athesists out there? I need backup.

Well done mate! I'll check it out.

Oh my. If they had come to DV they would've been ripped apart on just about every argument. It's painful to listen to and do nothing about it. But one mustn't make too big of a deal out of it, the world is a big place and there are tons more of people like them or worse.

Most likely worse.

Bah! I don't know if it's just 2shared, or what, but I'm getting, like, 78 KB Per second.

Not sure if I even wanna bother.

Basically just think critically. All the arguments I've heard have some massively obvious logical flaw or use false facts... such as the cosmological argument, which never attempts to explain why the first cause must have had the attributes of a deity, or arguing about the lack of 'transitional forms' in the fossil record, because the concept of a transitional form is inherently incorrect (all organisms are 'transitional forms'; only if you had a record of every living organism ever would you have a record of every single 'transitional form').

Xei, I like that thinking about transitional forms, that we are transitional forms. Cool.
And the cosmological argument isn't near as ignorant as the Ontological argument. Man, I hope they try to use the Ontological argument

Does anybody know anything about the book of Isaiah and/or the other Dead Sea Scrolls? I need to do some research on those, I don't really know much about them.

This should be interesting, downloading right now. Seems pretty slow.
I'll mirror this file on RapidShare if that's cool with you. I can also mirror it on YouTube.

Originally Posted by Marvo

This should be interesting, downloading right now. Seems pretty slow.
I'll mirror this file on RapidShare if that's cool with you. I can also mirror it on YouTube.

rapidshare is fine

It has been my experience that it is impossible to reason with those who cannot. There seems to be something about religious people in general (at least the devout ones) that are completely incapable of seeing the holes in their arguments, circular logic, etc., even when you point it out to them. I prefer to ignore them and move on.

I find it's a whole lot easier to walk through life as an agnostic. It's quite relieving to say "I don't know!" It's quite liberating, being able to subscribe to any set of beliefs and principles you take a fancy in. You get the best of all the world religions, without any of the bull.

But yeah, the question is basically unanswerable (personally, the idea of any sort of divine creator is highly implausible, and is only one of an infinite number of solutions), so you have nothing to go off of except your own, personal beliefs. Take a stand in whatever you believe in, but be willing to change and adapt when necessary. Just don't be a total pushover willing to believe whatever someone throws at you first (though you don't seem like this kind of person anyway).

Incidentally, when you have any number divided by infinity, you get zero. So, you take the handful of monotheistic religions out there, group them together, and divide by the infinite number of ways this universe could've come about. There is a zero percent chance that any person of any religion is correct. Just a fun piece of information.

I find it's a whole lot easier to walk through life as an agnostic. It's quite relieving to say "I don't know!" It's quite liberating, being able to subscribe to any set of beliefs and principles you take a fancy in. You get the best of all the world religions, without any of the bull.

Agnostic doesn't mean anything by itself. People need to stop perpetuating this myth.

Any rational atheist will claim they don't know for sure (unless the claim is logically impossible or otherwise self-contradictory) - they are agnostic as well. So it's always best to qualify the level of uncertainty. Saying "I'm agnostic" is like saying "Something" when someone asks what you drive. It doesn't tell you anything really.

Furthermore, everyone is either atheist or theist; there's no third option. If you don't believe in a god because you've never heard of the idea, never considered the concept, or just don't care, you're still an atheist.

It has been my experience that it is impossible to reason with those who cannot. There seems to be something about religious people in general (at least the devout ones) that are completely incapable of seeing the holes in their arguments, circular logic,

It's the illusion of superiority. Such people lack the ability to realise their lack of intellect or education. There's one particular user here (for example) who insists he is well educated and intelligent, but in reality demonstrates a gross level of ignorance, and a lack of intellect in failing to comprehend simple ideas. As such, he is completely delusional, but unable to see it.

Incidentally, when you have any number divided by infinity, you get zero. So, you take the handful of monotheistic religions out there, group them together, and divide by the infinite number of ways this universe could've come about. There is a zero percent chance that any person of any religion is correct. Just a fun piece of information

Even if you assume at least one religion is correct and they are all equally likely (which they are given the evidence or lack thereof), the large amount of them makes it extremely unlikely that any individual one is right.

Not to mention that even if the most popular religion, Christianity (if you count all the millions of versions) with about 2 billion followers is correct, it still means about 4.5 billion people are wrong.

It's not easy to convert someone to atheism, and you certainly won't if you ridicule their current religion. That'll just put them on the defensive. They won't be open to anything you say.

Often one has to arrive upon atheism themselves, through their own logic and not through someone else's.

There are different types of atheists and agnostics. A weak agnostic will say "I don't know," while a hardcore agnostic will say "it's impossible to know." Everyone's technically a weak agnostic in some sense.