What good is atheism?

[Catholic_Lady]

I won't parrot what others have already pointed out, but I do want to point out one quick thing from your original OP.  Your point #1 about how atheism leads to the advancement of science is just absurd.  You do realize that the founders of Modern Science like Newton, Kepler and Galileo were all believers (Deists) right?  As a matter of fact Newton wrote his Principa Mathematica so "others may believe".  Other great minds like Einstein were also Deists.  C.S. Lewis wrote that "men became scientific because they expected law in nature.  They expected law in nature because they believed in a law giver."

These brilliant minds were not "religious" per se, but they were definitely not atheists.

First off, I dunno why you'd quote C.S Lewis: he's not a scientist, just one of those very willing to make fallacious statements to favor his pet religion. What he says on this issue isn't important.

That said, "atheism leads to the advancement of science," is not the same thing as "you need to be an atheist to be a scientist." The former is true, while the latter is not: even theist scientists absolutely need to be atheists in their work. Why? Because one needs to be limited to only what can be detected and demonstrated when doing science. A scientist who'll seriously consider "hmm, maybe god intervened with this experiment because he wanted me to get the wrong result, so..." isn't going to get very far, and attempting to publish that result will result in quizzical looks at best, because if it's not demonstrable and replicable, it's not very good as an experiment.

Newton may have listed his beliefs as his motivation to do science, but for any of the good results he got he could never have listed his beliefs in practice. Each of those great believing scientists never allowed their faith to enter into their work, and that's sort of the point; attempting to inject religion as it is now into science is purely antithetical to the scientific endeavor.

I agree with this, but how is this different from a theist having any other job?? That would be like a Christian waitress not serving her customers because she expects God to do it.  

Lol, really, most of us are not that crazy.

[LastPoet]

This crazy numbnuts is still around? That is quite the fixation.

[Cyberman]

He may be around, but if I catch him threatening anyone here again I will personally take a hammer to those numbnuts.

I also recognise the irony in the above.

[robvalue]

Well I tried to help, but if you're going to start saying you're going to kill people I'm not so interested.

I know what depression is like, I've lived with it for a long time. Finding a reason to live when you're that unhappy is very hard for anyone. You're not alone there. I got through the worst by the skin of my teeth and I'm still fighting.

[ignoramus]

Do we know how old he is?
Could just be a harmless young one living out his fantasies?
Again, if we believed everything people say, we'd all be religious by now.

[LastPoet]

This guy is a serial sock puppet. He thrives on coming here and TTA and post this drivel. At one point he even said he would do no labor and his parents were responsible for him as they brought him to life. While this may be true in younger years, it is not for the whole life.

[Iroscato]

I guess there's a space shortage over at 4Chan. Bit of an overflow like...