(October 26, 2015 at 6:10 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: You know, the only time I ever feel "atheist rage" is when someone keeps telling me that I'm angry because I'm an atheist.

Not even then. Takes someone I respect or care about to make me feel anything.

It's still not an atheist rage it's just an athiest's rage.

All the pointy-headed, beard-stroking pontifications merely serve to shine large numbers of photons upon the countenance of the large elephantine object in the immediate vicinity of our mutual-respective, and i should say, collective, domicile:

Ain't got me no evidences for no god. Ain't got me no, satisfaction.

Theists claim they "know" something about their god(s), but fail to demonstrate just that, and they would rather dance the diversionary bullshit dance, a cuz it's a good way to ah-void that pesky part of the problem. How does the theist "know" anything? Aside from the pulling-out-of-ass part of course.

(October 26, 2015 at 6:39 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: How does the theist "know" anything?

God witness himself as the only true God, and knows there doesn't exist any realm in which another god exists. This knowledge of himself, to a lesser degree, is endowed upon humans. The more "life" we have, the more faith we have in this belief, because it's seen through vision of his light.

(October 26, 2015 at 6:39 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: How does the theist "know" anything? Aside from the pulling-out-of-ass part of course.

The Fecal Files: The Truth is In There

(October 26, 2015 at 6:10 pm)Cato Wrote:

(October 26, 2015 at 6:08 pm)Delicate Wrote: Yes. A lot of atheists here seem to have it.

How old are you? 12?

Yes

(October 26, 2015 at 6:20 pm)Evie Wrote:

(October 26, 2015 at 6:08 pm)Delicate Wrote: Yes. A lot of atheists here seem to have it.

An absence of belief in a skydaddy has nothing to do with the effect. Arrogance correlates strongly with theists who "know" there is a god though.

Good, because I don't believe very many people believe in a skydaddy.

(October 26, 2015 at 6:10 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: You know, the only time I ever feel "atheist rage" is when someone keeps telling me that I'm angry because I'm an atheist.

Otherwise, I'm just fine. 

I am a former member of your religious club, of a highly-literalist/fundamentalist stripe, and only gave up my faith after much research and reflection. I enjoyed my time in the church; they were wonderful people, and wonderful to me. I have many fond memories, especially of the summer evangelism retreats (camps) and the All-State Baptist Youth Choir trips I got to make as a teenager. 

When I got involved with a local atheism group, in my mid-20s, I had such fond memories of our covered-dish suppers (most people say "pot-luck dinners") that I reinstituted the practice for our group explicitly because I thought it was a great way to socialize and to "multiply food" at our events, the way I had done in my church. Those in my church used to joke that covered-dish suppers were "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, every Sunday afternoon!"

I considered the issues of core belief and doctrine, particularly that of literalism (in light of conflicts I had noticed between what was being taught from the pulpit as "Biblical Truth" and what I already knew about the natural world) and the inerrancy of scripture. You may not consider those to be core doctrines, but I assure you the evangelicals do! I have read volumes of works in apologetics and counter-apologetics, in addition to my own degree in biology (minors in chemistry and history), which of course I attained long after doing the initial research on theology. For you to sit here and arrogantly suggest that we are only non-Christian because we either don't understand Christianity or because we are angry at God/Christians/religion-in-general, even while we sit here telling you that you are mistaken, is to declare to us that you will never respect us, and are not worth the time and effort to treat seriously on matters which would be high-intensity in thought-process and research necessary to have an exchange on that level.

So enough hiding behind your rhetoric. List YOUR ideas about what constitutes "core doctrine", and the proofs of Christianity that you think we cannot escape logically, and let's get to it.

We all know it's the reason you're here, and the reason you're insulting our intelligence and integrity. We know bait when we see it. Well, you got it, our full attention.

Present your case or STFU.

Thanks for the background. I can't help but notice you have confused your fundamentalist background to be all of Christianity, and likewise confused your rejection of fundamentalism with your rejection of Christianity.

I had much the same background, but I was able to recognize that the existence of bad science doesn't discredit all of science, just like bad religion doesn't discredit all of religion.

As someone who took a step away from religion, analyzed it rationally, found it rational and decided to follow the evidence back to theism and Christianity, I'm skeptical that your study of theology was substantive. But that's a topic we can explore elsewhere.

That being said, you've raised some questions about my approach. Apparently I only believe atheists become atheists because they don't understand Christianity or because they are angry at God. And that's a problem.

I want to humbly suggest that the evidence based on posts I've seen suggest just that. Very few of the posts I've seen here so far contain a rational basis for rejecting religion. Where they do, they are inept or incomplete. 

You can verify this yourself, by scrolling through this very thread. Please look at the individual responses to my OP, and score them on two measures: Substantive rational content on one hand, and emotional rhetoric/ad hominem or content suggesting anger/hate/contempt/uncharitable attacks on the other.

Based on your findings, tell me what you would conclude.

(October 26, 2015 at 5:52 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2...ger_effect.

Quote:The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. Dunning and Kruger attributed the bias to the metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately.

he who knows not and knows not that he knows not.

(October 26, 2015 at 6:46 pm)Delicate Wrote: Very few of the posts I've seen here so far contain a rational basis for rejecting religion.

There is no god, ergo, religion is a waste of time and effort. Religion is and has always been nothing more than a medium for control of the populace.

(October 26, 2015 at 6:10 pm)Cato Wrote:

(October 26, 2015 at 6:08 pm)Delicate Wrote: Yes. A lot of atheists here seem to have it.

How old are you? 12?

I know you are but what am I!!

(October 26, 2015 at 6:44 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(October 26, 2015 at 6:39 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: How does the theist "know" anything?

God witness himself as the only true God, and knows there doesn't exist any realm in which another god exists. This knowledge of himself, to a lesser degree, is endowed upon humans. The more "life" we have, the more faith we have in this belief, because it's seen through vision of his light.

You'll have to demonstrate how this ^^ comports in any way with reality. Collections of baseless assertions and gibberish aside....