(January 18, 2017 at 4:37 pm)Pulse Wrote:

(January 18, 2017 at 11:21 am)Minimalist Wrote: You don't even get to first base, do you.  Religion (all religions, not just yours) is merely bullshit.  Religious people can be - and the higher up they go in the chain the more frequently they are - miserable sons of bitches.  As the saying goes "no one has ever been stoned to death by atheists."

Well if we want to look at the moral argument, when people blame religion for bombings and wars in general, they seem to ignore the tragic history of the 20th century, which saw more deaths from acts of violence and oppression than all previous centuries put together. These were systematically inflicted on millions of people by their own governments. Names like Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot have become infamous, all atheists. So to say that atheism is this harmless belief system, is very flawed indeed.

No one wants to ignore the tragic history of the 20th century, don't be absurd.

But - just limiting it to Christianity - can you excuse the horrors of the first nineteen centuries? Leaving aside violence, Christianity is first and foremost responsible for inculcating feelings of guilt and despondency in people who 'sin'. The adolescent boy who rubs one out and is told Jesus hates him for it. The newly pubescent girl who is told that her menstrual cycle - something over which she has absolutely no control - makes her 'unclean', not fit to be around other people. The woman who is married to an absolute beast of a man, and is told that it is her 'Christian duty' to meekly accept his beatings and a baby a year until she dies. 'Sin' made thought instead of action. Gay men and women who are told that they'll never get to Heaven for behaving in a manner God created for them to behave.

How many lives have been ruined or self-ended by the horrific guilt Christianity piles on people - no matter how good they are, they are never quite good enough. Raise a happy healthy and loving family? Doesn't matter, you're still a sinner. Give of your time and money to a soup kitchen, or take a foster child into your home? Who cares? You're still a sinner.

True story: In Belfast, I used to volunteer at a children's burn ward. A couple of days every week, for several years, I'd come in to sing and play for the kids, tell them jokes and funny stories - just to take their minds off of what they were going through and the pain they were in. At one point, the hospital chaplain (a Presbyterian) tried to have me barred from the ward because he didn't want a hell-bound sinner 'corrupting' the children. The hospital admin and the parents made a great show of support for me and the minister backed down. Not a worry, I'm a big boy and could have dealt with him on my own. But the worst part was that the kiddies got wind of it. On one of my visits during the dust-up, one of the little 'uns kept saying over and over to me, 'Promise you won't leave, promise you won't leave.' Needless pain inflicted on a little boy - who was already dealing with more than his share -, all because of a cloth headed minister who would rather have left children in unrelenting misery than have them exposed to someone who wasn't a Christian.

How many more like that, Pulse? How many people have been subjected to that kind of emotional trauma to satisfy the bigoted, narrow-minded despotism of the Christian faith? 50 millions? 500 millions?

You people have a lot of goddamed gall blaming atheists for human misery.

Boru

(January 17, 2017 at 5:34 pm)Pulse Wrote: Hi everyone, I would like to present some points for atheists to consider and I trust the exchanges will be thoughtful and friendly. 


There are some very serious problems for atheists to consider;  

1)    R. Dawkins wrote the Universe has "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." Dawkins, R., River out of Eden, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, p. 133, 1995.
        Why do atheists constantly use words like religion is evil, atheism good, when these terms are meaningless in a Godless Universe?

2) If you were really an atheist, you would realize that we are ALL just rearranged pond scum and life is just a set of random Meaningless events in a random Meaningless Universe. 
    So as an atheist, why try so hard "Meaningfully" explaining  that in this utterly Meaningless Universe there's no deity?

    a) Possible responses maybe; Religion is dangerous and threatens our survival; BUT in a Godless Universe, why is humanity's survival better than extinction? If humans nuke one another out of existence, what difference will that make to the Universe?? 

3) Atheism; The Universe Caused itself, no First Cause needed; this requires blind faith and is counter-intuitive; very much the same as what atheists accuse religious people of, seems hypocritical doesn't it??

4) The Big Bang Theory is Full of Fudge factors that are an embarrassment to Cosmologists many of whom admit the theory is popular because it is well funded, but how is that an objective search for truth? 


 [snip] moderator note: welcome to AF, but please review our rules, thank you. We ask newcomers not post links until 30 days and 30 posts have accrued.



5)   Atheistic science these days is so Dogmatically wedded to Materialism, it cannot even begin to tell us what Consciousness is, the most basic principle of human existence. Doesn't it seem hypocritical that Atheism is so dogmatic?

 6)  And BTW atheism has led to some pretty strange philosophies, like that of the Church of Euthanasia; Save the Planet, Kill Yourself! How can Atheists counter such "logic"?

As a Christian I have experienced that no Atheist on earth has any convincing arguments to these most basic questions which I believe only the Christian religion can answer. I'll be honest, believing in Atheism would be so much easier in life because you can do whatever you want and think there is no consequences, but Ahteism seems so incredibly counter intuitive, that to even begin to take it seriously, one has to suspend all logic.

Thoughts? 
(Again please keep it friendly, Ive had too much abuse from atheists already just for asking simple questions, and that just seems further proof to me Atheism is a delusion).

1. These terms may be meaningless in the cosmic sense that Dawkins uses, but they take on plenty meaning in the world of human interactions. Just because the universe itself has no interest in our well-being doesn’t mean we can’t care about one another.
2. As an atheist I don’t have to believe what you think atheist is supposed to mean. That is a strawman that you set up in your mind because you think it’s easier to knock down than the reality you’d find if you talked to real atheists rather than your ignorant Sunday school teacher.
3. No that doesn’t require blind faith. It requires understanding that if everything needs a cause then there can be no first cause. By creating a first cause, you deny that everything needs a cause. Because matter cannot be created or destroyed but transformed from matter to energy and back again, there is no infinite regression of causes, only an infinite chain of events.
4. If you don’t feel embarrassed about believing a book that says god created the grass and the trees before he created the sun and the moon, then you are not the right person to tell cosmologist what they should find embarrassing.
5. I recognize no dogma in atheism. In fact when I came in here talking orthodox atheism, they soundly kicked my ass. So don’t you even try.
6. Atheism means not believing in god. Nothing else. I don’t answer for people who believe in euthanasia any more than you answer for the KKK using the cress as a symbol of terrorism

Your silly, uninformed questions make it clear you have no idea what atheism is, so I doubt very seriously you’ve talked to every atheist on the planet.

(January 18, 2017 at 5:24 pm)Pulse Wrote:

(January 18, 2017 at 5:12 pm)Tazzycorn Wrote: Stalin was Eastern orthodox, was born one and died one. There was a period between 1924 and 1941 where he professed atheism, but he got rid of that when he needed the church.
Pol Pot was a strange blend of catholic and buddhist, born a buddhist and educated in catholic school. He never for one day gave up religion.
Mao was the only one who gave up any of what would traditionally be considered religions, but then again, he did try to build a religious cult with himself as the focus. He thought himself god.

Must try harder before you pin the sins of religious fucktards like yourself on atheists. Like finding some atheists, for example.

To say Stalin was a Christian is really dishonest, even Wikipedia describes his religion as " Atheism, formerly Georgian Orthodox", Ceauşescu launched a persecution of religion in Romania to implement the doctrine of Marxist–Leninist atheism, while Pol Pot banned religious practices in Cambodia. I am perturbed you deny history so readily.
Again this information is all from Wikipedia.

The people you mention, Pol Pot, Stalin, Ceauşescu, etc, were first and foremost, totalitarian communist dictators. The mass killing that they were responsible for, are a result of that, not their disbelief in gods.

The first job, so to speak, of a totalitarian dictator, is to eliminate any group that might be an enemy, or a future enemy.

Oh, by the way...

There were approximately 50 million native Americans in North America before Columbus got here. By 1650, the population was 6 million.

What was the religion of the majority of the people that slaughtered millions of native Americans, I wonder?

(January 18, 2017 at 4:37 pm)Pulse Wrote:

(January 18, 2017 at 11:21 am)Minimalist Wrote: You don't even get to first base, do you.  Religion (all religions, not just yours) is merely bullshit.  Religious people can be - and the higher up they go in the chain the more frequently they are - miserable sons of bitches.  As the saying goes "no one has ever been stoned to death by atheists."

Well if we want to look at the moral argument, when people blame religion for bombings and wars in general, they seem to ignore the tragic history of the 20th century, which saw more deaths from acts of violence and oppression than all previous centuries put together. These were systematically inflicted on millions of people by their own governments. Names like Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot have become infamous, all atheists. So to say that atheism is this harmless belief system, is very flawed indeed.

So we can add "History" to the list of subjects you know nothing about.  Keep going.  You're headed for the title of dumbest guy on the Forum.... and it takes work to beat out Dripshit.

---

Quote:Why was Stalin able to set up a cult of personality?

Stalin was a murdering thug.  People followed him out of fear not because he was some great leader.  In that, he was sort of like the medieval popes.  Got to give Stalin one thing though.  Unlike fucking jesus at least he was real.  The other thing you have to give Stalin is that he beat that xtian shit Hitler like a rented mule.

I knew the moral argument would turn to "How bad Christians were with their acts of violence, and how benevolent atheism is 

and how it had nothing to do with Atheistic governments killing hundreds of millions, they did it for other reasons". 

The issue is if Christians kill in Unjust wars they are acting AGAINST their religion. 

 If an Atheist leader believes there will be no consequences in the after-life for his atrocities, that he is just helping evolution 

along by performing "natural selection", then yes that will be borne out in his acts, and it's illogical to believe that's not true.

As the 2007 atheist suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen from Finland, said;  

‘Today the process of natural selection is totally misguided. Modern human race has not only betrayed its ancestors, but the

 future generations too.’ ‘It’s time to put NATURAL SELECTION & SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST back on track!’



Anyway, back to my original post, why do so many of you who are atheists, disbelieve R. Dawkins who said good and evil 

don't even exist, are you dissenting from this "great" atheist thinker??? Why is killing wrong for an atheist in view of the 

teaching of the "greatest apostle of Atheism" in our time??? If you just say "Good and evil are constructs in our minds we choose to follow, even though they don't objectively

exist"; isn't that living a delusion???

Oh sure, they are acting "against their religion". They aren't true Scotsmen, either. So much spinning in this thread. Stop acting like a moron.


Also, about Dawkins: he isn't our leader. He's just another atheist with his own thoughts. Unlike religion, we don't require dogmatic thinking.

Quote:I knew the moral argument would turn to "How bad Christians were with their acts of violence, and how benevolent atheism is 

and how it had nothing to do with Atheistic governments killing hundreds of millions, they did it for other reasons".

And yet you were dumb enough to go there anyway, huh?  Strike 3, you're out.

(January 18, 2017 at 8:19 pm)Pulse Wrote: I knew the moral argument would turn to "How bad Christians were with their acts of violence, and how benevolent atheism is 

and how it had nothing to do with Atheistic governments killing hundreds of millions, they did it for other reasons". 

The issue is if Christians kill in Unjust wars they are acting AGAINST their religion. 

 If an Atheist leader believes there will be no consequences in the after-life for his atrocities, that he is just helping evolution 

along by performing "natural selection", then yes that will be borne out in his acts, and it's illogical to believe that's not true.

As the 2007 atheist suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen from Finland, said;  

‘Today the process of natural selection is totally misguided. Modern human race has not only betrayed its ancestors, but the

 future generations too.’ ‘It’s time to put NATURAL SELECTION & SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST back on track!’



Anyway, back to my original post, why do so many of you who are atheists, disbelieve R. Dawkins who said good and evil 

don't even exist, are you dissenting from this "great" atheist thinker??? Why is killing wrong for an atheist in view of the 

teaching of the "greatest apostle of Atheism" in our time??? If you just say "Good and evil are constructs in our minds we choose to follow, even though they don't objectively

exist"; isn't that living a delusion???

Would you deny that Christianity has a moral imperative?

Is that a rooster I hear crowing?

If you proclaim yourself Christian, I expect you to adhere to its tenets. If you do not, how important, how imperative, are those tenets?

Let's go back to Square One: What do you think are the tenets of atheism?

Nice cherry pick, one nut job.

Ok, tit for tat, Jim Jones. Not a war, just mad with christian religious power. Think he had a higher body count. 

Or Marshall Applewhite. The next messiah, jesus 2.0.

Let's face it, more twisted deaths can be attributed to religious followings (not acting against, using) than atheist. Where did "kill them all and let god sort it out" come from? 

And Dawkins, where/when did he say that? Are you taking things out of context (again) from River out of Eden, "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." He was not speaking about humans or human society. But I'm willing to let you take another swing at it and tell me where your Dawkins reference comes from. 

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

BTW, Dawkins, not an apostle to me. But even if he was considered one, I as an atheist, am allowed to disagree. Something tells me that you are not allowed to disagree with the "true" apostles for fear of ever lasting punishment.

Quote:BTW, Dawkins, not an apostle to me. But even if he was considered one, I as an atheist, am allowed to disagree. Something tells me that you are not allowed to disagree with the "true" apostles for fear of ever lasting punishment.

Exactly this^^. No atheist has ever been shunned, excommunicated, scourged or broken on the rack for disagreeing with Dawkins (who would be appalled if they were).

Boru