maxolla, I find the claims of the existence of your God unconvincing, yet you seem to imagine that it's typical for atheists to have to go to special lengths not to believe. I'm sure you used to believe in something you no longer accept as true, didn't you just find it less plausible over time?

Examples of Israeli archaeologists who have concluded that the Exodus is mythical include Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

(December 19, 2019 at 11:56 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(December 19, 2019 at 11:46 am)maxolla Wrote: Stories and accounts of it exist.

Then your God would answer prayers to restore an amputated limb?

I think anything is possible. We usually think of prayer as something of a request and then some base belief on the “answer” or lack of one. Make me rich make me famous make me well make me strong make me etc etc etc. Solve all of my immediate problems and do it right now or else.

Not my experience of what prayer is or how it effects the natural or spiritual realm.

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(December 19, 2019 at 11:58 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: maxolla, I find the claims of the existence of your God unconvincing, yet you seem to imagine that it's typical for atheists to have to go to special lengths not to believe. I'm sure you used to believe in something you no longer accept as true, didn't you just find it less plausible over time?

Examples of Israeli archaeologists who have concluded that the Exodus is mythical include Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

I’m sure it’s different for all atheists and Christians and there is no rule of thumb for any believer or disbeliever but we as humans tend towards compiling evidence for things we like to believe more than compiling evidence for things we abhor.

Wow, your nonsense gets more batshittery with each word you utter.

maxolla, you think Israeli archaeologists abhor the idea that the Exodus really happened? Evidence has a way of compiling itself, over time.

(December 12, 2019 at 4:53 pm)maxolla Wrote: New to this site and actually atheism.  I’m here to know more about atheism and how people convert to it.  My questions are below.  If you have time please take a moment to help me understand more of the atheist view.  These questions are intended for those who espouse the atheist view but if you are from another belief system feel free to answer.

What do you consider as prime reality?

What is the purpose of history or does it serve  a purpose?

How did human existence begin?

What is morality?

Where do you decide what is right and wrong?

What do you believe in with absolute certainty?


Thanks in advance.

Max

The answer to all your questions is either 42 or chocolate.

(December 19, 2019 at 12:03 pm)maxolla Wrote:

(December 19, 2019 at 11:56 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Then your God would answer prayers to restore an amputated limb?

I think anything is possible.  We usually think of prayer as something of a request and then some base belief on the “answer” or lack of one.  Make me rich make me famous make me well make me strong make me etc etc etc.  Solve all of my immediate problems and do it right now or else.

Not my experience of what prayer is or how it effects the natural or spiritual realm..

So if Good Christians prayed for an end to war, poverty, disease, and similar tribulation God would do it?

(December 14, 2019 at 6:13 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(December 14, 2019 at 4:18 am)EgoDeath Wrote: The behaviors I witnessed, and continue to witness, in Christians, that strengthened my skepticism were bountiful. The hypocrisy and total lack of self-awareness. The inability to use logic and reason when it came to evaluating religious, divine or miraculous claims. The complete lunacy of saying things like "god helped me find my car keys," when we know damn well that people are starving all over the world, dying of terrible diseases, falling victim to natural disasters, etc. The statements about prayer about how "god works in mysterious ways." The admission, by many Christians, that there really is no evidence for god, and that they "just believe." The bizarre talks of people being "better off" after they die, because they're "in a better place," when no one really knows what happens after we die - and to be honest, we have no real reason to believe that consciousness continues after death.

You see, we treat the claim of god's supposed existence as if it's special - after all, there are worldwide traditions that have been around for thousands of years based on these claims. The problem with that is, it doesn't matter how many times you claim something to be true... if you never provide evidence for your claim, no one has any real reason to accept the claim as true. I mean, hell, look at Scientology. You can claim over and over that you've been contacted by Xenu and have "gone clear," but what the fuck does that actually mean if there's nothing to view in objective reality that will verify that claim?

So, to be honest, we're still at square one with the whole god thing. No matter how the religious try to act as if it is "self-evident" that god exists - it isn't. And since it isn't self-evident, we need real evidence. Hell, first we need to define what god actually is. So, until we can define what god is, specifically and explicitly, we cannot even begin to discuss what evidence we would need to verify the existence of such a thing. Clearly, the conversation about god hasn't even started. It's not even a real discussion, because there's nothing to discuss yet.

Robert Heinlein once make the observation that theology is a subject with no content.  You've expanded nicely on that.  Well done.

Boru

Well, I certainly have a lot more to say about why theology is a non-subject of sorts... But Ill save that for another thread. Oddly enough, I still find religion to be interesting.... Maybe it suits my personality that I'd enjoy studying NOTHING. Lol

(December 19, 2019 at 12:46 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(December 19, 2019 at 12:03 pm)maxolla Wrote: I think anything is possible.  We usually think of prayer as something of a request and then some base belief on the “answer” or lack of one.  Make me rich make me famous make me well make me strong make me etc etc etc.  Solve all of my immediate problems and do it right now or else.

Not my experience of what prayer is or how it effects the natural or spiritual realm..

So if Good Christians prayed for an end to war, poverty, disease, and similar tribulation God would do it?

Now, now, don't go fucking around with original sin. The human race has it coming don't ya know. Keep it up and he'll just flood the earth again.

Yeah, and kill EVERYBODY except a drunk and his kids, and a handful of animals with very little to eat for the pre-deluge days, the forty days and nights (all that water came from SOMEWHERE), the 150 days the boat floated around waiting for the water to recede (all that water went SOMEWHERE). We'll ignore the years, decades, or centuries it took for the land to recover and enough herbivores bred to feed the carnivores. Meanwhile Noah's immediate family would be fucking like bunnies to produce enough people to make it impossible to detect a genetic bottleneck.

Yeah, we gotta do that, otherwise nothing there would make sense.

Why am I an atheist?

I grew up in a Catholic household. My religious indoctrination began even before I was old enough to attend school. I can still recall how my mother taught me to say simple prayers and that the world was created by God from nothing. I was skeptical of this outrageous claim, even at the tender age of four or five years.


I attended three Catholic schools during my youth. Each class featured about 40 minutes of daily prayers and anywhere from an hour to three hours of religious instruction and study. Students were literally smothered in a miasma of religion. Walls were festooned with religious imagery and there were statues of Jesus, Mary and the saints everywhere. Only the restrooms were free of this nonsense. Every book, regardless of subject, contained religious imagery. I can still recall how most of the geography books I had to study featured articles on churches, missions and famous saints in each country around the world. History books concentrated more on the history of the Church than that of the world.


Fear was an essential element of my indoctrination. Nuns were especially fond of scaring their students with tales of the horrors of Hell. These stories were frequently supplemented by horrific images of Hell, guaranteed to traumatize young minds. Physical abuse was also an acceptable teaching tool. Slow learners were apt to have their hair pulled and their faces slapped, not to mention being struck with rulers and oaken rods. My 8th grade nun's favorite method of abuse, which she carried out with great frequency and relish, was to seize a boy by the cheeks or hair and repeatedly bash his head against a wall. This happened at a time in which a public school teacher would have gone to jail for similar behavior.


My first serious cracks in my faith occurred when I had to study the Bible. Even the bowdlerized Catholic version I had to read revealed a God who was anything but loving and benevolent, but rather an insecure, malevolent, egotistical tyrant. The Book of Job, in particular, turned my stomach.


My senior religion classes included learning proofs of God’s existence. Students weren’t supposed to discuss and critique them, however. We were required to memorize and accept them as true. Being an amateur student of astronomy, I debunked the Kalam Cosmological Argument as it had been interpreted by St. Thomas Aquinas.


I attended a secular college after high school, which turned out to be a breath of fresh air. I was able to discuss science and religion with many students of other faiths, although I can’t recall meeting any atheists at this time. I still identified myself as Roman Catholic, but my faith was pretty weak by then and I was neglecting to attend Sunday services with increasing frequency.


Following my service in Vietnam, and having witnessed some of the horrors of war, I identified myself as an agnostic. I read a number of books on religion and comparative religious study over the next decade. Some time in the late 1970’s I saw Madalyn Murray-O’Hair on the Phil Donahue Show and was quite impressed with her arguments against religion. I decided to subscribe to her magazine THE AMERICAN ATHEIST. The October, 1982 issue featured an article titled The Agnostic’s Dilemma, which was an epiphany for me. From that moment onward, I knew that I was an atheist and probably had been one for some time without realizing it.