Tony, if you are truly interested in hearing what people here value, I suggest just hanging around for a bit, reading some threads, and interacting with others. We get a lot of people here that feign curiosity to provide a stepping stone to proselytize to the heathen atheists, so your approach is going to garner some hostile responses, no matter your intention.

(March 25, 2015 at 1:06 pm)tonyc4444 Wrote: wouldn't you say there has to be a certain level of faith that the process is being adhered to?

A self-correcting process in which results are requried to be replicatable and verifiable by independent and often competing parties that has been shown to be exceedingly effective over the last several centuries is nothing close to 'faith'. People try to cheat the process, and they are easily debunked when other scientists test their claims. Is it perfect? Nope, nothing is. But it's the best process we've currently got, and having confidence in it (as demonstrated over previous centuries and the progress that's been made using the process) is not faith.

(March 25, 2015 at 12:36 pm)tonyc4444 Wrote: I'll give you a bit of why I'm asking, I don't want to give to much of the premise away though till I release the book because it's actually unique.

If it in any way involves the Atheist converting due to a complete lack of rationality, then you're competing with thousands of other Christian books

Good advice.

If you're attempting to draw any kind of atheist consensus, you're going to be misrepresenting us. There is no guaranteed common ground. You can learn about any particular atheist, but not about atheists in general.

Imagine writing a book about people who don't believe in Bigfoot, and you'll see what I mean. What kind of things are important to people who don't believe in Bigfoot? How do they replace Bigfoot in their life?

(March 25, 2015 at 12:54 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote: Both atheists and theists have faith in science, and it is unrealistic to imagine losing faith in science in the same way that a person could lose faith in God. So I don't think science makes your list.

I would imagine that suicide is usually a result of mental illness instead of beliefs or physical circumstances. Of course there are always exceptions.

I appreciate the insight. I'm still researching but it seems to me that suicide is typically a result of severe depression, which can result from a lot of different things. For a theist it's easy to point out God, Family, Country because I grew up in that environment. If those things can be "taken away" in an instant, most Christians would go into a severe depression which could absolutely result in suicide. I don't have much doubt in that. If a person wakes up one morning to find their country gone, family dead, and learns that God most certainly does not exist I can see a person taking the easy way out pretty quickly, can't you?

---

(March 25, 2015 at 1:11 pm)FreeTony Wrote:

(March 25, 2015 at 12:36 pm)tonyc4444 Wrote: I'll give you a bit of why I'm asking, I don't want to give to much of the premise away though till I release the book because it's actually unique.

If it in any way involves the Atheist converting due to a complete lack of rationality, then you're competing with thousands of other Christian books

It's not, not even close actually lol.

I'm still not sure I buy your assertion that "country" is in the top 3 for all Christians. Maybe certain types of Christianity in America.

You can't "learn" God is gone because it's generally an unfalsifiable claim. Saying theists care more about their family or their country than atheists is not something I'd agree with. And again, suicide is not something you can make general statements about. Religion can in fact provide an extra reason to kill yourself, this has happened.

(March 25, 2015 at 1:09 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Tony, if you are truly interested in hearing what people here value, I suggest just hanging around for a bit, reading some threads, and interacting with others. We get a lot of people here that feign curiosity to provide a stepping stone to proselytize to the heathen atheists, so your approach is going to garner some hostile responses, no matter your intention.

Well I can appreciate that, I'm aware that many Christians unfortunately are not necessarily straight forward in there intentions.

If it helps any here is a link to the first book I published, a second one is on the way, and I'm in the middle of writing this one now.

[snip]

---

(March 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: I'm still not sure I buy your assertion that "country" is in the top 3 for all Christians. Maybe certain types of Christianity in America.

Well it would be a mistake to say "All Christians," but as a generalization I think most Christians will quickly identify with that.

(March 25, 2015 at 12:54 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote: Both atheists and theists have faith in science [...]

I don't have faith in science. Science demonstrates its utility with its discoveries and inventions. Faith is not an apt descriptor for my attitude, thanks.

(March 25, 2015 at 1:18 pm)tonyc4444 Wrote:

(March 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: I'm still not sure I buy your assertion that "country" is in the top 3 for all Christians. Maybe certain types of Christianity in America.

Well it would be a mistake to say "All Christians," but as a generalization I think most Christians will quickly identify with that.

I'd like to see some evidence for that claim.