Helping Christians to lose faith?

[Aractus]

All it is really is having a positive attitude we should make videos and stuff with positive things on atheism and why its great to be alive. Then we get to live long and healthy.  

Well that's more of an assumption you've made... Even with a positive outlook on life participating in religious activity improves a person's health. I'm not saying that doing something unhealthy is "wrong", just noting that there are real disadvantages to leaving religion.

[dyresand]

No, but it is your explanation for the Universe and for humanity.

Because science explains it in a manner that is truthful than religion does.
If i really wanted to just go be a theist again i would have to denounce all that i currently know
to be willfully ignorant. I choose to stay with what i learn rather than live with something i know to be wrong. 

[Surgenator]

No, but it is your explanation for the Universe and for humanity.

Science actually gives an explanation unlike god/magic.

[robvalue]

Welcome to the forum

I don't believe in anything without good evidence as far as I am able.

I've never believed in a god. If there is one, he is trying his hardest to hide from me, and has given me a brain which he knew would conclude that I wouldn't believe in him.

Just looking at stuff is not evidence. Saying "It couldn't have got here any other way than just as described in my story book" is not a valid argument. It's an argument from ignorance. (This is not saying you are stupid, it's the name of a logical fallacy.) It excludes the possibility that you may be wrong when further evidence is found, or that you may be wrong but it's not something we can ever know one way or the other. In other words, it's an arbitrary and pointless mental pacifier. It also doesn't in any way help us further our understanding; in fact it actively opposes it. Religion is always trying to rubbish science, and to force its superstitious speculation into the science curriculum.

I'm happy saying "I don't know" when I don't know something. I feel no compulsion to plug gaps in my knoweldge with unfalsifiable stories.

I don't even deny that there could have been a creator. If there is one, there's no reason to think it still exists, is interacting with us or cares in the slightest what is going on. So it is irrelevant to me. I'll concentrate on what there is good evidence for, such as other people and animals existing who I will try my best to help and not harm.

"A creator" and "the main character in a story book" are not interchangeable. You have a lot of work getting from God to Yahweh. It's a huge non sequitur.

More about my position, and explanations on logical fallacies such as "argument from ignorance" and "non sequitur" on my website

http://robvalue.wix.com/atheism

[pocaracas]

Learned well I see in the concepts of Philosophy. It is not nonsense.

Philosophy is not nonsense.... but it can be so detached from reality that it gets to sound a lot like nonsense.

Science then let your science explain the perfectly designed sequence of DNA every human has.

"perfectly"?? Seriously?
Tell that to everyone who has ever contracted non-environmental cancer.

Let your Science explain how the Universe began.

Are you now going for a god of the gaps thing?

Let your Science explain why we have witnessed many miracles.

"We" have?
I surely haven't... care to show me the documentation of some of those?

If you have ever done the math the chances of there being life on this planet are 1 in a trillion of a trillionth. It would be virtually impossible. We should not even be here. Everything on this earth was perfectly designed for us. We were put on the right spot from the sun. We were giving a moon in the perfect distance to control the tides. Jupiter was made gigantic to protect us from asteroids and if Jupiter were smaller then this world would have been hammered from time to time. We were giving an atmosphere. We were giving intelligence and the ability to love not by chance, but because of God.

Kids these days.... gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

We evolved on this planet which happens to be at a decent position within the solar system to harbor carbon-based life.
Carbon is only the 6th element in the periodic table... it was put in 6th place because it has 6 protons. Carbon is the lightest element that can form up to 4 bonds. It is one of the most versatile elements there are. Add one proton, and you get Nitrogen - the most abundant element in our atmosphere. Add another and you get the second most abundant element in the atmosphere: Oxygen.
It strikes me as very banal that we are carbon-based life forms... all life on Earth is carbon-based.
It would truly be astonishing if we were silcon-based, or sellenium-based.

The odds you allude to are unaccountable... besides, we like to use probabilities when we fail to get all the details that bring about a certain outcome... when you bring forth such an argument, you are admitting that we don't know a lot of things... back to the god of the gaps thing, huh?

The moon... the moon is receding away from Earth.... In the age of dinosaurs it was a bit closer, tides must have been more prominent then... it was still a perfect distance, huh?

Jupiter as a deflector of meteors... now there's something new! Particularly since most meteors come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.... and considering the enormous distances involved when we consider the orbit of Jupiter... no, Jupiter would deflect a few, not many, not most.

Venus was also "given" an atmosphere... the last time I heard, a probe landed there and only managed to survive for 2 hours, before the corrosive atmosphere destroyed it (or, at least, the data transmitting part). A probe, a machine.. imagine a carbon-based life form under there!!

Jupiter and all the gas planets are... well... the whole planets are atmosphere, it's all gas.
You see, when you learn about the several layers of a planet, at school, you learn mostly about Earth - you get the core, the mantle, the crust, the atmosphere. Some planets don't have all those layers, but have some of them.
Bottom line, atmospheres are common place. Like carbon.

If like you say let Science prove our existence then I guarantee you that in the end your answer will be we shouldn't even exist. Nothing ever happens by chance. There is always a reason for everything. The reason behind our existence is God.

Yep, there's always some underlying cause.... except for the Universe itself... but that's a whole other bag of chips.
And, for the most part, it's gravity, electromagnetism, electro-weak forces, strong nuclear forces.... and the fields that accompany these. That the interactions that arise from these few principles can become very complex and we can't track them all only says something about our inability to account for them... If we can't account for them, then our only tool becomes statistics... and those can give you the wrong idea: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics...0393310728.


So, do you have any intel on this god that common humans don't?
How have you come across it?
Why should I believe you, when you claim anything about any god?
What makes you an expert on this god thing?
A bit of introspection for yourself: how did you come to know about the concept of "god"? Could have acquired it if you had no human interaction?

[robvalue]

Especially since its such a loaded word. "Creator" is far better in my opinion. "God" is a stupid fairy tale version with rocket pants on.

[watchamadoodle]

@xmark27, thanks for your concerns, and welcome to the forum.


Have you heard the good news? There is no God! You can give up those clunky old religious myths and see the world with the wonder of newborn eyes! (How am I doing? Are you ready to give up your faith yet?  )

[Neo-Scholastic]

The OP makes me wonder if I should start the thread "Helping Atheists see Reason".

[dyresand]

The OP makes me wonder if I should start the thread "Helping Atheists see Reason".

We already see reason that is why we are atheists.
Your brand of reason of reason has ignorance packaged in. 

[xmark27]

You expect the world to be perfect. That's why you believe there is no God. You are afraid of his existence. You will use your philosophical ideas and what little science has learned to say there is no God. Science has never come to the conclusion how life started and you all know that is true. Science doesn't know they can only assume this is what happened. The answer will never be found by using science. You all want it to be a fairy tale if God does exist, but it doesn't work that way. I have had an interaction with God. He came to me one night and said he forgave me for all my sins and though I did not see his face I felt his hand on my shoulder. I have seen things that I hope none of you should ever see. I have seen evil. No its not because they are mental or are faking it. They have been evaluated by your doctors and they have said we don't know what's wrong with them. You will laugh though and you will say I am not afraid because that stuff is fake. You will give me an answer about what you think it is. You live a happy life not because God does not exist, but because that's what the devil wants for you to not believe in God. Many of you remind me of Jesus disciples. No matter how many times Jesus showed them he was the Son of God they still denied him. They did not want to believe because how could someone like that exist? They refused to believe until Jesus showed them all his miracles. And yet some still did not believe. Like Jesus said "There are some who have seen me, but do not believe in me yet there are those who have not seen me and believe." If what you say is true then run the numbers and use the theories of science to bring you to the conclusion that we are just here by chance and nothing else. Ignorance I have never ignored science, I admire science but I know it will never explain our existence. Why we love the way we do and laugh. When you need him the most I promise you that you will think about praying to him at least once.