General argument for Islam.

[Etrius]

General Argument for Atheism.
Before actually becoming an atheist, rejecting any religion, any diety. A man puts a lot, A LOT of thought into this. A man thinks for days, weeks, months, analyses and tries to explain. And after finding put that there is no proof, no clear evidence to any religion, except for a few books that DON'T prove anything, a man Becomes an Atheist.

Theists on the other side think less about that. Theists have only one argument, believe and god will accept you in heaven. No theist actually thinks or searches for true, valid argument of his/her religion. Je just believes.

So to end this:
An atheist thinks for months, before taking the final decision, and still tries to prove right/wrong for the rest of his life.
A theist blindly believes, blindly reads a book or some papers and just believes it's true.

NOTHING MORE, to be added...

[robvalue]

At age 5, I thought "religion is a load of poop". It seemed like some stupid game people were playing, including the adults. By the time I realized they were actually being serious, I thought it was even more stupid. It was obvious to me that a book can't validate itself, and that is literally all religions have in the real world. A book.

When I started looking into religion much more closely, I found it was even worse than I thought. Not only is stuff like the bible and the kerrang obviously just written by some dumb arses, it's full of contradictions and absurdities. It wouldn't convince a child that it was real without everyone around them acting like it was true and force-feeding them delusion as fact.

Then I found it was even worse than that! I'd always assumed Jesus was a real person, and did pretty much what the bible said minus the supernatural stuff. But I discovered the evidence for jesus existing at all is dodgy at best, and it seems to be similarly the case for Islam's jesus. By this time it was clearer than ever what an utter pile of horse shit the whole thing is. Even making a case for these special characters being at all real was extremely difficult, and obviously verifying supernatural claims actually impossible.

Plus, there's this whole thing where nothing is going on. I don't know what world some theists live in, but it's not the same one as me. If some weird stuff did go down in the distant past, it's long since been over and done with.

[Brian37]

General Argument for Atheism.
Before actually becoming an atheist, rejecting any religion, any diety. A man puts a lot, A LOT of thought into this. A man thinks for days, weeks, months, analyses and tries to explain. And after finding put that there is no proof, no clear evidence to any religion, except for a few books that DON'T prove anything, a man Becomes an Atheist.

Theists on the other side think less about that. Theists have only one argument, believe and god will accept you in heaven. No theist actually thinks or searches for true, valid argument of his/her religion. Je just believes.

So to end this:
An atheist thinks for months, before taking the final decision, and still tries to prove right/wrong for the rest of his life.
A theist blindly believes, blindly reads a book or some papers and just believes it's true.

NOTHING MORE, to be added...

I hate adding "ism" to the word "atheist" as if it were a religion or political party. It is not a dogma, it is a conclusion. Outside that common conclusion of "off" we are just as diverse in our political and economic and classes.

[Cyberman]

The "-ism" in this case stems from the "-theism" part of the word. It's their dogma being referenced, not ours. The "a-" prefix negates it.

[Brian37]

The "-ism" in this case stems from the "-theism" part of the word. It's their dogma being referenced, not ours. The "a-" prefix negates it.

Yes, but anything can be turned into a political force and become abusive. Why? Because all humans evolved to form groups, that grouping gives that group more opportunity to survive. "Atheist" or "atheism" does not make us special either. 

"Atheist" is not a moral code either. Our ability to be cruel or compassionate is in our evolution and that range of behavior has always displayed itself and will always be part of our species until we go extinct as a species. To think that word magically will make atheists only do good, is to forget the past and the very things all of humanity should want to avoid.

Saying their is no god, as a statement of fact certainly is no different than saying the earth is not flat. But I have certainly run into atheists over the years I would NOT WANT in power in mass. I would not want my government run by a majority of Ayn Rand atheists, nor would I want my government run by atheists who like Che which lead to Cuba. I also would not want a majority of new age woo atheists as a majority either.

It isn't about you being right about the history of the prefix of suffix of "a theist". It is a simple fact of evolution that even we are part of the same species subject to the same flaws.

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The "-ism" in this case stems from the "-theism" part of the word. It's their dogma being referenced, not ours. The "a-" prefix negates it.

Yes, but anything can be turned into a political force and become abusive. Why? Because all humans evolved to form groups, that grouping gives that group more opportunity to survive. "Atheist" or "atheism" does not make us special either. 

"Atheist" is not a moral code either. Our ability to be cruel or compassionate is in our evolution and that range of behavior has always displayed itself and will always be part of our species until we go extinct as a species. To think that word magically will make atheists only do good, is to forget the past and the very things all of humanity should want to avoid.

Saying there is no god, as a statement of fact certainly is no different than saying the earth is not flat. But I have certainly run into atheists over the years I would NOT WANT in power in mass. I would not want my government run by a majority of Ayn Rand atheists, nor would I want my government run by atheists who like Che which lead to Cuba. I also would not want a majority of new age woo atheists as a majority either.

It isn't about you being right about the history of the prefix of suffix of "a theist". It is a simple fact of evolution that even we are part of the same species subject to the same flaws.

[Cyberman]

None of that changes the fact of the language. It is what it is. The words are innocent; how people choose to use them is their own concern.

[Etrius]

We can do otherwise. Ask yourselves. Why must we be called atheists? Why must we be the wierd or unusual ones? We are simple humans living our lives with the reality around us. It's religious people who actually believe in magic/supernatural invisible creatures in the sky, that can do all sort of "superman stuff". So, technically it would be correct for us to call them Religious (yes we do that but let me finish), and not call ourselves Atheists, like we're the wierd ones. I'm not arguing, by the way. I'm just saying.

But, as we are in the situation to use the word atheist, in order to set a barrier, or maybe just differentiate us from all uthers, I'll suport Stimbo. It's the language, you can't argue with that. You don't like it, it's fine. I don't like it either, as I explained above. But just not to waste a bunch of time over some not really important detail, we use the nouns we got.

[robvalue]

Yeah, Sam Harris tried to argue that we shouldn't use the term atheist at all, because no one ever used a word for "not racist" or "not pro slaves" etc. I can see his point, but I think the world is so swamped with religion at the moment and whatever we call ourselves, we need support. Without a word to stick into Google, for example, people may not find this forum. So I think the pros outweigh the the cons personally.

[Cyberman]

There have been attempts to rework the language as a way of redefining or distancing from common perceptions of what atheism is. Terms such as Brights and PEARLism (Physical Evidence And Reasoned Logic) spring to mind. Unfortunately, all such efforts falter when they have to be explained that they basically mean atheism, with the response of "well why not just say that if it's what you mean?"

[robvalue]

Haha, yeah. And they can add to the problem of the strawman atheist by adding extra stuff on that may not apply to all atheists. I think the term is getting there now, most people have a vague idea what it means. And we can keep banging their heads against the wall until they say it right.

Metaphorically speaking.