Answers needed

[ignoramus]

no worries at all matey... enjoy ... (I don't think you'll have a lot of luck on your fossil argument though)
(Believe it or not, I'm one of the polite ones here, hehe) You should get a load of uncle Min!

[Louis Chérubin]

no worries at all matey... enjoy ... (I don't think you'll have a lot of luck on your fossil argument though)
(Believe it or not, I'm one of the polite ones here, hehe) You should get a load of uncle Min!

Ha. I've definitely increased my knowledge of forum subculture. Thanks for your civility! Here's the book, if you'd like to read a classic.

http://www.amazon.com/Narratives-Human-E...0300054319

[Aoi Magi]

Morality is NOT UNIVERSAL unless you think humans are the only things that form the entire universe.
Your 'murder of defective people' is a good example actually. In the past you'd see people DID murder deformed children and considered it to be moral for that time period, religion did jack shit towards stopping it. We stopped it ourselves as society evolved. DO you have any idea how much people had to struggle to abolish slavery? Giving away credit of our struggles to an imaginary being is really disrespectful.

Regarding the origin of life, the true answer for now is "we don't know", and goddidit is a silly argument cause you have no proof of that. It is even sillier because you are arguing about the first complex cellular life-forms, when your religious texts isn't even aware of such a life-form, it jumps straight to two naked humans created from the dust and a rib(seriously?), and a garden filled with talking animals... really? how is this even remotely believable?

[paulpablo]

You contradict yourself, you're saying my answer of "I don't know" Is a false analogy but yet in the next line you admit that you don't know where the universe comes from by saying "We also don't know when the first clouds formed.."
Also I never mentioned god when talking about the universe, AND when I typed "Don't know" I actually meant that I personally don't know, not that we collectively don't know, I believe he was asking us individually to reply to him and that was my individual reply.

No I do not contradict myself. Semantically and "technically" since you have not lived for eternity or seen or know every nook and cranny of the universe, by your logic, a super natural unicorn caused all this. Now you know damned well that is not true. Employ Ocham's razor to claims of god and the answer is clear. Between the choice of a god existing or humans making them up, which to you seems more likely?

If you already accept, and I would hope rightfully so, that Poseidon does not cause hurricanes, what makes you think that " all this" needs any sort of cognition to start it? I see all this as nothing more than a giant weather pattern we are riding in as a mere finite blip. The universe does not require us to exist nor does it need a cognition to happen.

Technically monkeys might fly out of my butt. How much time do you waste considering that?

I haven't brought up santa, god, unicorns, monkeys or anything else in response to the question about what started the universe so why are you asking me stupid questions about them?

You contradict yourself by saying that we don't know where the universe comes from but if someone asks you where the universe comes from and you say that you don't know this is a false analogy.

[Louis Chérubin]

Morality is NOT UNIVERSAL unless you think humans are the only things that form the entire universe.
Your 'murder of defective people' is a good example actually. In the past you'd see people DID murder deformed children and considered it to be moral for that time period, religion did jack shit towards stopping it. We stopped it ourselves as society evolved. DO you have any idea how much people had to struggle to abolish slavery? Giving away credit of our struggles to an imaginary being is really disrespectful.

Regarding the origin of life, the true answer for now is "we don't know", and goddidit is a silly argument cause you have no proof of that. It is even sillier because you are arguing about the first complex cellular life-forms, when your religious texts isn't even aware of such a life-form, it jumps straight to two naked humans created from the dust and a rib(seriously?), and a garden filled with talking animals... really? how is this even remotely believable?

Hi Aoi,

I recently listened to Richard Dawkins speak as part of a panel discussion. He mentioned that perhaps life came from an extraterrestrial source. Is that not vaguely similar to "naked humans created from the dust"? Really, the question of life's origin may be more thought-provoking than you take it to be. Why do you feel that God is not an alternative explantation?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Hi everyone!

I'm not sure whether this is the right place to post this, but I'd really appreciate some answers to some/all of the following questions. I'm interested in how an average atheist thinks about these topics. It would be great if you could give some explanation for your answers. I'm coming from a protestant worldview.

1. Does God exist?
2. Where did the universe come from?
3. Does my life have a purpose?
4. Why do people suffer?
5. Is there life after death?
6. Can I distinguish right from wrong?
7. Can people know truth?

Sorry for being point form. 

Define "average atheist", and then we might talk.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not saying atheists can't be moral. Atheists are moral (have a moral sense of right and wrong). My question is why. Universal morality implies a standard higher than man.

You're assuming that morality is universal. You need to demonstrate that first.

[paulpablo]

Louis, you have good grammar and are therefore somewhat educated.
I want to talk to you ...We all do.
But we're not talking to Louis, we're talking to a theological zombie who is preprogrammed to tell us that his indoctrination is complete.
Yes, we know how you feel about almost everything!
Because we read the fucking book too ...
Not exactly sure why you came here?  Like I said. These are the public religious toilets where the fresh mass produced mindless zombies come to shit and run...

You want to impress us ...tell us something you didn't get from the bible!

Hi ignoramus,

Actually, I'm just in the middle of my education (premed currently). I also don't want to impress you. :-) If you really care, I came to see what an "atheist forum" was all about and how you express your beliefs. Thanks again for what you've shared so far!

---

You answer for point (3) is something I was thinking about today. 
 You life is dedicated to worshiping god and to me this is something I find depressing on so many levels and it prompts me to ask you some questions.
I don't think it derails the thread too much so I don't think it's wrong to post the questions here.

1) You dedicate your life to god, which is an awfully long time, have you put much consideration into thinking about the fact you might be wrong in doing this?

2) Are you aware that putting forth a lot of dedication towards things for long periods of time often causes psychological denial?  Like a person who has invested money into a bad investment but continues investing money.  Do you ever think that in the future you may just change your mind about god existing but then look back and see that you have wasted years of your life?

I'm asking these things because I could be like you, but I love doing things that in your religion would be considered sinful but in nature is fairly common which is having sex outside of marriage, before I had sex in my life I was anxious, angry depressed and so on, and ontop of that I find praying, going to church and so on very very boring and time consuming.
Now maybe you have a whale of a time going to church, maybe your church has you singing and dancing, and maybe you don't want sex outside of marriage and you have a nice wife.
But what I find morbidly depressing is that what if I had a belief that was basically it's ok to go through this life avoiding what makes me feel really good and gets rid of my depression, go to my local church and be bored, but at the end of it is a fairground of happiness once I die.  It seems like a horribly optimistic bet on my behalf to assume it's true that the fairground exists.

But as I say I totally take into consideration you might be one of these stereotypical happy Christians with a wife and children with a monogamous attitude to sex and who loves church.

Hi paulpablo,

This is indeed a really interesting topic. Have you read Blaise Pascal's Pensées? If you don't read French, I would recommend W. F. Trotter's translation. In it Pascal proposes his "wager argument." Basically, if you're not sure God exists, believing him is the better alternative. You do loose some temporary pleasure from acts the Bible forbids, but what if God does exist? If he does, you forfeit temporary pleasure for the much better eternal joy.

Also, contrary to popular opinion, many Christians are quite happy people. Personally, I immensely enjoy my life: God, nature, people, learning. Sex and drugs are not the only things that give pleasure.  

That still makes no sense since the quran speaks of people having their skins roasted repeatedly, allah replaces their skins with fresh skins everytime the skin is roasted through, that's the punishment for not believing the quran, I'm assuming you don't believe in the verses of the quran?

If my brain did a sudden U turn and I all of a sudden did believe everything in your religion was true then I would give up earthly pleasures, give up my money and whatever else it took to get into heaven, considering this is what led me to believe that most religious statistics are bullshit, because so many people claim to be christians or Muslims but very few show a genuine fear of god or hell, mostly it's just sheepish behavior of saying you're a Christian/Muslim/Hindu because your family/community are.

[rexbeccarox]

Yeah... if you look at the descriptor next to my avatar, you'll realize, OP, that I don't let up. "Tenacious" is the word SteelCurtain used to describe me not too long ago, and I think he was being nice.

I will keep posting this until you answer. Thanks.

I don't think this is a time-consuming question to answer, and why, if you don't have time to answer questions, are you asking more?

So, if it weren't for your god, you would murder?

[Louis Chérubin]

Yeah... if you look at the descriptor next to my avatar, you'll realize, OP, that I don't let up.  "Tenacious" is the word SteelCurtain used to describe me not too long ago, and I think he was being nice.  

I will keep posting this until you answer.  Thanks.

I don't think this is a time-consuming question to answer, and why, if you don't have time to answer questions, are you asking more?

Rexbeccarox,

I appreciate good tenacity. Do you want my answer so you can be appropriately shocked when I say YES! :-) I'll leave it at that. I didn't answer because hypothetical questions of this nature are not usually productive. You wrote, "If it weren't for your god . . . ." That isn't a situation I'll ever find myself in, so why ask morbid questions?

If you would like to share a good, educational reason for this question, I would love to discuss it with you further!