Just like adolescents choose to be independent in their fashion choices yet mostly end up looking the same, so Atheists choose to be free thinkers yet end up thinking the same as the majority.
All religious endeavor points to the same truths. I don't get hung up on exclusivity, only in sifting out the crap.
Of course you're not attacking Christianity, but the gross misrepresentation of Christianity, just like I would.
(June 27, 2011 at 10:42 pm)FaithNoMore Wrote: So would it be better to just choose a religion even if we find they're all false? You're assuming that the reason atheists are atheists is because we haven't put any thought in the matter. Does this come from the fact that you can't possibly imagine someone looking at your religion with an open mind and coming to the conclusion that it's all a bunch of nonsense?That's what the inference of a default position is... lack of thought. Unless you're saying that newborn babies have a thoughtful opposition? Then when you're capable of thought... it takes no thought to not believe something. You could then not think for yourself and believe what you're told or what everyone around you thinks... but still we're not at the point of free thinking. So the probability of an atheist being a free thinker is stacked against them already.
(June 28, 2011 at 1:23 am)Anymouse Wrote: The default position for a new infant is atheism; the baby has no beliefs at all about anything. It is inculcated in religion.a-theism = a position on belief. It requires knowledge of belief to be opposed to. If there were no theism there could be no atheism.
(June 28, 2011 at 1:23 am)Anymouse Wrote: One might question why you feel that Christianity is the logical position over atheism and all other religions. If you'd been born in Israel, your parents would likely have raised you Jewish. In Syria, Islam. In Japan, Shinto. In Denmark or much of northern and western Europe outside Spain, atheist.Believing what everyone else thinks just because that's what everyone else thinks is unthinking.
(June 28, 2011 at 1:23 am)Anymouse Wrote: Atheists here have noted that the extraordinary claim by Christians is that there is a God (or maybe three) and the onus is on them to prove their position, for their is nothing to prove in non-belief.Atheists should know what they're opposing if they want to show any credibility. There is nothing to prove in disbelief unless you start stating that belief is illogical.
(June 28, 2011 at 1:23 am)Anymouse Wrote: They are wrong. Christians have two things to prove. The other one is why Christianity and it's God/s are the correct view and all other religions and their god/desses are not correct. More than "the Bible says to have no other gods before its god," because that statement on its face admits there are other gods. So, why is your god superior to my two, who do not have a holy book that makes no sense, flies in the face of everything anyone has learned about the natural world, and has never killed anyone in the name of its deities (to the best of my knowledge).The bible clearly acknowledges other gods, it does make sense... so immediately you go beyond disbelief and misrepresent a belief, and you also shoulder the burden of proof to demonstrate your claims.
All religious endeavor points to the same truths. I don't get hung up on exclusivity, only in sifting out the crap.
(June 28, 2011 at 1:23 am)Anymouse Wrote:Spurious interpretation again, failing to actually address Christianity. You're doing the same as Jesus.. pointing that out.
(June 28, 2011 at 1:23 am)Anymouse Wrote: One of my new neighbours literally choked me (with both hands) and knocked my wife off her cane, throwing her to the floor, for being heathens. (I was insulted, I am the heathen, she is an atheist.) She broke his choke hold by batting his arms with her cane. I guess he was making the war Paul speaks of, one Wiccan at a time.Shocking.
James
Of course you're not attacking Christianity, but the gross misrepresentation of Christianity, just like I would.
