I Find It Offensive; How About You

[Statler Waldorf]

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I'm an atheist because I have come to the conclusion that all religions are man made. I'm not sure where you guys are getting this 'default position' stuff from.

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Hey FNM,

You have to remember that you are a bit of an exception to the rule. You have actively arrived at a conclusion based on what you perceive as what the evidence supports. This is more of the traditional and classical definition of an atheist, one who affirms the non existence of God. I was referring to these new atheists who assert that atheism is more of just an absence of belief in God and it should be the default position that everyone takes, so the onus is really on anyone else asserting otherwise. I don't feel you fall into that category at all my friend.

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Not so. Even a Wiccan can do that, and we are arguably not atheists (though I refuse to use the Theist signature picture here for obvious reasons).

The default position for a new infant is atheism; the baby has no beliefs at all about anything. It is inculcated in religion.

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.

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.

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).

My wife is listening to clips from CBN right now, where they are quoting the Apostle Paul writing "Take these prophecies and make war with them."

A religion of such love. And who does your beloved Paul and Rev. Robertson think you should be making war on? Christians have used that statement to make war on everyone who gets in their way. This was after an article on CBN attesting to the claim that Interstate 35 is being heralded as some "holy highway" alluded to in Isaiah 35. I asked her to turn it off; I cannot stomach Robertson and his bully-boys that picketed my home in violation of the law.

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.

James

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I disagree James. I think the original definition of atheism as being a positive belief in the non-existence of God or gods is a better definition. I do not believe the dog turd lying on the sidewalk, the dead man in a casket, and my little finger are all atheists even though they too lack a belief in God or gods. Atheism is a position; therefore the onus is on both atheists and theists.

As to pointing to people claiming to be Christians doing bad things, surely you would agree that this in no way proves Christianity is false right?