What is your favourite positive argument for atheism/unbelief?

[Little Rik]

Well, well Ace.  
You seem to know about the origins of the universe.  
Please go ahead and tell us about these origins.  

And please tell us also which one came first.
The matter, the water, the light-energy, the air or the space.  

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You know what rik, I can't seem to find my old post. If you can find for me where I claimed to know about the origins of the universe, I'd appreciate that a lot.

Then you can blow that straw man down more easily.

edit: Rik I'm starting to think that you're either a troll, incredibly unintelligent or simply a disingenuous debater.

If you want to contest something in my post, there's plenty for you to contest. But don't attempt to straw man me on a claim I didn't even make. You couldn't argue your way out of getting desert after dinner. Holy fuck.

Calm down Ace and read here.......So even if there is any argument for a deist god, it simply comes from lack of knowledge of the origins of Earth and/or the Universe........
This is what you posted in the previous page yesterday or before yesterday.

From your sentence I understood that because some people do not understand the origins of the Earth-Universe you obviously know that.
How could you judge these people otherwise?
Only someone who knows or pretend to know the truth can judge and because you did judge these people you put yourself in a position to know, that is why i did asked you such a thing.
Do you get it now?  

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Been there done that Em.
If you look in the .......What is logic?.....thread at page 22 you will find my answer.  

So, this?

Easy explained Luc.
When you drive your car and you get involved in an accident you car get smashed and most of the time you too get injured.
The consciousness being an abstract entity can not really get damaged but because is stuck inside the
pineal gland and the brain when the brain get damaged the consciousness that rely on the brain as his source of energy can not work properly that is why .............can result in severely altered states of consciousness........ as you say.

So your answer is that a random/arbitrary location in the brain contains consciousness and the rest just supplies it with energy? And then that damage to anywhere in that 'source of energy' just causes random/vague altered states of consciousness? And you're happy with that level of vagueness?

I'd never be happy with that level of vagueness; given a clear connection between matter (the brain) and mind (consciousness) that even you admit in the form of 'source of energy' that when disrupted... 'smashed'... causes 'severely altered states of consciousness', I would want to know why and how that was the case. I would want to know why any particular area of the brain should be considered the seat of consciousness... you've chosen the pineal gland... why that in particular? A better candidate would be the claustrum if you're looking to localise consciousness like that:

Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain | New Scientist

Personally, I don't believe consciousness can be localised like that to a particular area of the brain. I believe it's represents a whole, dynamic network, and therefore under that view the claustrum would be more akin to a switchboard interconnecting several neural networks of the brain, and that if disrupted, disrupts the integration of those areas and therefore affects consciousness. But that's just my opinion.

No Em.
Nothing like that.
I did read your link and it doesn't make any sense.
The claustrum can be compared to a spark plug or any other part of a vehicle that is essential or pivotal
in order to make your vehicle move.
Suppose you take away or disconnect your spark plugs.
What will happen?
It happen that the vehicle will not move or work.
As simple as that Em.
The driver is still inside the car but the car will not go anywhere.
The same thing happen when you disconnect your claustrum.
The consciousness will not be able to do anything but it is still there alive and well so as the spark plug is not the driver also the claustrum is not the consciousness.  

And I would want to know what particular altered states of consciousness, and even normal states of consciousness, were associated with damage/stimulation of which areas of the brain. And that's one of the things neuroscience investigates. Without it you would not have drugs and brain surgery that predictably affect consciousness, such as to reduce pain with painkillers.

It all depend what part of the brain is affected.
Every part is in charged for a particular function so according this the consciousness will have a different
reaction.

How do you explain how the conscious experience of pain can be reduced not only from the inside... through meditation, hypnosis etc... but also from the outside by manipulating the brain through drugs and/or surgery? Neuroscience may never be able to answer the ultimate question of why/how there is a correlation between mind and matter, but the fact that there is a correlation is something that cannot be disputed, even apparently by you. In the end, it's inability to answer that question doesn't matter because by progressive investigation of these correlations (ie neuroscience), the mind can be mapped from the outside through its correlation with matter (ie the brain) which can be mapped. So in a few hundred years, though we may be no closer to answering the philosophical questions of what consciousness is and why/how it relates to matter, we will still have made a lot of progress in mapping the mind and it's dynamics, such that even if we don't know why a given state of consciousness takes a particular form (or even why it has a form... qualia... in the first place) we can still predict that that particular form will be present given a certain state of the brain. So from that perspective, neuroscience is beautiful... it can elucidate the workings of the mind even if it never touches that question (ie the mind/body problem), leaving the hypothetical theist soul less and less place to hide.

I don't think so Em.
Neuroscience sooner or later after hitting the wall so many times       will have to change tactic.
At that stage they will have only one choice.
They will understand that the physical approach get them nowhere so they will try the spiritual one by using intuitional science.  

Given that even you admit a connection between mind and matter... the pineal gland and the energy that supplies it, what's to say that the NDE's that you're so fond of mentioning aren't exactly that... in your terms, a disruption to the energy that supplies the pineal gland, that results in a 'severely altered state of consciousness', and in my terms, a severely altered state of consciousness that results from the damage/disruption caused by a dying brain?

You don't getting Em, do you?  
NDEs only happen when the brain is dead not when is dying.
Do me a favor Em.
Read as many NDEs experiences before you start guessing out of control.

http://www.nderf.org/Archives/exceptional.html

Have a good day mate.