Atheism, the short lived idea?

[thesummerqueen]

I think the idea is more complicated than this, the idea of God is found in every culture, whether it be a Rainbow serpent or YWH. But we know that these things are made up, we dont know if God is made up. Santa was clever marketting by Coca-cola but God is much more complicated. You can say that God was an evolutionary tool to help us get to the next state, however, you dont have empirical evidence to back that up. I have empirical evidence that bigfoots and dragons dont exist, but God is on a completely different level.

Sugar, I hate to knock a hole in your argument, but the ideas of the things I just named were also found in every culture. They might look slightly different, or have different names, but they're all the same. Joseph Campbell did extensive research on this. Dragon creatures, "little people", big hairy hominids running around, shapeshifters, ghosts, gods, they're pervasive. It's why the idea of "collective unconscious" emerged. We're all humans, and genetically we're 99% (give or take a few .somethings) alike. Human nature doesn't change so drastically from era to era or continent to continent that we couldn't accept that "god" was as much a part of a human need to understand or explain the unknown as any other mythological figure. The reason I don't believe there's a god is exactly because I don't have empirical date, any more than I believe there's a bigfoot or Santa Claus. I'm quite willing to change my mind if god comes out of hiding and reveals himself to me. I'm also willing to say bigfoot exists if someone throws a body at the feet of a geneticist.

Also if you reject the idea of X existing, you have already made your mind up that he doesnt exist. Its like the belief in Santa Claus, we dismissed this idea that Santa Claus was real with a belief, we were being as objective as we can be and we didnt see any reason to believe in Santa or to think he is real. This is how I propose we discern the 'truth' we start with a belief eg. There is a God, untill there is empirical evidence or strong arguments not to believe in a God, a belief is more objective and perhaps more rational.

I reject the idea that it exists because I have no proof. I don't reject it permanently. Science is self-correcting like that. The burden of proof is on the 'believers', not the unbelievers, as science doesn't prove a negative. After all I've been through in the past 2-3 years, no one would love more than me to discover that there was A) someone up there watching over me and/or someone to blame for the shit I've been through and B) that there is an afterlife. And C) that there is a sasquatch, but that's just because I'm a nerd. It would make my life a lot easier to happily place all my problems and worries into a divine being's hands and say "you fix it" like I would a broken toy to my parents. As you grow up though, you realize that your parents CAN'T fix everything. It's my personal opinion that this is the reason people cling to a belief in God - we're still scared to stand on our own and we want to know that even as grown ups, there's someone standing over us who can fix things when they're broken. There isn't. If there is, he's been watching too much TV while the kids get away with murder, literally. I've had problems with my father for years, including getting over abuse, but you can be sure that the minute I call on the phone and yell "Daddy!" he's there like white on rice. Where was god during the Holocaust? Stalin's regime? The Crusades? Pol Pot's shenanigans? If there is a god, he needs to show himself, and take blame for neglect. Or, if it was all part of his plan along with free will, people need to realize he's not a good god and more, as Carlin said, like an office temp with a bad attitude. But I digress.

Its enough to make me doubt, slightly. However, that doubt shouldnt become the answer, I have no reason to doubt that a man by the name of Moses didnt exist and was a leader of a clan called the Hebrews. I just disagree with Descartes, skepticism is not the answer.

I don't even know how to respond to this. Believing whatever someone else told you is a symptom of being somewhere around 14 years or younger. Do you also believe that Odin hung on the tree for nine days? Someone told me that. Someone also told me that I needed to buy a wooden box full of knots to house my Froud Faery tarot deck, because the fairies could then have access to the deck through the holes in the wood. Even though the deck frequently sits openly on my dresser where I can admire the artwork, as Froud's a personal favorite artist, no fairies have ever danced on it. Thank goodness I didn't take him at his word, I would have been out of $50 for nothing.

Atoms are not nothing, and natural selection is not mere chance.

Natural selection includes organisms choosing mates because they have features they find attractive. I want my kids to tan and be intelligent. Therefore, when given a line up, the super-smart guy I'm dating who has an olive cast to his skin is way more appealing than other choices. A female peacock sees a male with a fuller, healthier display. She wants her kids to be big and healthy too. This isn't all chance.

And I'd like to discuss with the people of Hiroshima if the basic building blocks of our universe are "nothing".

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I think the idea is more complicated than this, the idea of God is found in every culture

The idea of witches is found in every culture, what does that mean? Witches exist??

Only if they weigh the same as a duck.