Nothingness

[LastPoet]

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I am a Muslim and student of philosophy and comparative religions. I am doing a research work and part of my activities is to surf on different religious sites in order to read people’s religious and non-religious opinions about God. I had been surfing on different religious sites like “Reasonable Faith, Christian site run by Dr. William Craig”, “IRF, Muslim site run by Dr. Zakir Naik”, and some other religious sites including Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Jainism, etc.

It is something shameful what I find on the “atheist” site that I have not met on any religious site. It is the use of extreme vulgar language and disrespect to each other. We can argue on each other’s point of view but argument doesn’t mean use of language that is reprehensible and inhumane.

What I found after reading many threads on this site as if the real joy and pleasure of an atheist is to tease and degrade a person, who has faith in God, down to the level of low life, which is an act of extreme immorality. As if atheist is a little boy, who has pushed his fingers into his ears and starts shouting loudly for the purpose to humiliate the speaker and this act of his becomes the source of his pleasure. In atheism, I feel there is zero tolerance among its followers. To devaluate a person and run away mischievously is very easy compared to stand firm and answer with reasons by being within the limits of respect and grace. We are here to learn from each other not to kill each other. Anyway, knowing all possible harsh consequences in response to my critique on atheism, I still dare to post a question here in hope to enter in a healthy discussion instead of receiving shocking words.

Question:
Atheist believes Universe pops out of nothing.

Is there any atheist in the world who can explain what exactly is “NOTHINGNESS or NIHILISM?”

Cheers

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Primo: You have freedom of speech, no matter how idiotic your beliefs may be, hence, you have no right to tell others how they should respond to you. Swear words or not, people are free to express themselves they way they see fit as long as forum rules are upholded.

Segundo: I don't give a flying fuck for what you deem 'shamefull' or 'disrespectfull'. If swear words give you pause, its perhaps because you have no argument at all. Also, atheism 'follows' nothing, its not a religion or a belief system: Its the disbelief in god(s).

Tertio: I won't answer your question because its loaded, dishonest and based on plain ignorance.

[Kayenneh]

Alternatively, can I take the fact that atheism is wandering in darkness about origin of Universe?

Try it this way, being an atheist doesn't come with a default answer as 'goddidit' about the origins of the universe. If you want someone who knows something about the topic, I highly recommend a physics forum.

And your quoting is a bit confusing, since you're quoting multiple members. The fifth button from the left allows you to easily quote any post you want and you can edit out the parts you don't want to quote within the tags as such:

Code:

[quote=Forum Member] This is the quote I want.[/quote]

Nothing you are required to do, but it might avoid confusion.

[LastPoet]

To add to Kay's post and for all interested people, please visit our BBcode guide.

[ideologue08]

So they are "just words" and people shouldn't be "offended" by them or give a "power" to them and yet you do not swear around your son as much as on this forum or in real life. Why? I thought they were "just words" No need to give them "power"

Because the social convention is that kids could not swear, and I do not want other people to judge him based on the words he copies from his father. Oh, and my wife would kick my ass.

If people weren't so uptight about it, I wouldn't give a shit if my son swears.

I really do not understand what you're talking about here. You've given us a lecture about not giving a crap about what other people think because these are "just words" and now you're saying that you don't want your son learning these words from you because of what other people think? So which is it, do we care about what other people think or not? Either we make a big deal out of them or we don't, it's as simple as that really (from my perspective anyway).

[Harris]

"You see, I like reprehensible and inhumane language."

Look Mister, you don't have to prove you are an athiest by the use of reprehensible language. Anyway, thanks for showing once again what is atheism.

[Mister Agenda]

I really do not understand what you're talking about here. You've given us a lecture about not giving a crap about what other people think because these are "just words" and now you're saying that you don't want your son learning these words from you because of what other people think? So which is it, do we care about what other people think or not? Either we make a big deal out of them or we don't, it's as simple as that really (from my perspective anyway).

Adult are held to different standards than children for good reasons. For instance, we expect adult to be more thick-skinned and less impressionable than small children. It's not always the case, but it is an expectation.

[Kayenneh]

Look Mister, you don't have to prove you are an athiest by the use of reprehensible language. Anyway, thanks for showing once again what is atheism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acI12jO0HSQ

[JesusHChrist]

Look Mister, you don't have to prove you are an athiest by the use of reprehensible language. Anyway, thanks for showing once again what is atheism.

Mister? No need to be so fucking formal. You may call me Jesus. Or JHC. Or JesusFuckingChrist.

Anyway, you're fucking welcome.

Now about that fucking Mohamed? WTF? I mean really. W....T.....F?!?

[Harris]

Mister? No need to be so fucking formal. You may call me Jesus.

Nice try.

[Mister Agenda]

I respect your views about God as you might have come to this view for some reason. My point is not to prove there is God rather to understand if atheism don’t believe that Universe pops out of nothingness and on the other side atheism denies the existence of God then what is the middle path. Alternatively, can I take the fact that atheism is wandering in darkness about origin of Universe?

It might be helpful to compare atheists with theists. A theist might be a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu or any of hundreds of religions. An atheist might be a rationalist, a bare-bones Buddhist, a Jain, a Raellian, an 'apatheist', and so forth. As a rationalist, my awareness of cosmology is that the origin of the universe has not been firmly established, although there are a number of plausible hypotheses about its possible natural origin. None of them has been firmly established yet. When you refer to nothingness, I assume you're referring to the idea that 'quantum foam' could give rise to a universe. That's not nothingness in the philosophical sense, but in physics, it's as close to nothing as it's possible to get.

I am a married man and I love my family and my relation with my wife. I respect my family. As I respect my family, I try not to bring torture to my wife by going with another woman or by using disgraceful language with my loved ones. I try not to hurt someone’s feeling in no way. This is what religion is all about.

I'm afraid that many of your fellow religionists do not agree that religon is about not hurting people's feelings. Wouldn't what you're describing be courtesy?

I do agree that religion is misused brutally in the history and in today’s world it’s a tool for hypocrite but again religion is not one to be blamed it is the user who is responsible for distorting good and useful things into cunning ones.. For instance if I say Stalin and Mao have killed innocent people then for this I can’t blame atheism similarly if Hitler has killed millions of people then for that reason I can’t blame Christianity.

I can certainly agree that religious people who do terrible things are usually not good examples of their religion. Often, conflicts where religion is cited as a justification would have still happened without it, because justifictations and real reasons are often quite different.

I will blame the users not the tool. Another example, if homosexual marriages are happening in the churches I don’t blame bible for that its again the user. Remember purpose of tools are originally to make your life easy but if you distort them to harm others then you are responsible not the tools.

At some point, the analogy breaks. When the person obeys the tool, which one is actually being used? Religion isn't so easy to pick up and put away as a hammer, it involves committment. It can be a bad idea to believe a particular religious teaching.

You have your reason to believe or not to believe in any effect behind any cause. If you don’t know something that doesn’t mean that thing is non-existing. It may exist or may not.

This is true. But you shouldn't believe it does exist without sufficient reason. There may be a live rabbit in my office, but I shouldn't think there is unless there's evidence of it. There's a difference betweein believing that something could exist and believing it does.

The only thing is just don’t give up any try to keep searching your answers. What science is telling and how you observe the things in nature is the best place to start.

I'm not going to look for that rabbit until I've got a reason to think it's really there. There are an infinite number of things that could exist but don't, I'll reserve my belief for the ones I'm convinced of; and rate the other ones I'm aware of based on what I perceive their probability to be. And for the vast majority of them, it's 'probably not'.

What is important for an atheist, freedom of speech or respect to other human beings? I am talking about general peaceful human beings who are living peacefully without being part of troublemakers (whether they are religious or secular characters).

Both are important. But treating someone like they won't wilt if they hear a 'bad' word can be more respectful than tiptoeing around their delicate sensibilities. Socially, rough language is a tool not only of expression, but of taking the measure of someone's character.

Don’t be afraid of me. If you say me ASSHOLE I will not send you in Hell. I can’t send you in Hell. No man on earth can send you in Hell no matter he is Putin, O Bama, or Antichrist. If someone say you go to Hell answer him Go to Paradise and that will balance the equation. It is easy to make enemies than to make friends.

We're not afraid you'll send us to hell. We think it's impolite for people to tell us that's where we're going, and find it a little amusing that so many of the people who are comfortable saying that to us are upset if we refer to a body part with a slang word.

Okay, if God has not made the universe then in rational sense what you think from where it comes? Science don’t have answer and in existence of God you don’t believe. So where are you standing then?

Those of us who are rationalists think it has a natural cause, perhaps the Quantum Foam idea, perhaps something else; but we are not going to say we know the cause before the science is reasonably settled. Whenever we have searched for the cause of a thing, we have only ever found natural ones. Our not knowing exactly what the origin of the universe doesn't increase the chance that your belief about the origin of the universe is right at all.

For instance, around 15,000 people go missing in New York every year. I don't know why it's so many. If you say that most of them are eaten by cannibals in the subways, are you more likely to be right because I don't have an answer for what's happening to them?

You may be right about God being the origin of the universe, but I predict this: if a natural origin of the universe is confirmed, no matter what it is, theists will add God to it.