What can we do to promote Atheism? How can we unite?

[Sword of Christ]

And the puddle says "look how well I fit this hole, it must have been designed just for me"

Say the puddle was an exact mathematically perfect utterly complex geometric design. And the puddle says "I bet this formed by blind natural chance of some kind". Come on though lets get real here.

When you take this into account then the chances of getting a universe suitable for life is...drum roll...... 50/50.

Alter anything to any extent at all and there will be no life, planets or stars, galaxies, anything at least not stable ones. This can all be simulated.

I got this information from reading the latest science of the disc world book which did have references to back it up but is on my kindle lurking somewhere in the house.

The Disc World is fictional though, I hate to break to you.

Saying something "could" exist and saying that it is "does" are two very different things.

Well you're saying a purely naturalistic universe that exists entirely independently in itself without any outside cause or supernatural force or creative supreme consciousness "does" exist. Though I'd argue that's only something that in fact "could" exist. We both know the universe "does " exist but it's the rest of the details of it that we disagree upon. Seeing as you're already believing in something that is possible then why not believe something else that is also possible? As in aliens with advanced technology? You can do that and remain true to your atheist heritage.

You would have us base our "church" on a lie just to get some organised structure! I'm sorry but I don't roll that way. I require evidence for my beliefs.

You may as well say atheism is based on the lie that God doesn't exist. It isn't a lie though just something you believe. So all you have to do is believe this guy had extraterrestrial contact. Or you could forget about him and come to Christ! Now there's a proper religion, no aliens there.

Not believing in god does not pre-suppose belief in Raelian bullshit.

You may as well if you already believe in some bullshit. Perhaps we all believe something that is bullshit to someone.

There may well be aliens in the universe. I think it is very likely. I will hold off belief in aliens until such time as there is evidence that they exist. You see I don't blindly believe things even if there is a good chance that it is true because I demand evidence for what I believe.

You're blindly believing in atheism/naturalism though so why not blindly believe in some aliens? Whats the problem here?

Even aliens were proven to exist I think the chances that the Raelians got it right is minimal

You're wrong without the aliens and you're wrong with the aliens as far as I'm concerned. You may as well just have the aliens.

Just because people go to churches it does not mean that people like going to churches.

They like having structure and a community. You lack that with atheism. But you could have with Raelianism. To me this seems like the perfect solution to the issue of getting people converted to atheism.

They call it being "god fearing" for a reason.

It means "deeply religious; pious; devout" which I guess you could be as Raelian, though that would be toward the aliens I suppose. Alien fearing.

[Creed of Heresy]

Dear "god," SoC.

You are either a poe, or you really ARE this stupid, huh?

[downbeatplumb]

And the puddle says "look how well I fit this hole, it must have been designed just for me"

Say the puddle was an exact mathematically perfect utterly complex geometric design. And the puddle says "I bet this formed by blind natural chance of some kind". Come on though lets get real here.

Woosh said the point as it whistled above Swords head.
The point is that the water fitting the hole was not at all unlikely.

When you take this into account then the chances of getting a universe suitable for life is...drum roll...... 50/50.

Alter anything to any extent at all and there will be no life, planets or stars, galaxies, anything at least not stable ones. This can all be simulated.

If you only alter one thing.
BUT that is not how things work. if you twiddle with one thing other things also change as a result and the answer you get when you take this into account is a stable universe suitable for life has a 50/50 chance of existing. This has all been worked out in simulations dontchaknow.

The Disc World is fictional though, I hate to break to you.

Yes.
But.
The science of the disc world books are an amusing way to present the latest findings of cutting edge science relevant to this universe.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Science-Disc...0091949793

The fourth book in the Science of Discworld series, and this time around dealing with THE REALLY BIG QUESTIONS, Terry Pratchett's brilliant new Discworld story Judgement Day is annotated with very big footnotes (the interleaving chapters) by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, to bring you a mind-mangling combination of fiction, cutting-edge science and philosophy.

They are really good and informative.

Saying something "could" exist and saying that it is "does" are two very different things.

Well you're saying a purely naturalistic universe that exists entirely independently in itself without any outside cause or supernatural force or creative supreme consciousness "does" exist. Though I'd argue that's only something that in fact "could" exist. We both know the universe "does " exist but it's the rest of the details of it that we disagree upon. Seeing as you're already believing in something that is possible then why not believe something else that is also possible? As in aliens with advanced technology? You can do that and remain true to your atheist heritage.

I can believe in the possibility but not that it is fact without evidence.
Why is this hard to get through to you.

You would have us base our "church" on a lie just to get some organised structure! I'm sorry but I don't roll that way. I require evidence for my beliefs.

You may as well say atheism is based on the lie that God doesn't exist. It isn't a lie though just something you believe. So all you have to do is believe this guy had extraterrestrial contact. Or you could forget about him and come to Christ! Now there's a proper religion, no aliens there.

There is no positive evidence for god so I don't believe in it, therefore I am an atheist.
You did forget that I require at least a shred of evidence for my beliefs and don't believe things because I would kinda like them to be true.

Not believing in god does not pre-suppose belief in Raelian bullshit.

You may as well if you already believe in some bullshit. Perhaps we all believe something that is bullshit to someone.

But I don't believe in bullshit. i can back up my beliefs with evidence. can you?

There may well be aliens in the universe. I think it is very likely. I will hold off belief in aliens until such time as there is evidence that they exist. You see I don't blindly believe things even if there is a good chance that it is true because I demand evidence for what I believe.

You're blindly believing in atheism/naturalism though so why not blindly believe in some aliens? Whats the problem here?

I am not blindly believing anything.
None of the existing evidence gives any support to anything other than a natural explanation.

By the way atheism is a rejection of theism it is not a belief in itself.

Even aliens were proven to exist I think the chances that the Raelians got it right is minimal

You're wrong without the aliens and you're wrong with the aliens as far as I'm concerned. You may as well just have the aliens.

That is because you are starting to show signs of being a blinkered idiot.

Just because people go to churches it does not mean that people like going to churches.

They like having structure and a community. You lack that with atheism. But you could have with Raelianism. To me this seems like the perfect solution to the issue of getting people converted to atheism.

They call it being "god fearing" for a reason.

It means "deeply religious; pious; devout" which I guess you could be as Raelian, though that would be toward the aliens I suppose. Alien fearing.

No its called god fearing because god was fearsome.

God-fear·ing [god-feer-ing]
adjective
1.
deeply respectful or fearful of God.
2.
( sometimes lowercase ) deeply religious; pious; devout.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/god-fearing

[pocaracas]

you are suggesting that instead of the unproven bullshit you believe in we should believe in some other unproven bullshit that just happens to not include a god.

HAVE YOU LEARNT NOTHING FROM YOUR TIME HERE.

Soooo atheism/naturalism has been proven?

This I couldn't let pass...

Atheism ( or/and naturalism, since you like to add it to the list so much) is the position of absence of belief in the existence of a god, any god.
Atheism comes about from the lack of proof for the existence of god.

Atheism cannot be proven.

And substituting an unproven position for another is just plain stupid. Hence, most of us remain away from such organizations with unproved claims.

Do try to keep up.
I think you've been told something like this a few times already!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Raelians are technically still in the atheist camp and importantly they offer the all important immortality, via resurrection tech of advanced aliens known as the Elohim who are 50,000 years more advanced than humanity. They only bring you back if you're good though. This way you can bring people into the atheist fold on mass. And you can still have Jesus, he was an alien/human hybrid his mother being artificially impregnated aboard a spaceship. Perfectly scientific with no supernatural mumbo jumbo, pure atheism.

As an atheist, I lack a belief in any form of deity.

As a rationalist, and a skeptic, I find talk of supernatural ludicrous until evidence is presented.

You need to stop conflating the religious idea of holding a supreme belief as central to ones life to an imagined equivilent in atheism, which has no such central dogma/'worldview'. It is simply the above. Some atheists believe all all sorts of mumbo jumbo, but I don't see a point.

---

People in general like them so you'll have to find a way to get them into atheism while retaining everything they like about religion. As the Raelian movement as you can see has achieved. So if you want more than 2% of the worlds population to be atheists then it would have to be something like this. The hope of immorality and seeing your loved ones again and all that business will of course be maintained, the afterlife being on a paradise planet in outer space. Similar to Mormonism in a way.

Evidence for the above.

Also, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

[CraigOfArabia]

Relevant excerpt from "What is Man" by Mark Twain

Once upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow whose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched by the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these opportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature--that desire which is in us all to better other people's condition by having them think as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in his last moments, reproached him and said:

"I BELIEVED, AND WAS HAPPY IN IT; YOU HAVE TAKEN MY BELIEF AWAY, AND MY COMFORT. NOW I HAVE NOTHING LEFT, AND I DIE MISERABLE; FOR THE THINGS WHICH YOU HAVE TOLD ME DO NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF THAT WHICH I HAVE LOST."

And the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said:

"MY CHILD IS FOREVER LOST, AND MY HEART IS BROKEN. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS CRUEL THING? WE HAVE DONE YOU NO HARM, BUT ONLY KINDNESS; WE MADE OUR HOUSE YOUR HOME, YOU WERE WELCOME TO ALL WE HAD, AND THIS IS OUR REWARD."

The heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done, and he said:

"IT WAS WRONG--I SEE IT NOW; BUT I WAS ONLY TRYING TO DO HIM GOOD. IN MY VIEW HE WAS IN ERROR; IT SEEMED MY DUTY TO TEACH HIM THE TRUTH."

Then the mother said:

"I HAD TAUGHT HIM, ALL HIS LITTLE LIFE, WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE THE TRUTH, AND IN HIS BELIEVING FAITH BOTH OF US WERE HAPPY. NOW HE IS DEAD,--AND LOST; AND I AM MISERABLE. OUR FAITH CAME DOWN TO US THROUGH CENTURIES OF BELIEVING ANCESTORS; WHAT RIGHT HAD YOU, OR ANY ONE, TO DISTURB IT? WHERE WAS YOUR HONOR, WHERE WAS YOUR SHAME?"

Young Man: He was a miscreant, and deserved death!

Old Man: He thought so himself, and said so.

Young Man: Ah--you see, HIS CONSCIENCE WAS AWAKENED!

Old Man: Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It PAINED him to see the mother suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought HIM pain. It did not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the boy, for he was absorbed in providing PLEASURE for himself, then. Providing it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.

Young Man: Call it what you please, it is to me a case of AWAKENED CONSCIENCE. That awakened conscience could never get itself into that species of trouble again. A cure like that is a PERMANENT cure.

Old Man: Pardon--I had not finished the story. We are creatures of OUTSIDE INFLUENCES--we originate NOTHING within. Whenever we take a new line of thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse is ALWAYS suggested from the OUTSIDE. Remorse so preyed upon the Infidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy's religion and made him come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the boy's sake and the mother's. Finally he found himself examining it. From that moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He became a believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the dying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave him no rest, no peace. He MUST have rest and peace--it is the law of nature. There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan country ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the other boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his foolish faith in his false gods. He was successful. But the dying boy in his last moments reproached him and said:

"I BELIEVED, AND WAS HAPPY IN IT; YOU HAVE TAKEN MY BELIEF AWAY, AND MY COMFORT. NOW I HAVE NOTHING LEFT, AND I DIE MISERABLE; FOR THE THINGS WHICH YOU HAVE TOLD ME DO NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF THAT WHICH I HAVE LOST."

And the mother, also, reproached the missionary, and said:

"MY CHILD IS FOREVER LOST, AND MY HEART IS BROKEN. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS CRUEL THING? WE HAD DONE YOU NO HARM, BUT ONLY KINDNESS; WE MADE OUR HOUSE YOUR HOME, YOU WERE WELCOME TO ALL WE HAD, AND THIS IS OUR REWARD."

The heart of the missionary was filled with remorse for what he had done, and he said:

"IT WAS WRONG--I SEE IT NOW; BUT I WAS ONLY TRYING TO DO HIM GOOD. IN MY VIEW HE WAS IN ERROR; IT SEEMED MY DUTY TO TEACH HIM THE TRUTH."

Then the mother said:

"I HAD TAUGHT HIM, ALL HIS LITTLE LIFE, WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE THE TRUTH, AND IN HIS BELIEVING FAITH BOTH OF US WERE HAPPY. NOW HE IS DEAD--AND LOST; AND I AM MISERABLE. OUR FAITH CAME DOWN TO US THROUGH CENTURIES OF BELIEVING ANCESTORS; WHAT RIGHT HAD YOU, OR ANY ONE, TO DISTURB IT? WHERE WAS YOUR HONOR, WHERE WAS YOUR SHAME?"

The missionary's anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as bitter and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the former case.

[CleanShavenJesus]

SoC, why do you think we need to be with other atheists and "convert" people into atheism?

I couldn't give two shits about doing either of those things.

[thesummerqueen]

Forgive me if this has already been said, but some of this wasn't addressed by page 6 so I skipped ahead.

Hello guys,

I have been thinking, What can we do to promote Atheism? How can we unite?

You can look for American Atheists, the AHA, etc. If you're American. Many countries have their own groups.

We athiests, are quiet and spread all over the world. We do not have local gatherings, or a strong set of community to help us out during persecution by religious folks or so. Nor do we have a way to keep everyone informed about the latest stuffs etc.

Speak for yourself - I belong to a rather large group just for the Charlotte, NC area and we have gatherings and a strong sense of community. We're not alone either. Most large cities have their own group, and many small ones do as well. I even wrote a rather large post encouraging people to join or form their own.



I'm not bagging on the idea - I just don't want you getting into it with a false perception of reality. We don't really have to spread atheism - but getting people to come out and standing together against prejudice IS a good idea.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Just... don't be a cunt!

Yeah, not a bad translation..

[Polaris]

At this point if atheists really wanted to promote a movement away from religion, it would serve their point to just stop talking and let the religious make all the fumbles. Most believers I know are much more intelligent than those who boast that they live by logic and reason...it's a shame for atheists that the most vocal among them are also some of the most retarded and lazy people you will ever come across.