Religion is for the mentally ill, hard to believe its 2014 and there are still religious people about, humans are crazy   

The_Barnacle wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 10:49am:


I am not so sure of this. Maybe in some respects, like technological advances, but I doubt critical and logical thinking skills have become more prevalent. For example, I doubt very much most people even understand how Christianity was argued for, and who argued for it. Today's critique of religion is a simplistic one: I can't see it therefore it doesn't exist. This is a straightforward, hard materialist approach. Do today's anti-religious even understand the materialist paradigm they use? Do they understand the history of conflict between the idealists and materialists? I very much doubt it.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 11:23am:


I think you are the one being simplistic.
"I can't see it therefore it doesn't exist" is just one of your many strawman arguments.
My own atheism is far more deeply based than that.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 11:23am:


That would only have relevance if atheism was a "movement" or a "religion" in it's own right, but it isn't. Atheism is simply the absence of religion. So your comment is really just psuedo philosophical BS.

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Professed atheism is a reliable indicator that that person also believes in a suite of other "isms".  "Atheist" is just the label applied to recognise that suite of "isms" (aka movement, cult or religion) even though it doesn't equate perfectly with "Atheism" in a strictly literal sense.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 2:00pm:


Most people don't because most people aren't atheists.

Most atheists love to shout about their atheism, in the same way the morally self-righteous vicars wife loves to shout about how prim and proper she is.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 2:04pm:


No. I was referring to your comment as psuedo philosophical BS.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 2:04pm:


Ok I will list them

- There is no evidence of a creator, and one of the basic rules is that who ever makes a claim is the one with the responsibility to provide evidence to back it up.

But there is also plenty of evidence against religion.

- There is no consistency between the different religions. They all have have different beliefs, different Gods and the great majority of people inherit the same religion as their family/peers.
This is evidence that Religion is purely a cultural phenomenon
- There is no consistency with in the same religion. In Christianity there are Cathlics, Protestants and Orthodox and all these are split into their separate groups.
Some Christians believe in Hell, some don't. Some believe the Bible is literal fact, some don't.
They can't all be right, which makes it quite likely that they all are wrong.
- Why is there no evidence of religion in animals? Most of them have mating rituals, nesting rituals, why are there no religious rituals?
- Why do bad things happen to innocent people? As an example, over 200,000 people were killed in the 2004 Tsunami which is basically an act of God. They were of all religious faiths and many were innocent Children.
- Why do people use their faith to justify doing horrendous things? Such as muslim terrorism or the Spanish inquisition or the ethnic cleansing in Serbia.

And then there is the reason that religion started in the first place

- primitive man lived in a strange and frightening world. To try and understand it he created religion to explain how the world was created and how it operated. As time has gone on and we have become more technologically and scientifically skilled. All the superstitions have been replaced by our understanding of how things work.
Natural mechanisms explain how the universe work and there is evidence of this everywhere. Every time a doctor operates on a patient, every time a solar eclipse happens precisely where and when it was predicted, every time you use your car or your computer it is evidence that these scientific principles work. 

The_Barnacle wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2014 at 8:45pm:


No physical evidence you mean? If so, that's the materialist paradigm I was speaking about.

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Maybe there are several gods?

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Okay, but this doesn't necessarily mean there is no god. It's merely a disagreement on their conceptions of god.



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Not sure. Maybe you'll have to ask god.

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Maybe he's not a moral god. The pagan gods and the pre-Christian Jewish god had little concern for human life.

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I put this down to biology. Human beings will fight regardless. They will always make excuses to fight over things. It's our fate.

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Okay. I agree that religions try to simply a strange world and make it knowable and meaningful for us. But I am still not convinced god has been completely debunked through modern science. Science only explains and harnesses causes and effects. Nature and its forces already exist before man starts explaining them and using them for his own ends.


With all that said, I am not religious, I am an agnostic. The only religion I could take seriously would be pantheism. 

... wrote on Jan 1^st, 2014 at 2:02pm:


Where are your stats? I havent heard any athiests shouting about their atheism unless provoked by a god botherer. . .and even then its usually "leave me alone im atheist" which is hardly shouting.

SOB