Ya got me. I wear black t-shirts all the time (they’re plain, however, no printing). They’re just so darn slimming, and I need all the help I can get in that department.
Can I still wear them when it’s sunny?
From a Christian perspective the purpose of this life is to know, love and serve God. One of the primary ways we do this is by serving our fellow man by ministering to his physical as well as to his spiritual needs. May I ask what the point of this earthly life is for an atheist? Does service to one’s fellow man play a part at all? Do atheists believe that it enriches one’s life to minister to the needs of the poor and destitute? If so, why? And if atheists do believe in this type of service where are all the atheist based humanitarian organizations? Where are all the Mother Teresa’s of atheism?
I am interested to hear how the theory of evolution can explain why a person would be willing to die to prevent harm coming to another person. Do atheists believe that it is a good thing to be willing to die for the benefit of another person? If this earthly life is the only opportunity for happiness why put that opportunity in jeapordy by even risking, let alone sacrificing, your life for another person?
Want to make it non-theists in general? Ideologically we’re about the same (ie, usually very different)
It is whatever each one makes of it. Here’s something I learned over the years: If you have to ask the question, you lack the empathy to understand the answer. I myself don’t understand why believers cling to this life if the next one is so much better. What’s the point of treading water?
We are all genetically predisposed towards altruism. Are you saying that believers are charitable only because their scriptures tell them to?
Google is your friend. By the way, are you under the impression that atheists will contribute to atheist-based humanitarian organizations only?
I share the opinions of Christopher Hitchens and Penn & Teller regarding Mother Teresa. I hope that there’ll never be an atheistic version of her, not that it would make any sense to begin with.
Google is your friend.
The life, death, and resurrection of Horus is not straightforward enough? How about the life of the prophet Zoroaster, generally accepted as a historical figure?
Neither is creation, which declares the glory of Tawa, the Hopi Sun God who said “I am Light. I am Life. I am Father of all that shall ever come.”
Neither is the wisdom in you, granted by Minerva?
I was an active member of the Church for many years. Catholicism is not the only place to find good people. I see pretty similar lives between the Catholics, the Jews I know, the Muslims, etc.
No. And I am confirmed.
That would be perfectly clear to me. I’ve got someone I can talk to face to face, can ascertain if they are being sarcastic in their remark or if they are being serious, can ask follow up questions directly to them to further solidify the intention, and can get a phone number to contact them if I need to contact them in the future about the date. If God would do that, which would be trivial for Him, I’d be a believer. But God doesn’t do that.
What I’m trying to say is you’ve got thousands of religions that ascribe creation and all aspects of life to their God. You’ve got a bunch of people all saying “I’m right, you’re not”. How you decide that this religion is THE religion, when the evidence between them all isn’t that much different, is where the ambiguity comes in. Get any devout person of a different religion here and they will debate till they are blue in the face that it is not your God that creation should be attributed to, but theirs.
Hi, Mirdath. First of all: As I’ve said twice now—I was not referring to folks on this forum, but to the college-age “atheists” I deal with all the time. Speaking of wearing black as a social statement, some people wear atheism as a social statement. They just want to let everyone know, “I’m not one of those Jerry Falwell people, or worse yet, one of those Pope-people.”I wear mostly black so I can be sure of it matching – that and I look great in it.
Johnny Cash wore black as a social statement, and he was Christian. Taste in clothes ain’t got nothing to do with it.
Do transition lenses count?
I’d think you know better than that around here.
Some believers stand on the shoulders of giants; others jump on their stomachs.
Malcolm is still left to prove that God is necessary. Until he does that, the burden is solidly on him; and he will have a hard time doing what he wants with that when by proving Yahweh necessary he proves Ahura Mazda, Brahma, Nana Buluku, Odin, Amun, Pacha Kamaq, Azathoth, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and thousands of others – even creator deities invented by modern fiction writers – just as necessary, and falls into his own hole since so many creation accounts are entirely mutually exclusive.
cpayne
No…you would be a mere slave.
Speaking for myself, it’s not that I don’t want to believe. I’ve tried. I cannot believe.
God is one such explanation. There are others, most of which we probably don’t know yet. We don’t understand everything, and to simply close the book and say ‘God did it, you scientists can stop looking now’ is a cop-out like few others.
Explaining everything by introducing an omnipotent, omniscient being is not exactly reasonable; it only moves the problem a step further away and flies in the face of Occam’s Razor.
How does the law of non-contradiction demand a supreme being?
I never understood this response. How is it that I’m not considered a “slave” when there is (unclear)“evidence” such as the Bible, and possible evidence of Jesus living, but if I were to get direct “evidence” by God directly answering my questions, I am suddenly a slave? Me knowing the whole truth would, to me, enable me to be more free to chose. I’ve heard someone else say that God would be so overwhelming that I’d have no choice but to follow Him. To me, if a choice is so clear that its overwhelming, I’d love to know that information so I can be 100% confident and happy in my decisions. How is giving up ignorance the same as giving up choice? Even if you were somehow able to convince me that knowledge negates freedom, we sacrifice some freedoms daily for things like security.
Did you read my prior post that spanned a few posts? I did believe, I struggled desperately to hold onto that belief for over a DECADE. I did everything I could think of (retreats, private consultation with priests, etc) to reclaim my faith. Again, if someone had all the information and got to choose heaven or hell, who would chose hell? Seriously, who in their right mind would take being in solitude in hell over being in paradise?
Like I said earlier, I’d love to believe in happy things. The bottom line is, that the world isn’t a 100% happy fluffy place. Kids get shot, babies get deformed by a drug addicted mother, pedestrians get killed or maimed by drunk drivers, family scams family, some people get their kicks out of being cruel or destroying property, some people beat others for fun, some abuse others for fun. I can either chose not to believe that happens or accept the reality of the world and learn how to deal with it in the most positive and productive manner available. Likewise with God, I’m not going to believe in God just because it gives an explanation for why we are here.
no faith really encompasses my beliefs fully except agnosticism. There’s a lot from catholicism that I still believe to be accurate, (being a good person, honoring parents, etc) but I can’t call myself a catholic and have that be the truth.
I want to know things as fact so that I can make the best choice possible. Believing in the Catholic God holds as much weight to me as believing in any of the other gods that people in the world believe in.
just because something is positive doesn’t mean its right. If I believed that my last-week’s patient’s shooter was sorry for his deeds, then I couldn’t have taken action to protect the victim by talking to the hospital’s house officer and ensuring that he be in a locked unit in case the shooter came back looking to finish the job.
Mmmmm, I don’t know if I agree fully with this. There are many rational psychological reasons why people would create stories of gods, and how those stories were passed down and altered throughout the generations, and we have countless examples of this. Knowing this, can you deny that this makes it possible that the Catholic god was just another one of these examples? (Yes, I know, you’ll probably say the Catholic God is real because of xyz, and the scientology will say their faith is right because of abc, etc, and we will just keep going in circles. Either that, or you will deny it because hinting that God may not be real is a blow to faith, and that is sorely looked down upon, or, at least it was for me when I started asking questions about Catholicism) Were I living in the time of old, not knowing about atoms and microbes etc, I could probably think of no other reason than spirits to attribute things like deformity, bad weather, illness, etc. to
I see it as just the opposite, i see many, many, people who stay in religion because of emotional reactions. When family gets injured or ill they pray. When they lose a job they pray. When a big tragedy happens in the news they pray. When there is a new baby they pray. Each of these times is a strong emotional time when God is invoked. What do you think atheists do when these things happen. Do you think i.e. those who don’t like the Catholic church because of its stand on condoms, leaves the church on that note, and then deals with tragedy and hardship in a non ‘spiritual’ manner? Is that your view of atheists? Do you see most atheists as not having put the time in to research and really try to make sense of things? Really? I ask again, if someone had all the information before them, and could chose paradise or solitary torture, who in their right mind would not pick paradise?
That’s not really the final thought on that matter. I think most people think of that time frame as still being discovered. Science has given us explanations time and time again for things humans could not understand except by attributing it to gods. The trend continues daily, and things attributed to God shrink daily as we uncover explanations for how things naturally work.
You seem to be coming across as saying that you feel all atheists think theists are irrational. Personally, I think we all make our own way in life, and while I feel that some people cling to religion, my view is that if it helps get them through then great. I don’t debate friends or family about religion unless they initiate it. There are many extremely intelligent people who are religious. There are also many extremely intelligent people who are atheists. I’m not out to bash others’ beliefs. I am just trying to make sense of life like everyone else.
Hi. When I used the term “secure foundation,” I wasn’t thinking so much of “logical” foundations, or burden of proof. I guess I was thinking that if I were going to be an atheist again (I used to be one), I would just want to make double-dog downright sure my reasons were as strong as possible.But atheism (and I’m including nontheism in general here, and not so much capital-A ‘strong Atheism’ - ie the belief that god does not exist as a positive assertion, mind you) does not require a ‘secure foundation.’ Burden of proof, don’t you know?
The ‘herding of cats’ analogy is appropriate here, too. Not all nontheists think alike in the least, except that we do not believe in deities – neither do all theists think alike about their deities.
We all are not so different as some might suppose. Looking for our similarities is more rewarding in the long run, and looking at our differences is rather entertaining too!
And is this a good or a bad thing?