Raving Atheists Forum

Forum Glitch

Smellyoldgit — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:39:46 GMT

We're still being graced by that irritating software glitch that throws random occasional posts into a pot awaiting approval. If you receive a message that this has happened, fear not, you've done nothing wrong.

We don't get an automatic warning when this happens, so it's best to drop Eva, Chaos or myself an abusive PM and we'll release posts as soon as possible.

What the hell is that noise?

Steel — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:42:20 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_%...ified_sound%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsweep...ified_sound%29

Hey guys! I'm back! Just been spending more time focusing on my school work. Now that I'm all caught up, and reasonably assured that I won't fall behind again, I figured I'd start posting again. Anyways, a few weeks ago I was trolling the internet (metaphorically and literally) and I stumbled upon an article in Cracked that gave me chills. Apparently there are noises out there that were recorded by NOAA, and they have no idea what the hell made those noises. Just thought I'd pose the question to you, what the hell are these noises?

You might expect this in a 3rd world country, but this was in the US

Stargazer — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:14:23 GMT

http://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/unor...201000868.html

New Secular Humanist Blog-wanting feedback

P.G. — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:55:17 GMT

Hi all---I just started a new blog. I would love to hear your feedback on ways to improve it or to make it more interesting to people like me. I am new to the whole blogging thing...please check it out at www.reason-being.com
Thanks.

Asexualality in Humans

orangeitis — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:01:16 GMT

TYT's video on asexuality

Seems like people are against it even in the news.

What's everyone's opinion on it here?

Converting to Roman Catholicism.

Broga — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:45:02 GMT

I am able, with no difficulty, to understand how christians become atheists. Quite simply, reason and the facts are overwhelmingly against the christians. What has often puzzled me is how an intelligent person, perhaps even an atheist, is able to convert to Roman Catholicism. A book I am currently reading about Evelyn Waugh perhaps partly solves the puzzle. I have been assuming that in conversion the intellect must play a major part. Won't an intelligent man or woman need to be convinced by fact and reason? Could they take such a step without thinking through what they are assenting to?

And that is where I have been wrong. The way to conversion is to leap over fact and reason and, at least where the intelligent person is concerned, replace them with the help of priestly casuistry. Some kind of personal emotional trauma is the other part of the solution to the question of how they can convert. The example of Evelyn Waugh is instructive - well, at least for me. The rest of you may understand the process already.

Evelyn Waugh, born in 1903, was received into the Roman Catholic Church on 29th September, 1930. Shortly before, when writing Vile Bodies, he was asked if he was a Catholic. He said, "Not at all, I was as near an atheist as one could be." Why the conversion then? There seems little doubt that Waugh had been flirting with Roman Catholicism for some years. However, he was traumatised when his marriage collapsed and he discovered his wife had been having an affair. He was depressed, pessimistic about the generality of people and looking for some way of accepting the reality of humankind and his own life.

Enter Father Martin D'Arcy SJ whom Waugh describes as having "a blue chin, and fine slippery mind." Waugh and D'Arcy had many discussions and it seems that D'Arcy with his "slippery mind" provided the rationalisations Waugh was seeking. D'Arcy was pushing at an open door. Waugh was ready to accept the tenets of Catholicism without demur. As D'Arcy commented Waugh had "convinced himself of the truth of the Catholic faith."

It seems to me that Waugh chose the solace of Catholicism by ignoring or avoiding the facts of what he was accepting. He clearly realised what D'Arcy was contriving by the reference to the priest's "slippery mind." Waugh prefered the comforting fairy tale of Catholicism and I conjecture that he took good care to avoid any analysis of what was placed before him. Instead he had the myth, the ritual and the confessional to quiet his fears and offer an imaginary solution to his problems. Waugh's father called it his son's "perversion to Rome."

In response to my puzzlement of how intelligent people overcome the intellectual barriers to Catholicism the answer seems to be they do not. They avoid them.

OpenCourseWare

ubs — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:05:20 GMT

Of course the greatest part of the web isn't Advice Animals or even the rapid growth of Anarcho Capitalism, but rather free education of the non-street kind.

MIT's OpenCourseWare is now over a decade old, but the fun is just beginning as we are now starting to see accreditation for free or nearly free online courses. I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread to keep track of them all.

So far:

If you want something easy you can do on your break there is Google's Year of Code (supposedly Mayor Bloomberg is doing this). The lessons take you through programming fundamentals using JavaScript. They promise to add Ruby and Python lessons later on.

This spring MIT will launch MITx, where you can earn a certificate by demonstrating completion of a course. They will be adding courses in their existing curriculum one at a time and in participating you agree to be a rat for their education department. I intend on being their most enthusiastic rat.

If you cannot wait until Spring there is now Udacity, which promises to teach you to build your own Google Search Engine in a handful of weeks. The program is the baby of former Stanford Prof. Sebastian Thrun and now includes a course on programming your robotic car.

If you know of something good put it up!

You're not going to fall for this, are you?

Egor — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:05:18 GMT

Astronomers have found a planet within the zone of possible life circling its star.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknap...itable-planet/

You all don't believe in that do you? In fact, I'm sure you would all completely disregard such fantasies as space aliens, right? I would suppose atheists, in fact, remain quite certain that earth is the only planet with life on it in the entire universe--just like medieval people believed.

I am right about that, aren't I? :eh:

Converting Atheists! A Guide For Christians

orangeitis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:22:30 GMT

Okay, so you're a Christian. You look at us godless heathens and are appalled. Some of you might even want to convert us so we can be touched by the big J too. Well there's a few guidelines you should consider about how to approach the skeptical-minded. And remember, as much as you've been taught that atheists are close-minded, they in fact are not, and with the proper evidence, you could very well convert them with ease. Heck, you could even win a nobel prize if you present demonstrable evidence of your god!

First, you can not, under any circumstances, go into any argument without being open to the option that you're wrong. If you simply refuse to believe that there's a possibility that you could be, then you have already lost the argument to yourself, not your potential opponent. If you refuse to consider that you're wrong, turn back now.

Okay, if you've made it by that step, great! It means you can think for yourself at least a bit. That means you can hold your own argument, rather than let your beliefs "do the talking" for you! =D

Next thing you must keep in mind when confronting a non-believer is to never EVER cite Bible verses or scripture as evidence. The reason being is that there is no historical documentation for any of what's written in The Bible other than what's in The Bible, which means it's not supported by anything else. This is true despite your beliefs, and asking your potential convertee to look out at the trees and clouds will not help either.

Next, you must know what your religious stance is. Research what you believe in and why. Yes, I realize you must believe in something pretty strongly to even consider recruiting atheists, but you still need to define your beliefs so you can successfully rebut the opposition. You need to first define the deity you worship. Since I'm specifically addressing you Christians, that would be Yahweh, the one you call "God". Why must you do this? Well contrary to popular belief, your god's parameters vary from person to person. You can't just say "define God? It's God!", as the definition of God isn't a given. But defining God isn't that hard, right?

Next, you must not only define what your god's will is and why the atheist should believe, but you must also give evidence to support this. Yes, you can point to The Bible and say "that's what I believe in", or "that's my god's word", but before you think about doing that, read the entire Bible if you haven't already. And remember, if you believe in the entirety of The Bible, under no circumstances try to only pick certain verses that you think is your god's word, then dismiss other verses as not his word. This is a logical fallacy which the atheist most likely can identify very quickly! You must commit a choice to believe in the whole Bible or none of it.

Never ever just state something without a logical argument to back it up. A "That's just how it is" statement won't work on atheists, or any skeptically minded person! You must think about why you consider that "how it is". You must then define what it is and and have a solid demonstration of it. After all, evidence that solid can't be denied by someone with at least a sliver of intelligence, right?

In addition, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and atheists acknowledge the divine claims of The Bible are definitely extraordinary. You need to research the divine claims of The Bible to confirm that they actually happened so you can successfully attack the atheist's stance! Not to mention that if you do find solid, demonstrable evidence for the actual existence of divinity, every scientist on Earth will want to study it. You WILL be a famous person if you manage to do this, and you'll convert a lot more people than just your atheist target.

Also, telling atheists to "just believe" will not get anywhere with the hethens. Any experiences a true atheist/skeptic has, whether it be a divine dream, a near-death experience, or even being touched by the Holy Spirit/Ghost, they will put off as a hallucination, or even worse, a natural effect of the body. You must find a way to demonstrate one person's divine experiences to other people, rather than attribute more than one person's divine experiences to the same source.

Finally, you need to know your enemy. Now while you might not consider your atheist target an enemy normally, they will be in the debate. Now, don't think that "atheism" is an evil concept, or that all atheists are inherently evil! It's not to say that isn't true, but you need to research the individual themselves. "Atheism" by definition, is merely a lack of a belief in at least one deity. That's it! So in order to convert them, you need to find out what they believe in, have faith in, or what they simply just accept as real. Study what makes them tick. And remember, never assume anything! You'll get further when you know them for yourself.

There, I hope this helped any Christan that wants to convert an atheist. And if you are of another faith, just replace "God/Yahweh" and "The Bible" with your deity(-ies) and holy book respectively. Good luck, Christians! =D

False Virtues of Religion - Faith

957 — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:05:29 GMT

Hello, I'm 957 and I am an agnostic atheist whom is very involved in the religious debate. I have come here to have great conversations, learn, and have some fun. I do make Youtube videos, fitting this theme, if anyone wants to check them out.

Also, I'd like to link to some of my Youtube videos to possibly use them as discussion starters. I have read the forum rules and I think that the aforementioned would be just fine but I want to double-check on that. Does anyone have any objections to what I propose?

Just saw this.......

Eternal — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:53:22 GMT

Just saw this quoted over on PZ Myers blog, I thought it was a pretty good rant by John Cole, and all very true.

But from where I stand these days, the only thing I see religion doing in the public sector is gay bashing and telling women, mostly poor and desperate and in deplorable financial and personal situations, what to do with their bodies. I see busybodies deciding what drugs they can dispense to which customers, or deciding that they don�t have to issue a marriage license because of some petty deity that I don�t believe in told them to hate their fellow citizens and ignore the law. In a country in dire financial straits but still spending billions and billions of dollars on education, I see religious folks actively and openly working to make our schoolkids dumber. I see them shooting people who provided a medical procedure, and I see others rummaging through people�s personal lives to find out who hasn�t lived up the word of God. I see glassy-eyed fools running for President claiming that vaccines that save lives actually cause cancer, or that if you get raped and are pregnant, you should just lie back and think of Jeebus and make the best of a bad situation. In fact, everywhere you look these days, if Christianity or religion is getting a mention, it means something ugly is happening and someone somewhere is being victimized, marginalized, or otherwise abused. Go read some of the arguments against integration and you�ll see the same bible verses used today against homosexuals. Fifty years from now, they�ll be recycling them again to trash someone else they don�t like or who isn�t good enough for them.

Why Women Are Scary To Religious Fundamentalist Men

Stargazer — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:06:58 GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-...women&ir=Women

Yet Another "I'm New" Thread

orangeitis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:10:32 GMT

Hi there. I am a 30-year-old bipolar NEET atheist raised in a Mormon household. I committed apostasy, uncloseted, at around 15 years old when I started being skeptical about Mormonism, and by extent, religion in general. It was a non-issue in my household, and my friends at the time didn't really care about my sudden atheism.

My Mormon grandmother lives with me currently, and as the one that raised me, she encouraged me to be skeptical and read the Bible while drawing my own conclusions from it, even though she's a believer. I also currently have a few Mormon friends from her Church.

The longest friendship I've ever held was with a Pentecostal for 17 years, since I was about 12. He claimed he was saved at around 17, when he felt his endorphin level raise for the first time, and attributed it to being touched by the Holy Spirit. He and I have been getting into long religious, scientific, and philosophical discussions since then. Though around April of '11, our friendship died due to an event unrelated to our religious differences.

Anyway, I've recently felt the urge to discuss my views, as well as read about other's views. I'm a big fan of The Atheist Experience, in particular one of it's hosts, Matt Dillahunty. My main goal is to spread awareness of how atheism isn't innately evil, and to find common ground with theists.

Nice to find this board :)

Mullahs say the darndest things

Brick — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:04:58 GMT

I wonder how well I would be received if I went to Saudi Arabia and taught people about the values of skepticism.

Around 5m44s:

"If you mean that I hate man-made law, I hate democracy and freedom, I hate secularism, I hate liberalism, I hate man made law [again? :lol:] I certainly do preach that."

If no one gets hurt, then what is the harm?

zdave — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:51:56 GMT

This particular argument has been around the traps for a while. So recognizable too, yet riddled with issues. However problematic it is, the argument still sends my brain in a loop, and I've found myself unprepared to answer it a couple of times. It can appear in a few different forms:

* If it makes someone more loving then why can't you just leave them to it?

* But, if they're happy doing it, and they're not trying to convert others, then shouldn't we just leave them alone?

etc. There are two glaringly obvious problems here.

A) The Unreasonable Condition.

There is an unreasonable condition being presented. "If it makes someone more loving" is entirely subjective as to what 'loving' is, and whether or not the interpretation of 'loving' is a good thing is entirely the question. It's unreasonable to apply the attribute to every believer that it makes them more loving.

You might as well say, "If I paint this room red, and no one has a problem with it, then it will be good." The same issue is presented. "No one" in the sentence above doesn't simply refer to those nearby, it refers to everyone. In the same vein as the "Someone" in "If it makes someone more loving", makes the argument yield a 'True' result if but one person can be found who has become more loving. It ignores everyone else, especially those which are on the opposite side of the argument.

B) Tauuuutology

I love tautologies wherever I find them. I think they're neat, and this one is no exception.

"If it makes someone more loving" - The implication here being "If they're not causing harm", followed by "then why can't you leave them to i?" - Implying that no harm is being caused. Might as well say:

"If it's not doing any harm, then what is the harm", which ultimately exposes point A one helluva lot, but also presents a tautology. It has to be true because the condition has been set to not fail. It would be just like saying:

"If I buy a tasty apple, it will be tasty". The statement is absolutely true, but it's not an argument.

There is a lot more to that non argument, but this is the basics of coming back from it, when presented in an discussion. Recognize the unreasonable condition, then fire back against that.

"If it makes someone more loving... then why can't you just leave them alone."

Response: "OK, for that minute percentage of people that become more loving from it, sure I'll leave them alone, for now... However, for the 90% or higher of you guys out there... I'm coming!"

'Evil Little Thing' Or Constitutional Defender?

Stargazer — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:06:33 GMT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160046.../#.TyK8zpi7JLI

Your Government, Your Friend

Brick — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:40:36 GMT

I wonder how many jobs get destroyed by idiot bureaucrats.

Freedom of the Press

psychodiva — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:53:48 GMT

Reporters Without Borders has its annual report out about Press Freedom- I'm ashamed to note that the UK came 28th and I'm not surprised to see the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands up at the top as usual

There have been some interesting shifts due to the 'Arab Spring' and other such stuff- any thoughts?

What is an Agnostic?

Pecar — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:30:10 GMT

What is an agnostic?

I can give you my definition. Agnostics are people who are not sure if there is a god or not, so they are not christians, but because they aren't sure they aren't atheists either.

You must rather enjoy the flexibility and lack of criticism while you straddle the fence with your finger imbedded to the third knuckle. Whom do you benefit, flip flopping between being a christian agnostic or an atheistic agnostic. Not even yourselves.

There is a real war going on, but it hasn't been given the seriousness it deserves. To give you one quick example of what christians, who have never quit the battle, are doing while we're allowing them to engage us in pointless academic debates such as the differences between faith and belief, or can god father himself.

They have petitions to local school boards in many states, to have ID, intelligent design (aka creationism) taught in school science classes.

Allowed to continue to have their way, they will take humanity back into the 16 hundreds and stifle science, islam would take humanity back into the 15 hundreds and kill science. You know what islam would do don't you. Well, so would the christians.

Agnostics, you know all the shit the rest of us know. The battle is to see if humanity will legislate laws to agree with 2,000 year old christian teachings, at the expense of science and truth or we will continue to advance and follow new discoveries that have be proven scientifically. It all sounds mundane, not too important, but think about it. Islam will not be any more oppressive than the catholics. Remember the inquistion.

Agnostics, you know if there is a god or not, you know inside yourself. We atheists want/need you to stand up to the plate with us to show all governments that we are unified and want to insure society moves in the right direction for an advancing society, founded on truth and facts. That will keep us free of religious tyranny.

Right now, scientists are in the fight pretty much alone and they are fighting. Let's give them a hand and kick a little christian ass and do it aggressively.

I'm Writing an Atheist Modern Fantasy Novel

DarknessOpera — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:44:26 GMT

Read about it here.

I'm not Jerry

En_Route — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:04:59 GMT

Whether this is to be regretted or not, I cannot say.
Meanwhile, I await an ovine intervention.

Religious politicians: belief is not needed

Broga — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:38:44 GMT

In the USA, and to a lesser but significant extent in the UK, a successful politician must be a believer. And in the USA, if you want to be a Republican contender for POTUS, you must proclaim your belief. Say you are an atheist and it is game over. And so we come to those two prominent examples of faith: Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. They are both believers and the screaming hordes accept their religious claims regardless of how they act.

Romney,has a $200 million dollar fortune, and an unwillingness to answer questions about his tax affairs. He is also a member of a cult with weird and incredible beliefs: he is a Mormon. This multi-millionaire claims to want to improve the lives of the ordinary American. With his vast fortune is he remotely able to empathise with those struggling people? And if he believes the nonsense of his religion what else as President might he believe? Or is religious "truth" separate from the facts of everyday life which he would daily confront. Can the American people be confident that his nonsensical beliefs will not pollute and pervert his policies?

Newt Gingrich has recently been embarrased by claims of a former wife that he wanted an open marriage. Gingrich was outraged that the issue should be raised in a political debate. His chequered domestic affairs were a long time ago and he is now a Roman Catholic. That he apparently embraces this faith should offer little comfort to the voters. Deceit, sexual perversion and a determination to escape justice has become embedded in Roman Catholicism. To what extent will he be influenced by the hardline Vatican views on contraception, abortion and euthanasia for the suffering terminally ill?

The voters I heard said that Newt Gingrich was sorry for what he had done. He had repented and forgiveness was part of christianity. As one of them put it, "Jesus Christ is not a candidate and so we must take what is on offer."

So these wealthy men can lay "blessed are the poor" on one side. And they are the opposite of meek so their chances of the kingdom of heaven seem slim. You could list many supposed religious virtues and they would fail the test on them all. What does that say about what they really believe? But they do pass one test: they claim religious belief. And that stops thinking by the voters, the emotional religion button is pressed and they are reassured. They have candidates who say they believe in an abstract, mystical entity of no substance and on whose characteristics, or what it wants, no agreement in possible. The flattery of the tyrant god, that fantasy of ancient desert tribes, and however empty the formulaic words, is all the voters need.

Leaving God to one side, what makes you think that YOU exist?

En_Route — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:25:15 GMT

Maybe you don't.

Some arguments from another Atheist forum

Kaziglu Bey — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:33:21 GMT

I would like to present for your consideration some arguments against religion found on another Atheist forum. For anyone who is not familiar with the Atheist forum Why Won't God Heal Amputees? it is certainly worth checking out this thread, http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/fo...c,18666.0.html , which is a collection of rebuttals and arguments made by one of the members. Every single post he makes is absolutely DEVASTATING (note: bold, caps lock, italics and underline don't really do justice to the level of devastation present in these posts) to religion, and the whole thread is. in my opinion, an iron-clad case against religion and God. Definitely worth the time to read.

Additionally, if there is something of the sort present on this forum (like a "Best of" arguments against religion), I would be grateful for a link, as I have not yet had the opportunity to extensively review all of the threads here, and doing so could potentially take a very long time.

(Note: I am not attempting to convert users to another forum, only trying to give people a great resource for anti religion arguments. Different forums=different people=different ideas, and knowledge is power.)

Too Smart To Have Children

Stargazer — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:49:01 GMT

I came across this in a recent Google search. I was looking for something else, but somehow this was mixed into the results.

Here's the most misogynistic part:

Am I saying that women should not pursue a higher education? Of course not. The point I am trying to make is this: we must be very careful when we handover our young adults to professors and teachers in secular universities and colleges. When believing young women become immersed in a secular educational system, they can sometimes become too smart to have children. They may end up rejecting the blessings that our God desires for them.

This is the entire story:

http://www.setyourheart.org/2011/07/...-children.html

I just don't even know where to start on something like this!

Scotland, British or not?

ILOVEJESUS — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:02:39 GMT

With this whole political debacle regarding our fair nation, I was wondering where people stood regarding the Union of Scotland and the rest of the UK. I think that we are going to be spun an EU amount of horseshit from both sides over the coming years till the referendum. It's not like we are all going skint or anything.
I would like the Union to stay as it is, though that is mainly an emotional opinion. I think that Scotland could well prosper outside the UK, though I fail to see how it will do as well as Mr Salmond claims. England would miss the oil and gas from the North sea, but I cannot see it being given to Scotland without some pretty nasty political manouveres. And Scotland wants to use the �.

An attempt at logic.

Michael — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:56:10 GMT

This is a first draft, and it's 3am. As such it is not perfect. Comments by all are more than welcomed.

Think about this statement for a moment:

"Innocent Until Proven Guilty"

I don't think there are many in the civilized world that would argue that is a correct and accurate way of approaching a legal situation.

So let us look at a theoretical court room -

A man is sent to trial for a crime.

The prosecution makes the claim "This man is guilty!". They then proceed to make their case.

The defendant sits there, does not say a word. Does not say or do anything.

The prosecution continues to make their case, bringing in expert witnesses who give thrilling testimony.

Still, the defendant does nothing.

Finally the prosecution rests, having laid out their case.

Still, the defendant has done nothing.

Finally, the jury are sent off to deliberate. After a few tense hours, they return.

The Verdict?

Not Guilty.

How could that be?! The defence did nothing! The prosecution laid out their case, presented witnesses and thrilled with testimony!

The reason: Reasonable Doubt.

You see, despite all the blustering from the prosecution, they still did not supply sufficient evidence to suport their claim of guilt.

Therefore, the presumption of innocence has to remain. Without sufficient evidence to support the claim of guilt, the man has to be treated as though he is innocent.

Once again, there are not many who would say this is not the correct way approach the situation.

Now, this was a hypothetical situation, and in real life trials are of course muddied by all sorts of other tactics, and this results in miscarriages of the law (However, that is not the topic of this discussion and as such will not be continued further here) but at the end of the day, this is what "innocent until proven guilty" boils down to.

Without sufficient evidence to support the claim of guilt, the man has to be treated as though he is innocent.

"non-existant until proven to exist"

The word 'atheist' has been thrown around and re-defined so many times by both sides of the argument that to try to say that I am arguing for the 'atheist' viewpoint would only serve to muddy up my cause.

As such, I will say now: This is not an argument for 'atheism'. This is an argument for truth. It follows more closely to the values held by skepticism than by the now-muddied 'atheism' term.

At the end of this, however, I hope to show that a belief in a higher cause is, for the lack of a better term, 'incorrect'.

Now, based on my introduction most of you will have already worked out where this argument is to come from, so hopefully most of my groundwork is now done for me. However, in case it isn't, here is the basic logic -

In terms of evaluating a claim, all available evidence must be examined and weighted equally before coming to a conclusion. if, upon examining the evidence, it can be said that it points towards the claim being true, it should be treated as such until further evidence comes to light. If there is enough evidence to support reasonable doubt, or insufficient evidence to support the claim, then it must be treated as incorrect (though perhaps still possible depending on the claim) until new evidence comes to light.

To decide "this is correct, items A, C, and E prove it" is as incorrect as deciding "this is incorrect, items B, D, and F prove it".

In the case of religion as I am discussing it, the claim (to simplify it for this discussion) is tantamount to:

"There exists a supernatural cause for existance, either personal or impersonal, intelligent or not".

Just as it is "innocent until proven guilty" - that is the evidence should be weighed to decide the existance of guilt, not the lack of it - so to is it with religion. The evidence must be weighed up to decided the existance of a supernatural creator, not the lack of one.

Should there be insufficient evidence to support this claim, then the correct course of action is to treat the claimed supernatural creator as non-existant until proven to exist.

Now I don't have the time or the energy to look through and discuss every piece of "evidence" as it works for this topic (there is far too much). I will, however, look at the case for reasonable doubt -

As with psychics who claim (on the day that their powers were getting tested) that it "was an off day for them", or that "they can do it, however refuse to do it in the manner which they are being tested", at the end of the day, the result is the same: no powers were demonstrated that can be said to be supernatural.

This result lends no credence towards the idea of their supposed supernatural claims, and as such their claims must be held to be false until they do offer suffient example.

The same must be said about a god - with no proven interaction between a supernatural creator and this reality (to be proven it must be investigated and validated by an unbiased source) - then it must be taken as lending no credence towards the claim of a supernatural creator, and as such the claim should be considered to be false until sufficient evidence is given.

Therefore, as it is considered correct to treat a man as innocent until such time as his guilt is proved beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt, so too must it be considered correct that the proper approach to living a life in regards to a supernatural creator is that such creator, be it allah, god, or ginesh, should be considered to be non-existant until proven beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt.

Now, call this what you will. You can call this atheism or not, it doesn't matter. Personally, I like the term "non-religious" for it, nice and simple. I think "skeptic" is the proper term though.

Either way, I feel this may help to demonstrate what has been requested.

Preacher talks sense for once

Brick — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:14:40 GMT

E-Bore's Avatar Show

Smellyoldgit — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:13:17 GMT

Pick your favourite or add a few more :D

Hello o_O

superfes — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:05:11 GMT

Nothing special here, I slowly started realizing the bullshit that Christianity is after I started reading about older religions and seeing all the crap that Christianity raped from other cultures and religions.

This forum looks a little more intimidating than the HAF... I'm not really all that angsty... my brother showed me some of the posts on this forum, but I had to register a user to see them ^_^

Anyways I guess you could consider me anti-theist, I'm sick of watching religion and religious people destroy our world all in the name of fiction, I hope someday that our world will be free from the grasp of ignorance and hate that it brings.

- Superfes!