Why do atheists spend so much time arguing about the existence of God?

And we seem to have two case studies of this obsession: Relaxx and Rudenoodle. I'll venture an hypothesis: They've convinced themselves that there is no God, but feel insecure because the vast majority of the world's population doesn't go along, so they feel they must discredit that majority by calling them fools, zombies and murderers, and they must ease their insecurities by trying to convince the blokes on Hip Forums of these "truths". But it soesn't seem to be working, and even if it did, the Hip Forums regulars aren't exactly the movers and shakers of the universe. And a strong suspicion isn't good enough, because that would leave open the possibility that God is still out there. It must be certainty.

However, I suspect that most atheists don't have this problem. They may grumble when a prayer is forced on them at a public gathering or when some televangelist says something particularly outrageous, but most go along with their lives in quiet desperation like the rest of us. Are more atheists obsessed with debating religion than religious zealots are obsessed with debating atheists? If this forum is an example, I doubt it. (Come to think of it, I have more posts under my name than the lot of you put together, so what's my problem?)

 

It's just sad that they can't believe that someone who isn't religious (specifically Christian, but then, isn't that every anti-religionist's favourite easy target?) could possibly see any good in religion.

See, I do feel that Americans really need to get out and find out what the rest of the world is like. So many of them seem to be totally unaware that their country's brand of Christianity is pretty localised, and that in most of the civilised world ideas like Intelligent Design are uniformly ridiculed, rather than inexplicably getting anywhere near schools.

 

Yes, and it's a particular challenge for folks like me living in Oklahoma, the "Buckle of the Bible Belt". I have the feeling that I'm in the bar scene in the Blues Brothers, where the waitress asks "What kind of music do you boys like, Country or Western?" I actually go to meetings of an atheist group just to keep perspective, but I have to travel an hour and a half to get there--and then mostly what they do is eat and engage in normal dinner conversation, not much different from the Methodists or Presbyterians. Thank God for the Internet!

 

Do you believe in history that anyone has been killed or has killed based simply on religious ideology?


If you answered yes to that question and then take a stance that say's religion and lying to future generations about the origin (and in many text's) the end of human life is a good or at least "neutral"thing to do you must be looking for simple answer indeed, as long as YOUR not the one paying for them.


People are being tortured and murdered in the faith based regions of the world based solely on religious preference.

Lies are bad for people.

So is religion.

 

They will do whatever they want whether they have a mustache or not also.

I can't believe you are trying to downplay that religious fanaticism and death violence and superstition go hand in hand.

 

And what if I answered "no"?

Look at the bigger picture. Religion only matters enough to kill for when people are in desperate shit already. This is what I've been trying to explain to you the whole time.

And people are tortured and murdered based solely on political affiliation too. Is that a reason to ban politics? Do you think we can do away with everything that people care about and expect nothing to ever take their place? Or should we actually just accept that this stuff is a side-effect of free will, and that deploring the violent act, rather than looking to get rid of certain (not all) causes of violence?

Nope, sorry, you've not convinced me.

Dude, you just PROVED my point and then one line later you're saying you can't understand where I'm coming from?

 

What people are these? Are you talking mostly victims of radical Muslims? People are being tortured and murdered elsewhere, at the behest of the CIA, but I doubt that religion has much to do with it. Even in the case of Muslim radicals, if you solved the Palestinian issue and instituted social reforms that provided more opportunities for young people, I doubt that radical Islam could survive.

So are half-truths based on over-generalization.

And so sometimes is atheism (e.g., Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao)

 

If you don't believe religion is bad for civilization I respect your opinion. (However misguided I think it is)

 

I doubt you do: hence the constant rhetoric of "fools".

 

Yeah, like UKCD said, I think you're fooling yourself if you think you can claim that you respect someone's opinion while at the same time dismissing it on little more basis than whim.

I don't respect your opinion. Because I think you've based it on little or no evidence and developed it primarily out of unwillingness to retract statements which have been repeatedly rebutted.

 

Well if your saying that YOU believe in something that has never appeared to you or anyone else in a scientific way to show it's own existence let alone to "help" people, I'd unfortunately have to say in my opinion that you were a fool.

Why?

Because you are showing favor to a life style choice that breed's in superstition and bigotry.

I'd say the same to you if you said you were NOT a Nazi but fully supported their belief that all Jew's should be exterminated based only on what they TOLD you and not proof that it was actually true.



I'm NOT calling you a Nazi.

 

Can you either prove that religion causes people to become bigoted who weren't already of that persuasion OR stop making these outrageous statements please? You're expecting us to just take your word for it that religion makes people bad and it's really rather silly in light of the arguments you're trying to make. I mean, why should we just believe you, really?

 

"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)

"For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him." (Leviticus 20:9)

"If a man lies with a woman during her sickness and uncovers her nakedness, he has discovered her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from her people." (Leviticus 20:18)

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property." (Leviticus 25:44-45)

"Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." (Leviticus 19:27)

"At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts." (Deuteronomy 15:1)

"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death..." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Well if bigotry wasn't there before these "teachings" blew into town I'm sure they were there after.


Religion HELPS to proliferate bigotry and superstition.

 

Nope, sorry, that proves FUCK ALL. Deuteronomy is ONLY used to justify homophobia by homophobes. Most Christians that I have met have not been homophobes.

What is it that you think these words do to people? I mean, if merely reading a passage from the Bible could persuade someone to completely change their opinion, from tolerance to bigotry, why are you and I immune?

This is what's known as "backpedalling".

 

They no longer take there bible's and "divine texts" as literal in the States and the U.K as often as they do in other parts of the world.

Thankfully, they have changed there own beliefs to coincide with the times.

In essence they have written new "divine" books, they have done it all through human existence.

In other parts of the world you can still be stoned to death for adultery based upon a "law" established by a government BASED on teachings from superstition filled religious text's.

 

I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to here. But I'd add that the Constitution is no less arrogant than the Bible. Surely the content of a document should decide its validity, rather than whether its authors happened to claim it was God's word, or whether they simply "held these truths to be self-evident".

I don't really understand what kind of point you're trying to make. Unless you believe that America represents a step in the objectively right direction compared to the rest of the world (and the rest of the world might dispute this), I don't see why the US executing a prisoner is really that different from a Middle Eastern country doing it.

It seems that you are trying to create an emotive reaction from the mode of execution as a means to lead us to deplore the religion that the government uses to justify this. But again, governments will be governments, and there is no evidence that an atheist government is inherently any less capable of cruelty and brutality than a religious one.

 

Your dodging me here, When did I bring up the United States?

Those who believe in the idiotic and the supernatural (not the unknown) have been fooled to put it as lightly as possible.

Why defend their actions if you yourself don't believe in them?

 

To which "actions" are you referring?

If you mean the act of belief, I defend it because those who attack the right to believe what one wishes are despicable. I defend it because I am able to imagine that one day I might be in a position where my beliefs are considered idiotic, something you don't see able to do.

If you mean acts like 9/11, The Crusades, etc., then I do not defend such acts, whether they are committed in the name of God or reason.

How many times do I have to go over this before you actually respond to one of my questions with anything other than disbelief that I'm asking it?

 

So you will only acknowledge the positive side of religion?

And for every person killed do to STRICTLY religious bigotry what? Oh well sorry, wrong religion try again?

You ask questions like you have never heard of an atheists point of view.

 

No, not at all. I just don't think that a religion should be punished (or praised, for that matter) for the positive or negative actions of individuals unless it can be shown to have specifically caused them.

I don't even know what you mean by this "Sorry wrong religion" thing. I don't have a religion, so one religious death is the same as another to me.

And you're talking hypothetically now, saying that IF someone killed someone SOLELY because of their religion... I'm saying that practically speaking that pretty much never happens, that people are driven to kill by other things and that their religion is generally incidental.

If someone COULD be shown to have killed PURELY because of their religion, then that would raise other issues, but I still don't know what you'd expect me to do other than mourn and disapprove.

That's because I am an atheist who wants to challenge atheism, which means going back to the basic assumptions and seeing if they're actually solid foundations for a belief. Atheism should be if anything more critical of atheism than it is of religion, because the one thing an atheist can never allow themselves is blind faith.

Earlier on in this thread, someone said that they argue with Christians about God to strengthen and reassure themselves in their belief. But the problem with that is that it means atheists are only asked the questions that religious people ask them.