A Question for Theists

I have a question for theists. Don’t worry atheists.. it’s easily modified to suit you too. Here it is:

Do you, as a theist, think that atheists, in general, honestly do not believe in any gods? Why or why not?

Here’s the same question reversed towards atheists.

Do you, as an atheist, think that theists, in general, honestly believe in god? Why or why not?

My answer to this is pretty simple. Yes. I bet the majority of claimed theists actually believe what they say they believe. Yes, there will be atheists that don’t want to admit to the world or themselves that they’re an unbeliever. Why do I think this? I was one. I used to pretend I went to my old church for about a year. The dishonesty slowly got to me until I decided that it wasn’t worth it.

What do you think of your unsimilarly opinionated colleagues?

August 26, 2008 | Filed Under Atheism

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First Day of Class

I have my fist day of class today. The only class I’ve been to was a professional and technical communication class. Everything was pretty okay. As the professor introduced herself everything was fine. She was explaining what her previous jobs are and what colleges she got her undergrad and masters degrees from. Great..

…and then she said…

But the most important part of my life has to be Jesus Christ and if anyone would like to talk to me about that part of my life you’re very welcome. I also love my husband and my two children a lot.

WHAT?! Your husband and your kids are less important than Jesus? That’s a little… unsettling. Furthermore, all other professors I’ve had the enjoyment of meeting gave no clue to what religious affiliations they held or didn’t hold.

In all honesty, this isn’t a big deal. When I walked into the building I passed by a guy wearing a shirt that said “Our Nation, UNDER GOD.” Yes, ‘under god’ emphasized by all capitalized letters and a larger font. So everyone has the right to demonstrate exactly what they think and believe. It’s just really concerning that this person has such power over me and it should be very well noted that if they in any way are influenced based on my beliefs or there of then that is wrong.

As to her offering to discuss jebus with her, I don’t think I’d take that up. If I did and was completely honest I would have the risk of my grades being effected in one way or another. However, it really is tempting to comment on how she loves her ancient zombie jew more than her children…

Well, I guess all of this is something that I just have to deal with. After all, I do live in Texas…

August 25, 2008 | Filed Under Atheism, Personal Experience

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Conversations With Theists

In my experience most conversations with theists could abruptly end by asking a simple series of questions.

1. Do you want to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible?

2. How do you determine what is likely to be true or likely to be false?

3. How does your belief in god coincide with that your criteria for truth or likely truth?

4. How does your lack of belief in x coincide with that? x = anything crazy. ex: Flying Spaghetti Monster, invisible pink unicorn, etc.

After honest answers to these questions a number of things can happen. All of which should give you a full understanding of their personal convictions and motivations.

You realize that their answer to number 1 is wacky. If you don’t want to believe in true things then you’ll believe in anything.
You realize that their answer to question 2 will allow for too much ‘junk’ and the answer to question 4 will most likely be “I don’t know.”
You realize that their answer to question 3 doesn’t match up to their answer to question 2. They might give a special case for god.
If at any point they ramble off scripture I start to nod off. These questions are about how you decide what to believe in. If you use the bible to describe that you have to justify this. Eventually it should boil down to WHY you believe the bible is true and the answers to this are very few: Faith, Fear (pascal’s wager), personal revelation, uncritical acceptance, and a couple more. The only one that I can sympathize with is personal experience.

I’ve been in many conversations that are rooted deep within scripture and I’ve started with this line of questions. The conversation ends. Quickly. We resolve the differences in thinking and we can both see the key differences in our thinking. That’s why we debate. That’s why we converse. That’s why conversations happen. To find where our views differ and explore the reasons behind them.

If you’re an atheist or agnostic tell me what you think of this tactic.

If you’re a theist please give me some rational answers to this! I have yet to find sensible answers…

August 21, 2008 | Filed Under Atheism

9 Comments

FSTDT Proof of God

I’ve been converted. I now know that god exists. Here’s the ‘proof’ spotted on FSTDT:

danish_abdullah80, Yahoo Answers [FSTDT Link] [2008-Aug-17]

OK, athiests, do you want proof that God exsists, here are a couple….?
here are some proof of God’s exsistence:

1) All people have different finger prints, every non-related human has different fingerprints. Why? Because this is the works of God. If God didnt exsist, then there would have been people with same finger prints.

But wait, there is more…..

2) Did you know every single leaf is different? Its either different shape, different size, different color, or different inside scales. Every SINGLE leaf on a tree is different than any other leaf in the World, if God didnt exsist, then there would have been similar leaves that would be EXACTLY the same.

Now i want any athiests who can awnser these 2 proofs of the works of God to awnser this scientifically, lets see if you can.

Darn, you can’t argue with that sound logic. In ‘proof’ number one you assert that people have unique finger-prints. Therefore, god. Your argument does not follow. In your ‘proof’ number two you claim that all leaves are different. Therefore, god. This argument does not follow. If anything it is a sign that evolution is likely. Genetic DNA combining to produce a unique offspring. But I do grant you one thing. You did prove that god exsist. He just doesn’t exist.

Others seem to just know he exists and ‘he did it.’

TexasSky, Christian Forums [FSTDT Link] [2006-Aug-24]

I often debate with evolutionists because I believe that they are narrow mindedly and dogmatically accepting evolution without questioning it. I don’t really care how God did what He did. I know He did it.

This has to be fake… My irony meter just exploded. There’s no one that could actually produce that much irony and not be brain dead.

And this is apparently what happens when there is no religion:

TalesoftheGoldMonk, Imdb [FSTDT Link] [2007-Feb-28]

Well then imagine a world without religion, great huh? Wrong!!…Because then tomorrow I could come kill your family, your pets, your friends, and likely you; and then myself..guess what, NO REPERCUSSIONS…yes, thanks to you I can kill everybody…..thanks for the help buddy…..everybody go kill everybody else…whoever’s left wins!!…

Wins what? Why don’t you see atheists raping and killing everyone they can? Why is it religious motivations that helped cause 9/11. If you honestly believe that just because there isn’t an invisible camera in the sky watching everything you do that you would go around murding people and yourself then you’re a sorry excuse for a human. If, as you say, everyone does start killing everyone they can then what next? Humanity has just been essentially wiped out. How does that help anyone? Why would anyone do such a thing?

Here’s one more ‘proof’ of god. Argument from design incoming…

Graywolf, Amazon [FSTDT Link] [2008-Apr-23]

strawberries taste good.

proves there is a God

proves He loves you

we have to eat

even if all food tasted like poop we would still have to eat it

or is it that plants somehow had a consciousness that made them evolve to taste good

nope the creator made them that way

First off, consciousness or high-level thinking is NOT needed for evolution. Second, I don’t like strawberries. Ergo, god doesn’t exist. You also didn’t present an argument disputing the fact that your observations are easily explained from evolution. You just said “no, god did it.” Sounds rational to me…

August 18, 2008 | Filed Under Crazies

2 Comments

Atheism and Adam Corolla

Adam Corolla speaks about his atheism with a rational view of the world. I have to say that I’m not a big fan of much anything that he’s done but this makes me see him in a better light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQMQxJKKjcU