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Atheists Collaborate!

Hi forum!

My name is tom I’m a brand new member :) but I couldn’t help think of an idea when I was reading the various posts here. I’m sure everyone that is a member here (including me) has had the experience where your views been challenged by a theist. The problem with being in atheist is that people suddenly assume you have 7 PhD’s and are able to answer all the unanswered questions of the universe. Things like the big bang theory and evolution are pretty darn complicated and many of us, including me, don’t have the tools to answer them properly.

So seeing as there are a lot of intelligent people here, I thought it might be a nice idea to collaboratively summarise some of the more complicated parts of theistic-challenging scientific theories. This will help atheists because it will give them ‘ammunition’ (for lack of a better word) when asked some difficult questions, as well as any theists reading that there are answers out there.

Coming from a biological and neuroscience background, I am fairly confident I could contribute a few brief articles in a simplistic and completely objective way that members could read. For example I can provide a legitimate scientific insights into such questions as:

How does evolution work?

Where did the first cell come from?

Why are there still monkeys if we evolved from monkeys?

How can there by so much complexity in nature without a creator?

Why morality exists? (even if you’re an atheist lol)

However I’m not so confident to answer questions like:

How did the big bang start?

How did the earth form?

But hopefully someone can. And I’m obviously open to anyone that wants to ask a question; there are no stupid questions lol. So that’s my idea… thoughts?

3 members like this

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gila Guerilla on July 4, 2011 at 8:54pm

This is not a bad idea, though when I want answers to such questions, I turn to Google. One has to be careful when getting answers from the internet however, because there is probably as much wrong or disinformation, as there is good informaton. One has to be careful to check sources back to their origins.

Any such database on Atheist Nexus would need to be backed up by good authorities, (as Wikipedia is supposed to do). I guess your idea is to reduce good science to simple explanations for non-experts, with the evidence for the veracity of those explanations. Also to put forward good philosophical justifications for atheism, and against theism, using explicitly admitted naturalistic assumptions in the process.

Sometimes the best answer to certain questions, both from an atheistic and scientific perspective, is that we don't know the answer.

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Permalink Reply by Dogly on September 11, 2011 at 8:38pm

I agree with Guila Guerilla. One thing that seems to separate atheists from theists is the willingness to admit, "I don't know." AND, I guess, the willingness to try to find the natural explanation for the unknown.

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Permalink Reply by annet on August 18, 2011 at 10:49pm

This is a good idea. Most of the books on this like Hitchins' Portable Atheist are not exactly easy reading. Maybe if we could get people to contribute to the rational wiki. It has a start on a project like your suggestion.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Category:Religion

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Permalink Reply by Cheryl on August 27, 2011 at 8:18pm

Good idea. Maybe this discussion would be better posted in the Science group, or Origins: Humankind, the Universe and Darwin which attracts a lot of science types.

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Permalink Reply by mojo5501 on August 27, 2011 at 9:23pm

But we can rely on a scientific approach to explore answers to questions about the formation of planets. There is nothing in the world that requires a god in order to be explained. Currently there is an interesting program on the Science Channel called 'Wonders of the Universe' that caught my eye after seeing Professor Brian Cox being interviewed by Jon Stewart. There are videos you can watch online and one is titled "The Big Bang". He follows in the path of Carl Sagan.

We-the-atheist-people look for nature-based explanations rather than super-natural explanations. We do not fill in the gaps of our knowledge with "OH, it must have been god in his infinite wisdom who did THAT". Theists can fill in the gaps all they want if it makes them happy! But it's not a position based on reason or evidence or theoretical models. Human knowledge is never going to be absolute...we are always inching closer to the answers we seek. And we don't need to look to some outside 'creator' or 'intelligent designer' as a default setting!

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Permalink Reply by Tom Berzins on August 27, 2011 at 11:25pm

yeah @mojo5501 thats entirely the point...

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Permalink Reply by Steph S. on August 27, 2011 at 9:59pm

Hi Tom! Welcome to the site. I think your idea sounds wonderful.

I have a biological background as well. Will you be making a new group for all the collaborations?

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Permalink Reply by thomas william gerlach on August 29, 2011 at 11:29am

Tom hell-o, I'm also a Tom by label. Great questions...The way for understanding them is in the Question...Whose Asking the Question? Go beyond the Me as Me and remember. I Am! That's all..

Don't try to figure it out....It is as it is...Go beyond the Mind and practice Presence.

Peace

I am

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Permalink Reply by thomas william gerlach on August 29, 2011 at 2:07pm

oh no! Just a comment in Space Time>

Thanks

Tom

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Permalink Reply by Gethyn Jones on August 29, 2011 at 2:55pm

For any evolution queries, I strongly recommend talkorigins.org

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Permalink Reply by Aaron Wiitanen on September 11, 2011 at 8:19pm

I'd like to have a theist come talk to me about religion, so that I can look at the ground shake my head and walk away..:)

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Permalink Reply by John Cantor on October 20, 2011 at 5:41pm

I'm a witch. That's the voice of experience speaking through this forum...

Either I'm using straight witchcraft, or I'm using emergent technology with a completely rational and scientific understanding...

Theists don't challenge this witch. Theists send a sacrificial lamb into the neighborhood once a year to see if the Adversary is still functional in the local environment. Last time is was the pastor and his trainee from the church down the street. He's got training, certification, a coupla mil in real property value; he believes in that book less that you do...

Another sheep, another shearing; I got my Gwynnies on my arm, I hadda throw my Bible away. If he has any skills, I'm sure he convinced his assistant he did not actually witness what was witnessed; but two of us witnessed what happens when false righteousness comes up against moral certainty...

What witchcraft is this? This line: Acceptance of the Holy Spirit means eternal life is now.

Oh. I have absolutely no problem with the simulated future where I kill a Christian on the spot for associating YHWH with hell - which is practically the whole purpose of the Bible - but that ain't the point.

Simulation of future is the point. Some guy dreaming about 'ammunition' is being answered by this other guy developing non-lethal technology in the field... accident of 'random' evolution. If using the brain as a simulator has been disregarded by science; that doesn't mean I'm not doing it, but I'm more than past the point of wallowing through mountains of information looking for a data point.

Your that data point. You got the background to match your "Why morality exists" to my "why morality works," then we might be able to collaborate on field testing and mobilization.

I'm just gonna sit here and keep loving my Gwynnies. If this sounds like too much answer for you question, feel free to ignore. I have no need to exist.