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Permalink Reply by Justin Pearson Smith on May 17, 2009 at 3:10pm

Agreed. Also there aren't really many alternatives that atheists have when it comes to explaining life on earth.

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Permalink Reply by Karl on May 17, 2009 at 4:35pm

I don't bother to argue about atheism with any religious person because I think that religious people by their very nature are delusional and not swayed by rational thought.
If I was to rationalise it i would simply say point to some unequivequal evidence which proves without a shadow of doubt god's existance, and they cannot because there isnt any.
They can argue until they are blue in the face but until i pick up a rock and it says 'Made with pride by god' on the bottom then sorry god does not exist.
They may try Pascal's wager as an argument but it is simple game theory to prove that it is in essence a lose-lose game if you happen to pick the wrong god to believe in.
Christaiins will say that their god is the only true god but there are so many sources of influence which went into the fantasy of the christian god that you wouldn't know where to start to list them all.
It is in general a mistake to even discuss religion with fundamentalist christians because many of them believe that if they repeat their own beliefs often enough then you will be struck stupid and be converted. There are a lot of what I call angry athiests who will try to pick an argument with a theist but there are better ways to spend your time.
In essence I think I am saying i object to having to justify my beliefs to someone who believes in a non-existant sky fairy.

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Permalink Reply by Karl on May 17, 2009 at 4:53pm

I think I have said before i don't cope well with stupid people, and I suppose i think its beneath my dignity to have to deal with them. call me arrogant if you will ;p~~~~

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Insurgency on May 17, 2009 at 5:11pm

Here's my contribution:

Psychologists have long ago discovered that children under the age of about 11 have not quite developed their skills of judgment. One famous test where a tall skinny glass and a short wide glass are filled with exactly the same amount of water, children who have not quite achieved the next tier of critical thinking skills will point to the taller glass when they are asked which glass has more water.

At this age and younger, is when parents can really only tell their children "because I said so," and the chief motivation for behaving well is punishment avoidance. Long ago someone got the idea that children could be kept under control longer if they were told they were never really alone, that an entity was with them always, and this entity communicated with the parents, all the behaviors the children engaged out-of-sight of the parents. The parents could threaten the children with punishment from this unseen all-seeing entity, and leave themselves blameless.

Some people keep on believing this into adulthood because they have yet to evolve out of the Bronze-Age. This is proof that human evolution continues throughout our lifetimes.

This is your brain on faith, any questions?

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Permalink Reply by Karl on May 17, 2009 at 5:17pm

there is some evidence to show that the human brain has evolved with a basic need to have some belief in a supernatural element.It was possibly useful as a bonding device in early man, and its quite possible that theists have an over active part of this brain and atheists have an under active part.Some people are simply wired to be more receptive the theist ideas so arguing with them without doing major brain surgery first is pointless.

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Permalink Reply by Eli on May 18, 2009 at 4:41pm

"Do you believe something can be absolutely false? Yes, Then there must be the reverse which is an absolute truth. That is God therefore God exists"

My response to this is that the existence of one thing does not at all necessitate the existence of it's opposite. Of this, light is a great example, you ask someone what is the opposite of light, of course, most folks will say darkness, but this is not the "opposite" of light, it is merely it's absence. As far as antiphotons it's a moot argument as photons are their own antiparticles (much like many other force-carrying particles, gluons and Z bosons, all of which have no electric charge and are not made up of quarks), thus have no true "antiparticle".

Of course you probably won't have to get into the particle physics... then I enjoy "toying" with evangelists and like to lead them onto other questions... until I can smoothly turn it around and become the questioner.

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