Faith VS Atheism

[nuperspective]

christopher hitchens makes a couple of beaut points about the cornerstone of christianity in "god is not great"

jesus died for our sins. really. what to you make of a guy that "sacrifices" his life for his fellow man. takes all the credit for it, but doesnt die because he comes back to life.

see also.

forgave mankind for all sins. really. thanks mate for forgiving that rapist or murderer. im sure that victims found that a very noble prospect.

cheeky twat more like! [my version not chris hitchens].

[UKRuss]

I have had some sad discussions in recent times with british adults that give me great concern about the general standard of thinking and education, particularly when rational thought is subverted by their religious beliefs.

I have a middle aged muslim colleague who recounted a trip he had been on over lunch one day. He told me about these large grave of ancient folk that had been buried somewhere near mecca. The tour guide told him that the graves were large because people were larger a lomng time ago. The6y had to be larger and stronger to fight the dinosaurs. I just felt sad.

I'm fortunate that I work directly across the road from a humanist centre which at the time had a lovely fossil exhibition particularly showing early hominid skulls, clearly much smaller than our own and tested to be millions upon millions of years younger than any dinosaur fossil.

I took him to see the exhibition to try and explain that people did not coexist with dinosaurs and that early primates were much smaller than we are now.

The confusion on his face told me what I needed to know. The parental and cultural brainwashing was so strong, that even when faced with irrefutable evidence that goes against your beliefs you cannot let go of the fallacy.

I just feld sad.

It's worth pointing out that we are friends and in all other matters he speaks intellgently and we are able to have fun debates about a whole range of issues. Just not one that relates to the orgin of man and the existence of god.

I am an atheist, moreover I think of myself as a humanist.

I choose the atheist route, not agnosticism, becasue I believe that the probability of a god existing based on the scientific evidence we already have is so low that it can be ignored.

Someone else I can quote but cannot remember the who said, when questioned by a religious colleague about his atheism and what he would do if he died and was then confronted by god about his not believing;

'Not enough evidence god, not enough evidence'

I also like this quote but again cannot recal who it is by;

'Good men do good things and evil men do evil things. But for good men to do evil things, takes religion'

[alex.the.forge]

All of you non believing atheist asswipes won't be so smugly self satisfied when Yog-Sothoth comes to rip out the souls you think you don't have.

And it's gonna hurt.

Don't say I didn't warn you. Or tell you so. Or something.

I think I'm safe because I think he already did it when I smoked Salvia Divinorum 10x extract. Don't know if it was Yog-Sothoth, but some fucker ripped my soul out. Love to know how to get it back.

[UKRuss]

Why, you must pray of course.

[Pitch Black]

"So why do you require the church as your middle man?"

Y'know the word "vicar" comes from vicarious. He's the man with the connection to God and we listen to him, the stand-in, the middle-man instead of an actual connection. It's entrenched in the title. It doesn't make sense to me.

William Gibson has a nice line: "I think of churches as basically franchise operations. They're like chicken franchises. But that doesn't mean that there's no chicken."

[distaudio]

Agnostic here.

Never understood the whole organised religion thing.

I usually screw up church folk by asking.
"Do you believe you have a direct relationship with God?"
Answer always comes back as "Yes, of course"

My response.
"So why do you require the church as your middle man?"

and im sure they denounce their religion do to your wit eh?
why try to strip a person of their beliefs ? i dont get it?
if they identify with something leave them alone and let them be happy.

I fail to see how this statement is me trying to strip people of their beliefs?
I'm fine with religion. I'm not fine with people imposing their beliefs on others. If they are happy in their life that is fine.

I'm merely asking people to question their beliefs and sometimes I'm trying to understand where they are coming from.

Cos ultimately beliefs are just that, beliefs. That doesn't make them necessarily true does it?

I meet people all the time that cause me to question and sometimes change my beliefs.

I find passionate people interesting and I know I can learn alot from passionate people. Religious people fall into that catergory. Coincidently, dum falls into this catergory too.

So it is simply what it is.

A question.

Which either given by right of God or country I have the right to ask.

[funky shit]

im hungover as fuck
didnt even drink that much

[distaudio]

Water. You need water.

Just the normal stuff. Not holy water.

[funky shit]

Water. You need water.

Just the normal stuff. Not holy water.

on it now.
felt like death this morning, couldn't walk. had to get my da to make me shit loads of cornflakes

it because i was sweating it out last night and didn't hydrate after words.

[beats me]

"So why do you require the church as your middle man?"

Generally the answer I get to that question is they feel faith and reward or results is stronger in a group, like the more people who pray for something the more likely that prayer will be heard and answered. The community aspect and support makes them feel stronger.

[distaudio]

"So why do you require the church as your middle man?"

Generally the answer I get to that question is they feel faith and reward or results is stronger in a group, like the more people who pray for something the more likely that prayer will be heard and answered. The community aspect and support makes them feel stronger.

Where, I myself feel their is a source of light and power in all individuals. No middle man required.

[UKRuss]

"So why do you require the church as your middle man?"

Generally the answer I get to that question is they feel faith and reward or results is stronger in a group, like the more people who pray for something the more likely that prayer will be heard and answered. The community aspect and support makes them feel stronger.

Again it's nice to be able to throw a little science at it. In a recent test on praying for sick people to get better the group that knew they were being prayed for recovered less quikcly than those that either weren't being prayed for at all or the group that were being prayed for but didn't know they were being prayed for. [edit]or summat similar as defined in the article below.

I agree it gives people strength, but a simple chat with somwe friends for reassurance can do that.

Scientifically, prayer is already proven not to work.

But of course the religios just thrwo the 'don't test god' argument back at ya.

[UKRuss]

Ah, here we are. I used Google and came up with this to make myself look good on the internet.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/ ... 8679.shtml

[mikemc]

I'm fine with religion. I'm not fine with people imposing their beliefs on others. If they are happy in their life that is fine.

yeh, this.

fwiw, I'd say I am "a person of faith" because bad bad things happened to me and I came to the conclusion tha I needed something to center myself and that it wouldn't hurt to give it a try, and it didn't. But it was my decision based on a number of things.

I have been subjected to attempts to proselytize me into various things and it only succeeded in really irritating me. The "belief pushers" and hyper-snap-judgemental people really are the people who ruin things for everyone, and you don't need to subscribe to religion to be one of those.

[ChiDJ]

Atheist

I believe in myself.

I find religious people overtly weak, confused and irritating. Except during sex.












Then ,all their moaning turns me on.













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