Atheism is not a claim that there is no god - it really isn't. Please try to get your head around that.
Needed to be said again.
Why aren't you an Atheist?
by Bloody Hotdogs! 697 Replies latest jw friends
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OUTLAW
Outlaw said:
I would need Faith to take a side..And.. Use words like "indicate"..LOL!!..
Uh, just what exactly do you think "indicate" means? Have you not heard of say, an "air-speed indicator"?
Aside from the ordinary faith required that it is operating properly (eg as the brake example I gave earlier),
do you see any need for faith when using those?
Definition of indicate:
Point out; show: "dotted lines indicate the margins".KS
An air speed indicator is a solid object you can see and touch..
You can prove it exists..
An air speed indicator shows you what speed you are going..
You simply have to look to the ground to prove your actually moving..
So there is proof involved ..
When someone uses the word "indicate" with no proof to back it up..
(Reminds me of when the WBT$ uses the word "Evidently"..LOL!!)
Thats when you need Faith/Trust that your right..
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...OUTLAW -
Christ Alone
Funny, KS, that you didn't read the book or research this subject, yet you have given your grand write off "Next". Do you do the same thing with science? I think maybe you do. Many claim to leave JWs, THOROUGHLY examine Christianity, and then give it up based on the evidence. Funny, I keep to trying to find one that has actually done it and not just claim to. But what I find is that they leave JWs, then they start researching atheism instead of Biblical Christianity and then they leave. I'm having a hard time find (with maybe the exception of cofty) those that gave historic Christianity a chance and then left. No, from my experience (and I'm only speaking from what I alone have seen), they leave, attempt to disprove the Bible and God, and then are happy with the label atheist or agnostic.
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NewChapter
Funny stuff..Loved it..
Yep. My god is a pimply faced teenaged boy with raging hormones that sneezed on his science experiment, thereby providing us with the whole of our organic matter, then we got thrown into the garbage. The catastrophic event that wiped out the dinasours was the direct hit that earth took when his mother chucked his collection of girly magazines on top of it.
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Christ Alone
No, that would not be accurate. They come up with Theories. Theories are always open to falsification, and a scientist loves to falsify a theory.
Yes, I know that is the claim, and the truth in many cases. However, they are happy with pronouncing everyone else that doesn't agree with them as delusional. How does that fit in? They wouldn't "love to falsify" a theory that would suggest that the universe has an Intelligent Designer, would they? No, they would resist it as hard as they can (like they now do). You see, the claim just doesn't fit the reality. Sort of like the claim that the Watchtower shows true love doesn't fit the reality. (Yes, maybe a fallacy, but I liked the sound of it)
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King Solomon
NC said:
Because the scientific method did exactly what it is in place to do----it weeded through the information, old and new, and brought us every closer to the full picture.
In business circles, it is called continuous process improvement: keeping the good to build upon it, and throwing out the unneccessary or useless.
Of course, the approach used by religion is the EXACT OPPOSITE, the antithesis: ultra-orthodox conservative, based on "even if it's broke, why throw it out" thinking. The appeal is to tradition ("That's the way my Church has done it for thousands of years!") which is used to justify resistance to ALL changes (including the elimination of slavery, genocide, woman's rights, etc).
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OUTLAW
Atheism is not a claim that there is no god - it really isn't.
Please try to get your head around that....Nic
Nic..
The dictionaries don`t agree..
Is there a special kind Atheism of non belief in dieties,that dosen`t include not believing in god or gods?
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...OUTLAWAtheism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "Atheist" redirects here. For other uses, see Atheist (disambiguation).
Part of a series on Atheism Concepts History Arguments for atheism - Arguments against God's existence
- Argument from free will
- Argument from inconsistent revelations
- Argument from nonbelief
- Argument from poor design
- Atheist's Wager
- Fate of the unlearned
- God of the gaps
- Incompatible-properties argument
- Oblivion
- Omnipotence paradox
- Problem of evil
- Problem of Hell
- Russell's teapot
- Theological noncognitivism
- Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit
People Related concepts Agnosticism [show] Irreligion [show] Naturalism [show] Secularism [show] Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. [1] [2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. [3] [4] [5] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. [4] [5] [6] [7] Atheism is contrasted with theism, [8] [9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. [9] [10]
The term atheism originated from the Greek ?θεος (atheos), meaning "without god(s)", used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word "atheist" lived in the 18th century. [11]
Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical. Atheists cite a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of supernatural entities such as gods. [12] [13] Other rationales for not believing in any deity include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief. [12] [14] Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, [15] [16] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. [17] Many atheists hold that atheism is a more parsimonious worldview than theism, and therefore the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of God, but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism. [18]
Atheism is accepted within some religious and spiritual belief systems, including Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Neopaganmovements [19] such as Wicca, [20] and nontheistic religions. Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not advocate belief in gods, [21] whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but some schools view the path of an atheist to be difficult to follow in matters of spirituality. [22]
Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world today is difficult. [23] According to one estimate, atheists make up about 2.3% of the world's population, while a further 11.9% are nonreligious. [24] According to another, rates of self-reported atheism are among the highest in Western nations, again to varying degrees: United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%). [25] According to a 2009 report by the American Religious Identification Survey, people claiming to adhere to "no religion" made up 15% of the population in the
athe·ism
noun \ ' a-the- ? i-z?m\
Definition of ATHEISM
1 archaic:ungodliness, wickedness 2 a: a disbelief in the existence of deity
b: the doctrine that there is no deity -
Finkelstein
They are not naturally atheist. They are naturally believers in the supernatural. They haven't learned about Santa Clause or any other fiction. But they believe, even sub consciously, in a designer.
True, but not completely, for its a blend of their own inherent ignorance with their self expressive imagination that creates
their supernatural beliefs. Similar in effect or result of why the ancient civilizations came to the belief in their specific supernatural beliefs
and creation of the many various deities.
supernatural beliefs = human ignorance
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NewChapter
Funny, I keep to trying to find one that has actually done it and not just claim to.
May I introduce myself to you? As I stated, I had no notion of a god before I was around 4. After that, in second grade, a neighbor started taking me to church, where I was involved in all the youth programs. From there I went to Catholic school, and had to investigate their take on it. After that, I went to a school with many fundamental Christians, where I went to their bible studies and churches. I also attended UCC church (primarily) at that time. I bought books about the bible and Christianity, and asked many questions.
Then I graduated, and started asking deeper questions and reading the bible. I was also exposed to pagans, wiccans, Buddhists, and many different flavors of Christianity. I questioned them all, and looked into all of it. I listened to Christian radio every day, and opened my bible to study along with them. I found a lot of conflict, even from one show to the next, but I was not discouraged. Forward I moved. I did stop when I was snagged by the JW's, but after a while, I no longer looked at religions, but the existence of God. I had been piling up facts in my mind for a long time, and they all came together suddenly with the realization that I didn't believe in God. I did not chuck the JW's. I had no problems with them at the time. I chucked my belief in God, and I hadn't even read Dawkins.
Through my study of history and anthropology, I came to understand the long parade of gods that humans have created, how different they were, how they changed with culture, and I realized that given the very new nature of the bible god, it was just very unlikely that after our long search for a god, that this particular god was THE god. Every culture thinks their gods are the end-alls. They never were. I see how flawed species are from a design standpoint, but how perfectly harmonious some poor engineering is with evolution and no agent.
All believers have similar experiences that they take for proof. All of them. The only difference is how they define that god. But guess what. Atheists also have similar experiences, and they don't attribute them to a god. Why would that be? Because we are emotional beings, and those emotions can be brought on by many different stimuli. This is no proof of gods.
Don't dismiss the many layers some of us have lifted to come to our conclusion. These are not decisions made without a great deal of thought. To only blow up the JW god is not enough---the entire concept must be challenged. I have done that. It is not necessary to do it religion by religion, although that can certainly broaden the investigation, but is only necessary to look at the concept.
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Tylinbrando
Outlaw:
You simply have to look to the ground to prove your actually moving..
LMAO
...OUTLAW
![The Greek word "atheoi" ("[those who are] without God") as it appears on the early 3rd-century Papyrus 46](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ephesians_2,12_-_Greek_atheos.jpg)