Atheism is/is not a religion

...A corporation for WHAT? We aren't selling anything. The Seventh Circuit case arose from an inmate being banned from forming a study group for atheists. I'm not sure how an inmate can form a corporation...

Lol, no they aren't. Where is the line in your scripture that you use to distinguish the commandments from... "recommendations"?

Nihilism?

[video=youtube;G2y8Sx4B2Sk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk[/video]

And man, you are so far removed from actual discussions with people. You have formed this little world in your head where atheists are declaring that you are a murderer, rapist, slave-holder, etc. because we say that your God supported these things in the Old Testament. Then your next argument is always "OH WOW SO YOU ARE SUPPORTING THE CONTINUING OF WAR... blah, blah, blah." because apparently the dismissal of these things as immoral somehow is tacit approval of some ancient war that was ended because of rape, murder, genocide, and slavery. Or so you claim.

No, our beef is that atheism isn't a doctrine that can be twisted to support violence or ANYTHING at all since it is a simple dismissal of the belief in God. You never seemed to get that. Nobody is claiming that atheists didn't do bad things, I, and others here, have been repeatedly telling you that atheism can't lead to ANYTHING since it isn't a belief system like Christianity is.

Man, do you ever do anything but whine on and on?

 

That's a hoot! Clown post deriding other people's opinion on atheism while simultaneously claiming that "God is the collective consciousness of all sentient beings in the universe"!



Puff, puff, give, brougham.

 

While it's true that billions of people believe in their own set of favorite deities it's also true that everyone is an atheist. Even the Pope is an atheist. I doubt that he believes in the slug worm god called Grits the Magnificent that lives on the giant planet Frads in the Sombrero Galaxy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...300px-M104_ngc4594_sombrero_galaxy_hi-res.jpg

 

No, I called it a 'symbolic leader'. It's the best you heathens can do.

 

But you are still confused about anyone or anything being the leader of us 'heathens'.

We don't have your pope.

 

some Christians invented intelligent Design to backdoor religion into our schools, some Atheists created there own version of Intelligent Design, named FSM to be taught wherever ID was taught to make people actually think about what was being taught

 

I don't have a pope. I'm not Catholic.

And the FSM is - like I said - the best you can do. Your beliefs aren't positive or affirming; they are reactive and generally negative. Atheists aren't generally content believing there is no God; they work hard to destroy the notion in society in general.

 

Again: atheists attempting to destroy anything they perceive as a threat to them, including ID, which is nothing like you claim. It is a legitimate science, and you hate it - and try to call it illegitimate.

Try this on for size. Dr. James A. Shapiro is a molecular biologist. He has expanded upon the work of Dr. Barbara McClintock (deceased), who have discovered that cells placed under environmental duress don't just randomly die and leave survivors with accidental mutations able to handle the difficult environment. Instead, the cells seem to intentionally restructure themselves to cope with the new difficult environment, and survive via programmed responses.

That blows an enormous hole in Darwinian Evolution, because it utterly refutes punctuated equilibrium. It begs the question of "genetic cellular intelligence".

And you atheists never saw it coming.

 

Lololololol, nobody hates it, we just see through the thin veil that these Christians have shrouded creationism in.

I'll be honest, most of this stuff goes over my head and I have been interested in molecular biology as a "hobby" for years. But, from what I understand, you (and Dr. Shapiro) are misrepresenting McClintlock's work. After reading through the comments, I am going to have to agree with the commenter SwiftJonathon.

And a conversation with Dr. Shapiro and SwiftJonathon is a good summary of what is actually going on here:

 

I hate to tell you this, but even if every biologist in the world agreed evolution was wrong, they still wouldn't choose ID as the replacement theory because ID is not legitimate science in any sense of the word. It does not make predictions, there have been no experiments proving any part of it and it is not falsifiable. Sorry, but ID is still a fail.

Also, evolution does not prove there is no God (sorry FreedomSeeker). It just shows that there doesn't HAVE to be a God involved.

 

Also, I see no refutation of punctuated equilibrum, nor even a mention of the theory proposed by Gould in the second link. How does this refute punctuated equilibrium or have any relation to it at all?

 

That has to be one of the lamest excuses I have ever seen. It is also the most significant weakness of science. So weak that it reeks of admission of impotence. So weak, that Christians have to acknowledge the Glory of God, because the scientists laying claim to the non falsifiability of religion are admitting that they cannot disprove anything about God. How weak can science really be?

Fal´si`fi`a`ble
a. 1. Capable of being falsified, counterfeited, or corrupted.
2. able to be proven false, and therefore testable; as, most religious beliefs are not falsifiable, and are therefor outside the scope of experimental science.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.

 

Atheism is inherently a religious view point, after all without theism there is no atheism, however that doesn't make it a religion though these days the atheist do more prosletyzing than most Christians.

 

G, do you understand the dynamics of that case?

If atheism is NOT a religion, than it is not protected as religious speech. Because, in prison, the authorities have every right to block expressions for the benefit of communal safety. Ergo, atheism is either religious and thus proetcted free speech, or its merely, as some atheists have stated in this forum, merely the expression of a non-opinion - with nothing to block, becaus there is nothing spoken ... except adament denials that atheism is a religion ... even as it seeks protection as protected religious speech.

Personally, I don't care if atheists call themselves pink. What I do care about is the delineation that MUST be made between organzied atheism and what it is doing (which is something that has MUCH to criticize) and individual atheists, many of whom are fine upstanding people ... until you mention religion around them

 

Maybe if you actually took two minutes to read what I wrote, you would know that I did.

Let me fix that first sentence or you: If atheism is NOT designated a religion for First Amendment purposes under our legal system, than it is not protected as religious speech.

Bold words are the ones I added to your sentence, I even kept the misspelling of then to make sure you knew I was not trying to mince your words. There is a distinct difference between considering atheism as a religion for a specific legal purposes and considering it a religion in the more general sense of the word which we find in dictionaries.

 

is theism a religion? or does it describe a set of religions\beliefs?


.

 

We have already had two people claiming that theism is a religion and that the religions under the branch of theism are actually "sects". So, basically, people are trying to change the definitions of words to fit their view. I actually have to commemorate them on being consistent; if you are calling atheism a religion you HAVE to admit that theism is also.

 

And, of course, that does not apply to atheists who have come up with one delineation after another ... only to fail to apply such delineations to themselves.

 

Ah, yes, vagueness again from you. Delineations about WHAT?

 

Clearly you did not, which is why you made the point and asked what the case had to do with it? Now you get an answer and whine?

I suggest you run back off to the mods G.

Who gives a rip whether or not its designated by the ever changing standards of atheism. Maybe you should invest two minutes and read the last part of what I wrote?

Like?

Other than the fact it seems very hard for atheists to admit that their precious faith in what there ... er, religion is, I see nothing wrong with it. After all, its not like atheists are coming up with an alternative clasification, are they - a non-opinion? Right, that's why you are in a debate forum!?!

No, it points to the very thing you denied - the nihilistic tendancies in atheism, ergo, atheism cannot be religion because atheists hate religion.

Well here is a story for you - George Lucas created Star Wars, as everyone knows, but he constantly fought with the studio executives and was thoroughly disgusted by it. So he formed his own studio, Lucasfilm, and one day, as an executive, he stopped and realized he was making the same kind of calculations that the former executives were maing that drove him nuts - the organization he built had to deal with the same risks vs rewards in the economic reality of film making ... Lucas is wiser for it.

Now, atheism, relatively young, is organizing and feeling it oats, but the more it has to adjust to the reality of ideological AND RELIGIOUS speech, the more it is apeing the very thing it perports to hate. It organizes, HOLDS MEETINGS IN PRISON, raises funds, produces doctrine, funds policy iniatives, and MUST create a public narrative is any of those endeavors are to be even remotely successful. In short, its becoming the very thing it hates ... but go ahead, deny that its taking place ... then it isn't taking place.

The real problem, when people critcize these efforts and the severe shortcomings in there ... well, let me give you a few examples of what atheists say:

#1 - Geez, you are so stupid you don't understand atheism (which is just one sentence), therefore the organization and its actions, which are clearly supported by atheists and whose arguements regularly grace this forum do not exist?

#2 - You hate us, we are persecuted.

#3 - What are you talking about? Not ALL atheists behave that way! How dare you generalize! Yep I just compared you to Hilter and called you a slaver.

In short, atheists are simply attempting to ply both sides of the same coin - but when you have no doctrine or standards .. I guess that is .. acceptable?

 

The entire thread that you just skipped ... again.

 

I suggest you stop lying.

Here is what you said:

"As you will notice, as as earlier pointed out, atheism could have sought legal standing in many other venues, as Wolverine points out with the NFL, it could have sought legal standing as a corporation. It chose religion, and now, well ... some atheists want it both ways?"

Here is my reply:

"...A corporation for WHAT? We aren't selling anything. The Seventh Circuit case arose from an inmate being banned from forming a study group for atheists. I'm not sure how an inmate can form a corporation..."

You then asked me if I understood the dynamics of the case. I just told you what the dynamics of the case were after you stupidly suggested that we could gain the same freedoms under the First Amendment which is simply untrue since the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses only refer to religions.

Can you at least attempt to write readable sentences instead of vague pieces of crap? What is the "it" you are referring to in this sentence?

Like? Well... I don't know, how about you actually read the opinion where the Seventh Circuit spefically mentions that it is considering what is generally considered to be a nonreligion in layman terms to be a religion solely so that certain legal obligations are upheld?

No, it cannot be a religion because it isn't a belief system with doctrines or worship of a deity, which are what most people consider to be criteria for religion since that is what dictionaries say.

Wow, Neutral, capitalized letters, you should take your own advice and settle down. Oh wait, you probably used them for emphasis instead of bolding or italicizing them because it takes longer to do that on this forum and aren't actually angry.

If you are going to keep saying that "atheism" is doing something, than I'm going to have to ask you for a picture of "An Atheism" since apparently you think atheism is a tangible entity which can do things.

Oh, wow, look, a list of strawman arguments so that you can feel superior by ignoring what the actual arguments are.

 

Neutral speak for "I don't know what the (*)(*)(*)(*) I'm talking about so I try to use fancy words that I don't actually know how to use."

If you actually knew what a delineation was, you would be able to provide specific examples FROM THIS THREAD.

 

I suggest to grow the hell up.

The point bveing that there are many way to seek legal standing, and, because you lack the intellectual capacity to connect the dots, you failed entirely to notice that any other means of seeking legal standing would have failed to garner the atheist a standing in that case ... save religion. And even though this is spelled out, you deliberately leave it out, so you can call someone a liar?

This is what I term the ever changing standards of atheism, see only what we want, not with the intent to seek truth, but slam people for daring to disagree with them in a debate froum.

Yep either I am a liar or another atheist is stupid.

And apparentlu you understand it so completely that you keep missing the point - indeed deliberately leaving it off.

Its not my fault that you are losing another debate and getting furious.

Oh, something els eyou don't get, but rather than ask, you have to insert random insults - how very atheist of you.

This is whay you are losing.

How about you just address the points made or acknowlegde that you have no case.

Your precious religion sought prtected status as a ... drum roll ... religion. But if we toss about vaccuoius claims that the opinion, which no doubt you read but have failed entirely to cite (we call this bluffing BTW), you would notice that the status was granted.

Self worship - rationalize anything.

Both corners covered.

Let me get this straight, the guy hurling insults is accusing someone of being overly angry because he types the key points in capitol letters? Which I do in quite a few posts, to many posters.

This would be another example of atheisms silliness. Random painting hanging? Atheist finally notices it and its a threat to the entire world because there is a cross on it. Place emphasis on key portions of a phrase, beeen doing so for months, atheist randomly notices it and assumes it means uncontrolled anger ... even as he bold, capitalizes, and insults.

The double standards of atheism never cease to amaze me.

http://www.atheists.org/

There you go.

Yep, that they are ... but they have all been made repatedly by atheists such as yourself. The ever changing standards of atheism strike again. When hurled at you they are valid, when listed out for them ... now they are strawmen.

This is what a lack of standards and doctrine does.

What is atheism? Everything. Nothing. SOmetimes its a religion, sometimes it is not. WHo knows? Which is the religious person saying? Well, then its the opposite.

 

Already done.

Why do you keep asking for evidence if you are going to ignore it? Right, you are an atheist. Stop making childish excuses.

Seriously, as you blow your stack yet again, I am wondering why I am even wasting mytime with you? You are rapidly becoming the lastest atheist to become a candidate for the ignore function.

Remember, befiore engaging you I asked yo several times if you were up for an actual debate. The answer is a definitive no. Now, dry your tears and try again, but this is literally the last warning. Any more shinnigans, and I'd rather not have another week of debating the mod team to demonstrate why flame baiting hoards of atheists should be held to the same standards.

I think the mod team gets it. Unfortuantely, I am as tired of the antics as they are.