~why johnny (atheist) can't beleive ~ and the cure~

It's not bad, though the comparison leaves out just how dangerous and disruptive religion ultimately is and has shown itself to be throughout history. Nothing of the sort could be said for collecting butterflies

I mention it because the theists seem to be taking issue with having atheists step up and speak out against their belief systems. Few would try to talk a bug collector out of collecting bugs, but then there isn't really a good reason to do so. Religion, on the other hand, does deserve to be addressed.

 

I think that is an argument in semantics. Regardless of how an argument is phrased, no one can make you believe anything. I can tell you why you should believe something, I can even hold a gun to your head and make you say you believe it, but it won't make you believe it.

 

I'm agnostic....but I do believe in logic and consistancy in arguments.

And I've notice that line from some theists (mostly Christian) who say "Atheists are so crazy, they believe the Universe came from nothing and wasn't created."....

and then you ask the "Who created God?" and they say "Nobody created God."....thus embracing the very thing they mocked just before.

 

It's not a perfect analogy.....butterfly collectors don't usually try to impose their "butterfly collector" morality on non-butterfly collectors, or demand that butterfly collecting be mandatory curriculum in schools.

But it works for the "atheism is a religion" meme....or another might be "If atheism is a 'religion'....does that mean that 99% of us belong to the Church of Frodo Baggins Was Fictional-Reformed?"

 

I have always thought I have no choice what I believe. I was raised a fundy, went through a period that I left the Church and did not even think about it, then over the years I drifted back and believe in God. I could not right now sit here and change my mind. Can anyone do that?

 

I don't think you'll find too many atheists who are unreasonably certain about a given opinion about how the universe came into being.

Incidentally, I think it's the product of a singularity, and that black holes could well be the same phenomenon or a different variation of it, such that they, too, might spawn "universes" of their own, perhaps somewhere beyond their event horizons and existing in their own "space" apart from ours.

What I know for certain is that the universe as we observe it is a vast and immensely mysterious thing.

 

Are you an a-middle-earthist?

Blimey! Next thing you'll tell me you're a-hyborianist, too!

 

Actually, it's quite common...and the basis for a lot of these "I was an atheist 'my whole life'...but finally came back to God" stories.

This anecdote (especially common on TV religious shows) typically has a bit of a "flaw" in the "miraculous redemption"....that being?

The person was NOT an "atheist their whole life"...they were in fact raised in a Christian surrounding and rejected it at an early age, again typically teenager, due to dogmatism, bigotry, etc.

Then 30 years later, as an adult, often at a moment of existential crises they "come back to God"....and it's supposed to be a "miracle" an "atheist who 'never' believed in God, suddenly believing"...

when all it really is is, reverting back to their childhood teachings.

I don't doubt the personal impact....but it's RARELY a "life-long atheist who suddenly realizes everything they believed was wrong."

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Is NOT believing in Crom, god of the Cimmerians, a "religion"???

 

Change your mind? Seems you don't even have control of what you believe.

 

I noticed this sort of position being expressed by "Dr. Ray" on some Catholic TV show. He claimed to have left the Catholic church at one point, to have "wandered," as he called it. Then he purportedly returned to the Catholic church because he figured it was Christ's true church.

He apparently never got so far as doubting Yahweh and Jesus as real, whereas it's something I had to contend with right from my late teens to early twenties, I would have to estimate. I don't remember exactly when my intellect started to rebel against the notion of the Lutheran triune god, but it did start happening many years before I finally gave up on the faith and embraced the universe as I truly perceive it.

 

If the stories of Conan had been presented to people a few thousand years ago as history, with Conan and the Cimmerians perhaps being meant to characterise the history of the people to whom it was being told, I have no doubt that those people would have embraced those stories as true. Add the whole jealous god complex to the mix, and you have a made-up history reinforced by promises of pain and delight depending on a person's choice of belief, which in itself is a bad idea, as people can't really choose a belief on any fundamental level. Beliefs stem from inside us, from what we think and feel deep down. Any other "belief" is forced, and that's what organised religion seems to be out to do - to force and coerce belief through threats and various other forms of manipulation..

 

Robert Howard drew on Norse and Celtic mythology for "Conan". But then again a "mythology" is nothing more than a religion whose followers are all dead.

Crom and the Cimmerian after-life actually solve a lot of problems of theodicy. Crom is a "mirthless" god who is rather Deistic and it's better "not to catch his attention, lest he send a doom upon you."

The Cimmerian after-life is a vast, foggy wasteland.....equally dispensed to both the moral and immoral barbarians. Yet interestingly, Conan follows a firm code of morality that is kindly and beneficient, except to enemies who attack or threaten him.

 

Agreed about actually "make" someone believe. The Spanish Inquisition tried it. Didn't work. The atheists Stalin and Mao tried it. Didn't work. The Shah of Iran tried it. Didn't work.

My reference wasn't to the feasibility of it working but to the action of trying it such as Dawkins' recommending mocking theists.

 

On this part, we can agree. I went full circle from a believer to agnostic to full blown atheist to a believer again, albeit not the church-going type of Christian you mentioned.

I'm curious about what lies beyond. There's something, but I don't know what it is. The universe came from somewhere and I'm amused by the atheists here who say that has nothing to do with the conversation or who plead disinterest because it's unimportant to them.

 

Agreed. Do you also agree just because there are a few loud-mouth pushy Christians spouting Creationism, that it doesn't mean all Theists or Christians are that way either?

The theory the Universe emitted from a black hole is one I've heard before. It still doesn't answer the question of origin. Once science revealed the Universe was accelerating and calculated that it doesn't have enough mass to collapse as theorized, we run into the question of origin.

 

I am an Agnostic but let me help you with your concern. The origin of the universe has been discussed by philosophers and scientists for just about as long as the universe has existed ( slight exaggeration) and no conclusion or agreement has been achieved. Sometimes it is just better to move on when you realize that continuing discussion isn't going to reach a conclusion.

 

How do you know there is something lying beyond? Could you be confusing wishful thinking for special insight?

Not sure why you're amused by people who don't give a toss about this stuff. None of us has the first clue, so anything mere mortals comes up with is going to be the product of zero information + a ton of wishful thinking.

 

And they don't even realize it. Well god is the alpha and omega. Always existed. Really? How is that so?

 

Again, why can't one ask "Where did God come from?"....if "the unverse came from somewhere"?

As for the after-life?...a 50-100 mg dose of ketamine will convince you of it....just ask Dennis Tate.

Personally, I think the idea was born of both existential horror...and cave guys who saw their family and friends "stop moving", but not just disappear....and thought "The 'thing' that makes them move has left them and gone somewhere."

And thus the "soul" was born....from people who had no concept of neuro-electrical impulses.

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Flip it on them.

Declare "the Universe" is the alpha and omega and has always existed and had no Creator. Aside from "No, it's different!!!!!"....what could they say against that without contradicting themselves?

 

Ask away. The answer will be as provable for the first question as the second.

As for Dennis Tate, I Googled it. Came up empty. What does ketamine have to do with this?

Your beliefs are your own and as provable as mine. Enjoy!

 

1. Exactly my point. But a person can't say "Everything HAD to be created by somebody"...and then say "God wasn't created by somebody".

2. That was a joke. "Dennis Tate" is our local blogger with an obsession with Near Death Experiences (which have been shown to be easily emulated by ketamine).

3. Nothing's provable as it relates to religion. The fundamentalist Christians....hell, the fundamentalist MUSLIMS may have the "Right Answer". No way of knowing.

 

Which is the logical and purely secular point of view. To do otherwise is to dive headfirst into belief. Now, I don't give a rat's patootie if someone believes the Universe was created by the Great Turtle or that whales are sacred. Those are beliefs and up to the individual. What I do care about is when people seek to legislate their beliefs. Be they theists or atheists, I object to anyone forcing their beliefs upon others.

 

I don't. Unlike you, your fellow atheists and pushy theists, I admit I don't know. I recognize it's a matter of belief. My brain tells me there are some important questions regarding existence. The aforementioned question of the Universe's origin being one of them.

 

Show me a quote from any atheists that states they know what happens when someone dies?

REJECTING THE CLAIMS OF THOSE WHO SAY THEY KNOW IS NOT CLAIMING THAT SAME KNOWLEDGE.

 

^^^Thanks for providing the evidence to your question.

How can you support or reject anything without evidence? You can disagree, but an honest person admits they as clueless as anyone else about what, if anything, lies beyond the Universe or this mortal coil.

EDIT: PS. I really like the caps. It proves your position. /sarcasm