Atheism as Religion

[Victus]

It's not in the bible, they wouldn't accept it.

[antix]

Francis wrote

When I see one human ridiculing the beliefs of others, I see scientists ridiculing the Wright Brothers for attempting to fly heavier than air craft. I see biologists ridiculing the Australian scientist for presuming to propose that ulcers are caused by bacteria.

Scientists are ridiculing the Wright Bros? I'd like to see some links or some other support to back up this kind of a claim. I was under the impression that the Wright Bros. were highly reguarded for their ideas for their time. Or are you making stuff up in an attempt to get a point across? If so, what exactly is your point?
... Oh... You mean this point?

Those ridiculing the beliefs of others are in embarassing historical company.

I hate to tell you this, Francis, but you are ridiculing any and all who have ever ridiculed anyone for anything. You ridiculor you. This kind of ridiculousness should not be tolerated-- only ridiculed.

I am sorry fellows, but, as for personal insults, I am firmly taking the advice of my mother. She said

"Francis, a personal attack is the sign of a failed argument"

I like debate, but as for the insults, be advised that I will be applying my mother's good wisdom and drawing the predictable conclusion about the insulter.

You mean insults like this:

Francis wrote

Humility apparently being in limited supply here, I expect little serious analysis of these issues.

I humbly state that this statement is ridiculous.

[Choobus]

I am confused. When people who belive in fairy tales come here they bitch and whine that there is no respect, that everybody here is mean and that no serious discussion ever takes place. However, when people who do not believe in fairy tales come here they are able to have interesting discussions about many topics, ranging from philosophy to science (life and physical) to anal, with practically no bitching.

Can someone help me to understand this very confusing observation, coz it just don't not make any no sense to me innit.

Kate wrote

The Shadow knows...........

The Shadow, indeed, do!

[calpurnpiso]

Francis wrote:

"Thanks for your posts, but nothing written herein gives me any pause. A large percentage of people are weak to believe themselves superior to their fellow beings. It is a human failing expressed across the board, in every population and culture. '

Nothing gives you pause because your brain has succumbed to the effects of Christ-psychosis. The delusions produce by the anomaly have already distorted your thinking. Not unlike drugs on the brain i,e alcohol, amanita muscaria, peyotl etc

"Here we are, almost microbes on the larger scale of the universe. We are scurrying about on a speck of dust we call Earth, oblivious to the VAST majority of knowledge in the universe, and yet atheists feel themselves able to declare the non-existence of something. It is as illogical as delaring disbelief in the existence of North and South America in 1200s Europe. The logical position for the existence of God is, respectfully, "Who knows". "

Remember that we mentally healthy folks, aka atheists, follow the dictum which says extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and realize that faith is always inversely proportional to the knowledge and information of the person experiencing this anomaly. The less knowledge the person has the more the faith or, the more ignorant a person is, which increases gullibility, the more faith. This applies to a healthy brain. A brain infected by this schizophrenia type anomaly does not follow this rule, for it can be very intelligent and have a lots of knowledge ( i,e autistic savants, etc) and still be very religious with lots of faith.

"With regard to claims that some here are making, that they can know what believers know, I find such claims similar to claims made by people that they know what a great artist sees, or what music a great musician imagines. It is no great leap for me to believe that some may be much more sensitive spiritually than Iam, or you folks are."

Hmmm.. I know what a believer knows for what he/she believes is the truth I with certainty know it is false for it will not pass any of my JETs. Remember, the 'spirit" is only a delusion. It does not exist. It is part of the invisible friend's imaginary realm, product of the human brain.

Please show us I'm wrong and you are right in believing that the invisible friend and its world which you regard as true can actually help you effectively acting upon matter? Here is my JET, please humbly show us poor arrogant atheists, you are right and we are hopelessly wrong:

JESUS EXISTENCE TEST- Drastic #1

Go to a top of a twenty story building bring a Babble start praying and quoting praying and still quoting and praying to the "Lord and Saviour" so he would assist you and save you when you Jumps from the top floor. Pray that "Saviour Jesus" make someone place matresses below, or make some truck driver carrying a load of sponge rubber park it below to soften your fall. This should be very easy for this "invisible lord and saviour friend of yours" since he has the ability to get into people's minds and could suggest life savings techniques to help the needed. He doesn't want everyone to die and go to him does he?

Well, the reality of it all is that "saviour Jesus" will NOT show up since prayers to invisible friends like him, including the other invisible friend, the holy tooth fairy, are never answered. Since he failed to show up or answer prayers you will find yourself splatered on the pavement below, your neurons liberated from the grey matter its atoms being the ONLY ones saved by the fall, they'll go their own way!. This clearly proves invisible friends are delusions, mental aberrations, produced by a neurological disorder. This delusion exists ONLY in brains that are infected by this anomaly. I define it as Christ-psychosis. Jesus is as real as the Tooth Fairy, Donald Duck or Santa Claus..and besides, not matter how much one would praise his "name" and pray to him he will be UNABLE to answer prayer regardless how specific they are for he doesn't exist.

______________________________

"Humility apparently being in limited supply here, I expect little serious analysis of these issues."

Since you are under the effects of Christ-psychosis which induces abundant self-righteousness and arrogance, you fail to realize that atheists are the true holders of humility, for they know and realize --unlike those under Christ-psychosis -- that the only thing they truly know is that they know nothing, so, they must constantly depend on inquiry, observations and investigations based on empiricism to better themselves, their fellow humans and theconstantly evolving planet in which they live. There is no better humility as that of an atheist that knows we are nothing more than evolved primates and no better than any other animal in this planet. A lack of humility and sign of arrogance is that of those who constantly deny this truth believing they are a product of god placing themselves above the primates whose family they part of. Remember that religious-psychosis induces self-righteousness and arrogance. The Christ-psychotics only use "humility" as a convenience to show divine origin!! ( The pope washing the feet of the poor apostles using an 18k gold bowl wearing costly campy vestments in his palace at the Vatican).

:)

Choobus wrote

do you do anal?

HAH! Made it 21 posts before the inevitable.....Francis, you are branded as "only average" in the anal question category- neither stellar nor dullard, just an average theist. Ya know, somebody of a statistical-minded nature ought to go look at the incidence of the anal question, and the post quantity when the event horizon, as it were, was reached, by each of those anal-loving theists. Not that I'm going to look. But there is likely a pretty good distribution by now.....

[antix]

logarithm wrote

HAH! Made it 21 posts before the inevitable.....Francis, you are branded as "only average" in the anal question category- neither stellar nor dullard, just an average theist. Ya know, somebody of a statistical-minded nature ought to go look at the incidence of the anal question, and the post quantity when the event horizon, as it were, was reached, by each of those anal-loving theists. Not that I'm going to look. But there is likely a pretty good distribution by now.....

We should make a scale as to the intelligence of theists who post here. How many posts before the big 'A' question from Choobus makes it's presence felt. (Assuming the question is in fact dererving. If I am not mistaken, Quaker has been respectable and thus not brought down the wrath upon himself) The scale could go something like:

#= number of posts in thread started by theists before Choobus asks the 'A' question
1 post= complete brain-dead retard. Please, for the betterment of humanity, take Cal's JET
2-5 posts= complete brain-dead retard. Choobus was probably too busy to address you proplerly. take the JET
6-10 posts= you may have had at least 1 thing to say that didn't suck. But otherwise, you really do suck. Take the JET
11-20 posts= you can at least remember to put pants on before going out in public. But still... Please consider Cal's JET
21-30 posts= you have some degree of intellect, but nothing to write home about. Cal's JET is strongly suggested
31+ posts= you are good at deception, but ultimately you are retarded. Again, Cal's JET is waiting for you.

if the question does not get asked, congradulations. You are a reasonable thiest worthy of intellectual conversation and debate. Welcome to the forum. (Although Cal's JET is still an option)

This is only a rough draft. Please feel free to adjust and alter this scale as is appropriate.

[Tenspace]

logarithm wrote

The Shadow, indeed, do!

Dude, to remember that, you must be the oldest guy on the boards. Congratuations! (and thanks for keeping me from the title)

antix wrote

We should make a scale as to the intelligence of theists who post here. How many posts before the big 'A' question from Choobus makes it's presence felt. (Assuming the question is in fact dererving. If I am not mistaken, Quaker has been respectable and thus not brought down the wrath upon himself) The scale could go something like:

#= number of posts in thread started by theists before Choobus asks the 'A' question
1 post= complete brain-dead retard. Please, for the betterment of humanity, take Cal's JET
2-5 posts= complete brain-dead retard. Choobus was probably too busy to address you proplerly. take the JET
6-10 posts= you may have had at least 1 thing to say that didn't suck. But otherwise, you really do suck. Take the JET
11-20 posts= you can at least remember to put pants on before going out in public. But still... Please consider Cal's JET
21-30 posts= you have some degree of intellect, but nothing to write home about. Cal's JET is strongly suggested
31+ posts= you are good at deception, but ultimately you are retarded. Again, Cal's JET is waiting for you.

if the question does not get asked, congradulations. You are a reasonable thiest worthy of intellectual conversation and debate. Welcome to the forum. (Although Cal's JET is still an option)

This is only a rough draft. Please feel free to adjust and alter this scale as is appropriate.

Yeah, bud, this is like taking the 5th for criminal perps on the witness stand in front of a grand jury.

btw, Moderator person of the moment, please take this tripe OUT of the Sciences area. It is an insult to all the bivalves of the universe to have Francis' questions so close by. It belongs over in the Atheist VsTheist thread. The dumbasses aren't getting any action there, so they are posting their drivel here instead.

Tenspace wrote

Dude, to remember that, you must be the oldest guy on the boards. Congratuations! (and thanks for keeping me from the title)

Hey, you young pup, I am a mere 53.666 years old. Mind your manners!:lol:

[Demigod79]

Francis: The reason that atheists do not believe in God is the same reason that atheists do not believe in unicorns, fairies, or goblins. Now, it's possible that all these things exist but it wouldn't help us to assume that any do. Afterall, would you go around searching for goblins because of the possibility that they exist? Would you scour the universe for unicorns because it's possible they exist? Furthermore, would you build a religion based on these things and tell people to worship unicorns or goblins because of the mere possiblity of them? I don't know about you, but my answer would be a resounding NO. Science operates on a "false, until proven true" basis and anything that hasn't been proven to exist is by default, false (does not exist). The only way to gain any knowledge is to build upon those things that we absolutely know to exist right now.

Of course this is not to say that we can definitely know whether something exists or not. Our current base of knowledge is by no means complete, and even what we know might not be accurate. It's very likely that we will discover new things in the future which will cause us to revise our old ideas (it's happened before, and it will most likely happen in the future -- it's, afterall, how science operates). However, until such discoveries are made we should not assume anything about the existence of anything which we do not know of. Just because someone floated an idea of some divine being thousands of years ago and wrote it in a book doesn't mean such a being exists. It's just one idea among the many in history which haven't (and cannot) be proven.

Plus, what's the big deal with god anyways? No one pays any attention to the existence of dragons or mermaids (even though they're much more likely to exist than the Christian god!). Everyone is an atheist about dragons and mermaids (atheism is the default position for anything unproven). It's actually the person who says that such beings exist who is out of line, and it's up to them to prove it. What's unreasonable and illogical is to take an unproven assumption and spread it around like it's the truth (and the only truth). That in itself is reason enough for ridicule in my opinion.

Of course it's not just the unproven nature of god that rouses my skepticism. It's the way that religion has traditionally functioned (and the way it still functions today). The idea of god is an ancient one that goes back many millenia and it was used to explain things that people couldn't explain. People in the ancient world just couldn't explain natural occurances, why the rain falls, why the sun rises and sets, why there are seasons, and why people die. They came up with god(s) to explain these things out of their own ignorance (which is not to say that they were stupid, but they just didn't and couldn't know any better). They saw the sun moving across the sky and said, "there must be a sun-god driving a fiery chariot across the sky". They observed storms and said, "the gods must be stirring up the ocean". They experienced earthquakes and said, "one of the gods must have struck the earth and split the earth". God was also used as a moral guide. For example, the Chinese believed in what's called the "mandate of heaven", which heaven bestows to emperors who rule wisely (and takes away from emperors who did not). They attributed diseases and death to man's evil doings and made purification rituals. They established rules for living which they authorized by the will of a divinity. In every single human culture religion has been employed in these ways (except maybe for some eastern traditions). This leads me to conclude that religion is nothing more than ancient mankind's attempt to understand the universe and make sense of right and wrong. God is just a creation of mankind to fulfill the purpose of religion. Of course nowadays we don't need such explanations. We have the laws of nature and principles of science to explain things that happen in the world, and there is secular morality to guide us in the right direction. We do not need to resort to god or divine explanations for the way the world works. Now, I don't blame our ancestors for resorting to divine explanations; if I was in the same situation I would probably have done the same thing. I do not ridicule them, but I do ridicule people in the modern age who still believe in such things. Frankly, they should know better, with all the knowledge we have obtained and the truths we have established. They're essentially turning a blind eye to reality and choosing to believe in ancient tales. They are being willfully ignorant and what's worse, they're spreading their ignorance to others. This is one of the many reasons I fight against religion and all other types of superstition.

Francis sounds like a good candidate for atheism. His grammatical skills show him certainly capable of grasping its few and concise tenets, and his disinclination to adequately respond shows that he may have already done so indeed. Most atheists ramble on making greater fools of themselves as they go. I hypothesize that that he is already slowly changing after reading here.

[Choobus]

logarithm wrote

HAH! Made it 21 posts before the inevitable.....Francis, you are branded as "only average" in the anal question category- neither stellar nor dullard, just an average theist. Ya know, somebody of a statistical-minded nature ought to go look at the incidence of the anal question, and the post quantity when the event horizon, as it were, was reached, by each of those anal-loving theists. Not that I'm going to look. But there is likely a pretty good distribution by now.....

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

seriously, you are such a geek! When a condensed matter/atomic physicist calls you a geek, you're a fucking geek!

Not that there's anyithing wrong with that. Do you suppose the investigation you allude to would turn up a Gaussian distribution? I think it would have to be quite asymmetric in favour of the long tail, because I'm such a reasonable mother fucker, and always give total cunts far more benefit of the tard than they really deserve.

Hi Francis,

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Religious people have made extraextraextraordinary claims and have yet to provide a shred of supporting evidence.

You are right that when a scientist makes an extraordinary claim that it will often be met with massive scepticism. Sometimes the scepticism is motivated by genuine disbelief, sometimes because the new claim might contradict a scientists hypothesis/pet theory. Any extraordinary claim is scrutinised. If the claim is supported by evidence and can stand the test of time scientists will no longer have any grounds for the scepticism. Science is progressive. It is very slowly progressive and big claims will need lots of evidence. Pasteur provided the evidence now germ theory is fully accepted.

Give us one shred of credible evidence and everybody here would gladly drop to their knees and please Jesus. It would be great if we had the big guy in the sky watching out for us, but unfortunately it is just wishful thinking.

Choobus wrote

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

seriously, you are such a geek! When a condensed matter/atomic physicist calls you a geek, you're a fucking geek!

Not that there's anyithing wrong with that. Do you suppose the investigation you allude to would turn up a Gaussian distribution? I think it would have to be quite asymmetric in favour of the long tail, because I'm such a reasonable mother fucker, and always give total cunts far more benefit of the tard than they really deserve.

Touché. But then, I also admitted to scoring in the 87th percentile on the online nerd test. So, at least I am true to form. And, yes, you are reasonable, and yes, these idjits deserve anal violation with a near-molten tire changing implement. Sometimes it takes weeks and dozens of posts before you request they like the act. I think you are right, there should be a long tail on the side of post counts, although some people get it with 3 or 4, if egregious enough.