/atheism/ - Atheism

Alex's baby is putting out all the bait.

>>4548
Forget about it, anon, it's the internet.

Everyone is an asshole on the internet. The most shocking and offensive threads get the most hits.

>>4594
>That's not really fair though.
Except it is.
>Theres a difference between attacking religion and being obnoxious about it.
Yeah obnoxious is believing in religion.
>These people have had this shit hammered into them ever since they were a little kid. Unlike kids grown up in atheist families like you might have been, these people have been unwillingly taught to do mental gymnastics and wash out all the questioning thoughts. They don't entirely realize what they say and how they act, because they've been trained to think that what they say and do is completely rational and justified.
Exactly why we don't want these people in our society, they're beyond reason. Doesn't matter if they were unwillingly conditioned or not.

>Some atheists who were formerly religious are still struggling to get this shit out of their system and completely stop believing in god somewhere deep down, because it can take a long time. Call them weak willed, call them what you will, the fact is that religion gets deeply ingrained in human beings, and it can take a lot to get it out, to the point where only they can truly do it.
And the most effective way to weed this out of society is to weed out the people who hold these beliefs from society.

>That's why I try to have some bit of respect for religious people
Because you don't see the mistake you're making, gotcha.

> just like I try to have respect for people like you who have probably had enough with religious people effecting society, and possibly handle their anger wrong.
Please save me your multicultural hipster smuggery. As far as I'm concerned you're in the wrong, it's because of people like you who should know better why religion persists, if we just wiped them out once and for all and established a society that was based on skepticism we'd be done with them.

>>4596
>there are alot of views that are waay more dangerous than religious ones that get to vote.
Eliminate democracy then.

>I think when you look at the general set of crazy out there views in modern society, religion is probably among the most benign.
No way, and I'd argue the crazy stems from religion being so ingrained in our society. Look at atheists now so many have a Christian background hence why so many become humanists and egalitarians, it falls right in line with their Christian morality.

>opposing evolution
This is a problem because it skews their reasoning of our behaviors and society from why we developed to what we are.

>opposing gay marriage
Should we even have marriage? And why not redefine marriage to reproductive couples? Benefits should maybe be solely to those who give birth.

>opposing abortion
This is a problem, we should screen fetuses before they are allowed to gestate. Letting people be born with trisomy 21 is just cruel.

But you're not getting at the fundamental reason why having religious people around is detrimental. namely they abide by a fictitious book over reason. This is the danger. They perpetuate stupid reasoning and this can lead to a lot of shit as it has and will again.

See the problem with religion is it stands in the way of reason and for that reason alone having people who uphold this irrationality in society is detrimental, the implications follow from there.

Also why focus only on Christard crazy?

Pisslamists are violent and retarded in other ways which have shown to be detrimental. Pic very related.

>>4622
Atheism is just the lack of belief in gods, that's the true nature. You really can't pigeonhole us this way. There are atheists from all over the political and apolitical spectrum without contradicting atheism.

Also the approval of idiots like you means nothing. Well maybe there would be reason to be worried if you morons did approve considering how wrong you are.

>>4548
>why are you such assholes?
Because we are on an anonymous image board. It has nothing to do with being or not being an atheist. It has everything to do with the method of communication.

>That pic
Nice straw man

>>4638
love it, made you guys a new banner

>>4664

So do you think that Christians who proselytize are obnoxious, arrogant, or assholes? Was it unfair of me to point out that it is a double standard when you characterize Atheists this way without branding Christian apologists with the same label?

Do you realize what it means that, instead of having to explain your double standard, I was able to immediately jump to a video made by someone else years ago as a response? That I was familiar enough with this sort of argument and that sort of video addressing it that I could just jump right to it?

It's an eight minute video. Hell, if you don't want to watch the whole thing, cut straight to 2:45 and start there. The point is made is thirty seconds. What you have done is such a standard cookie-cutter insult that there is already a point addressing it in cartoon form that is years old.

You have been doing this since you got here recently. You need to actually research the positions of your opponents before you start debating them. Otherwise you will step into these common mistakes which have already been debunked so many times that your opponents will be able to dismiss you quickly and easily, much to your frustration. Please, for your own sake, do your homework first. Don't just grab a bunch of tricks from creationwiki and saunter on over here thinking you've got us by the balls. There have already been many debates between atheists and the religious, and there are many atheists who have made their points in many formats, including the easily digestible form of youtube videos. Study the positions of your opponents so that you can at least attempt to refute them competently.

I would like to have this debate, but you're keeping it at an elementary level by failing to do your homework. It's more than just frustrating; it's sad to watch. Don't do this to yourself.

>>4718

>christians who proselytize honestly believe that you are going to hell for not believing, and so it's natural that they would be aggressive about trying to get you to become a part of the faith

In a world which is dominated by a vast religious majority, where do you think Atheists come from? Do you think we bud off of trees or come crawling out from the pits of the underworld? Have you considered the possibility that the majority of Atheists were raised in religious households, and are consequently familiar with the beliefs that their parents indoctrinated them into during childhood?

You've been in enough arguments with Atheists that I should expect you to already know the counter to this point. It ceases to become a caring act when someone raises skepticism about your belief in a fiery pit of torture in the afterlife. If it doesn't exist - and the burden of proof is on the one making the positive claim that it does - then all you're really doing is scaring the shit out of people with wild claims of terrifying things, and worse, convincing people that skepticism is equal to deliberately luring people into an eternal pit of torture. This narrative paints Atheists as evil pawns of Satan who are trying to get people tortured forever, which enables the faithful to treat Atheists with an enormous amount of hostility. In the end, this narrative acts as an enabling excuse for treating other people very poorly while not having to feel guilty about it. Frankly, fuck your "we just want to save people" narrative.

And anyway, I could make the "we're just trying to save you" argument too, by applying it to the real world. I want a world where infant boys don't have their genitalia mutilated from birth and excused as religious practice for the rest of their lives. I want a world where skepticism is the natural response people have to wild and poorly substantiated claims, so that cults and political extremists won't be able to sway large groups of people into horrific shit because shallow propaganda still works. I want a world where we don't have to worry about zealots trying to impose a theocracy with oppressive rules for everyone based on their superstitions about what might maybe happen to us if we don't follow the edicts of a bunch of rich old men wearing silly hats and robes. Because that kind of a world is a hell on Earth, and I want humanity to be able to break free from it. Religious credulity damages our capacity to do that, and that's why I argue against it whenever the opportunity presents itself to me. And you can rest assured that the opportunities come to me often enough that I don't have to go out actively seeking believers to deconvert. Here we are on /atheism/ right now, as you can see. I don't invade your religious safe spaces. I only rebut you in open public forums, where your opinions have to compete with everyone else's on a relatively fair playing field.

Is that a noble enough intent for you?

>Also Christians who prostelize share a message and then walk away, they don't say "debate me,"

You just contradicted yourself. You said that it's natural for Christians to be aggressive about trying to get you to become a part of the faith, and this notion of them just dropping their line and walking away completely contradicts that.

>they don't regard themselves are more rational or smarter than non-religious people,

They regard themselves as morally superior with regularity. The conflation of religion and morality is so firmly rooted into western culture that it must be deconstructed in every single debate about religion. Thankfully, holy books provide us with a very quick and easy way to do that. The religious absolutely make very positive assumptions about their character relative to Atheists, and morality is the one which simply refuses to ever go away. Atheists are right to consider themselves more skeptical than Theists, because the vast majority of Atheists had to break out of their childhood religious indoctrination against pressure from their families when it would have been easier to just Listen and Believe and ignore all the teachings except on Sundays like every other casually religious person does. That they couldn't simply abide contradiction and irrationality in their lives does entitle them to consider themselves to be more rational than the average bear - though as the SJW-infestation known as A+ has taught us, it is a title that we can lose if we don't take care to maintain it.

>and I don't believe in alot of things either, like I don't believe in souls or mind body duality,

Not much of a Christian, are you? The soul is a critical part of the Abrahamic faiths. Without it, there can be no afterlife, and the entire code of conduct uses your eligibility for entry into a pleasant or horrific afterlife as the ultimate reward and punishment system for your behavior.

>>4664
Do I really have to explain why the pic is a straw man? I thought it was pretty obvious. I mean, I remember those bus ads, and OP's pic is straight up misrepresenting and exaggerating them. À la straw man.

>>4752

I disagree. The OP image is not attempting to represent an atheist argument. It is simply declaring one who argues by means of a bus advertisement a dick.

To be specific, this is an ad hominem, as it doesn't address any argument but merely brands atheists with an insulting label. No argument was represented or addressed, so it couldn't have been misrepresented, and that's what a straw man argument is.

>>4792

>if you want to judge us all as mormons by the standard of mornomism, and call that Christianity, then really you are not worth talking to because you are not having a honest debate, you are playing with definitions

-I'm judging every branch of Christianity for what it is.
- I wrote that I was not a Mormon and talked about what I was taught.
- Are you or are you not a Catholic?
- Stop playing games. You went rambling about Mormonism which was a side thing, and not my main point. Even so, the passage I quoted is in your own fucking bible and in saying I can't use it you just threw out a piece of your bible without fucking realizing it.

>if you want to judge us all as mormons by the standard of mornomism, and call that Christianity, then really you are not worth talking to because you are not having a honest debate, you are playing with definitions

- Again stop playing games. You never dealt with my continuation of this guy's post, which you should reread. >>4733 My post was clearly about how Christians act self-righteous and spout stuff about Atheists going to hell because 1) they rejected God and 2) are inherently less moral.

>>4806
>I don't think you actually quoted a bible verse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_darkness I quoted half of a verse. You need to learn your own bible if you're going to debate with Atheists who are more educated than you.

> people are saved by grace
Yes I'm aware of that. I told you my background, and I asked you if you were Catholic but you didn't reply. How can we discuss your belief if you won't give me your denomination? Let me show you what you're saying.

> Be you
> atheists are condemned to unimaginably painful torture in hell forever
> for some reason this is okay
> I don't see a problem with God doing this to 99% of humanity, including apelike humans & cavemen from before the covenant of the bible was enforced. Not sure what happens to the animals and Neanderthalls but maybe god tortures them all in hell too.
> God loves us all.

> I rage against atheists and islam for 3 days
> Then I tell them "you're full of fury"
> I think Atheism is Anti-theism and only turning away from God because of anger
> I'm still not understanding the definition of Atheism means after 3 days of shit posting
> Mom dropped me on my head when I was a baby. That was only 6 years ago.

>What that means was explained above here >>4781 so the 'you think I'm going to hell just because I am an atheist isn't going to fly'


What you wrote in >>4781 is very hard to read and I don't know what you're trying to say. I do think most Apostates are well familiar with the passage, to the point you didn't even need to make a confusing summary. In fact you're not "giving Atheists ammunition," when you talk about what is common knowledge and to think we haven't read it just shows your tiny mind still has trouble rejecting your pre-conceived notions such as Atheists haven't read the bible / don't understand it / are unfamiliar with the most common Christian stories. Your passage from Matthew is one Christians use to describe how horrible hell is, and to prove God isn't going to let anyone come down to give relief or save you. There is nothing in it about love, only revenge. No matter how wicked the rich man was, I don't see the poor man as a good man when he essentially laughs and stabs the rich man in the eye for however long hell lasts.
I see nothing in there about anyone being redeemed, but then again, Catholics believe in purgatory too even though scripture supporting that is scant.

As a Christian either:
1) Atheists burn in hell forever (Protestants denominations generally believe this.)
2) Atheists go to suffer in purgatory for a while while certain Christians side-step this and go directly to heaven. (Catholics believe this.)

Both are horrible, but your denomination confines you to believing the second one. Atheists don't like being told, "My book says I've got better morals than you just because I believe what it says. There is no good without God, and since you don't believe in God you are the ultimate evil. You're going to hell but by comparison I'm more likely to be saved. That's why I'm going to drink ice cold water and laugh at you while you burn in hell for ages and ages. I feel so sorry for you, that you can't embrace God's love and then you too could come to heaven and we could watch Atheists burn together and mock them for infinity like good Christians. I just don't get it….why don't you want to be as nice a person as me?"

>>4777

>I don't deny that there are certain denominations that believe such things. and perhaps you were in one of those denominations, but really that's not the majority view, it is not the official view.

It's more than official doctrine and majority view, it's the simple logical conclusion that anybody can draw without any assistance from any clergy. If you are attempting to rescue someone from a pit of eternal torture and someone else is opposing your efforts, then that person is attempting to damn that person to that pit of eternal torture. It just logically follows, as long as you presuppose that there is a pit of eternal torture in the first place.

It's not rocket science why the religious think that atheists are trying to damn the souls of the wavering. No amount of goofy doublethink will prevent people from reaching these conclusions on their own, and any sufficiently passionate person will be brought to anger by the notion of someone who is trying to damn others to a terrible fate. The only way out is to deny that an eternal pit of torture even exists, which is antithetic to Christianity, or to declare that nonbelief is not disqualifying condition for keeping you out of that pit, which is also antithetical to Christianity. Christianity, regardless of sect, requires that people acknowledge Jesus as their lord and savior, so that the sacrifice of his sinless life can be used to pay for the original sin they inherited from Adam and Eve. If you don't believe that Jesus is your lord and savior, his sacrifice doesn't apply to you, and you can't be saved.

It's as plain as day in Galatians 2:16, though at least there is a bone thrown to the notion of also doing good deeds in James 2:26. But if you would like to say that Romans 2:6 specifically excludes faith as a necessary component, then I will accept that as your admission that the Bible contradicts itself explicitly.

I suppose the ability to cherry pick things you like out of the Bible while ignoring all the other shit that contradicts it is what you mean by not having an "elementary" grasp of Christian doctrine. However elementary my grasp, yours is apparently less than that.

>If you ever been with a christian that tries to convince you of the truth of the gospel, notice they don't use the rational debate strategy

Come on, don't zing yourself. It makes me feel unsportsmanlike in responding to you. I don't want to get into a boxing match with a guy who punches himself in the face.

>they use quoting bible verses and trying to explain the gospel, that's the only strategy we are supposed to use.

And as soon as someone raises a counterpoint, or points out a contradiction, then the argument is under way. And it's the atheist who was being proselytized to who gets painted as the argumentative dickwad. Amazing how you can accost people with unwanted solicitations and brand THEM as the assholes.

>You can find scriptural and doctrinal support for this too,

I can find scriptural and doctrinal support for not suffering a witch to live, too, while we're in the business of cherry picking from the Bible. When was the last time you lit up a righteous torch for Jesus? Remember, he also said that he did not come to abolish the old law, so you don't get to pull the usual "old testament stuff doesn't count," especially since you have no problem with the ten commandments, which also comes from the old testament.

>Now I'm not certain how your particular doctrine did things, but we have to judge by standard christianity

Right, right, and we have to judge Scots only by True Scotsmen, is that how we play this game? I've had enough of this nonsense.

>we don't beleive in an afterlife of weird soul spirit matter,
>this is actually in the nicene creed

"The original Nicene Creed was first adopted in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea. At that time, the text ended after the words "We believe in the Holy Spirit", after which an anathema was added."

Source: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.vii.iii.html

Right, so, no such thing as "weird soul spirit matter." Except for, y'know, the holiest of all such things, the one in the trinity itself. I guess knowing about the entire trinity and not just two parts of it is what makes my knowledge so elementary.

>For example if you were to try something like no fap, or no pre-maritial sex, you would go crazy, it would not be possible for you.

Nor should it, as neither of these things are inherently immoral.

>>4781

>now I will admit that many christians do fall short of this standard

Like all those Scotsmen who aren't True, right? Fuck off with this horseshit.

>I usually avoid quoting bible verses like this with atheists because I am afraid you will twist or misuse it, I hope you prove me wrong

Now, you know exactly what you're doing here. You're essentially banning any interpretation of any Bible verse which doesn't match your interpretation as being a "twist or misuse," and then insidiously sneer at us from your self-pedestalized position in the hopes that it will discourage anyone from using your own holy book to counter your spurious interpretations of it. A literal interpretation of the Bible in its entirety, not just the cherry-picked verses you like, show that it at least contradicts itself, and certainly demands a belief in Yahweh and Jesus as your lord and savior.

And remember, an Atheist is someone who is skeptical in the face of religious claims. All of these "we never saw you"s are there to alleviate the fear that people would have of being sent to Hell having never heard the word or seen Jesus. Atheists got the word and rejected it, so no, they are not protected by this verse.

>>4806

>first of all its not a fair argument because you are filled with so much rage its coming across in your typing

The post you are pointing to contains a picture which points out "Responding to Tone" as being a very low position on the pyramid of respectable debate tactics. You are obviously skimming over peoples' posts if you are responding to tone while pointing to a post which calls out "responding to tone" as a terrible way to compose yourself in an argument.

I can't pull you out from under the bus if you are going to throw yourself there by your own volition.

>I don't think you actually quoted a bible verse

You pre-emptively prevented anyone from doing so with your "twist or misuse" clause. If we quote the Bible, we're twisting and misusing its words. If we don't, then obviously we must not know anything about your ridiculous religion because we aren't quoting any verses from it. You've constructed a silly dichotomy whereby you win either way. Fortunately, you're only winning in your own mind by your own private definition, so it's no great loss for us.

>with the doctrines of election, salvation through grace and fewness of the saved

With the doctrines of Making Shit Up and Cherry Picking The Bits That You Like, anything is possible.

>>4907

Holy shit dude, this isn't a chatroom. You have more than enough time to go over your post and correct any errors you made along the way. You can do all kinds of things, like capitalize the first letter of every sentence, correct misspellings, fix your punctuation, double check your sentence structure, and RESPOND TO AT LEAST HALF OF WHAT YOUR OPPONENT SAID.

Holy shit, where do you get all of your confidence from? I could never let more than eighty percent of my opponent's argument go uncontested and still feel like the victor in a debate. How the hell do you manage it? What do you tell yourself to make all of this somehow make sense to you?

Are you on drugs? Are you just drunk, maybe? I'm running out of possible explanations for how you could type so poorly and run away from a debate while feeling superior about it. It boggles the fucking mind, man. I have to know.

>>4913
He tells himself that god is real.

>>4548

>Pic related

What more is there to say.