<p>^ We aren’t talking about fairy tales here. We’re talking about the Origin of the Universe, whether Morals have any justification.</p>
<p>Now, the there is no meaning to the Universe, and it’s all just a random natural process, then there’s nothing to justify any sense of morals. Any state of the universe is just as “good” as any other state. Yet virtually no people actually live by this. Therefore I believe that even most professed atheists actually have some hidden belief in some overall standard of “good” and “bad”.</p>
<p>He labeled himself a fundamentalist early in the thread. And obviously he’s a creationist. </p>
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<p>People reject evolution either because they aren’t aware of it, don’t understand it or because they’ve had had their mind warped by religious fundamentalism. The fact that life evolves is just as well confirmed as anything in science. Creationists like calling themselves “creation scientists” (the stupidest term ever made) as if they have a scientific argument to back up their crap. But that isn’t their basis! They resist anything that might challenge their holy book - plain and simple (ex. heliocentrism, evolution). Yes, there’s theistic evolution believers (although genesis doesn’t follow the order of biological or astronomical evolution at all). Creationists know their conclusion ahead of time and use deceitful arguments to “support” it (ex. “everything is too complex and orderly to be evolved”), ignore the evidence or lie about it.</p>
<p>But suppose that there are people that go to creationism because they don’t like evolution. Don’t you see anything wrong with that? It’s like saying “X is wrong so Y must be right” without considering that other explanations could come up. So to be a creationist, you need to believe that life was created and didn’t evolve, 99.9999% of the time because they’ve been duped into believing some god did it. So by calling yourself a creationist, you need to crap on every piece of evidence that shows that life has evolved. There is NO evidence that a god made life (or that it even exists) and tons of evidence against it.</p>
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<p>It’s dishonest of you to bold “science” without the “social” part in front of it. You do realize that “social science” and “political science” and “creation science” aren’t the same as “a systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories” (Wikipedia def). Science in the definition that you found means “area of study” not the above. Philosophy is also an “area of study” so do you think philosophy is science? </p>
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<p>Accepting atomic theory, evolution or that the Earth revolves around the sun isn’t belief in the sense of “opinion, faith or ideology” like it is with religious belief. </p>
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<p>It’s nothing! Every position doesn’t have to have the label of “science” or “religion.” </p>
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<p>Harm how? Religious beliefs have harmed society, tho – the inquisition, 9/11, jihad, palestine/israel, etc.</p>
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<p>You’re just carrying on the same strawman argument. Atheism in and of itself says nothing like that. Its the absence of belief. Period. </p>
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<p>It’s not about “suppressing alternatives” as you like to mechanically echo. Its about criticizing un-evidenced, bad or flat-out wrong beliefs. In other words, challenging beliefs that need to be challenged. If politician A and politician B are in a debate and they disagree on issues, its not like they are “suppressing alternatives.” They’re just challenging ideas…</p>
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<p>That doesnt have a SINGLE THING TO DO WITH ATHEISM. You dont need to a religion to have a sense of good and bad. How about the laws of society? How about secular humanism? How about doing whats right because you are a good person, not b/c some holy book or preacher told you? What about chimps? They have a sense of right and wrong (as do some other animals) and they dont follow religion at all. </p>
<p>And you still haven’t said anything about your contradiction. You think atheism is a religion (it’s not). Then you said that atheism says that religion is bad. It’s saying itself is bad?! You’re just speaking nonsense. I brought this up earlier and you totally evaded it.</p>
<p>Good point, inveniamviam. We are all atheists when it comes to the countless number of other gods people believe in. Atheists just take it one god further. We’re just that committed to our “religion”.</p>
<p>And Mosby, I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore.</p>
<p>maybe mifune will post in a week and end your disappointment</p>
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<p>well, it actually does if you look at it a little more deeply from another POV.
The implication is that if good and bad exist, then there must be archetypes for both good and bad. If there are archetypes for these, then they have defined forms. If a form exists, something must fulfill the form for us to be able to conceive it. In sum, if good and bad are forms, all descriptors like this are forms, therefore, words like “powerful” and “omnipresent” have forms which, according to St. Anselm are God, which proves His existence. The next step is disproving it, and idk how the island thing was refuted by Anselm, but you have a step up based on history.</p>
<p>Adenine is clearly correct in his last 3 counts. Mosby is confusing atheism with antitheism, and then trying to ascribe all atheists as antitheists. It doesn’t work that way; these are independent (though not mutually exclusive) beliefs.</p>
You just made this all up though, because this is what you want to believe about people who deny modern evolutionary theory. By the way, people who aren’t aware of evolution can’t “reject” it. </p>
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Again, you are just psychologizing people in a way that confirms what you want to believe about them. You simply refuse to believe that a rational person whose opinion is “untainted” by religious upbrining could not accept evolutionary theory.</p>
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Well, they could just be saying “I find X theory inadequate so I will go with Y theory rather than engage in some sort of nihilism”</p>
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Yes, other explanations COULD come up. But I don’t see how you could subscribe to any scientific theory if you had the mentality of “Don’t believe in X or Y because something else might come up.” </p>
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Some statistic you made up…how lovely. Also, one could potentially believe that a god created all life while simultaneously believing in some form of evolution.</p>
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Not really, you just need to crap on modern evolutionary theory.</p>
<p>EDIT: I do agree that atheists don’t necessarily have to be anti-religious or anti-theist, though. I think it is true that the mindset one might find in many an atheist would be a mindset critical of certain religious beliefs (whether openly or not). Let’s not confuse all atheists with the “New Atheist” movement, though.</p>
Well, whether something is evidenced or not depends on what your idea and interpretation of “evidence” is. “Bad” is obviously subjective. “Flat-out wrong beliefs”… well, it’s also a matter of opinion as to whether a belief is “flat-out wrong.”<br>
This is also an opinion and a statement about ethics.</p>
<p>This is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the actions of many, if not most, professed Atheists show them to actually be “antitheists”.</p>
<p>More than that, if you truly believe in Atheism, there is absolutely no justification to be anti-religious.</p>
<p>Therefore anyone who is antireligious is not truly Atheist.</p>
<p>Basically, my logic runs thus:</p>
<p>1: Statement: Atheism is true.</p>
<p>2: If Atheism is true, there is no such thing as choice.</p>
<p>3: If there is no such thing as choice, then there is no point in morals.</p>
<p>4: All humans (at least that I know of) do in fact have some sense of morals.</p>
<p>5: Therefore, all humans (at least that I know of) are not acting in accordance with statement #1.</p>
<p>When a person claims to have a belief, but does not act according to this belief, then that shows that they actually have different beliefs than they claim.</p>
<p>If you have any objections to any of the above statements, just say so and I will give a more detailed explanation.</p>
<p>I labeled myself as a fundamentalist Christian, not a fundamentalist Creationist. At the time, I did not realize the difference in people’s understanding of the term. See post #1607.</p>
<p>I believe that the creation of complete species is more likely than the evolution of all species by chance. But if I were convinced of the opposite, I would still be a fundamentalist Christian. I would just be a fundamentalist Christian who had different scientific beliefs.</p>
<p>^^ If reality is nothing but energy and matter governed by natural laws, then no free will can exist. Everything that happens was decided by the state of the universe at the instant of the Big Bang.</p>
<p>For a choice to exist, there has to be at least two options, and the person making the choice has to be able to choose either one. Saying a human made a choice by physical reactions in their brains is like saying a block made a choice to fall instead of fly upward when dropped.</p>
<p>The only way to resolve this is for there to actually be some type of supernatural entity, that is able to make choices, and that is able to influence the physical world according to those choices.</p>
<p>I believe that the human soul is one such entity, and that the creation of the universe is best explained by the existence of another such entity.</p>
<p>As for #3: If no choice existed, then morals would be pointless. Because if I had no choice whether to rob you or to not rob you, then how can you say I did wrong?</p>