richard dawkins wants to arrest the pope

[leone]

richard dawkins isnt stupid UR STUPID

[trent bortknob]

i get the feeling that you think that i'm a theist or something

the idea that atheism is or is not a religion is debatable is all i'm saying. saying it was controversial might have been a strtch, but i DO know that some major atheists consider it a religion

well it's definitely a controversial issue

only amongst fundamentalists who would like to group atheism into religion to make themselves feel better

i don't understand what you're saying with this

yes, it does. it matters that everyone acknowledge that atheism is not a religion, in order to understand it correctly

that's assuming that atheism is not a religion

atheism doesn't denote providing answers or morality or ANYTHING. it is the DENIAL of the EXISTENCE of GOD and the SUPERNATURAL. science and atheism aren't the same thing.

atheism is a denial of theism.

science is a means of understanding what surrounds us.

and please don't tell me you think "morality" comes from religion.

theism = belief in god
atheism = belief in lack of god

i don't see where the denial comes in. i'm sure you can argue that atheism is not a belief but i'm not really sure i agree it's just denying theism. it's more like the belief that we exist without any gods at all. but really this is sort of semantics. it's two ways to say the same thing

i think atheism entails the belief in the use of science. i'm sure there are people who are atheists who don't believe in the use of science, but that is really confusing. i tihnk atheism is sort of tied in with science in its definition or else it sort of doesn't work. you aren't worshipping science but it seems to be the only way to understand the world

i think i said in my earlier post that i think it's stupid to try to get morality from religion. i believe morality is a human trait

no they do not.

uh this is just denying the truth

it doesn't affect whether it's true, but it does affect its perception. atheism is important - it's the only thing that keeps religion out of state and law. religion is a private practice, it should not encroach on society in a way that would give it any power over people. that's what the middle ages were, and we don't want to go through that again.

i still don't see how atheism being a religion affects this

[Philip K Dick]

if taylor can provide me with one accurate source that proves atheism is a religion, then i will be convinced

too bad there arent any because this is a stupid argument that makes no sense

[rtil]

no they do not.

uh this is just denying the truth

haha ok tell me one major atheist today who openly acknowledges that atheism is a religion

as far as the other things you've mentioned it's like talking to a brick wall so i'm done

[leone]

YOURE A RELIGION

[trent bortknob]

i think the reason it's like talking to a brick wall is because i'm not even arguing with you but you think that i am

[trent bortknob]

the reason i think that atheism is a religion is because it's what i was taught in my philosophy class and my teacher is really smart

though he did tell everyone that some atheists claim it to not be a religion. when he was going over religions he didnt make a big deal on whether or not it is or is not a religion, and now i realize it was probably because it doesnt fucking matter

i would look more into it and atheism may or may not be a religion the whole deal is that i just don't think it's important so i'm not gonna go search the internet for any proof (because the internet is a really bad source for anything philosophical in nature)

i think like half of the four horsemen of atheism think it's a religion but still back to point 1 i dont care if it is ir is not a religion because i'm not really looking at it in the legal sense or how it would affect the world if we called it a religion, i'm only concerned with if it fits the definition and so far as i can see it does

so yeah i pretty much agree with you the other stuff is sort of semantics so this isn't really even a debate. i mean i'm an atheist and it looks like you're an atheist so i don't really know what we would have to argue about

[texas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcAFkYUnSjg

[trent bortknob]

freezepop fucking sucks

[texas]

that music video reminds me of like a tim and eric thing

[trent bortknob]

sports!

[creamcorn]

the way i see it, its the problem with modern day society with religion, and just because alot of people interpret something wrongly doesnt mean its suddenly not the truth anymore

they\\\'re not interpreting it wrongly, and that\\\'s my point. the simple truth of the matter is that these ancient religions do not evolve with mankind - they constantly stay the same, never changing, never swaying. sure, the good, charitable things about them are easy to point out. but there are many practices from islam, christianity, and any monotheistic religion that just don\\\'t make any sense in a modern, civilized society. they cripple people and societies. they hinder progress, human rights and science. religion can never be an ultimate tool for good, because it is designed to control people.

if religions were like photo albums, there would be so many pages that they\\\'d try to hide from the world with bad photos they wouldn\\\'t be proud of. and that\\\'s what they continue to do to this day. and now science is beginning to chip away at the relevance of religion in society, which just makes it worse. i notice that the more science is prevalent in the world, the more religions tend to stray away from it and go back into their caves, clinging to ancient beliefs and lives of total ignorance. what is so hard about accepting the fact that there is no god? just live life to your fullest and forget about what happens to you when you die. nobody knows, no one will ever know, until you\\\'re dead. so forget about it.

they ARE interpreting it wrongly , and thats my point. all these ignorant cave-people do not represent the religion itself
and why shouldnt the religious moral rules work now, i mean adultery is still adultery, just because we have computers and more scientific theories doesnt make it any different
what is so hard about thinking that there is a god behind all this?

the hard thing about \\\'accepting the fact that there is no god\\\' means that there is no purpose to this life

[creamcorn]

living an atheistic 'just live your life to the fullest' life is like knitting a huge sweater, youre not making it for anybody, youre just making it
and then when you leave it all behind not you or anyone is gonna wear that sweater because you werent making it for anyone, you just made it

[trent bortknob]

the way i see it, its the problem with modern day society with religion, and just because alot of people interpret something wrongly doesnt mean its suddenly not the truth anymore

they\\\'re not interpreting it wrongly, and that\\\'s my point. the simple truth of the matter is that these ancient religions do not evolve with mankind - they constantly stay the same, never changing, never swaying. sure, the good, charitable things about them are easy to point out. but there are many practices from islam, christianity, and any monotheistic religion that just don\\\'t make any sense in a modern, civilized society. they cripple people and societies. they hinder progress, human rights and science. religion can never be an ultimate tool for good, because it is designed to control people.

if religions were like photo albums, there would be so many pages that they\\\'d try to hide from the world with bad photos they wouldn\\\'t be proud of. and that\\\'s what they continue to do to this day. and now science is beginning to chip away at the relevance of religion in society, which just makes it worse. i notice that the more science is prevalent in the world, the more religions tend to stray away from it and go back into their caves, clinging to ancient beliefs and lives of total ignorance. what is so hard about accepting the fact that there is no god? just live life to your fullest and forget about what happens to you when you die. nobody knows, no one will ever know, until you\\\'re dead. so forget about it.

they ARE interpreting it wrongly , and thats my point. all these ignorant cave-people do not represent the religion itself
and why shouldnt the religious moral rules work now, i mean adultery is still adultery, just because we have computers and more scientific theories doesnt make it any different
what is so hard about thinking that there is a god behind all this?

the hard thing about \\\'accepting the fact that there is no god\\\' means that there is no purpose to this life

i think that there might be a meaning to life without god, but even if there isn\\\'t, who cares? it would be stupid to want to believe in something that isn\\\'t true because it sounds good.

if there was a god who created the universe, he doesn\\\'t exist now. and if there is a god who created the universe and DOES exist, there\\\'s no way that he is an "all good" being. he might omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, but he\\\'s not omnibenevolent

think about all of the evil shit in the world. there\\\'s a type of wasp that breeds by implanting its eggs into another insect, causing the newborns to have to eat themselves out of the other insect. why would god need to make such an unnecessarily evil process of reproduction for this animal?

then there is the problem of moral evil and gratuitous evil. moral evil is basically when someone knowngly chooses to do something evil. this action usually ends up with bad consequences, but can sometimes bring about good things in the long run. gratuitous evil is completely evil actions which never have any sort of positive outcome

there are thousands of women and children being raped and murdered in the congo. there are thousands of children who are sold into sex slavery in other countries. all of this shit happens none stop, and if there were a good god he would do something about it. i know that "god works in mysterious ways", but how long does it fucking take to punish a rapist? in the old days, he would smite people just for fucking LYING. why doesn\\\'t he uphold his own rules anymore? you could say it\\\'s because he wants us to have free will so he won\\\'t kill random people, but that doesn\\\'t get over the fact that he\\\'s done it before. there\\\'s also another reason: is a rapist\\\'s freewill worth more than a child\\\'s well being? why is it ok to sacrifice an evil person\\\'s freewill for the suffering on someone completely innocent, when it won\\\'t bring any good to anyone?

i know that at this point i\\\'m primarily talking about the christian god, but still. any god who is omnibenevolent would get rid of all this rape, child molestation, war, etc but he doesn\\\'t. if he does exist, i don\\\'t know why you\\\'d want to worship him

it\\\'s not a wasp it\\\'s a mosquito or some shit whatever

[Mew_User]

freezepop fucking sucks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcAFkYUnSjg

[emanhattan]

if I was a mod I would have locked this topic instead of/before locking the rest of the so-called "shitty topics" that are abundant in general

[ansel]

atheism is not a religion because it doesn't assert anything that requires objective evidence to prove. if there's a wall, and i say there's nothing behind it, and you say there IS, it's on you to prove that it's there, not on me to prove it isn't. i don't think about religion in my day to day life, OR about my atheism -- it's not something i devote time or thought to, it's just not a part of who i am. atheism isn't religion, it's a LACK of religion. and in any case, disputing whether atheism is or is not a religion is a thoroughly pedantic argument that doesn't really relate to the larger argument at hand

[Jeinu]

yeah anyway back to the topic at hand

i think it's a pretty good sign that somebody can call out the pope like this and not instantly be burned at the stake like it woulda been maybe 400 years ago. i'm sure there are a ton of people that aren't too happy with richard dawkins but things could definitely be worse.

[Philip K Dick]

if I was a mod I would have locked this topic instead of/before locking the rest of the so-called "shitty topics" that are abundant in general

if you were a mod i would throw up dramatically

[Daveb0t]

good talk I think we've turned some heads and saved some souls