What is with all the threads attacking atheism/atheists lately?

Originally posted by EarthCitizen07
What do athiests make of the dead sea scrolls? Do they think they are "forged"?

Absolutely fascinating glimpses into early humanity. Forged? No..

What do athiests make of the 12 apostles that travelled the ancient world to spread the word of god? Where they "hallucinating" visions....maybe taking drugs??? And what about the last supper and the mona lisa?

The twelve apostles / disciples were loyal men, trying to live a peaceful life, following a wise person. And yes, quite possibly so. They say Jesus may have been anointed in Hemp / Cannabis oil. After all, ancient tombs have been found from similar era's with dried cannabis inside, plus historically cannabis and certain earth-like hallucinogens have been proven to have been used for thousands and thousands of years.

How could the jews persecute jesus and hang him if they didn't believe he was the false messiah?

How could they have hung if nobody believed he was the messiah? He was widely known as the Messiah.

Just curious is all...I could come up with more questions because somehow I think athiests are not thinking straight and jumping to premature conclusions...........:....

Please, I like this debate. Give me more.

Thats not to suggest the bible has remained authentic because after 2000 years and "wod of mouth" the message could have been perverted quite a bit and many "controversial" texts banned by the pagan romans!

Indeed.

Originally posted by zombiesC4

Originally posted by The Djin
reply to post by zombiesC4

 

They will say Christianity is stupid but they don't have any evidence to back it up why they said that (by the way I'm not christian)

A chrisitian will often take the word of another man who who may have died a thousand or so years ago, without leaving any trace of himself, on blind faith , without requiring a shred of corroborating evidence nor skeptical inquiry.

That my friend, appears to be the height of stupidity.

Insisting or depicting human beings happily cohabiting the planet with the dinosaurs takes stupidity to the level of retardation.

I completely agree! But Atheism isn't the greatest religion either.

In fact it's the smallest religion consisting of zero members.

It isn't a religion, nor is it a belief.

It's a disbelief in your belief.

Re Iowki

You wrote:

["Which question are you talking about?"]

How the holographic universe model is 'proved'. You kind of forgot the details in your happiness about being able to teach me the right answer.

Quote: ["you too can experience what so many meditators have."]

In EVERY post from you I learn something new and wonderful. Please DO tell me, what's this thing called meditation. I seem to recall, that I've heard the word before. I would like to try it.

Quote: ["can instead cast that you're smart, and have increasing abilities to comprehend concepts conveyed."]

I'm quite sure this means something.

Quote: ["yes, note how I said atoms. :-) Atoms can use and create various subatomic particles, such as photons and electrons."]

I think, I'm gonna faint from overexposure to wisdom. So atoms are the stable point cosmos turns around, and atoms use and create electrons. What about the other transmittor particles in the atom, apart from the photons. Are they also used and created by the atom? I shall be sitting by my PC waiting for the answer.

Quote: ["atoms are most stable, that they are multi-dimensional, and have the ability to move, doesn't change that fact."]

Absolutely. What dimensions are you talking about, and how do the atoms move in them (or between them??). Are those movements irreversible, or reversible? Kind of timetravelling as it is?

Oh Dearie me. I've wasted 45 years of study on nothing.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
There are a large variety of scientists...and very few of them are claiming what you claim

I'm ecclectic as in selecting my own beliefs.

Certainly each scientist,
makes their own claims,
based on their own research.

I'm a Cognitive-Scientist,
I study mental phenomena,
I am now reporting my findings.

AboveTopSecret.com users generally have high intelligence,
and ability to understand and organize complex information.

Besides, if I'm to report my finding to a scientific-journal,
then might as well convince an atheist (science-belief-system) of it's validity first.

Motivated by your senseationalization of your beloved academic review.

Though I dono,
I think you're gonna have to do some more convincing,
so far, well, bad things happen to scientists due to intelligence-agencies,
especially to scientists that know about above-top-secret things...

Probably would have to have a safe haven for my body,
such as seasteading on the ocean, going where the wind blows.

Being famous has many consequences that need to be taken into consideration.
So I'd rather just let it happen by word of mouth, if indeed it occurs.

Meanwhile I'm getting prepared to live a life of neo-tribal freedom via Seasteading.

So? Ancient concepts aren't any more valid than modern ones. More often they're not, they're invalid. Just ask Ptolemy.

Your query is invalid.
Ptolemy is dead.

The fact that the same concept occurs (repetition),
through several morphological changes (tests),
and the passing of several thousand years (reliability).

it's as conceptually solid a fact as, karma,
what you do to we, we do to you,
known as the Golden Rule,
in philosophy language.

...no, you made a claim that dinosaurs coexisted with humans. It's not just a 'wrong' claim, but a ridiculous claim. We have no evidence of dinosaurs less than 65 million years ago. None. None at all. There are tens of millions of years between the last dinosaur specimens and the first hominids.

wow you totally ignored my evidence
news.exopoliticssouthafrica.org...

Before we move on to the actual study of Galactic History, it is important to realize that such research is still in its very early stages. Most of the available information comes from contactees and channellers.

See it comes from the mind, that's in the realm of Cognitive Science.

from Answers.com

cognitive science
The study of the nature of various mental tasks and the processes that enable them to be performed.

www.answers.com...

I observe data that comes out of people's mind and find patterns.

Or my refutation of the claim that science is faith based...

From answers.com

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

Are you confident in your beliefs?
Or are you skeptical, maybe atheism is ~

Look it's fine by me,
maybe you'll find something more believable.

I already explained it to you. Science is confident in believe based on the results of testing.

so are you saying this third-hand knowledge makes you confident?
subject first-hand, tester second-hand, summarizer third-hand.

Or do you mean you do the testing yourself?
If so, you'd can test some cognitive-science experiments,
like meditation, remote-viewing, past-life regression, precognition.

I do agree, there has been much progress,
much of it in top-secret and classified programs,
but none-the-less technological innovation continues to progress.

Much of it top-secret? Human genome project! Public!

lol, yes but human-cloning and gray-aliens Top Secret.

Yes Experience is testable, repeatable and controllable.

I'm sorry, but it is by definition not.
Why? Because it is not observable.
And observable means by other people.

You can observe it in your mind.

I'm sure other people than me can observe thing in their minds,
that's exactly why we have a common expression "mind's eye".

Not everyone is a visual learner,
some are auditory learners,
or kinesthetic;
all valid senses.

You also cannot control experience to any valid degree.

you can control mind-sensations via meditation.
That is one of the first steps of cognition-control.

It's why it's frowned upon to experiment on one's self.

frown is merely a facial expression.

It's not just sometimes dangerous,

really? you're afraid of thinking?....
woah, hold on there..
just clear your mind,
relax, it's okay.

it's always bad science.

bad is subjective.

Cognitive-Science is merely different.

Imagine a letter in your mind,
you've tested that you can do it,
you've repeated something I have done,
and you have been in control the whole time.

Except that we have no way of observing each other do it.

We could merely ask eacho-other to draw what we mind-saw.

We could also via telepathy,
or by recording our mind-sensations,
there are many patents for such things.
It's basically recording certain microwave frequencies.

I'm working on building a radio,
but I'm still somewhat of a novice.
I have a simple crystal am radio kit,
I assembled it but mainly get static,
hmmm it's probably since a ground isn't connected,
since I had better reception when connected to the faucet.
now that I think about it have a copper-ground from an old power-supply.
can attach it sometime soon, I'm still healing from a soldering accident.

I have not necessarily seen the letter in the same font, size, color, stroke intensity, position in the plane of my mental image, relative rotation of the letter, etc.

I didn't ask you to do any of those things.
I asked you to think of a letter.
Based on ambiguity of the language, you may have thought of an alphabet-letter my intention,
or you could have thought about a piece of paper with writing.

Okay let me be more clear.
Experiment is to see with your mind's-eye the letter "e",
the exact, font, shade, color, that you see on the screen,
with your eyes closed.

now to prove that you can make a new image in your mind,
see with your mind's-eye two letter e's upside-down next to each other.

draw what you see in your mind.

How was your experiment?
Did you succeed?

if you post the photo of the drawing up,
I can observe what you mind-saw.

And the only way I can confirm these things is by telling you. And I could just make stuff up,

that's the whole point,
you're going to be creating mind-sensations.

forget what I experienced,

can simply do another attempt.

or misinterpret what I experienced.

remember the duality thing?
words prefixed by mis- seem sexist to me.

fems are perfectly capable of interpreting things correctly.
In fact, they often have the other half of the story.
Yes, that half is different from your half,
but you can still learn from it.

Not very scientific when "he could just be making it up" is an option you can't simply dismiss.

from answers.com

make
v.tr.
To cause to exist or happen; bring about; create: made problems for us; making a commotion.

www.answers.com...

Creating may be feminine,
however it is still valid.

Lets be real about it; The real coercion requiring believing and thinking a certain way, comes directly from the evangelical religious. It is their mandate to 'make disciples of all nations' and convert those who do not believe to the faith (least they be cast into hell for eternity). The atheist/agnostic position is simply one of defense against this narrow mindedness. So all this histrionic victim stance of the religious to questioning and rebuttal is simply a psychological ploy (Because otherwise, they have not an intellectual leg to stand on to support their dogmatic position).

I am a Pagan, I have my own Gods and my own beliefs,
which make me happy and keep me on a good path.
I would never force my beliefs upon someone else,
it only creates fear, anger, hatred and violence.
and I believe we have enough of that already.
I am a Peacemonger and I love you all,
please stop fighting it solves nothing.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoulWow, hack apologetics, that's really going to be something that demolishes atheism...

Calling someone a "hack apologetic" doesn't make it so, nor help your argument (Ad hominem).
His credentials: B.Sc. Univ. of Toronto (1985); Ph.D. MIT (1990). I find it funny that a person born on December 23, 1988, thinks he somehow is more philosophically knowledgeable than someone who got his B.Sc before he was even born. Pretentious much?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul You cannot prove a negative statement until the positive statement has been elaborated upon. In this case, there is absolutely no argument for the existence of or definition of a deity that can be acted upon by a counter-proof from the negative.

Certain claims of deities can be addressed by negative proofs. If someone were to say 'god is a rational being who is omnipotent and omniscient' I can easily disprove that by arguing from a lack of free will in an omniscient being and that omnipotence presupposes free will. This lack of free will means that the being is either not omnipotent or not omniscient and thus doesn't exist as described.

Only specific claims can be addressed, there is no single specific claim of god, there are varying ones of varying potential for disproof. The most common Abrahamic claims are not actually open to disproof, though they would be perfectly open to proof as the common claim is that this being intercedes in the natural world.

In fact, your source seems to disagree with the very basis of scientific empiricism in forcing a skeptical position on a reality claim to provide proof that the reality claim is wrong. Skeptical positions do not require evidence unless evidence to the positive is presented.

His point is that negative existential claims can indeed be proven. Which you seem to agree with, illustrated by the bolded "until". I posted that to clear up why they can be proven; to show why the "You can't prove a negative" statement is incorrect. End of story.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul On the second issue, your source is entirely wrong. For some reason, this person who holds a philosophy position seems to think that agnosticism and atheism are mutually exclusive, when they are not. In fact, he seems to be of the opinion that atheism can only exist as a reality claim, when it, like theism, is a claim of a position on a subject. There is also an argument from tradition, a logical fallacy you should expect a paid philosopher to avoid, in calling the non-standard definition necessarily wrong. So what if it's non-standard? If you can support it logically, it is valid. The common understanding of this word is wrong and it can be shown to be.

If he's committing an appeal to tradition fallacy, you're committing an appeal to novelty fallacy. And did you even read what he said?
"Yet none of that really matters, for even the non-standard sense of ‘atheism’ does nothing to neutralize evidentialism’s demand for evidence."
They're both still subject to evidentialism:
"evidentialism applies to all ‘doxastic’ attitudes toward a proposition P: believing P, believing not-P, suspending judgment about P, etc."
"But the New Atheists all believe that (probably) no God or other divine reality exists. And that belief must be evidence-based if it is to be rationally held, according to evidentialism. So insisting that atheism isn’t a belief doesn’t help."
Are you denying that Atheists subscribe to the belief that God doesn't exist? If no, why is this "belief" not subject to evidentialism's demands of proportioning belief to evidence?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoulIt is not a reality claim, it is an expression of skepticism. Now, if you were to claim that you know a deity does not exist, that would be a reality claim, but none of the 'new atheists' actually make this claim so far as I know. As an atheist we do not claim "God does not exist" we claim "We have no good reason to believe in any deity".

See above. And really, none? lol All you have to do is read around these forums and you'll see "fairy tale" this "fairy tale" that, coming from self described "Atheists".

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Hi, I am new to this site. After reading this post I decided to join. I havent read all of the responses to this post, but hopefully I can add something to it. I myself do believe in a higher power. Some new information has come to me recently that may explain some of these influxes of theological content. A radical christian establishment sometimes referred to as dominionist. Wikipedia describes as this:

In a politico-religious context, dominionism (also called subjectionism[1]) is the tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action. The goal is either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law. The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy.

Maybe this will be insightful to some of you reguardless of faiths, or the lack of. Either way as I said this is my first response to a post and I would like to be a part of this community. I hope I have helped...Sorry if this isnt that way to respond feel free to correct me I am new to blogging.

reply to post by bogomil


But that's trying to make things line up. What if they line up from just observation and with no actual attempt to decipher or change anything?

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


The new paper is due to be published in the The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, author Daryl J Bem from Cornell University. The link is below

dbem.ws...


American psychology association

psycnet.apa.org.../0033-2909.132.4.497

Questia Well you would have to have a subscription for this


Journal of parapsychology Honorton et al


www.questia.com...;jsessionid=84AA669EA45EBFDB0601AA2110445FA4.inst3_1b?docId=5001407525

www.questia.com...

Statistical science 1991


www.jstor.org...

British Journal of Psychology, 1999 - ingentaconnect.com

www.ingentaconnect.com...

Psychology Bulletin 127 has has other metastudy.

Cambridge university paper for a symposium

www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk...

OK Your antipathy to Parapsycholgy is your prerogative. However it is a legitimate and rigourous science. At least the equal to communications. I have highlighted the meta studies. You have not even read the conclussions. Seeing that you can “find the research errors” them you really should challenge them I am sure the cash strapped universities would be more than happy to save money by shutting down the department! I will fly anywhere in the world to watch you do this.

Did you think that a scientific paper would not have a conclusion? What were the conclusions of the metastudies? Did you read the abstracts or summaries at the start of the paper? What were the conclusions embedded therein? The combined dataset in the metastudy confirmed that ESP exists. Our ability to fly to other planets by mind power seems unlikely.

No my friend yours is a closed mind one that is on a par with David Icke’s followers who believe the royal family are reptiles. That previous comment was harsh but the case for your wilful ignorance is below,

1. You could not use a search engine to quickly check what was on the web.
2. when I showed you how to use a search engine you then found 3 metastudies. I found considerable more see above.
3. You assume scientific papers on parapsychology are “Pseudoscience”.
4.

Because the sceptical community practice the most blatant of wilful ignorance I thought the only way to prove that psychic phenomena exist by letting you have the experience. The training takes time but I would have thought the effects would have been observed a lot sooner. But given your wilful blindness you will simply accuse me of drugging you or using holographs or whatever a wilfully blind mind will conjure up.

And that is the fallacy of most sceptic. They are wilfully blindadn arrogantly believe that their grasp of scientific experimental design is greater than that of current professional academic scientists. How absurd!

Originally posted by Wardwolf
I am a Pagan, I have my own Gods and my own beliefs,
which make me happy and keep me on a good path.

yay :-)

I would never force my beliefs upon someone else,
it only creates fear, anger, hatred and violence.
and I believe we have enough of that already.
I am a Peacemonger and I love you all,
please stop fighting it solves nothing.

Woah, clean up your diction please.
Remember to focus on the goal.

the word "not" is like saying +1.
Not a car?
Then perhaps a truck?

You would like to _____ someone else.

Remember Golden Rule:
what You do to We,
We do to You.

benefit, give, accept, allow.

How I would write what you perhaps intended to say:


I do allow beliefs to be different for someone else,
it only creates acceptance, patience, negotiation and love.
and I believe we can always improve in future.
I am empowered and wish to share with you all,
please begin co-operating it solves everything.

reply to post by lowki


Ummmm, what?
Hey man, I wrote it the way it felt right to me.
I'm not verbose writer. I keep it simple so that everyone understands what I'm saying.

reply to post by lowki


Dude

I have been wondering about some of your posts for some time. You seem a bit preachy and a bit off. Substances?

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


I could care less what a Christian thinks... Anyone who would purposefully subscribe to the filth and nonsense in that retched book (the bible) need to keep their opinions to themselves.

Christians, read your bible and discover for yourself what kind of filth I'm referring to!
[Women not being allowed to speak in church, promotion of slavery, stoning of homosexuals.]

reply to post by something wicked


Sorry dude, i missed this question until now. Well one thing that seems to be making it over to the western world is acupuncture, which deals with unblocking and balancing the channels that chi flows through the body. There has been some amazing things i have read about, such as using acupuncture in place of putting people out when they go under the knife of surgery. Some interesting stuff out in the world of chinese medicine, from what i have heard they treat the mind, body and chi wholistically, instead of just the body. It seems to make logical sense to me, even western medicine is staring to see how powerful the mind can be.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by lowki

 

It would be a bit silly, wouldn't it? Why would I want to take an oath to a fictional being? I mean, I'm not going to carry out the oath, so why bother? It's silly.

As an aside, why does your user name refer to a soul when that is a religious concept? Surely as an atheist you reject the concept of a soul?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by something wicked

We've become a group of somewhat similarly minded people lately because we're actually starting to come out of the woodwork. We have a few purposes, though not all atheists share them. But the main thing we do share is that we think we deserve to be treated like people.

Soooo, let's cut to the chase. You are saying Christianity is stupid. You are asking why so many threads attack atheism and yet you attack Christianity - interestingly you focus on that one faith, perhaps you have some underlying issues there. You also focus on the Old Testament whereas Christianity by it's very nature is focussed on the New Testament. Would you like to talk about the stupidity of other faiths while you're at it?

Your division of atheism is frankly stupid. Implicit atheism (including babies) is nothing more than a philosophical luxury. A baby would have no concept of anything outside its very close environment (parent, food, warmth, coldness) - why on earth is it worth highlighting they have no concept of God? Atheism is very simple - you understand the concept of a deity and reject it - that's it, stop trying to dress up something that is very straightforward. Any further division of that is ridiculous, it's a binary division, yes or no. To argue anything else is fatuous and is again a philiosphical luxury you are allowing yourself to make lack of belief in a deity into something more sophisticated than it is.

Is there really a group of atheists? Are you members of a cult? Do you have meetings to discuss your lack of belief? Hey, why not select one day of the week to have these meetings and call it your special day?

Mod Note: Big Quote – Please Review This Link.

Originally posted by The Djin
reply to post by something wicked

 

Obviously you have an issue with one faith in particular, does it spread to others?

Obviously I do and yes it does

Please share any collateral from a non fringe aspect of any religion that shows humans happily cohabiting the planet with dinosaurs please - would be interested to see it, but remember, non fringe only please.

What is and is not a fringe aspect of someone else's club is not for me to decide , I'm not really concerned how cults split themselves up. No doubt you are attempting to disassociate yourself from certain types ?

Would I be correct in assuming you are one of the "true christians" and the rest are a fringe movement ?

My faith or lack of it is of no concern to you, that wasn't the question I asked.

The question was fairly straightforward. Christianity is represented by several movements - once again you pick on one representation of faith but that's your choice, but I guess that's because you have an issue with that faith and if you are an atheist it's because of a rejection of that faith - fair enough, that's your freedom of choice.

To the point though. You said that Christians believe man and dinosaur co-existed. Now, out of all Christian faiths I'm guessing the Catholic one is the largest so could you please provide a link to where the Catholic church has officially said they believe man and dinosaur co-existed please? Don't point me to a quote from a preacher in Hicksville saying that's what he thinks, a personal opinion is neither here nor there. There are people on this site who believe George Bush is an alien reptile - if that person is an atheist does that mean all atheists think the same?

Originally posted by Condemned0625
reply to post by something wicked

 

You think I'm asserting a belief? You believe that?

You said you are sure of something for which there is no evidence so yes, you are asserting a belief. Please explain the difference - let me repeat, you have said you are sure of the existence of something you cannot prove, how is that not a belief?

Re Tensionist

You wrote:

["In a politico-religious context, dominionism (also called subjectionism[1]) is the tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action. The goal is either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law. The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy."]

There are several approaches to christianity, sometimes relating directly to one of its various forms and practises (e.g. evangelism and in a broader context similarly to all invasive extremist ideology).

Some critics of christianity choose to focus on some specific option(s) of approach, and amongst such is the perspective from the excerpt of your post. Its an alternative to a debate on the intrinsic values and methods of christianity, and as such is known and manifested to a lesser degree on most threads, where christianity and its opponents meet.

Nice to see some starting from a base of doing homework. Shooting from the hip can be fun, but repetitive eventually, as it tends to end in sandbox simplicity: "My holy book is bigger than your holy book" (which ofcourse is a weighty argument, when you get around to hitting each other on the head with the books).