Quote (PKSubban @ Oct 27 2015 06:40pm)

Quote

What I don’t understand is why so many people, the religious and the irreligious alike, have swallowed the idea that atheism is the most rational conclusion to draw about humanity’s position and state of grace. Even those who oppose atheism do so in terms of its being too rational: lacking imagination or faith. ‘Just because there’s no actual reason to believe in something doesn’t mean it can’t be there,’ they say.

But atheism isn’t the most rational approach - agnosticism is. You can’t know, so it’s irrational to say that you do. An atheist or religious observant might counter that agnosticism - saying you don’t know if there’s a god or gods - isn’t a conclusion at all. They’d have a point - but in that case, I say it’s irrational to draw a conclusion. We don’t know and we can’t know.

Atheism is also a leap of faith, albeit a nihilistic one. It might as well be a religion - many of its adherents evangelise about their philosophy and beliefs as much as the religious do. They claim their opinions to be certainties. They viciously criticise those who believe otherwise. They are, in some cases, emotionally attached to the idea that there’s no God and dislike being gainsaid as much as the Pope or an Ayatollah does. They then wrap up this annoyance as anger at the terrible suffering religion has brought to the world - as if they truly think it’s the religious beliefs themselves, rather than humanity’s in-built urges to kill, persecute and suppress, that led to the Crusades or the Troubles or the failure to address the AIDS Pandemic.

Don’t they get it? Humans will always find an excuse. The avowedly atheist communist states of the twentieth century killed greater numbers than any regimes before or since and needed no religious justification. A politically ideological one served just as well. Humans don’t kill, or boss each other around, or say sex is evil and should be controlled or that certain people are wicked and should be oppressed, or that certain clothes are inappropriate or compulsory, because of their religious beliefs - we do it because some of us want to and religion is a convenient excuse. Atheists are being incredibly naïve if they think that, in the absence of religion, other reasons wouldn’t be found for disgusting violence as virtue - or indeed that atheist belief systems aren’t just as potentially susceptible to murderous extremism as any of the religions they oppose.

Quote (Voyaging @ Nov 7 2015 05:00am)

-David Mitchell, Back Story, Chapter 19

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA85LVmqg0M

Quote (PKSubban @ Nov 9 2015 08:48am)

Agnostic may be the most rational approach but it's quite meaningless to point it out, large majority of atheist are not 100% sure that no God exist even they pretend it. So yeah there is 0.5 % or whatever that God exist so what ? We can't verify anyway.

Atheist is rational, debating that agnostic is more rational is just useless semantic. Murder is a crime whatever atheist, religious,communist or Mc donald hamburger flipper are offenders / victim, recognition of agnostic as rational position won't stop humans from killing other humans.

Also theism is very rational. You have eternal life if you believe in something that you cannot be sure that doesn't exist, what do you have to lose trying to convince yourself that God exist ? not much. What you have to gain ? eternal life. All animals wants to survive, hard to find most rational approach than theism.

Quote (Scaly @ Nov 9 2015 11:02am)

http://i.imgur.com/HpDB73T.jpg

To an atheist this is two tyrannosaurs fighting a battle to the death in front of a table saw.

Quote (Unanswered @ Nov 9 2015 11:48am)

You would have to take account for which God is the "One True God". Just because you was born at a certain time and raised in a certain religious family does not mean your favor of God is the correct one like many assert theirs is. I find it irrational to use Pascal Wager for the conclusion to believe in a certain God.

Quote (Scaly @ Nov 9 2015 12:02pm)

http://i.imgur.com/HpDB73T.jpg

To an atheist this is two tyrannosaurs fighting a battle to the death in front of a table saw.

Quote (Scaly @ 9 Nov 2015 11:02)

http://i.imgur.com/HpDB73T.jpg

To an atheist this is two tyrannosaurs fighting a battle to the death in front of a table saw.

Quote (Skinned @ 9 Nov 2015 11:05)

lmao can't be unseen.

Quote (Scaly @ 9 Nov 2015 17:02)

http://i.imgur.com/HpDB73T.jpg

To an atheist this is two tyrannosaurs fighting a battle to the death in front of a table saw.