Why I'm an Atheist

[quadz]

By attempting to hold your arguments and 'theories' to scientific standards, I "seem to be saying" you should revert to a primitive state????????

Yes. You're implying that my argument should be subject to more primitive ideas around natural selection than those which I am proposing.

Nice job trolling, I guess.

[Tubby]

Nice job finding a post where I fucked up because you haven't got anything better to offer.

[haunted]

By attempting to hold your arguments and 'theories' to scientific standards, I "seem to be saying" you should revert to a primitive state????????

Yes. You're implying that my argument should be subject to more primitive ideas around natural selection than those which I am proposing.

Nice job trolling, I guess.

Same conclusion I have drawn about this guy. It doesn't matter if what he says is completely / scientifically false, he just takes something out of context with no obvious scientific notion then pretends that it holds some weight.

I will address one more thing though:

Btw - since you're so big on 'facts' - can you provide some 'facts' as to why 'all of my examples were wrong' and yours are all so obviously right?

As I stated in a previous post (#73), I admit that I don't have any 'facts', hence the debate. (Maybe you need to research the word 'debate').

Tubby, I already disproved everything you say. That is the whole purpose of my "facts"... they all EASILY disproved all of your examples, in this post right here:

http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=15531.msg159358#msg159358

If you are too much of a blithering idiot to digest that, then at this point in your life as an atheist I would start praying to god out of desperation to have mercy on your miserable soul. It's all in there. You can pretend different all you want, but as you can see: Everyone on this thread seems to understand what I'm talking about; except you. (I wonder who is wrong.. the person with facts refuting every single one of the other's points, or the guy who gets proved wrong all the time...... HMMMM.. who could it be?!)

I know exactly what a "debate" is. A debate is a dispute between two opposing view points. When it comes down to it though, facts are the fuel for persuasion in this setting. If you think that a debate can be simply won rhetorically and pulling falsified(I say false because I have continually proved them wrong, and even re-link you when you decide to forget that I proved you wrong) ideas "out of your ass" then you are delusional.

I find it very ironic that you are so against religion when you are just as bad, if not worse, than some sects of religion. You have already openly admitted that you intend to brainwash your children into thinking like you do, and I have already proved all of what you said to be wrong(several times, and quadz has re-iterated much of what I said as well). I feel sorry for any child whose father is so determined to mislead them, just because their father is too stubborn to absorb information that disproves what he has to say. I don't understand why you even continue to do this... do you think that persisting with incorrect information makes you look better in a debate setting? No, people just question your sanity.

You're the one who doesn't have anything to offer. All of your examples still remain DISPROVED that you never even addressed in that lengthy reply of mine. I think you saw that, so you attempted to take the term "natural selection" out of context... but that is only something that only your brainwashed 11 year old would fall for. We are educated adults on this thread, it's time that you learn to communicate properly and treat everyone as such.


ps. This guy is trying to tell you something --->

[haunted]

Yes, and my offspring will take my ideas and beliefs into the next generation, and your offspring will take yours.

Additionally, my offspring will be capable of making an informed decision on their own; especially one that requires nothing more than common sense. If you want to brainwash your offspring into thinking otherwise, that is your decision. The decision of a forum poster between our two "sides" still has nothing to do with natural selection, no matter how much you want it to.

LMAO, like raising your child in the Christian / Jewish / Muslim or whatever faith isn't 'brainwashing'???!!!

Oh my God! (pardon the pun)

my 11 year old daughter frequently wears a Christian Cross around her neck.

I have no problem with that. I have enough faith in my daughter to believe that she will make up her own mind around which idaes and beliefs she will choose to follow as she becomes more aware of the world as it really is - as opposed to those which she has been conditioned to believe in (including mine).

 

Another big LOL at tubby for deleting these posts so people can't see it. (another ineffective communication strategy in a debate: the things you say are irreversible...)

[quadz]

Nice job trolling, I guess.

Same conclusion I have drawn about this guy.

I figure, what are the options at this point?

1. Completely off-the-charts obstinate passive-aggressive narcissist who claims to value science while demonstrating an utter lack of regard for the scientific

2. Trolling for lulz

3. (?)


:shrug:

[haunted]

Yeah one of those I guess. In doing so he presents the option for someone to 1) waste his/her time on him or 2) not post.. Fortunately, I have 10 more hours at work so I don't feel too bad about myself taking numero uno.

 

[Acer]

Atheism is essentially about getting your facts straight to shut the theists up. :P  Theists can never win arguments with atheists because they will always have scientific support and a list of available and undeniable answers at hand, while the theist is trying to defend the existence of santa with no real proof and his personal feelings. Guess who has the best arguments?  Arguing as to why there's no reason to think there's a god, is to an atheist what praying or going to church is to a theist. That is their entire foundation. If people ever find evidence that would link archeology and history to the bible they lose their foundation.
It's always been childishly easy to proof theists wrong but of course the last thing you should need to actually believe in something is proof. That's an innner struggle everyday and there's nothing easy to that. Ultimately a theist shouldn't blame God for bad things but, (here it comes) still be thankful for the good...
An unappealing concept to the atheist.

It's possible to meditate without believing anything on insufficient evidence.

It's also possible to put a skeptic under hypnosis but it works better if you are willing to experience it.

As it happens, there are some reasons I tend to suspect that nonexistence is coincident with death. For instance:
  - I have no memory of having existed before I was born.
  - All evidence so far indicates our cognitive function is determined by the material structure of our brains.
  - A botched lobotomy can leave a patient in a child-like state.

We also had no body before we were born, yet all the material was already there. Everything including our bodies consists of 'stardust' and will eventually return to that state, to be absorbed by the earth/cosmos again. Why couldn't a seperate and even more sophisticated process be true for our invisible and non tangible minds? As I see it the only way to rule that out is if brain and mind are not independent, or in other words are one and the same thing.

Are they? "For much of the 20th century, a watered-down version of dualism based on the idea of the psyche prevailed. The distinction that psychiatry drew between neurological and psychiatric illness implied that there was a psyche (whisper not the word soul) that could somehow go wrong independently of physical symptoms in the brain.
(...) Many people, most of whom would not regard themselves as dualists, think of the brain as being like a computer, and the mind as being like a piece of software that runs on that computer. But this analogy, too, is flawed. You do not have to do much damage to a computer to stop it being able to run programs. Yet as the case of Gage and numerous subsequent individuals has shown, the self can plod on, albeit changed, after quite radical brain damage."  -> Who do you think you are?

Take a system capable of generating its own electricity. It is tempting to assume that the power is just being produced by the system (our body) itself. So if the system is damaged or destroyed, it no longer produces energy. But something powers on the system, something causes our heart to start beating...
There's also insufficient evidence that supports the nonexistence of something which people have been calling Chi for ages, yet there is some evidence that this Chi can be a source of profound healing and enlightenment or can even make our system stronger. The will to live can literally mean the difference between life and death.

There are a lot of people with a healthy body and good cognitive function who's minds are miserable and/or screwed up. It's not uncommon for a serial killer to be highly intelligent. Yet some of the world's most beatiful people (figurately) were/are very fragile. The unbreakable spirits of some people who have to live with broken bodies, the lust for life of people in barren countries who have nothing to smile about. To me the (super) human spirit is even more fascinating than the observable universe, as I doubt that will ever bring you anything that can help you with your very own conscience. "At the heart of every problem is a problem of the heart." Not that I wouldn't want it but I strongly doubt that we are ever going to find a definite answer to the world's oldest question by looking into space. I don't think it's going to work that way.

- "A botched lobotomy can leave a patient in a child-like state." - I'm all for medical science, but we can only guess what would've happened to the patient without our human intervention. Of course we should do whatever is in our power to try to heal patients but who's to blame when it goes wrong? But even in that scenario, the patient will still be a human being. Even very young children might already have some sense of right and wrong.
They might not care and know about the world around them, but they will recognize who's kind and who's got evil intentions and experience fear and love. http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100511/study-infants-morality-100511/  (video will play after advertisement...)

And mentally disabled persons with brains that clearly show different patterns can still be pure of heart and have a well-developed sense of good and evil.

"(...)But neuroscience is one area where big concepts certainly remain to be discovered. And when they are, they are likely to upend humanity's understanding of itself."

[reaper]

Tubby, FYI, your definition of natural selection is "better" things are preferred, and that leads to their survival.  First, there's already a definition for natural selection.  Second any idiot knows better things win more often, that's why they're called better.  As for humans, we are able to choose things that are decent, in other words "stronger" doesn't always win.   Also higher chances of reproduction from changes in offspring, isn't related to say a political argument being better and surviving over the course of time.   There's simply  to many dynamic variables at play.  For example what happens when people change their desires, or the exchange rate of the dollar changes the whole ballgame?   Your stronger political leader has to play by these rules, so it's not like his argument survives and carries itself on just like natural selection; really it's a totally different world, for each situation you apply this "natural selection" to.  Since you related this to anything, I can come up with an argument for anything.  Your argument is not nearly as analogous to natural selection as you make things out to be.

but yes I agree better things are better

 

As for the other arguments, who said it's faith based for evidence based.  Well that's your words not mine.

[Tubby]

Quadz, you make a good point, but what you're saying also assumes that ideas and beliefs - or in this case theories - cannot be adapted to situations for which they were not originally intended.

If we use the weak form of 'theory' which is synonymous with 'speculation', then, sure!  Anyone can pull a new 'theory' out of their ass.

It may be possible to adapt a scientific theory "to situations for which they were not originally intended", but not without doing science.

To me, that's a stagnant and defeatist attitude: Imagine if our ancestors had refused to take the ideas, beliefs, and theories of their own fathers and apply them to the newer, more enlightened world that they found themselves in... We would still be sacrificing children to Moloch.

Are you kidding me?  Our ancestors applied endless creativity to inventing new bullshit theories to differentiate themselves from their forefathers.

For someone who claims to value science, you appear not to have the foggiest notion of what differentiates science from bunk.

Sometimes I think that that's what many religious people actually want to do - revert to a primitive state in which things were much more black and white - as you seem to be saying I should also do.

By attempting to hold your arguments and 'theories' to scientific standards, I "seem to be saying" you should revert to a primitive state????????

Quadz, you relate what I'm saying to "bullshit theories" and "what seperates science from bunk". You realise, I hope, that you're making such statements in the context of your own personal wordview - as I am making mine.

I think where you and I differ is that you're stuck in the idea that basic scientific principles as they stand today are infallable. My idea is that science is a fluctuating and malleable beast which can only be tamed by debates exactly like this one.

I know what you're probably going to say - "oh, but your argument falls way outside of even the most basic scientifc principle; that of the 'scientific method'."

Guess what? So did Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

(.... around the singularity of a black hole, all physical processes as we understand them break down ...)

Don't fall into the trap of worshipping science as your god, Quadz.

[Arm0r]

How is this:

If you don't think this looks stupid then you need to seriously evaluate your own chain of thoughts....

For example, I don't take my child to church / synagogue / mosque, etc., therefore she is unlikely to be exposed to the concept of god

my 11 year old daughter frequently wears a Christian Cross around her neck. She got this cross from a school camp she attended which was held on a Christian - owned property.

seems she's already been exposed to the concept of god.  do you read what you write?

Yes, and my offspring will take my ideas and beliefs into the next generation, and your offspring will take yours.

You said this...now it's changed all of a sudden and your daughter will make up her own mind?  Which is it....

well pegged down....

 

[fdrjk]

I think where you and I differ is that you're stuck in the idea that basic scientific principles as they stand today are infallable. My idea is that science is a fluctuating and malleable beast which can only be tamed by debates exactly like this one.

<snip>

Don't fall into the trap of worshipping science as your god, Quadz.

 

[Arm0r]

Ya he does that alot, I think he doesn't remember shit he posts within 5 minutes of posting it thus why he looks stupid when he "debates", he'll say one thing then totally jump track and head the other direction.....he's stupid. lol.

[quadz]

@Acer: Thanks for the thoughtful reply.  Just a quick comment for now:

... while the theist is trying to defend the existence of santa with no real proof and his personal feelings. ... Arguing as to why there's no reason to think there's a god, is to an atheist what praying or going to church is to a theist. That is their entire foundation.

While I appreciate the humor--and perhaps more than a grain of truth sometimes--to the atheist:argument :: theist:praying analogy, I do think it misses the mark.

If we decide to stop teaching our kids about santa claus, we don't have to replace that with teaching about non-santa-claus.  And if nobody ever taught their kids about santa claus, there'd be no reason for the subject to come up at all.

In either case our "entire foundation" would never be devoted to arguing the nonexistence of santa claus with our kids.  However, if our kids contined to profess a belief in santa as they got older, the discussion would inevitably continue.

I don't want to overtax the santa analogy though, as it carries an implicit children vs. adults bias.

But consider "adult" behaviors like astrology.

To me there's precisely zero difference, categorically, between arguments against astrology, and arguments against Yahweh.  In either case, the arguments take the same form: extraordinary claims require extrordinary evidence.

I don't know if you personally believe in astrological claims?  If you don't believe astrology is valid, you probably know some arguments in support of that conclusion.  But do you feel your entire foundation is defined by those arguments?

And yet, if nobody believed in astrology, the subject wouldn't come up at all.


  *  *  *

I agreed with much of the rest of what you wrote.  I'll have to re-read it and think a bit.


Regards,

quadz

[Tubby]

You can't think of any more constructive way of refuting my arguments so you resort to personal attacks. Nice.

Like I said before - classic schoolyard bully tactic.

[reaper]

god isn't some magical idea, it's not going to go away when you don't teach kids about it