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Atheism means its literal definition. Any other meaning you attach is your own.

SquishypuffDave

Gender: Male
Age: 33

Stereotypes are bad, mkay?

Happymeal

gussteivi wrote:

I don't understand this. How can you be part of a religion whose sole purpose is to ridicule all religion?

Because I think it goes well with my open minded attitude. I think it's possible that anything could happen and just as much as a big bang could have happened, a giant flying spaghetti monster could have made the Earth, or any deity, or whatever.

Puncture Repair

I consider myself an agnostic athiest, in that I don't believe in a god but I'm pretty happy for someone to convince me otherwise if they can.

HigherThanTheSun

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: UK

Like Jhereko says, most atheists don't go out of their way to be assholes, just a small minority. Most atheists are completely apathetic towards religion, they just don't believe in it.

The only time I get militant about it is when religious bodies try to interfere with public life rather than keeping themselves to themselves.
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Jackwc
Queen Of The Forums

Location: Aaaanywhere Sex: Incredible

I'm not sure what you mean by "not many people have criticized atheists" because I see quite often, and, as an atheist-agnostic myself, do it quite often.

On you point on having blind faith in/against that which one cannot prove the existence of:

I myself am an agnostic only for semantics. Mankind's grasp of the universe is trumped only by its infinite ignorance. Theoretically we can never know everything, so God's existence is as probable as Russel's teapot in that we'll never be able to know just how probable they are. HOWEVER, not believing is something you can't prove exists is still the more logical answer when confronted with such a problem - especially in the case of a God, in which all logical arguments FOR its existence falter under any logic.

The Ontalogical Belief:
God exists -> God is perfect by definition -> God is good -> God is not a deceiver -> (another point which is unrelated to this argument)
But if God is not a deceiver, then he cannot obfuscate or conceal his infinite existence. Should he, then he is not good. If he is not good, he is not perfect. If he is not perfect, he does not exist.

The Judeo-Christian Belief:
God is omnipresent; Humans have free will; God created humans; God must be omnipresent otherwise he is not perfect otherwise he is not God.
But if God is omnipresent then humans do not have free will, for God knows all their conceivable actions before they take them. And if humans do not have free will, which is the basis of most Judeo-Christian belief, then the Judeo-Christian God does not exist.

A General Belief:
God must be by definition perfect, therefore all he creates is perfect.
Therefore all he creates is true. God created the idea of God, therefore he exists. God created the idea that he does not exist; therefore he does not exist. God both exists and does not exist; therefore God does not exist.

Then there is the ever-present Atheist Architect Argument:
If the universe cannot exist without a creator, God cannot exist without a creator. If God was created, he is not God, his creator is God. But his creator must be created, therefore his creator is not God. Therefore, the universe must be an entity that exist infinitely, for if creators exist infinitely then there is no God.

...and so on.
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Music sucks. Check out my favourite movies, fam:
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Happymeal

Jackwc wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by "not many people have criticized atheists" because I see quite often, and, as an atheist-agnostic myself, do it quite often.

On you point on having blind faith in/against that which one cannot prove the existence of:

I myself am an agnostic only for semantics. Mankind's grasp of the universe is trumped only by its infinite ignorance. Theoretically we can never know everything, so God's existence is as probable as Russel's teapot in that we'll never be able to know just how probable they are. HOWEVER, not believing is something you can't prove exists is still the more logical answer when confronted with such a problem - especially in the case of a God, in which all logical arguments FOR its existence falter under any logic.

The Ontalogical Belief:
God exists -> God is perfect by definition -> God is good -> God is not a deceiver -> (another point which is unrelated to this argument)
But if God is not a deceiver, then he cannot obfuscate or conceal his infinite existence. Should he, then he is not good. If he is not good, he is not perfect. If he is not perfect, he does not exist.

The Judeo-Christian Belief:
God is omnipresent; Humans have free will; God created humans; God must be omnipresent otherwise he is not perfect otherwise he is not God.
But if God is omnipresent then humans do not have free will, for God knows all their conceivable actions before they take them. And if humans do not have free will, which is the basis of most Judeo-Christian belief, then the Judeo-Christian God does not exist.

A General Belief:
God must be by definition perfect, therefore all he creates is perfect.
Therefore all he creates is true. God created the idea of God, therefore he exists. God created the idea that he does not exist; therefore he does not exist. God both exists and does not exist; therefore God does not exist.

Then there is the ever-present Atheist Architect Argument:
If the universe cannot exist without a creator, God cannot exist without a creator. If God was created, he is not God, his creator is God. But his creator must be created, therefore his creator is not God. Therefore, the universe must be an entity that exist infinitely, for if creators exist infinitely then there is no God.

...and so on.

That does make quite a bit of sense, but how does being omnipresent = taking away free will? The second thing is that in the first reasoning, since technically being perfect does not mean you have to be good(perfection is up for interpretation), then how does that argument make sense?

EDIT: The third argument too. If you are perfect does that mean everything you create is perfect too?(this is more a discussion question here actually). I believe no, but then again the idea of perfection is up for interpretation. He didn't create the idea he doesn't exist. Humans did which he also created, but does that mean humans have to be perfect and have perfect ideas as well?

EDIT number 2: These are just general questions to get a better understanding of these ideas. I am not implying you believe in these(neither am I implying you don't believe in these), but rather just questioning them.

Jackwc
Queen Of The Forums

Location: Aaaanywhere Sex: Incredible

Happymeal wrote:

That does make quite a bit of sense, but how does being omnipresent = taking away free will? The second thing is that in the first reasoning, since technically being perfect does not mean you have to be good(perfection is up for interpretation), then how does that argument make sense?

EDIT: The third argument too. If you are perfect does that mean everything you create is perfect too?(this is more a discussion question here actually). I believe no, but then again the idea of perfection is up for interpretation. He didn't create the idea he doesn't exist. Humans did which he also created, but does that mean humans have to be perfect and have perfect ideas as well?

EDIT number 2: These are just general questions to get a better understanding of these ideas. I am not implying you believe in these(neither am I implying you don't believe in these), but rather just questioning them.

1. If God is omnipresent it means he knew everything you were ever going to do, think or say before he made you, meaning that he made you fully aware of the choices you were to make, meaning he constructed those choices himself.

2. Part of the Ontalogical argument is that perfection automatically equates to goodness. Whether or not this is true is debatable as far as I'm concerned - for some, to be perfect would logically involve having perfect motives and thus being good.

3. Perfection is less open to interpretation in this case. The Anselmian definition of God is that there is none greater, and if there is none greater he is therefore perfect. Many theists claim that all of God's creation is perfect, as God cannot logically flaw - he is perfect, therefore everything he creates is perfect by extension regardless. And as an omnipresent being, like I said before, in creating humans that means he automatically also created everything humans have ever said, thought, done or made because he'd have to had made them with the intention of them doing so.

4. It's fine, it's fine.
_________________
A dick that's bigger than the sun.

Music sucks. Check out my favourite movies, fam:
http://letterboxd.com/jackiegigantic/

Happymeal

Jackwc wrote:

1. If God is omnipresent it means he knew everything you were ever going to do, think or say before he made you, meaning that he made you fully aware of the choices you were to make, meaning he constructed those choices himself.

2. Part of the Ontalogical argument is that perfection automatically equates to goodness. Whether or not this is true is debatable as far as I'm concerned - for some, to be perfect would logically involve having perfect motives and thus being good.

3. Perfection is less open to interpretation in this case. The Anselmian definition of God is that there is none greater, and if there is none greater he is therefore perfect. Many theists claim that all of God's creation is perfect, as God cannot logically flaw - he is perfect, therefore everything he creates is perfect by extension regardless. And as an omnipresent being, like I said before, in creating humans that means he automatically also created everything humans have ever said, thought, done or made because he'd have to had made them with the intention of them doing so.

4. It's fine, it's fine.

Everything makes more sense to me now about these reasonings/arguments(I will call them arguments for any post I make after this), except for number 1. I still don't understand the logical flow in the argument. I am kind of getting it. I will try to lay out what i think it is trying to say. Since god is everywhere(including all times I assume), then he knows everything you are going to do/will do, and it then states that he made you fully aware of the choices you are going to makes. After that it states that this means he constructed every choice we make. Anyways. The problem I have with this is

1. When it says that he made you fully aware of all choices you are going to make. If so, then how would this be possible. It doesn't seem like that because as a human I assume that people generally think about that choices before they make them. They think of the different possibilities and etc. Assuming this is true, then would that mean you aren't aware about the choice you are going to make? If you were to be aware of all choices, then you wouldn't think through anything, or am I understanding this wrong?

2. Assuming the above were true, then how does this mean he constructed all our choices for us? Assuming we are aware of all choices we are making, then does this really mean he made all our choices for us? The real question is, how does the above mean that he made our choices for us?

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Everyone become an agnostic and be happy! Very Happy