What do athiests think happened 2009 years ago?

[Mark_UK]

Jesus is or rather was one of many freedom fighters knocking around at the time, and one of hundreds who claimed to be the son of God and be able to perform miracles and all the rest of it. The bible is basically a morality tale, nothing more nothing less.
There is and never has been a God, there is no heaven or hell, you are on your own basically its a one shot life, you live, you do your best, you die, that's it, the end.
Christianity is basically a modified form of pagan sun worship with a little bit of Judaism thrown in for good measure.

 

[Mark_UK]

All religion is fundamentally a delusional fantasy requiring the suspension of all rational thought.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Why not make no assumption? But recognize that the existence of critter or phenomenon X is unlikely?

I would say that offering any credibility to claims with no evidence is making the assumption.
The only rational response is to take the position that you do not form beliefs about things for which there is no evidence...
That includes the belief that they "might be possible" because that is not based upon evidence.

No. Too strong.

This is not an argument. Sorry Rubi... but it is not possible for a population of apes to exist without leaving aphysical trace in the form oof carcasses or scat.

ITs not too strong, its a fact. To claim this position is wrong or too strong, you would have to offer some hypothesis or example of large mammal populations that do not produce feces.

Too strong.

Again, you can say that, but it fails as argument.
You need to provide evidence of external phenomena that can be seen my human eyes and yet remains undetectable and unrecordable by modern video equipment.
EVERYTHING that human beings can visually perceive, that is external (.i.e. not an artifact of the eye or visual cortex ) can be detected by instrumentation.
No verifiable apparitions have ever been recorded- ergo, they are not occuring.

I agree.
But you're properly talking about, not impossibility, but extreme unlikelihood.
That's a distinction I like to keep ... even though the distinction, in the real world, is pretty trivial.

You love certainty too much, Phil.
But you're entertaining.
Never miss a post by the Philster.

No, I am talking about impossibility. The soft philosophical notion of anything being possbile to some infinitesimal degree is moot, because it has been shown to be incorrect.

I am not in love with certainty, Rubi... quite the opposite, I prefer the UNCERTAINTY of science, where what is unknown or unknowable is stated rather plainly. Far better that kind of uncertainty, in exchange for a handful of truly knowable things than the "certainty" that nonsense might be valid.


Sorry... its just not.
I would happily entertain any hypothesis of ghosts that explains how they work...

But no one has fielded one. People say they are there, they are real, and totally ignore that they can offer no idea as to how such things could work... what rules they operate by, or how to test these notions for validity.

What you are suggesting is that an absurdity like Intelligent design deserves to be treated on parity with evolution.
It doesn't.
Evolution had to run a gauntlet and jump thru hoops of fire to establish its validity.
And I.D. has no 'theory' to even test...

You simply can not hold up malarky alongside genuinely testable hypotheses as if the marlarky is tenable merely by virtue of the fact that it can be stated.


BTW- I feel precisely the same way about both String Theory and Dark matter... essentially saying to even these scientist, STFU till you can field a theory that is testable.

Tell me what dark matter could possibly be made of, and how that fits the rest of the model of matter... or show me a prediction string theory makes that we can test for...


The most cogent analysis of String theory yet was that it, thus far, doesn't even rise to the level of being "wrong".

ghosts, as an idea, is so silly that it isn't even "wrong".

Am I opne minded?
Sure.

Present some evidence and I will consider it.

Until then, the proper stance is to not form any belief about it... not even the notion that they "might" be real.

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

<sings>
Another day
just an ordinary day
</sings>

 

[StrictlyAvg]

All religion is fundamentally a delusional fantasy requiring the suspension of all rational thought.

Many religious people are quite rational in many or even most areas of their life. The faith based systems that come from what is sometimes sneeringly referred to as the "desert cults" are not rational. e.g. the whole point about pig flesh and/or seafood being forbidden is more likely to be based on the likelihood of problems related to food hygiene in the area the texts were written - rational enough, but continues long after it has become clear that there are many ways to eat such produce without becoming ill, so in today's world where we understand disease transmission mechanisms it is irrational.

But that doesn't mean the person is incapable of rational though outside of their faith. When you consider that our whole monetary system is based on faith and "confidence" (it stopped being based on the notional value of precious metals a long time ago), a religious man dealing on the stock exchange is going to spend most of his life in happy hold to irrational belief systems...

Those that rely on the existence of a potent or omnipotent deity who is possessed of enough data to look at and judges each individual's life at the point of death, in microscopic detail, to come up with an arbitrary eternally damnable or pleasant afterlife lost their ability to convince me of anything at about the time Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were snuffed out of my beliefs!

 

[B_Hickboy]

I really don't care a whole lot about what atheists or agnostics think. I don't care what most theologians think, either. My religion is the most personal thing about me and my experiences of the divine are private. Nobody else has the right to tell me how to think, and those who presume to do so will get, depending on how much time I happen to have at that moment, either a hasty rebuff or a discussion that will leave them confused and usually questioning their own beliefs.

Discussions like this embarrass me. It is appropriate that some aspects of a person's life be kept intensely personal, and this is one of them.

I counter with a question: What difference does it make what atheists think? They bore me, and I rarely have any time to waste on them.

 

[StrictlyAvg]

Discussions like this embarrass me. It is appropriate that some aspects of a person's life be kept intensely personal, and this is one of them.

Hear hear. It's organised, politicised religion pursued for power and money that needs most to shout loudest about the depth of faith. They need the money to keep it all going.

Those who say sex talk should be kept intensely personal but insist on trying to sell you the virtues of their brand of faith in an in-your-face manner are people most on this board would cross the street to avoid!

 

[B_Hickboy]

:yup: I believe that my beliefs are nobody's business, and that theirs are none of mine.

 

[Calboner]

How is it senseless?

Agnosticism only addresses the question of "Can we know if God exists?"

Atheism or theism answers the question "Does God exist?"

You are putting agnosticism in the same arena as atheism and theism, and that is not what agnosticism is.

You can be agnostic and think that we have no way of knowing if God exists while at the same time believing that he doesn't.

Ford almighty, did you even read what I wrote? LOOK at these three propositions:

(1) God exists.
(2) God does not exist.
(3) I have no opinion whether God exists or does not exist.
​

The theist affirms (1), the atheist affirms (2), and the agnostic affirms (3). NO ONE CAN COHERENTLY AFFIRM MORE THAN ONE OF THESE PROPOSITIONS. You cannot coherently say "I don't have an opinion as to whether God exists, but God exists" or "I don't have an opinion as to whether God exists, but God does not exist," because you are stating an opinion on a point on which you profess to have no opinion. That is why no one can be both an agnostic and an atheist or an agnostic and a theist.

Now don't go posting on this topic again until you have actually READ this and UNDERSTOOD it.

 

[ManlyBanisters]

Agnostics can and do have opinions though, Cal - they just don't necessarily care to commit to either side.

I do reckon 'agnostic atheist' is a dumb expression - It's like saying 'I don't know what it is but I know what it isn't.' Theists and atheists both have Faith - agnostics do not - that is, to my mind anyway, the difference.

EDIT: If you believe there is no God you are an atheist - if you believe there is no God but accept that you have no proof of that and it is not a self-evident fact then you are an intelligent atheist. :smile:

 

[Calboner]

I recognize that, etymologically, the term "agnostic" means "one without knowledge." But that is not how the term is commonly used. Someone who believes something to be the case, when asked whether it is so, will not answer "I don't know," unless he is trying to evade the question. Similarly, no one says "I am agnostic on that question" when they have an opinion on it. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of Christians would not claim knowledge of the existence of God, but they still believe in God. To describe such believers as "agnostics" would be a very eccentric application of the term.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

agreed-
technically, agnostics do not form belief systems around things for which they have no evidence.

Moreover... agnostics take the position that some things simply can not be knowable in any real sense.
For a scientific example, what conditions may or may not have been prior to the 'big bang' is absolutely unknowable- given the nature of big bang theory.
That is, If the big bang occurred largely as we hypothesize, then, by definition, there could be no moment 'prior' to the event that could be knowable.

By the same token, classic agnosticism is position that the very idea of god, in and of itself, is an unknowable. And since it is unknowable, there is no point in theorizing about it.


as such, it is a mistake to consider agnostics as being "undecided" on the issue of god in the sense of holding out the possibility.

Agnostics do not entertain the possibility of that which can not be proven.

for true agnostics, God simply falls into the category of things of which it is a waste of time to even think about.



However... that does not mean that you can not determine to a proof that some of people's ideas about God are false.
For example, being an agnostic on the idea of God does not mean I can not prove that God does not answer prayers.

When believers claim intercessory or other direct action by God is manifest in reality- those claims CAN be subjected to testing.
And they have proven to be false.

So we CAN know that God does not answer prayers.

 

[crossy]

naughty - You might be right. ALTHOUGH I have a completely different hairdo than Jesus. No beard. I have big brown eyes compared to His blue eyes. I believe I am taller (6'2' in heels) than Jesus was thought to be. Probably we share the same semitic nose. Thats all the image identity I can think of.

 

[B_Mister Buildington]

lol, blue eyes

 

[ManlyBanisters]

So we CAN know that God does not always answer prayers.

Fixed that for ya, buddy.

naughty - You might be right. ALTHOUGH I have a completely different hairdo than Jesus. No beard. I have big brown eyes compared to His blue eyes. I believe I am taller (6'2' in heels) than Jesus was thought to be. Probably we share the same semitic nose. Thats all the image identity I can think of.

lol, blue eyes

That's what I was thinking - but then I don't believe crossy believes 99% of what crossy posts, so [dot dot dot].

 

[prepstudinsc]

My faith in God and Jesus is what sustains me through the good times and the bad times. What I don't understand is what people who are truly atheists turn to in times of trouble. In good times, or when anything good happens, it can be called "luck" or "fate" or whatever and can be easily played off to circumstances that we control.
When things are bad, how does an atheist find comfort--such as when a close friend or family member dies, or when someone is sick, or when you need financial help.
Maybe I'm just a simple-minded Christian, but I need something/someone in which to trust.

Can someone explain???

 

[D_CountdeGrandePinja]

Faith is a gift - it also has to be nurtured - faith reasoned and professed is our openness to the God that we witness within ourselves.

 

[B_Hickboy]

*snip*
Maybe I'm just a simple-minded Christian, but I need something/someone in which to trust.

Can someone explain???

Accepting a simple explanation is an acquired talent. A very desirable acquired talent.

 

[LMX]

Ford almighty, did you even read what I wrote? LOOK at these three propositions:

(1) God exists.
(2) God does not exist.
(3) I have no opinion whether God exists or does not exist.
​

The theist affirms (1), the atheist affirms (2), and the agnostic affirms (3). NO ONE CAN COHERENTLY AFFIRM MORE THAN ONE OF THESE PROPOSITIONS. You cannot coherently say "I don't have an opinion as to whether God exists, but God exists" or "I don't have an opinion as to whether God exists, but God does not exist," because you are stating an opinion on a point on which you profess to have no opinion. That is why no one can be both an agnostic and an atheist or an agnostic and a theist.

Now don't go posting on this topic again until you have actually READ this and UNDERSTOOD it.

Agnosticism does not answer number 3! lol, did you read what I wrote?

Agnosticism = can we KNOW if God exists. It has nothing to do with opinions on as to whether God exists. Agnostics claim that no one can know if he exists. No one can know for certain. Then we get into religion. FAITH. Theism and atheism deal with BELIEF, FAITH.

Knowing and believing are separate from each other. Stop trying to put them in the same class.

Do some research.

Atheism vs. Agnosticism: What's the Difference? Are they Alternatives to Each Other?

Agnostic Atheist

agnostic atheism - Google Search

Your meaning of agnosticism is not the correct meaning.

 

[invisibleman]

My faith in God and Jesus is what sustains me through the good times and the bad times. What I don't understand is what people who are truly atheists turn to in times of trouble. In good times, or when anything good happens, it can be called "luck" or "fate" or whatever and can be easily played off to circumstances that we control.
When things are bad, how does an atheist find comfort--such as when a close friend or family member dies, or when someone is sick, or when you need financial help.
Maybe I'm just a simple-minded Christian, but I need something/someone in which to trust.

Can someone explain???

Atheists may have coping mechanisms different than a what a Christian has in dealing with things. They may not be right ways for you...but they are right for them.