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To: XEHRpa; betty boop
it would seem to me that the key to converting atheists is to get them to realize the arbitrariness of moral codes in the absence of God.

Somehow, I do not think that would happen. I think that in a way there are no atheists in the sense that they do not believe in God. I think they do believe there is a God but they reject his commands and his rules. That is why they show such hatred towards religion, they do not want the rules and do now wish to be bound by anything but their own wishes.

426 posted on 08/16/2003 8:06:48 PM PDT by gore3000 (Intelligent people do not believe in evolution.)
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To: gore3000; XEHRpa; Alamo-Girl; unspun; Phaedrus; logos
I think they do believe there is a God but they reject his commands and his rules. That is why they show such hatred towards religion, they do not want the rules and do now wish to be bound by anything but their own wishes.

An accurate description, gore3000, IMO. What they really reject is the idea of a transcendent moral code. "Killing God" takes care of that problem.

436 posted on 08/17/2003 10:24:24 AM PDT by betty boop (Bohr is brutally realistic in epistemological terms. -- Kafatos & Nadeau)
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To: gore3000
I think that in a way there are no atheists in the sense that they do not believe in God. I think they do believe there is a God but they reject his commands and his rules.

There may be some like that, but most of the atheists I know simply see no evidence for any god, the Christian version included.

In fact, it's often an extrapolation from the fact that there is no evidence for any sort of 'spirit world' (anything from elves to angels to djinns to ESP to 'souls').

Sure, there are a lot of stories and scriptures, (many of which contradict each other - the Bible doesn't teach transmigration of souls, the Hindu Scriptures do) and some personal anecdotes (none of which is believable *as evidence for unseen 'dimensions' or 'disembodied intelligences' or whatever* - Occam's Razor tells me they're evidence of psychological processes.)

From the Church of Apatheism website:

Simply put, theists don't deny, agnostics don't know, atheists don't believe, and apatheists don't care about the existence of gods.

465 posted on 08/17/2003 8:29:15 PM PDT by Virginia-American
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