Posted on 01/18/2009 8:59:21 PM PST by Marechal
Billions of people attend millions of churches around the world to worship God.
Yet the God they worship is completely imaginary. Their belief represents a delusion.
It is easy to prove that God is imaginary. Start at the beginning with Proof #1, or try these five all-time favorites:
Analyse prayer Imagine heaven Notice your church Understand delusion Think about science
Or:
Watch the Videos
Ask questions in the Forum
(Excerpt) Read more at godisimaginary.com ...
It would seem clear to anyone here that the belief that killing infidels with a suicide bomb would entitle one to seventy-two virgins in an afterlife is fallacious, but we have no more evidence that the islammofascist is any less wrong than any other belief about an afterlife.
It seems contrived to me to believe in an afterlife that is supposed to make up for the stuff we have to put up with here. It sounds like a convenient way for the rulers of a society to get people to give up any and everything for the state, or for the hierarchy of a religion.
Some do organize into groups. I find this spurious since casting off religion means rejecting a form of unnecessary collectivism only to embrace another; it seems partially counterproductive.
But most non-believers don't organize, and chances are that you know many atheists who just don't discuss their beliefs in day to day conversation.
Atheism is just a religion of the Godless, obsessed with attacking other religions in the belief that they are the superior thinkers.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding that you have about atheism, non theism, and non-belivers.
You don't espouse the beliefs of Thor, Apollo, Ahura Mazda, or many of the other gods of the world. There's no dogma, faith, arrogance, or 'religion' required for you to not believe in them. Perhaps you've studied their scripture, text, and history and come to the conclusion that they're not believable or rational. Or maybe you just think they're ridiculous at face value.
Now, simply imagine someone doing the exact same thing for the scriptures and tenets of the major Abrahamic religions, and who came to the same conclusion.
It's not irrational or the least bit 'religious' if you give it an honest look.
I was just thinking of Stalin, Mao and other marxists who killed in the name of non-religion. I just think the critics of religion pretend their own predilections don’t have a history.
When we are ignored, it narrows our choices on what to do next. Newbies usually get banned - on the RF, oldtimers usually get booted from the thread.
Fair enough. I didn’t see the cursing...of course I only read his initial post (#75).
Well you’ve just killed off a good portion of the quantum physics field.
Not all atheists believe in nothing. Many believe in govt and socialism and worship it like a God. Technically they’re atheists, but not in the sense of the normal use of the word.
Those are the ones who scare me, not the garden variety non-believers in God.
Worship of the state is not secularism.
Actually, those others you mentioned such as Thor etc., have their explanations in the believe also in evil. False Gods, created by Satan. So while I have no faith in them, I believe their concept exists in that there is another spiritual force behind them. One great evil with many masks. Thor exists, like that wolf in sheep’s clothing. As do the others.
I believe that those who say there is no God have been just as fooled by that same spiritual force.
I'm unclear on what you're saying. So you believe Thor and Poseidon are real gods?
But that’s what they call themselves to scam the public into thinking they’re not pushing a form of religion.
"And with those who suffered he [St. Anthony] sympathised and prayed. And oft-times the Lord heard him on behalf of many: yet he boasted not because he was heard, nor did he murmur if he were not. But always he gave the Lord thanks and besought the sufferer to be patient, and to know that healing belonged neither to him nor to man at all, but only to the Lord, who does good when and to whom He will. The sufferers therefore used to receive the words of the old man as though they were a cure, learning not to be downhearted but rather to be long-suffering. And those who were healed were taught not to give thanks to Antony but to God alone." -St. Athanasius, Life of St. Anthony
No, I believe they are false Gods created by Satan.
\ He is a remarkable theologian. Imagine sitting down to dinner with him :-)
But leaving that aside, you don't believe that the Iliad and the Odyssey are non-fiction historical works. Like I said earlier, there's no dogma, faith, arrogance, or 'religion' required for you to not believe in them.
This is the same for people that look at the texts of the Abrahamic religions and make the same determination.
You brought up the word 'obsession'. I was merely turning the mirror back at you to show that if you define obsession as putting up websites, people of religious faiths do it far more often than people who espouse no religious faith.
I agree that study is important. Being as people in every part of the world grow up immersed in some sort of religious tradition that is particular to the dominant faiths that operate in their parts of the world, there are often very, very many sources of information on those faiths. What if someone is looking for information on disbelief? What if they are wondering if the organized religions surrounding them are false? Surely Christians put up websites to attract people from a Mormon culture, or even Jewish and Islamic traditions. Why shouldn't people who think it's all a crock be able to make their reasoning available to someone seeking answers?
Atheists don’t believe in God. But they organize like a religion. They concentrate on other people’s faith as if they’re threatened somewhow by that faith.
Actually, most websites and books that are published are not done so as part of any single organization. It just looks monolithic to you. Yes, they read each other's books, but beyond that, there is not much in the way of formal organization.
There have been a few atheist organizations, Madelyn Murray O'Hair founded American Atheists as a civil rights organization dedicated to raising awareness of and lobbying for the rights of people who do not share the dominant belief system of this country. There is an American tradition of separation of church and state, and while there are multiple arguments about where and when it became part of our traditions, the fact is, most people agree with it to some extent. There have clearly been cases where it is violated (go live in Utah if you want to know what I'm talking about) that are invisible to people of faith.
What’s the point of a website that has to reinforce a belief that God is imaginary? Sounds like some people need to convince themselves and organize together their beliefs
It's the same as the websites promoting a particular religious faith. Not every Methodist knows 100% about being a Methodist, therefore the Methodist church puts out books and websites about what Methodists believe, so that people who seek to identify with that denomination can more closely match their actions and thoughts to that line of religious thought. Again, if someone in a deeply religious culture wants to explore their doubts about the predominant religions that they are surrounded with, it is often useful to explore the thought processes that others have taken to get to their unbelief.
Atheism is just a religion of the Godless, obsessed with attacking other religions in the belief that they are the superior thinkers.
I understand that you feel "attacked". And it is easy to see that everyone who espouses nonbelief looks like some giant organization of people who are ganging up on you. Such is the nature of the persecution complex of religious people.
If you really want to see attacks, go to the anti-Mormon websites that some Christians have put up, I became familiar with them this last year while Mitt Romney was running for President. We might have seen him inaugurated today instead of a phony Christian if evangelical Christians had not been so very afraid of his Mormon religion.
They killed in the name of socialism. Socialism is not atheism. One does not need a religious belief system to accord other persons with dignity and respect, including their rights to acquire and possess personal property from their own honest efforts.
I could go on and on with a list of people who killed in the names of various religious traditions, but you'd counter me with the notion that "those individuals were appropriating religion for their own selfish aims, and were not truly religious." I'll submit to you that Stalin and Mao were doing the same thing in putting atheism in their stated political philosophies. In fact, what they were doing was substituting their own cults of personality as the religion of the state. They didn't seek to destroy religion, they just wanted themselves set up as gods.
What, because what quantum physicists hypothesize about things that cannot be directly observed?
The difference between quantum physicists and religionists is that if there are ever reproduce-able observations that contradict the current theories of physics, the physicists will modify those theories to account for the new observation. They may even throw out a theory in its entirety if new tools are developed to allow observations that were not possible prior to the invention of the tools.
Religionists just simply say that the observations don't exist.
I do not feel ‘attacked’. Athiests don’t threaten me at all. I feel sorry for them.
You’re losing me when you mention seperation of Church and state. Uh, uh, uh. To protect the Church from government interference is freedom of religion, not seperation. Not to keep religion out of the public square.
But look, atheist guy, I don’t recall ever saying that athiests couldn’t have websites. Let them website it up. I merely pointed out that the site is with a questionable host and the owners wish to remain anonymous. Although I don’t see the logic in making a study of disbelief. If I believe something does not exist, why do I want to waste my time proving it to myself or others? If I ‘really’ didn’t believe in it’s existance I would just go on with my life and not give it another thought.
And once-upon-a-time the Greek and Roman Gods were very real to people. They may be Mythology and literature to us now, but they weren’t always. Someone believed in them. I’m saying the creator of false Gods is Satan and always has been.
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