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Atheists Don't Exist

RabidAlpaca said:
By this same ****ty logic unicorns must exist because in order for someone to not believe in unicorns they must exist. Sound stupid? Yeah I thought so too when you said it.
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Yes, I think that's right. It's the only way I could prove the title of this thread.
 
weaver2 said:
Yes, I think that's right. It's the only way I could prove the title of this thread.
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I dunno bud. Your argument seems almost dumber than the OP's. You claimed one can't lack a belief in something that doesn't exist which is ridiculous.
 
Angel said:
God is the necessary and sufficient condition for the physical universe, life on earth, and consciousness.

This is an empirical inference to the best explanation of the mysterious phenomena mentioned in the definition. The definition is logical and ventures nothing about the nature of God -- like benevolence, omniscience, perfection, etc.

How so a non-sequitur? We were discussing whether of not God is an established answer or not.
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Bolded is just a belief nothing more and is in no way shape or form the best explanation of anything. It is just a cop out to avoid actually looking for an explantation
 
Angel said:
Whether God exists or not in reality and in fact does not affect the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist except to make one or the other belief true and one or the other belief false but unverifiable in either case.
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Hmmm. Why wouldn't "atheists don't exist" be true and verifiable.
 
weaver2 said:
Hmmm. Why wouldn't "atheists don't exist" be true and verifiable.
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It may be true, it may be false, but it is unverifiable in principle because the belief that goes by the name "atheism" is strictly a matter of personal knowledge and the only evidence for it is personal testimony. Now, personal testimony, though it falls short of proof in the strict sense, is good enough for most of us, but not for the Internet Skeptic as regards personal testimony of experiences of God. And that is the point of my thread: a criticism if Internet Skepticism's dismissal of the personal testimony theists. I turned that unreasonableness back on the unreasonable.
 
Omega Man said:
So is this God you speak of intelligent, or meaningless? Natural, or supernatural? Involved, or neutral? A fatherly deity first known to ancient Near Easterners, or something nobody has ever truly known or identified?
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God is meaning itself, the Referent of the universe, life, and consciousness. As for the rest of your list of attributes, no one knows, though there are a thousand and one stories that 6 billion people believe about God's attributes -- that's what religion is all about.

Omega Man said:
What is God, to you?
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God is the logic of all we call real.
 
Angel said:
Because we've managed to have civil conversations in the past, I'll ask you to identify the "apples" and the "oranges" in the thesis of my thread.
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You are asking of atheists something that is impossible to quantify, one is an atheist or one is not. The same as one is a christian or not. It is not a skeptical thing you can let loose on that.

Now if I would say that the god of the bible does not exist because some evidence that according to me would prove without a shadow of a doubt that the specific god of the bible does not exist then you would have a very good reason for skepticism and taking me to task on that issue.

Or if some muslim would say that allah does exist and the christian god does not exist because of the stone in Mekka, you would justifiably be skeptical about that.

The apples I am talking about is the pure statement of someone to state that they are atheist or theist.

The oranges are when someone makes a claim he/she says is proven without a shadow of a doubt as factual that skepticism is warranted.
 
Angel said:
God is ... no one knows.
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There, that wasn't so hard now, was it?

So, in other words, nobody knows the nature of why we exist; other than attributed theoretically to something nobody knows anything about for certain.

It would appear then that one of your previous comments was indeed on the mark - you and I are in agreement.


OM
 
roughdraft274 said:
You either have a logical argument or you don't. You're argument is either logical or illogical independent of if people are mean to you on the internet. I'm not sure why you are suggesting that this makes a difference. You've admitted that you don't think all personal testimony is the same. So you're only real complaint seems to be that you are just unhappy that "internet skeptics" don't buy your personal testimony and you don't like that. But at the end of the day, it's fine for them to disregard your personal testimony if they feel it doesn't warrant a belief in your claim. If you tell them you have a dog, they will likely believe you because nothing in your testimony goes against the real world facts that they encounter every day. They have seen dogs, they have owned dogs, they have friends who have dogs etc.. If you tell them you have a personal experience that lets you know that there is a god, they will say that your claim requires more evidence than mere personal testimony due to the fact that nothing you have claimed comports with the facts that they know and experience in reality. The exact same way that you would require more evidence from someone who provides you with personal testimony regarding god that contradicts your personal testimony regarding god.
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First of all, let's clear up some of the errors (misunderstandings?) revealed in this portion of your post.
1. My argument for the existence of God is NOT personal testimony; it's reasoned argument.
2. I said that IN PRINCIPLE personal testimony is not proof, and it is not -- there is no certain verifiability to any personal testimony. It's a matter of trust and faith.
3. I said that I treat personal testimony differently depending on the person giving the testimony and the content of the testimony.
4. There is nothing contradictory or illogical in 1-3.
5. My quarrel with the Internet Skeptic is that he dismisses and rejects all personal testimony of Theists out of hand.
6. My thread turns the tables on the Internet Skeptic.
7. My thread is a reductio ad absurdum (an argument that reduces a view to absurdity) of the Internet Skeptic's attitude toward theists.

roughdraft274 said:
This entire thread it seems, is just you wanting to play bad faith games with logic. You perfectly well understand that not all personal testimony claims are the same. You know full well that you have dismissed others personal testimonies because they didn't comport with your own. You are just upset that atheists don't give your personal testimony a pass. But you've presented no good reason for them to do so.
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Answered above.


roughdraft274 said:
It's not irrelevant. The wide variety is exactly the reason that religious personal testimony with concrete claims should be largely rejected. If you are invited to a party and they give you the address, most people would consider it wise to accept that address and go to that location for the party for obvious reasons. If you are invited and the ten people organizing the party send you 10 addresses that are all different, then it wouldn't make sense to choose 1 and accept that one or to accept all 10 sense logically they can't all be right. The logical position is to question all of the addresses until you are able to get more evidence that there is an actual party and what the correct address is.
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So it turns out that you must be counted among my target audience:
The wide variety is exactly the reason that religious personal testimony with concrete claims should be largely rejected.
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The analogy of personal experiences of God and party addresses is ludicrous.
 
Why are you people feeding it? Leave it alone and it will go back under its bridge.
 
Angel said:
First of all, let's clear up some of the errors (misunderstandings?) revealed in this portion of your post.
1. My argument for the existence of God is NOT personal testimony; it's reasoned argument.
2. I said that IN PRINCIPLE personal testimony is not proof, and it is not -- there is no certain verifiability to any personal testimony. It's a matter of trust and faith.
3. I said that I treat personal testimony differently depending on the person giving the testimony and the content of the testimony.
4. There is nothing contradictory or illogical in 1-3.
5. My quarrel with the Internet Skeptic is that he dismisses and rejects all personal testimony of Theists out of hand.
6. My thread turns the tables on the Internet Skeptic.
7. My thread is a reductio ad absurdum (an argument that reduces a view to absurdity) of the Internet Skeptic's attitude toward theists.
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Well then that's your quarrel. You've given no good reason to suggest that they shouldn't dismiss religious personal testimonies out of hand when no other evidence is provided. And there are plenty of very good reasons to do so, such as the fact that many of them are from competing religions with competing messages. The logical conclusion from your argument is that it would also be absurd to dismiss personal testimony of a bigfoot encounter out of hand.

Your thread turns no tables. It's silly and childish.

Angel said:
The analogy of personal experiences of God and party addresses is ludicrous.
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No, actually, it makes perfect sense. You just refuse to see it.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
I dunno bud. Your argument seems almost dumber than the OP's. You claimed one can't lack a belief in something that doesn't exist which is ridiculous.
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I agree. But it is the only way to prove the title of the thread without relying on personal experience.
 
roughdraft274 said:
...Your thread turns no tables. It's silly and childish....
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It's been fun talking with you, boss. Your challenges and misunderstandings have helped me clarify the thread topic and get the message out.
Peace.
 
Angel said:
It may be true, it may be false, but it is unverifiable in principle because the belief that goes by the name "atheism" is strictly a matter of personal knowledge and the only evidence for it is personal testimony. Now, personal testimony, though it falls short of proof in the strict sense, is good enough for most of us, but not for the Internet Skeptic as regards personal testimony of experiences of God. And that is the point of my thread: a criticism if Internet Skepticism's dismissal of the personal testimony theists. I turned that unreasonableness back on the unreasonable.
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You reject personal claims of truth all the time. Muslims, Hindus and various other religious people swear to you their god is real yet you don't believe them. Why not? According to your logic you must believe in all of them until explicitly proven otherwise.

When you can understand why you're not a Muslim you can understand why we're not Christians.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
You reject personal claims of truth all the time. Muslims, Hindus and various other religious people swear to you their god is real yet you don't believe them. Why not? According to your logic you must believe in all of them until explicitly proven otherwise.
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You really don't know what in the hell you're talking about, do you! Please stop wasting my time. Your assertion about my relation to "Muslims, Hindus and various other religious people" is completely false and full of crap. You must have me confused with someone else or you're just making crap up in order to post something, anything. This post of yours is the epitome of bad faith internet posting. Please dump your garbage elsewhere.
 
Angel said:
Do Atheists Exist?

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Apparently not.

Not by the standards of Internet skepticism they don't.

At the very least there is no reason to believe that atheists exist.
(This to match the more tempered skeptical claim.)

Internet skeptics demand proof of God's existence.
Internet skeptics jeer at mystery presented as evidence.
Internet skeptics reject personal testimony out of hand.

(I use the word "prove" throughout in the loose sense popularized by Internet skeptics of course.)

So let us turn the tables on the Internet Skeptic.

Let's demand a proof of the existence of atheists.

Let us reject personal testimony as evidence.

(But let's leave the jeering to the Internet Skeptic, yes?)

The purpose and point of this thread is to show the Internet Skeptic the folly of his ways.

(Drum roll please)

because by the standards of the Internet Skeptic

Atheists Don't Exist

Comments
Proofs?
Concessions?​
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AGENT J said:
LMAO Hey look another thread started by you based on lies and unsupportable feelings but ZERO facts and intellectual logic. Cant wait to read this trainwreck and see people right left, center, religious and nonreligious mock it and destroy it for the nonsense it is using facts.

FACTS:
Athiest exist
Your claims above are false and or dishonest
Local Partners and Affiliates | American Atheists

:popcorn2:
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Over 200 Post and another failed OP of yours getting destroyed by facts over and over again, I love it!
Fact remains Atheist exist
:popcorn2:
 
Angel said:
You really don't know what in the hell you're talking about, do you! Please stop wasting my time. Your assertion about my relation to "Muslims, Hindus and various other religious people" is completely false and full of crap. You must have me confused with someone else or you're just making crap up in order to post something, anything. This post of yours is the epitome of bad faith internet posting. Please dump your garbage elsewhere.
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So you believe in all of the claims of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism at the same time? That's not possible as they're contradictory to each other. Stop lying, you do not believe all of those claims.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
So you believe in all of the claims of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism at the same time? That's not possible as they're contradictory to each other. Stop lying, you do not believe all of those claims.
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Now you're calling me a liar! You're posting out of your ass, pal. I'm the fella who posted the thread "Understanding Religion" not long after he became a member, and I'm the fella who posted many times that "All religions are true." Take your bad faith posting elsewhere.
 
Angel said:
Now you're calling me a liar! You're posting out of your ass, pal. I'm the fella who posted the thread "Understanding Religion" not long after he became a member, and I'm the fella who posted many times that "All religions are true." Take your bad faith posting elsewhere.
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You're lying through your teeth. You do not believe in heaven and reincarnation at the same time
You do not believe all the teachings of Jesus and Muhammed at the same time, there are thousands of contradictions. You call atheism a religion so you must believe that too huh? You are one of the most wildly dishonest posters on this forum. Stop lying and just own up to your own beliefs.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
You're lying through your teeth. You do not believe in heaven and reincarnation at the same time
You do not believe all the teachings of Jesus and Muhammed at the same time, there are thousands of contradictions. You call atheism a religion so you must believe that too huh? You are one of the most wildly dishonest posters on this forum. Stop lying and just own up to your own beliefs.
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The record shows who's lying here:
Angel said:
Understanding Religion: Hinduism


New Atheism, as we all know, is the know-it-all dismissal of what New Atheists do not in the least understand -- namely, religion.

No surprise there.

After all, the High Guru of New Atheism, Richard Dawkins, provided the model in this regard; his lack of religious understanding is profound.

Indeed, the appeal of New Atheism to a certain cast of mind lies precisely here, in its solid grounding in ignorance of religion.

As represented by New Atheism, the ongoing public insult to older more thoughtful forms of atheism must needs cease, that the dialogue between an informed skepticism and religious faith might be rid of its present shrillness and stupidity.

The aim of this thread is above all to strike a blow against the valorization of ignorance popularized by New Atheism, and to achieve this aim by striking a blow in the cause of understanding religion.

Why Hinduism?

I am a Christian, a Roman Catholic, and needless to say my connection to the Ultimate Spiritual Reality of the world has been by way of Christianity; nevertheless, I have an enduring interest in the other major religions of the world, particularly Eastern religions, and I hope to satisfy my intellectual curiosity, and perhaps stimulate such interest in others, in the course of this thread, starting with Hinduism.

At its deepest level Hinduism appears to be profoundly philosophical and non-theistic.

At that profound metaphysical level Hinduism seems to dovetail with modern physical science.

There's matter to conjure with, pun intended.

Please Note:

I post this thread in "Beliefs and Skepticism" rather than in "Philosophy" or "Theology" for two reasons:
First, because Hinduism is both philosophy and theology, and to privilege either aspect over the other is to misrepresent Hinduism;
Second, because the broader purpose of the thread is not to promote this or that faith, but to understand religion in general, and Hinduism serves merely as a starting point. Next up: Buddhism.








Vocabulary:

Vedas
Upanishads
Bhagavad Gita

Brahman
Atman
Maya
Karma
Dharma
Samsara
Moksha

Vishnu
Krishna
Brahma

Questions:

Based on what you have learned from the videos, would you say that Hinduism is monotheistic, polytheistic, or non-theistic in its core beliefs?
Please explain your answer.

How does the physical world figure into the world-view of Hinduism?

If you are Hindu or have studied Hinduism, would you kindly share your insight into Hinduism with us?

If you are an atheist, what aspects of Hinduism do you find most appealing?



Namaste​
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Understanding Religion

Now get gone, man. Your posts are stinking up my thread.
 
Angel said:
The record shows who's lying here:

Understanding Religion

Now get gone, man. Your posts are stinking up my thread.
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You declared atheism a religion and stated you believe ALL aspects of ALL religions, therefore you believe in god and don't believe in god at the same time. Sounds stupid and contradictory doesn't it?

You can not believe all aspects of all religions at once. You know this but you're lying about it anyway.
 
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