Atheism does not exist

You made me chuckle. No one cares about atheists enough to persecute them; it's a modern fad that will eventually die out. This is unlike religion, which has been around forever.

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I don't have to prove the risk no Thor. What I can prove is why God is worthy of worship, as opposed to Thor.

 

Believe is the operative word.
All are agnostic. For all believe something.

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No you can't. You've tried and failed here over and over. All you have is a belief. And your wanting the whole world to believe and live by your hateful laws.

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No you can't. You've tried and failed here over and over. All you have is a belief. And your wanting the whole world to believe and live by your hateful laws.

 

Like I said, one can easily prove why God is worthy of worship, and not Thor. Thor for one is not dominant over all things, now is he?

 

Of course he is. Prove he is not.
You claimed you had proof.
You also claimed you want the whole world living under sharia law.

 

1. Prove he is not? Um, this is according to Norse theology.

2. This thread has nothing to do with Sharia law.

 

Nor is it about your proving some fake god you worship.

What is norse theology?
What does that have to do with Thor?

 

Norse theology says Thor is king of the gods.

 

The king of gods, is God. Thor.

 

And yet Thor needed other beings to bring him into existence (as he is the son of Odin). God my ass.

 

Reality, energy, matter, human mind, had to bring any god into existence. God my ass.

Unless we're talking the christian God. That is the only God with Jesus to solidify for humans as the only path.

 

This one has me miffed. Are you saying people are born believing in some kind of god?

I've never called my self Atheist. I come from a long line of non religious folk going back quite a few generations. I didn't even understand the 'full' meaning of Atheist until coming into these forums. I won't say 'I don't believe in God" but I do say "God doesn't exist". What I have learnt, if I say "I don't believe in God", for some in these forum, sets me up as having a belief system which can be misconstrued as a religion. Silly hey? Therefore, into what pigeon hole would you put me?

I spent eight years in Laos. I spent quite a bit of time with the ethnic people of the remote north. Most are Animists and have been since the dawn of time. They have no concept of God and Theravada Buddhism has even yet to have an iota of impact on their societies. Into what pigeon hole would you put them in?

I'm very curious.

 

Are people born believing into some kind of god?
No.
Yet it is natural for them to believe into a spiritual world, since we are all partially spiritual beings.

About your pigeon hole?
If you say there is no God you are an atheist.
But you are not anti-theist, unless you have strong feeling against the idea of God.
And if you believe there might be a possibility that God (or gods) might exist, you are an agnostic.
I was born in USSR and we were practically all atheists, but not anti-theists ... top tier Communists were anti-theists. Dangerous folks.
Atheists were normal people who did not even think about God or religion. They had families and in some ways were more moral than many of the Christians that I see. To them Christianity was a part of their culture, like art, music and poetry.

Atheist does not necessarily mean unbelief in a certain deity.
It also refers to unbelief in any life form that is spiritual in nature.

Animists, spiritists, shamans are NOT atheists. They are just what they claim to be, animists, spiritists, shamans and such.

Does this make sense?

Thanks,
Ed

 

Actually, they equate God to Thor to make the point that both are equally likely and Christians get upset when they do so.

 

Who is this Thor? Not a mythological creature? And most of what we read is about mythological nonsense. The source of Judaism and Christianity is based on mythology and Jesus is not even a historical man. It is the creation of some artist. The Bible is simply children's stories. If one has go into deeper consciousness it is to Vedanta or Buddhism one has turn to, not to Islam or Christianity or Judaism.

 

Could you try actually reading what I’d writing here?

We both quoted this full paragraph from Wikipedia and it clearly explains how the word atheism is used to mean different things in different contexts. Despite quoting the whole paragraph, you’re stopping reading at the first sentence and pretending that the rest of the paragraph (let alone the rest of the article) doesn’t exist. Atheism sometimes means an explicit rejection of a god or gods but it can also sometimes mean a simple absence of belief. In no context does the term automatically assert any specific reasoning or basis for the position.

Your experience of individual atheists (or people who label themselves atheist) doesn’t define the word. If all the surgeons I’ve ever met happened to be male, that doesn’t mean the definition of the word surgeon includes a gender distinction. The word surgeon is still only characterised as a person who performs surgery. Your experience of (some) atheists actually contradicts your conclusion since you are talking about people who don’t believe in gods but are also opposed to religion. They’re both atheist and anti-theist.

I’ve no idea where you got the idea that it’s impossible for an individual to fit in to both categories at the same time. I suspect it’s because you (like lots of other people) are viewing these things as classes of people – a group of atheists over here, a group of theists over there and a group of anti-theists in the corner. In reality, these terms don’t identify people, they identify singular characteristics of people.

We’re all made up of countless thousands of separate characteristics you could choose to categories and label. You could say it’s the unique combination of all of those characteristics that make us distinct individuals. There is nothing special about the terms we’re talking about. I’m blond, British, short, hungry, employed, typing and I’m also atheist, agnostic, non-religious, secularist and realist. Fundamentally there’s no difference between any of those labels in relation to me as an individual and none of them alone define me. Lots of other people will share some, even all, of them yet they will still be distinct individuals with lots of other characteristics that are different to mine.

As I’ve said, the people who openly claim to be atheist (those who actually are) are only a sub-set of all the people who fit the various definitions. A greater proportion of outspoken atheists will be anti-theist because being anti-theists makes them more likely to be outspoken. Lots of people don’t believe in gods without talking about the fact very much, if at all. Some people will not believe in gods without consciously realising or thinking about it at all.

Not really, no. I still don’t understand why you’re so set on completely separating the two characteristics, especially given that there is such an obvious connection and overlap between them. They mean different things of course but there is no good reason to declare that an individual can’t be both, indeed it’s very difficult to rationalise most concepts of anti-theism without incorporating a form or atheism too.

 

So let me get this right.
As an adult if I believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, that Elvis is still alive and that aliens built the pyramids and used them for grain storage, I'm a certifiable nut job.
But if I don't believe there's an invisible man who lives in the sky, I'm simply an atheist.
Why the disparity?

 

Their point is basless, as God cannot logically be equated to Thor. God is eternal, Thor is not. And so forth.

 

Which One?

 

I've never seen Tooth Fairy believers ....try to convince us that "There are no actual Tooth Fairy atheists. Just Tooth Fairy agnostics."



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That's your opinion....prove it.

And why is it possible to be a "Thor atheist"....but it's "impossible" to be a "God atheist"?

 

I'm and agnostic/atheist/anti-theist.

I'm an agnostic in the sense that I won't claim to know something is impossible if I don't know that it is.

I'm an atheist because I reject the claims that gods exist. I don't not believe Allah is real. <---that is not an agnostic claim, period.

I'm an anti-theist because I consider theism a poison. In this I am against the active behavior of worshiping a god. Here the belief is secondary to the actions and behavior that-that belief creates.

Saying that something is possible is really not saying anything. Do I know Leprechauns are not real? No I don't but since there is no evidence that they exist, there is no rational reason for me to believe that they do.

Evidence matters. If everything is valid, nothing is.

 

Not even on Thorsday?

 

My corrected point is that the article is incorrect, since it calls rejection of a belief and absence of a belief by one term.
It cannot be defined by a common term.

Rejection is DISBELIEF - one would not believe even if it was true. A very subjective view.
Absence of, is UNBELIEF - one does not believe because he cannot or does not care, yet he would not object if it happened to be true.

DISBELIEF describes Anti-theist.
UNBELIEF describes A-theist.
Why are the two terms that different?

Because Anti-theist cannot be Agnostic about his view. He would not believe even if there was new data. Rejects it because he despises even the idea of a deity.
Personal, subjective dislike. Close-minded.

Atheists however, are all Agnostics since they accept the possibility that another life form may certainly exist. They allow that possibility because they are not Anti-theists, meaning they do not personally dislike the idea of God.
Open-minded.

Atheists are usually more peaceful and moral people.
Anti-theists are usually more militant and immoral.

Atheism was infiltrated and hijacked by Anti-theism, in my opinion.

 

Good crisp definitions.

One part does not fit.
If you are an agnostic in other things yet not an agnostic about theism you cannot be an atheist, but an anti-theist.
If you REJECT it is anti.

Allah could be a spirit, demon ... why reject?

Since you reject anything that is theistic because you consider theism poison, then it is anti-theism.

Atheism accepts the possibility of a deity.

 

That's true....God doesn't have a day of the week named after him. Even Sunday...named after The Sun. Not "The Son"



Plus when was the last time God had a billion dollar movie like "The Avengers".

 

If my definitions were so crisp I'm curious why you misunderstood them.

I reject theism because I think it's a poison hence my admission that I am an anti-theist, as in against theism. Atheism speaks directly about belief though, one cannot be agnostic and not reject the claims that someone knows something the agnostic feels cannot be known. Theism is the belief in a god or gods, atheism is the disbelief in a god or gods, it is the rejection of a claim. The idea that a god could exist is irrelevant to atheists because until there is evidence to support the claim the possibility is on par with any other possibility and as I said, if everything is valid, nothing is.

I do not believe in any of the claims that a god exists but I will not claim to know for certain that a god that has not yet been claimed to exist doesn't, nor will I ponder it because it's entirely irrelevant. Theistic religions are not supported by the possibility of some god existing, they are supported by a very specific god existing and lose all credibility the moment another god might be possible. This is a game believers love to play. Some how if any kind of god is possible their specific god must also be possible. This is not logical nor reasonable. Just because one cannot know that some form of god or something we might call god doesn't exist doesn't mean we can't reject outright a claim that a specific god does exist. Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive, in fact I think it is quite the opposite.