Welcome to Gaia! ::

So here is rant for you fellows of the 'atheists/anti-theist' kind.

I'm only out here for people more serious about contradicting the person rather than JUST their idea of god or religion, without trying the latter.
Warning... I don't care about tl;dr-ers... I am an atheist active in Theological studies~
And yes... This is gonna be a drag... rofl

Definitions

Atheist - the logic of unbelief of any god.
Anti-theist - the logic of seeing religion is metaphorically, a poison to society.

I seem to be getting the vibes here that the majority here seems to only not believe in god because of the sheer 'awesomeness' of stories in the bible. Just to make it clear I do not believe in the idea of a God or the incarnation of God through a 'powered-up' Jesus, if anything I would only believe in the existence of a person called Joshua, which was never the Saviour Jesus Christ.

To get to the point I would like to ask the community here how far they go to disprove a believer? Do you guys actually think of science logical facts or possible slight of hands on how they happened, without actually having a quick peek in search engines, etc.? Because you guys seem to take them quite literally for atheists. For example on some well known 'impossibility';

1.) Continental drift brought in rain and flooding from evaporated water from exposed earth in seas and also liquefaction of ground water and altered routes of stream/rivers, etc. due tectonic movements for Noah's Ark, with the exaggerated number of animals(only needing land based, air breathing animals) only needing parent animals such as wild dogs, wild cats, etc. that give rise to variation due to evolution.
2.)The marshy Reed Sea rather than the actual Red Sea as they are proven in misinformed recordings.
3.)Even the simple explanation that water turning to red wine in the wedding feast of Cana was made from blood water trickled from a finger tip, not neccessarily a person named Joshua. As wine from that era would have been certainly have a bad reputation for not being fermented well, wine is commonly tasted of salt, resin, pepper, etc.(No storing mechanisms) So wine at that time would have just needed to be dyed the colour and be added with the latter as fermenting agent with the added effect of taste.
4.) Heaven is the metaphor of being close to god, and hell being away from him. Both not needing to mean physical things.

To continue, do you of the atheists mindset set the criteria of common nature sense of the modern era such as the Earth is round, Earth is not the center of everything, etc. and apply it on an era where there is lack of knowing how to obtain this knowledge? Do guys apply factors of the geographic kind to explain weather such as the popular calming of the storm, Noah, etc.
Do you guys factor in the mindset of people's beliefs in the topic of Superstition, Idolatry/Materialism and the fear of death on how this affected interpretations of occurences blamed on the God of the Gaps*unexplained occurence for that time*.

Because in my opinion, the majority I have seen don't.
People I see losing arguments here seem to point out a bunch of stuff and just end up losing because they either end up contradicting themselves or they don't even give evidence or an explanation how the stuff they mentioned works or how it affected the latter. Therefore just glanced through biased sites without proper understanding.

In short, most people here are bible smart but not nature smart.
Ok to make a point, to be an atheist is to reject the the idea of god and god alone, it doesn't conclude with rejecting logical interpretation how they might have happened and therefore linking it back to why they blamed/praised god for it. And even the power of the human mind is not to be belittled as even stigmata cases proves this. Yes, there are unexplained miracles in holy sites, but that's all they are unexplained neither proven or disproven as they may or may not be solved scientifically in the future.

Moving to anti-theist... You guys seem to be quite hung-up mostly on it because of the violence that has happened in the past such as Holocaust, and especially the Crusades... stare But more prominently because of the current ISIS global affair. Missing the greed of people, how the fact is that the majority are peaceful *cherry-picking ******** in society/history* and also

The anti-theists here, same as the atheists here majorly ignores history of reigns of particular people, and therefor miss what they did and further misses on how it led to bigger events. Furthermore, they always seem to mention economic poverty and whatnot, but miss thr point pf famines and social aristocrasy leading to always have the common people dirth poor and the rich, extremely well off in comparison. Finally, THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT. They give opinion as facts, even when scholars and various experts in their field has studied and researched the field of topic given as a counter-argument, they use words such as 'it MUST be', 'it HAS TO be', etc. Who are they to give facts against evidence? And the fact that they are against all forms of religion, but lack understanding on them.

But to clear some misunderstanding given by anti-theists points out as why religion are a poison, etc. to society I will clear some commonly given points.

1.) The Jews killed Jesus. (The Way - name of the followers of Jesus before it was first called Christianity in Acts.)

The Jewish population are not the one that killed Jesus. It was their religious leaders that did as they were greedy of the rising conversion to 'the way' one of the High Priest cannot even deny him.
It was the Jewish Leaders, not the population that called for the trial of Jesus to Pontious Pilate and it was the Jewish Leaders plan to subjugate the voting through whispers to the Jewish public to release Barabbas rather than Jesus. Yes, you may argue that it was also the Roman fault as they could've easily dismissed the matter as it was by Proconsul Gallio, but the Roman Empire valued an ordered society above most, letting Jerusalem to co-exist without the invasion of Rome unless their is disorder. The fall of the Temple of Jerusalem was the result of a civil riot in Jerusalem. This matter is like blaming a whole country because you got stolen from on a holiday.

2.) The bible segregates Christians and Jews.

Yes... It does and it should, however they*evangelists* fail to concentrate on certain people*Jewish Council, not the Population, and in some ways the Pontious*. The writing of the New Testament mainly happened throughout the Roman Empire, if the evangelists propaganate a plot against the Romans, the spread of Christianity would have been halted, in fact they go as far as praising Pontious in the Apostle's Creed. Blaming the Jews, or should've been ONLY the Jewish Council for corruption would have united people on a common goal and helped spread Christianity. And for the Old Testament how could they believe him anyway? Even when introduced with idea, the Greeks would still probably not believe it the same how Paul argued with scholars and was laughed off in Corinth. The Jews only happened to be the one there.

3.) The bible caused the Holocaust.

No... It didn't. It really didn't. Hitler only took advantage of the people in German who mainly identifies as Christians of mainly Catholics or Protestants. One genius thing to do when trying to get elected is to get people to side you, as Hitler did pretending to be all pious, and then you take the pressure point at the central of their belief and aim it and therefore efficiently gaining people. As he did with Christians aiming for Jews. The anti-theists here seems to then ignore the facts that Hitler announced STATE ATHEISM after he got elected, as did by other communist dictators of Mao Zedong, Stalin, Kim Jong Sun, etc.

4.) Religion brings violence and war because of 'my god is better than you god, etc'

No... It doesn't... Really... People seem to bring out the Crusades, Muslim Violence and fightings in the bible at this point. I'll summarise it as short as I can.

First Crusade happened when the main objective of helping the Byzantine army *Emperor Alexios* repel the Serjuq Turks instead changed to recovering the burial site of Jesus which was repeatedly destoryed through a fire, destroyed by a Muslim army, again destroyed by Fatamid Caliph Hakim and then then turned to a mosque by Hakim's son Zahir for Muslims, forcefuly converting Christians. If you were the Pope wouldn't you want to recover it again? And some even argues of Constantine's obsession of the burial of Jesus... No... He wasn't obsessed he only made the burial a church*Church of Sepulchre* after the previous Emperor built a temple for Venus instead to try hide the site. Constantine only became Christian by 42. (-___-; )

Second Crusade was due to the REVENGE of the Fatamids who plotted to backstab the Crusaders failed and ended up needing to go back to Egypt. Where their number grew and took their chance to successfully occupy County of Edessa after taking advantage of the deaths of royalty and leadership in the area. With the new Pope then justifying it to go support their first renounced Crusader capital.

Third Crusade is a bit more ambigious, however this is where opinions are named as facts even against evidence. The Serjuq Turks and The Fatamids were rivalling Muslim sect back in the First Crusade, but now united under the Sultan of Egypt, Saladin. With battle ending with a treaty between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart of England even though Saladin has trampled the crusaders. The 'Treaty of Ramla' meant that the burial of Jesus will be under the ownership of the Muslims, but allowing Christian pilgrims.

There is no known agreed fact, which is supported by a person named Baha ad-Din, a juror, historian and a friend of Saladin who wrote his biography summarizing the Third Crusade with;

''The motives of this massacre are differently told; according to some, the captives were slain by way of reprisal for the death of those Christians whom the Musulmans had slain. Others again say that the king of England, on deciding to attempt the conquest of Ascalon, thought it unwise to leave so many prisoners in the town after his departure. God alone knows what the real reason was.''(The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin)

The fightings in the Bible were hardly done for religious reasons.
They were afflicted with a number of shitness... I believe the opposition of Christianity's spread is perfectly summarized in Romans;

Romans 1:21-32 (With irrelevant matters/verses of sexuality omitted for sensitive readers v.27)

'(21)For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.(22) although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (23) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

(24)Therefore God gave them over in their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for degrading of their bodies with one another.(25) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator- who is forever praised. Amen.(26) Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.

(28.) Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.(29) They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;(31) they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (32) Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.''

Finally to Muslim violence. Not only are they anti-christ, THEY ARE ALSO ANTI-ISLAMIC as they are against Islam principles. Besides, it has been proven that Muslim violence like that of the 9/11 was not done under religion.

Ever heard of Scott Atran, a psychologist?
He researched on 300+ islamic failed suicide bombers starting after the 9/11 attacks, employed by the US government*neutral/unbiased thought, etc.) and found out they were no where influenced by Religion, except for the occasional awe. He summarized his study with;

"When you look at young people like the ones who grew up to blow up trains in Madrid in 2004, carried out the slaughter on the London underground in 2005, hoped to blast airliners out of the sky en route to the United States in 2006 and 2009, and journeyed far to die killing infidels in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia; when you look at whom they idolize, how they organize, what bonds them and what drives them; then you see that what inspires the most lethal terrorists in the world today is not so much the Koran or religious teachings as a thrilling cause and call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends, and through friends, eternal respect and remembrance in the wider world that they will never live to enjoy.... Jihad is an egalitarian, equal-opportunity employer: ...fraternal, fast-breaking, thrilling, glorious, and cool.'' (Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists - Scott Atran)

I conclude with this...

Morals are limited to the rich and the educated secular population which religion popularized and made free. One can only think of the example of Plato, Galileo, Augustine, Socrates, etc. Mainly greek powerhouse. Morals is the root of our society. Yes... You can argue that you can still have morals without religion, but where does this morals come from? It comes from the societal norms and values that conforms the majority of the population which gets it through religion. One only need to look at the bible for signs of the greater population of paganism resulted in mass prostitution, genocide, murder, etc.

It is not the religion that is wrong, but the people. If you deal with human beings, you deal with violence. Actually by definition, if you deal with human beings, you have to deal with violence.
The book are not the problem, but the reader. No one religion deals with only peace, they all deal with violence and peace, and any religion's mission is to help people go from violence to peace. It is the way TO PEACE, but it is not a peaceful reality because we are not peaceful beings. It is your responsibility as religion is not really gonna make anyone do anything but ourselves. The thing is, with the risk of diversity is lots of knowledge and potential wars.

And for the uber religious kind... You're only hardest argument will be ''How did the Big Bang happen?'' But to argue how something so complex can happen without a god is a total bust, as it results in just passing the question back. That, 'For something so complex for the Big Bang to happen means a more complex creator must have been there, and therefore another more complex being must have created the maker'. It is the fallacy of passing the book as stated by many scholars.

Thanks... All are original unless stated... I had to use some of the stuff from my last assessment in Uni~ xd

I hate how the majority here seems to be more happy just to contradict each other personally rather than just discussing the topics. And the opinion as facts...*Sigh*

Thanks again... You might be the first one to actually finish reading this~ sweatdrop

I can be fine with people going to church, blah blah blah, but when they try to FORCE or ENFORCE their beliefs is when I take offense. Or just say stupid things. I got some flat earthers and young earthers if you like to talk to them.



Eh. *shrugs*




Atheist- atheos - not theos- not theist: That is what the word LITERALLY means. Atheist litterally means NOT a theist, not the logic of unbelief or anything like that. While logic can come in, it is not so for everything.
I'd agree mostly with the anti-theist thing, some are that way, others are not, but that seems to fit the majority of the anti-theists.



Depends on what the person is saying. For instance the flat earthers. ((yes they exist and they are serious)) I would say all they need to do is climb a mountain or get a cheep weather balloon to prove their points and boom! Problem solved. Same sort of logic applies to this guy I'm talking to who believes in not only a flat earth, but the glass dome of the firmament and such. Not a joke. NOT A JOKE. I just keep telling him how CHEEP it is to prove himself right and prove that every single space object shot out is either blown up against the glass dome, or moved aside.
All it takes is high altitude weather balloons, or a small rocket designed to go high with a go-pro camera.
I mean the guy outright REFUSES to prove his points and yells at me and others about how we can't prove to him, and we all just say its up to him to prove what he says is right and if he DOES do it, not only would he get adulation, but numerous money grants and such to study this thing he believes. He still hasn't taken up on the offer.

I think that proves that these types of people don't WANT their beliefs challenged and proved to be, or not to be. *blinks*



I google a LOT to make sure I'm mostly right, and then post the information ad nasuem.



Alright hit me.



I've heard that like Titain A.E. the ark is actually a space ship and uses blah blah blah to do what it does. I mean the ark story dates back FURTHER then the earliest Jewish texts, so they obviously come from that area of cultures and in some of their earliest texts we know they came from a rough poly deist sort of thing then went to a single god. Sort of like the Zeus cult over in Greece.



Yes, and that is proven, a translation error that kept going, a stiff wind can 'dry up' the Reed sea, the RED sea is much different. I don't care which a person believes anyways, they can believe what they want to, just don't shove it down my throat.



WARNING RISKY PICTURE

More Wine stuff.

Last link I swear.



Not really, out ancestors didn't know any better, they can be forgiven, but modern day people? No. they are not to be forgiven for being flat earthers and the like.



The Noah story likely came from a sudden flood as a natural dam broke.
I haven't seen proof that the canyons I live around everyday were craved in just a few hours, or days. Like seriously, all these people need to do is take some sandstone and put it under a faucet and see how long it takes to carve through it. Then do the same to other types of rock, I'm being nice and giving the softest rock there.



If the person brings it up yeah. But otherwise I don't think about the god of the gaps, mainly because it leads to the 'when those gaps of understanding close, god moves to the next gap' and thus makes for a quite frankly stupid position.
1. god was in the sky.
2. God was in space.
3. God was beyond space and time.
4. ??????



No to be an atheist you just have to LACK GOD BELIEF. That is it, that is all it means to be an atheist.



Um no. These 'miracles' are often mundane facts, and I've seen some very depressing footage of these places of people being pushing in hospital beds hooked up to batteries to allow them to be trudged there. NEVER have I hear of these people getting their diseases cured, or their cancer cured. Never have heard of an arm growing back, and the like. I mean just how many people go there, and how many get cured? How many are cured of easily cured things?



Not an anti theist, theists can believe what they want, but if they say something stupid I'm not exactly going to keep really silent.



......*blinks*



The bible? Cause I might find some roman sources....



Yippie... *sighs*



You haven't read the Koran have you?



A little.



I don't know to begin.



And why, do they believe that they will have glory? Hmm?



Aait.



A little, yeah. But when the rich have the right to ownership of lower people... yeah no. Religion didn't help the slaves that much until MUCH later.



A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
Socrates



Only NOW you don't NEED religion to tell you not to kill people. You don't NEED a religious teacher coming in and setting forth laws. You just need to think of things you don't want to happen to you, or others and boom, relative laws. Laws always change with time as we grow as a people. This is not wholly a religious law, or religious sort of thinking.



Umm... the bible has SEVERAL instances of genocide, murder and prostitution, all seen in GOOD lights.... mostly. Say for the prostitute.



Somewhat yes. We are animals afterall.



Ehhh, if a book says to put babies on their stomachs is the reader the problem? Or the person who knew better after the first instances of child death because of said book?



I would say that is wrong. But... the few religions I'm thinking of had their rabid members and they went out and killed people.



We are animals yes.



No but religion can push someone to violence who otherwise might have taken a bit longer to do so.

The fact that there are varying degrees to which someone can be "in the position" or not does not mean that there aren't only two options: you either are a theist...or you aren't. And if you aren't, for any reason, then by definition, you are an atheist. Be that whether you don't understand the concept, that you refuse to answer, you can't verify whether the claim is true, whatever...it is a binary.