The ATHEISM Thread

[Dreaded Anomaly]

Church is community built out of a shared faith. Coming together and and then pooling resources to better fulfill your vision of a better world seems like a fine idea to me. I don't see that as God needing money. It is the people of the faith using their abilities to help make a better world according to their vision.

Now how and who they chose to give that money to is a different matter.

Even if I accept that churches have the intention of fulfilling their members' vision of a better world, that vision is still based on the presumption of an afterlife and a religious morality (which is essentially arbitrary if the claims behind it - God, souls, etc. - aren't true). If we really want a better world, we can still form communities to help that end, but we should focus on helping people learn to reason better, so that we can all contribute to the necessary advancements.

Not different enough for my purposes. At least they all agree that god asked Abraham to kill his kid as a test, right? That god has clinically serious abandonment issues.

If you like sci-fi novels, you should check out the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. In addition to being a truly excellent series, one of the main characters is a Jewish professor who struggles to understand the test of Abraham, and he presents a few different takes on it in the first two novels.

[Ben]

God maybe very active. God created a universe, that we are a part of, and the scale God works on is not one we can see. I see too much pettiness in the God of the Bible for my liking.

Let's say I build a house, and one day it gets infested with termites. Do I necessarily want the termites to have an individual connection to me?

To get the analogy even closer, this world is full of people who created life (had kids) who also don't want any connection at all to those children.

It doesn't make sense to just assume characteristics of a god. We know absolutely nothing about such a creature (including whether it exists), so any possible characteristic is equally likely as any other, as far as we know.

[Ben]

From the website Shit My Students Write:

It is not possible to prove to someone the existence of God if he first doesn’t accept the existence of God.

[Jason California]

I will get out responses tonight.

[19bernardo87]

Clever little devil.

[King of Mars]

I will get out responses tonight.

God also doesn't grant forgiveness unless a person is actually contrite, you smug little shit.

[Hate_Prime]

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

[Ben]

I wish there was a day each year when at least some people with crazy beliefs would mark themselves in some way so I could identify them.

[Jason California]

I wish there was a day each year when at least some people with crazy beliefs would mark themselves in some way so I could identify them.

if only.

[Ben]

if only.

Oh well.