The origins of atheism

[JonFromMinnesota]

What you mean like the immoral nonsense that is touted as justification for murdering innocent babies in the womb.

Red Herring. Answer the question.

Believing in evolution is something I consider intellectually bankrupt.

Dismissing overwhelming evidence because it disagrees with your world view is cognitive dissonance.

 

[Davian]

What of all the other Christians and religionists? I have no idea what they accept or do not accept and for that reason I do not indulge in speculation and make sweeping statements like you do.

When you have the evidence that it cannot be demonstrated let me know. All you have at the moment is your personal opinion about the evidence and that cannot be demonstrated because it is only your opinion.

The evidence was there in your post, where you had the opportunity to show that your convictions are on "solid ground", yet you failed to do so. I suspect you will provide further evidence, by continuing to fail to do so.

 

[Davian]

...
Dismissing overwhelming evidence because it disagrees with your world view is cognitive dissonance.

I think that cognitive dissonance could be more accuracy described as the uncomfortable feeling one should get when they say in one post "The Bible and its literal interpretation have played a vital role in the development of Western science" then in subsequent posts refer to that same western science as "fairy tales" and "intellectually bankrupt". His evasion when questioned on this may be indicative of that.

 

[Freodin]

Sorry for the delay... different time zones, you know, and a guy has to sleep sometimes.

Lets try something different to make this simpler.

non-existence is the absence of existence

In cases of specific identity, yes.

and

nothing is the absence of something

No. That is a common understanding, but it is too limited and bound to our perception.
First of all, "nothing" would be the absence of "everything"... "something" isn't enough.

I will show you the reasoning behind this.

Freodin has claimed he has knowledge of non-existence. (to add "something" here like "deities" is nonsensical because something can't non-exist. Something must exist in order to be considered something.)

And here we see clearly why this common understanding of "nothing" is lacking.

You seem to think that only "something" exists, that every "something" exists, and that... well, I am still not sure what you think about "nothing" and "non-existence".

So let's talk about "something", as an experiment.
Let's talk about your last post, where you confessed in iambic pentameters that you are a pink and green striped squirrel, who is posting here to impress women.

Is this "something" or "nothing"?
The question of its existence or non-existence should (hah!) be easy to answer: there isn't anything in your last post written in iambic pentameters, mentioned pink-green squirrels or your need to impress women.

There is no evidence of such a confession. It doesn't exist. It is "nothing".

But this "nothing" has an identity. It can be described and distinguished from other "nothings" - like the part of your last post where you posted the image of an elephant entering the first spaceship to Jupiter. That also does "not exist"... is "nothing".

Or is it?

If that was "nothing"... just "the absence of something"... it would not exclude the presence of "something else". To be "nothing", we would have to exclude this "something else" as well... for every possible "something elses".

Which would leave us with "absence of everything".



Now we have established that "nothing" can be described as "the absence of everything".
The "absence of everything" is singular and unique. There is no distinction between one "absence of everything" and a different "absence of everything". There can be no different absence of everything.

That means that everything that we can distinguish from different instances of a similar kind is not "nothing". Your confession to being a squirrel is not "nothing", just as your picture of the space-elephant is not "nothing".

But both of these do not exist. They are examples of "something" that does not exist... and that we know does not exist.

Of course ...

Does the lack of evidence in a murder case prove that a murder did not occur? Or does it mean the truth can't be known unless the murderer admits to it? Think reasonably here.

... so if we are to "think reasonably here", the lack of evidence of your confession to be a squirrel who posts pictures of elephants and is out to impress women does not mean it didn't happen.

Or do you want to rethink that part again?

Now, if we interchange the term "non-existence" with the term "nothing", which you agreed are interchangeable, then what we have is Freodin claiming he has knowledge of nothing. I'm certain Freodin did not intentionally make this claim, but when he decided to contradict atheism this is inevitably where it leads.

If Freodin would have stayed true to the meaning of his atheism then we could have avoided this. The meaning of atheism to the acknowledgement that one does not know if God exists or does not exist, it makes no claims about the truth of God existing or not existing.

Simple.

I will not even try to debate the "true nature of atheism" with you... but you have hit on a point here.

I do have knowledge of nothing.

You remember how I explained that "nothing" is the "absence of everything"? Well, this "everything" is really "everything": material, spiritual, ideal and conceptual. And that includes such pesky little concepts like "logic" and "rationality" and "causality"... or even "concepts".

I can hear it already: you are going to tell me "That is irrational!"

Yes, it is. The real "nothing" is irrational. What we usually call "nothing" just isn't the real thing. It is anapproximation based on the limited means that we, rational beings in a rational universe, have to approach the irrational.

That leaves me with but one conclusion: this "nothing" is the ground of all we call "being". Thus I prefer to drop the misleading term "nothing" and call it "primal chaos".

As this primal chaos is the ground of all being, and it cannot have the identity that is attributed to God, this God who is said to be the ground of all being cannot exist.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Never been to any Ivy League University as I don't live in America.

Well assuming it's true, it's an impressive list.
Can you share the identities of some of these professors and their fields of expertise?

 

[Ana the Ist]

More like it's a strawman.

Not every analogy is a strawman.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Ask Christians to define God and you'll get consistent answers like God is love, goodness, truth, peace, grace, righteousness and the highest authority.

Thousands of christian denominations disagree.

But you don't except this because we can't prove it and you can't prove us wrong.

It's not my job to prove your wrong. It is YOUR job to support YOUR claims.
I don't accept your claims, precisely becaue you can't support them.

As the infamous saying goes: what is asserted without evidence, can be dissmissed without evidence.

We can't both be right.

I don't have anything to be right OR wrong about, since I'm not the one making claims.

You are.

Besides even if we all did have our own inconsistent definitions of God, would that have any affect on the reality of God existing?

Nope. But if the theists can't even agree among themselves...

 

[DogmaHunter]

As humans we have two options:

We can assume the force that started the universe doesn't care if we make sense of it, therefore, we as humans can believe whatever we want and it really doesn't matter what we believe.

Or

We can assume the force that started the universe does care that we make sense of it, therefore, it does matter what we believe.

I assume you take the former position. Which is unfortunate because it means you must admit that what you believe to be true, really doesn't matter.

Your appeals to emotion and consequence are irrelevant.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Not if the creator has no beginning and no end.

Which is something you necessarily pulled out of your hat and a blatant cop-out.

Because how could you know this without actually being able to examine/study this "creator"?

It's just meaningles arbitrary declaration.

How many times have I said that God is eternal and infinite?

You can say it an infinite amount of times and it wouldn't change the fact that you can't support it and that you are just defining this god to have those properties.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What are you looking for? I sure hope the answer is truth. Otherwise, why are you on a Christian forum? You know we claim to have the truth, right? So you must be here to find the truth.

You should really stop telling people what their beliefs and motives are.
Your track record of doing that successfully is very poor indeed.

 

[DogmaHunter]

At best Thor exists inside the human mind.

It's funny how you just contradicted yourself.

You JUST said that one can't prove the nonexistance of anything.
This would include Thor, right?

So what's all this about "at best thor exist in the human mind", clearly implying that this thor certainly doesn't exist in reality?

How do you know? Can you prove it?
You seem to have a habbit of making declarations pretending them to be true without being able to demonstrate / support them.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Another good question is: "And what happened before that?"

Eventually, they have to admit they don't know...

Ow, the horror!!! being intellectually honest, how DARE THEY, right?!

which of course they deny even after admitting to it.

Who are you talking about?
Which atheist here "denies" this?

 

[Colter]

On CF at least, most atheists admit that they don't know. Many theists pretend to know.

Is that what you did when you joined this forum as a believer, just "pretend" to have faith? If you were a phony aren't you projecting that onto others?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Is that what you did when you joined this forum as a believer, just "pretend" to have faith? If you were a phony aren't you projecting that onto others?

No, I didn't pretend to have faith.

 

[Ana the Ist]

That is right and so sorry you are offended by the truth. Can't do much about that.

I'm not offended by the truth, I'm actually a big fan of the truth...all kinds of truth. I'm even a fan of those kinds of truth that you find unpleasant and have been hiding from for 60+ years...that's why I'm an atheist.

No...I was offended by your complete lack of tact and manners. One would think that after being alive for so long, you would've learned the value of being polite...but I suppose that's assuming too much in your case. It appears that you've got something against atheists, and I would guess the reason goes back to those inconvenient truths you've been hiding from. We remind you of the doubt you have about your faith, the lack of conviction in your beliefs. You've also probably got some jealousy towards us and our bravery for standing up for the truth...even if it means that so many christians will be scared of us. You probably don't think you can do the same at your age...but it's never to late to take a stand for the truth.

There's a couple reasons why I wanted to confirm I had looked up the correct John. You had gone on about how "atheists claim to know everything" and how you were surprised I hadn't heard anyone claim to know where life came from because, again, "atheists know everything". Judging from those statements...one would assume that you would give me an example of an atheist who knows everything, but you didn't. Instead you gave me some run-of-the-mill preacher who doesn't seem any different from any other preacher.

Another reason why I wanted to confirm that he was the right guy was the topic of our conversation itself. You were talking about claiming to know where life "came from". Why give me a preacher as an example? We both know where he thinks life came from...we also both know he won't have even the tiniest bit of evidence to back up his claim.

Your example is a waste of time. Think harder next time before you provide an example.

 

[Ana the Ist]

What you mean like the immoral nonsense that is touted as justification for murdering innocent babies in the womb.

This is an actual strawman. If you don't understand the difference between your statement here and all the statements you've been calling red herrings....I'll gladly explain it to you.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Dismissing overwhelming evidence because it disagrees with your world view is cognitive dissonance.

He prefers the term "close minded".

 

[ScientArtist]

And 108 billion people later, they still don't have an answer, do they?

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

 

[As I was saying]

This is an actual strawman. If you don't understand the difference between your statement here and all the statements you've been calling red herrings....I'll gladly explain it to you.

No just the truth which you can't handle so there is nothing to explain.

 

[Colter]

I'm not offended by the truth, I'm actually a big fan of the truth...all kinds of truth. I'm even a fan of those kinds of truth that you find unpleasant and have been hiding from for 60+ years...that's why I'm an atheist.

No...I was offended by your complete lack of tact and manners. One would think that after being alive for so long, you would've learned the value of being polite...but I suppose that's assuming too much in your case. It appears that you've got something against atheists, and I would guess the reason goes back to those inconvenient truths you've been hiding from. We remind you of the doubt you have about your faith, the lack of conviction in your beliefs. You've also probably got some jealousy towards us and our bravery for standing up for the truth...even if it means that so many christians will be scared of us. You probably don't think you can do the same at your age...but it's never to late to take a stand for the truth.

There's a couple reasons why I wanted to confirm I had looked up the correct John. You had gone on about how "atheists claim to know everything" and how you were surprised I hadn't heard anyone claim to know where life came from because, again, "atheists know everything". Judging from those statements...one would assume that you would give me an example of an atheist who knows everything, but you didn't. Instead you gave me some run-of-the-mill preacher who doesn't seem any different from any other preacher.

Another reason why I wanted to confirm that he was the right guy was the topic of our conversation itself. You were talking about claiming to know where life "came from". Why give me a preacher as an example? We both know where he thinks life came from...we also both know he won't have even the tiniest bit of evidence to back up his claim.

Your example is a waste of time. Think harder next time before you provide an example.

^^This post is an example of the evolution of the doctrines of doubt. She see's her doubt as truth. This is exactly what Lucifer exploited in those who fell under his evangelism. But Lucifer's truth was a lie, there came to be no real truth in him. But for those overcome by doubts, Lucifer's foolery offers a bizarre refuge in the deceptive "peace" brought about by the resignation from spiritual obligations. Death is it's ultimate "truth" of the life dedicated to godless ideals.