In response to Jefferson Bethke and The Amazing Atheist...

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Religion vs. Atheism-- Why I'm Having None of It.

http://onewithwings.blogspot.com/2012/0 ... -none.html

Just my silly take on the whole thing....

First, I'm an atheist. You might have picked that up before.

I'm absolutely delighted that someone has decided that they love Jesus but not the religious crap that comes with him. And here's an interesting thing - I don't believe that Jesus existed, at least not as a magical being who caused miracles and preached wisdom and stuff like that. That Jesus is a fictional character, possibly based loosely on a revolutionary from around the time. And yet I rather like that character. It's been referenced and reused a million times throughout film and literature, because it works so well.

So yes, I think believing in Jesus as the saviour is rather silly. But basing yourself on that character, acting according to the philosophy of that character... that's something I'd love more Christians to do. Faith is worthless if you don't act on what you claim to believe in.

I hope I seem decent.

cant prove we came from apes? (then again it wasnt apes as such but a common ancestor that apes and men share)
we can with quite good certainty say that evolution happens (can be observed directly and has been in every biology lab that has ever seen a fruit fly)
we can also be fairly certain humans evolved from something and as such the only debate left is what we evolved from precisely (even that im not sure aabout)

that point is the only thing i couldnt agree with,
the whole debate is completely ridicoulous, yet neccesary when it affects the lives of actual people
then no matter how esoteric the debate suddenly has consequences and as such we can either find a way to remove those consequences or be doomed to repeat the trie old walk of the damned we have trodden now for two centuries.

I rather liked your take on it.

The only thing that bugs me is the idea that religion starts wars -- I'd explain why it bugs me, but I don't want to run the risk of derailing your thread.

Heh. Religion doesn't start wars. It's just a convenient excuse to justify murdering your neighbours. Without religion, they'd find another one.

Coveting starts wars

That's the jist of it.

"We live in a political world
Everything is hers or his
Climb into the frame and shout God’s name
But you’re never sure what it is."
- Bob Dylan, Political World

Last edited by kestrel on 13 Feb 2012, 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely.

This is just lazy thinking. You are both overestimating and underestimating how much we can know, and you are mixing up a million things into a vague blur.

You say that there is "no proof" on either side. What are these "sides", and what do they claim? I guess that the sides that you have in mind are Atheist Evolutionists and Christian Creationists.

Well, Team AE actually does have a lot of proof that evolution is true. A lot. You should look into it. Do they have "proof" that God doesn't exist? No, but they don't claim to need proof of such a thing. They claim that not believing in God is the default position, and so it doesn't require proof. So you are misrepresenting them in two ways.

Does Team CC have proof that Christianity is true? Well, they do sometimes present evidence that Christianity is true. It just isn't very good proof, in comparison to the bizarreness of their claims. Their proof involves the empty tomb, etc. Does team CC have proof that creationism is true? Nope, nothing.

You make a distinction between "evidence" and "proof". But this is ridiculous. You seem to imply that only mathematicians are allowed to have opinions, because only they can "prove" things as opposed to simply "having evidence for" things. Sufficient evidence is proof. To say otherwise is just to play with words.

It's like you're vaguely calling for peace, but you don't understand what the war is about.

Last edited by Declension on 13 Feb 2012, 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Interesting read. I don't necessarily agree with all of your positions, but I like the way you pointed out how arrogance and smug self-assurance do nothing to help enlighten others.

For what it's worth, I don't hold armchair philosophers like The Amazing Atheist in especially high regard.

Did someone draft me into a war without telling me? I can't stand politics, sometimes.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I am sincerely interested in responses from people of all beliefs, whatever those beliefs may be.

When Jesus taught publicly, he spoke to all. That included those that had never heard, those that already heard and agreed, those that had heard and did not agree, and perhaps most importantly, those that believed but were threatened by just the possibility that it wasn't exactly as they believed.

The last group are the ones that killed Jesus.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEvy8mROAj0[/youtube]

While denial of an assertion doesn't carry a burden of proof, asserting that the existence of "God" is an impossibility does.