Is there such a thing as an atheist?

[mustaphadrink]

No I absolutely don't believe there's a supreme being And I serve no god whatsoever. What is so difficult to understand.

Non belief in a supreme being does not negate the fact that there is a supreme being. It is a bit like me saying to someone I have just bought a Lamborghini Countach and the person replies "I don't believe you have bought a Lamborghini Countach." The fact that the person doesn't believe me doesn't alter the fact that I have bought one.

 

[Cycel]

Science has been known at times to steer away a priori from any evidence or reasoning that leads towards God.

I have no knowledge of what you might be referencing here. Perhaps you could point to something that might give me a clue?

Science is not a threat to honest faith.

This might be something that you and I both agree upon, unless of course by honest faith you mean something different than what I have in mind, and of course that is entirely possible.

Science has been the one to feel insecure and threatened.

I don't believe science feels insecure in itself, but some may well feel threatened by a cultural shift that undermines science education and science funding. If you wish to understand what I am talking about have a look at the following 12 minute clip:
Neil DeGrasse Tyson - The Islamic Golden Age: Naming Rights - YouTube

Cycel has studied Deuteronomy and Job. Nice!

Scripture text taken from Job 38-40 (New American Standard Bible)

Chapter 38

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
2 “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge?

[[Who is Job to demand answers from Almighty God?]]

3 “Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

Thanks NL these are the passages I had in mind when I made my comments. I do want to respond and I will get back to you.

 

[IntoTheVoid]

Non belief in a supreme being does not negate the fact that there is a supreme being. It is a bit like me saying to someone I have just bought a Lamborghini Countach and the person replies "I don't believe you have bought a Lamborghini Countach." The fact that the person doesn't believe me doesn't alter the fact that I have bought one.

Believing in a supreme being does not negate the fact there isn't one.

 

[Plowman]

Believing in a supreme being does not negate the fact there isn't one.

And it follows that the opposite is also true.

 

[IntoTheVoid]

That's what I was pointing out

 

[TheKringledOne]

Denying the existence of God (or anything) does not negate the existence of God (or anything).

Indeed, just like how believing in one existing doesn't make one exist.

Atheist religious gatherings have existed all throughout history, especially in the Eastern world. I would argue that many kinds of theism, especially deism, can be non-religious. Atheists also can be non-religious. I think it only becomes religion when you start having dogmas.

 

[phil112]

Believing in a supreme being does not negate the fact there isn't one.

Wrong. A fact can be proven.

 

[Percepi]

Non belief in a supreme being does not negate the fact that there is a supreme being.

And whether or not God is real doesn't change the fact IntoTheVoid doesn't believe in God.

NOBODY is saying, "I don't believe in God, therefore God doesn't exist." Everyone here can, and will, agree that belief (or lack thereof) doesn't change what is actually true.

You keep manipulating every single thing atheists say as a means of trying to disprove them. The problem is, you keep changing what people say or attacking strawmen while you ignore what they say.

Science has been the one to feel insecure and threatened.

Science doesn't have anything to fear or to feel threatened of. Science is the study of nature. If God exists within nature, science will have absolutely no problem with such a notion. You just have to prove God exists scientifically first. The problem is, you can't. Whether this is because God doesn't exist, or because God is untestable and unobservable, can't be verified scientifically.

 

[Percepi]

Mustaphadrink, You have no idea what I'm trying to say. You're responding to points I have never made.

 

[dcontroversal]

I was pondering the word.....atheist.......I wonder if it originally meant a theist and was combined into one word.

A theist would be one who believes in? A higher power, but not God?

What does a theist believe...can any atheist explain this? If it has any merit.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Believing in a supreme being does not negate the fact there isn't one.

And not believing in a supreme being does not negate the fact there is one.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Believing in a supreme being does not negate the fact there isn't one.

And believing that a supreme being doesn't exist does not negate the fact that there is one.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Mustaphadrink, You have no idea what I'm trying to say. You're responding to points I have never made.

Quite the opposite. I do know what you are saying. What you don't like is that someone is able to go head to head with you and doesn't back down and can present arguments you can't argue against and don't like.

 

[p_rehbein]

I completely disagree with you P_Rehbein. Although Void's definition is not the most complete description of atheism I have ever seen, I see nothing in it to fault.


Yes, this is correct. This is essentially what Void told you.


Whoa, there Tex. Careful, this is where you fall off the horse. You are assuming there is an atheist ideology despite being told by every atheist who has ever graced your presence that no such ideology exists.

Let's clarify this right now. Please define an atheist ideology.


Neither Void, nor myself, nor any atheist I have ever met accepts the existence of any higher power. What in blazes are you going on about! Atheists do not believe in the existence of any god of any sort! Stating otherwise makes you sound..., well, I won't say it.


Wait a minute P_Rehebein, I get it now! If as a Catholic I submit to the authority of Pope Francis then Pope Francis is my god! If in my hometown I submit to the authority of the local chief of police, then the chief of police is my god! That's brilliant! So as an atheist I am submitting to Darwin and his teachings and that is tantamount to accepting Charles Darwin as my god and his theory as my holy writ! I am so excited to have finally understood you.

Oh, wait a minute. I think there's a problem. My sister-in-law is a devout Catholic (she hardly ever misses church), but she has always ignored the pope's proscriptions against birth control. As devout Christians would never willfully ignore the proscriptions of their god then my sister-in-law probably does not really perceive the pope as her god. Am I right? The chief of police in my hometown was recently involved in an embarrassing scandal. As I do not believe my god would do such a thing I am afraid I might be forced to concede that the chief is really more human that he is god-like. Now, what about Darwin? There are rumours going about that he was fully human and while his theory seems to have been correct, as far as he took it, there are large gaps and omissions in it that he possessed no awareness of and that we've had to make adjustments for. Knowing, P_Rehbein, that you would never make such admissions for God, you might be willing to concede with me, that if any atheist (myself included) ever thought Charles Darwin was a god and his theory holy script, that you will allow all of us to humbly recant such a preposterous error.


Well, I guess we are all just figments of your imagination.

Not one single comment you made here correctly states what I wrote.............but, then, those who serve the deceiver are in the business of deception, so that's no big surprise........

Now, what your deceptive comments DO show is that I am completely correct in saying that there are NO "pure" or "true" atheists...........for you stated:

Originally Posted by p_rehbein Atheism is THE REJECTION of ANY higher being/power/authority...

Yes, this is correct. This is essentially what Void told you.

And my continuing statement is that the ultimate end/result of "pure" or "true" atheist ideology is CHAOS! If a person DOES NOT believe in ANY.............ANY.......higher being/power/authority...........THEN WHY pray tell would that person subject themselves to the authority of a Government............ANY GOVERNMENT? What would be the point? After all.........they DO NOT BELIEVE that a HIGHER AUTHORITY to which them must answer to exists...........?????

You guys are not atheists, you are anti-Christ.............that's all...........just sad little people who seek to serve their master the deceiver..............oh, you can claim otherwise, but Truth will always will out.

Pure or true atheism must hold that there is NO GOOD, NO evil, no right, no wrong, no personal accountability, nothing is forbidden for a person to do, for there is no one to answer to since no higher being/power/authority exists.........and that is were all of you atheist wannabes fail miserably...........

 

[mustaphadrink]

You just have to prove God exists scientifically first. The problem is, you can't. Whether this is because God doesn't exist, or because God is untestable and unobservable, can't be verified scientifically.

Since when is God subject to the whimsical fallacies of man? Since when does God have to bow the knee to atheistic ideas just to prove he is alive and well? Since when does God have to submit himself to finite minds that don't want to know the truth? Since when does God have to prove that he is the I AM? Since when has God had to put up with the arrogance of atheists who shake their fist at God? Since when has God been at your beck and call to be valid and visible?

Your comment is so typical of lazy atheists. I googled such phrases as does God exist and thousands of sites come up and the first few give scientific evidence that He does, so pray tell me why is it beyond your capabilities to do the same?

All I can assume is that you don't want evidence. All you want to do is argue.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Last fall, Philosophy Professor Thomas Nagel of New York University published a small book entitled Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press). The book is important for more than its contents. Nagel is one of the most respected Anglo-American philosophers and also a self-declared atheist (“I lack the sensus divinitatis that enables—indeed compels—so many people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose”). Consequently his criticisms of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory cannot be written off as one more attempt to defend religion, but rather need to be dealt with on their own terms, as attacks on the adequacy of the theory itself.

Nagel accepts the central Darwinian thesis that present-day species are descendants of earlier, different species. Yet he considers valid many of the negative criticisms of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory leveled by Intelligent Design thinkers like Michael Behe and Steven Meyer. Moreover, he acknowledges that many large questions about the origins and development of life remain unsettled, for example the origins of life itself, as well as whether all the chance mutations and natural selection needed to produce present-day species could occur in the available time.

But even more importantly, Nagel calls into question the materialist-reductionist view of nature, which, as Richard Lewontin admits, is accepted a priori by most evolutionists and perhaps by most scientists. In this view of nature, everything that exists is composed of matter and can have only those properties that arise from the basic properties of the underlying material constituents. Biology is reduced to chemistry, and chemistry to physics. Everything that occurs in the universe is to be explained, at least potentially, by the laws, forces, particles and properties that are described by physics.

Nagel points to three things that we encounter in the world which cannot be adequately explained within this materialist-reductionist framework: consciousness, reason or mind, and moral values. We should not try to explain these things away—as often happens—just because they do not square with the reductionist view of nature. Rather, he argues, it is the reductionist view itself that needs to be questioned.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Atheism is the world's greatest killer, bar none. Plenty of research has gone into this. Consider just one piece of scholarship. R.J. Rummel is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, and has spent his career collecting data on all this. Indeed, he coined a term, "democide" to describe murder by governments.

In 1994 his important book Death By Government was released (Transaction Publishers). In it he argues that over 169 million people were murdered by governments in the 20th century. Of those most were atheistic regimes. For example, the Soviets murdered some 62 million, the Chinese communists, 35 million, and the Nazis, 21 million.

 

[mustaphadrink]

"The State of the Bible 2013" survey conducted by Barna Group on behalf of the American Bible Society has found that two-thirds of Americans think it is important for public schools to include in their curriculum values based on the Bible.

Not only do 66 percent of U.S. adults think teaching the Bible in schools is important, but a whopping 75 percent are of the opinion that teaching about the Bible in public schools could help reinforce moral principles — a viewpoint shared by theNational Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.

In general, 77 percent of those surveyed believe the morals and values of the nation are on a decline, and that a decline in Biblical literacy was one of the main causes (32 percent) in addition to the media's negative influence (29 percent) and "corruption from corporate greed" (25 percent).

 

[mustaphadrink]

Crystal McVea, author of "Waking Up In Heaven"

A devout churchgoing woman who doubted God's existence for most of her life says her doubts were laid to rest when she died for nine minutes and spoke to God in heaven in an experience so indescribable it felt like she had been imbued with 500 senses.

Former schoolteacher and mother of four, Crystal McVea, has written an account of her amazing brush with God in a book released in the summer, titled Waking Up In Heaven and now wants the whole world to know that heaven is real.
"I was a doubter. I know what it feels like to doubt His existence. And to doubt that there is a place that we really go after this [life]. And now I just want to tell people that it's real," McVea explained in an interview with Fox News' Gretchen Carlson.

McVea reportedly died in the hospital on Dec. 10, 2009, for nine minutes after she accidentally overdosed on her pain medication. Almost as soon as she died, however, she said she opened her eyes and realized she was in heaven.

"I remember almost every detail. I remember being in the bed. My mother was at my feet and I remember starting to drift off — and I remember opening my eyes and telling her that I loved her," McVea told TheBlaze. "I remember just closing my eyes in that bed and I opened them and I was standing in the most beautiful tunnel of light I could ever describe."

 

[mustaphadrink]

The Myth that Religion is the #1 Cause of War

by Robin Schumacher
edited by Matt Slick

"An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.And that’s the point. Many wars are falsely framed as religious by a media either ignorant of the reasons for fighting, or seeking a simpler, quicker explanation than a detailed history, a complicated border or an ethnic component too difficult to untangle in 45 seconds."