Is there such a thing as an atheist?

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mustaphadrink

Senior Member
Dec 13, 2013
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Dawkins, in The God Delusion, writes:?
Once again you let you and your atheists mates down because what you have actually said is I know everything and you know nothing.

Let me try again. I HEARD and SAW Richard Dawkins say on TV that he was an AGNOSTIC.

Believe what you like but I HEARD and SAW Richard Dawkins say on TV that he was an AGNOSTIC.

And just in case you haven't understood what I have just written, I HEAD and SAW Richard Dawkins say on TV that he was an AGNOSTIC.

And in case my English is a bit difficult to understand I will put it another way. I H-E-A-R-D and S-A-W Richard Dawkins say on TV that he was an A-G-N-O-S-T-I-C.
 

mustaphadrink

Senior Member
Dec 13, 2013
1,987
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I have been told that I especially look like my father, but I am not identical.
But the fact is you are not a rat or a cat or a dog or a fish or a giraffe or a monkey or a zebra or a bison or a snake or a spider or a lizard. or a........

What you are is a human...just like your dad is. In other words, he produced after his own kind, just the same as God did and I don't think that anyone has remotely suggested that to produce after your own kind you have to produce someone or something that is identical in every aspect.

I have eight grandchildren and they all look different in someway but there is no doubt they are all humans. One of my grandsons is different to the others. He is still human but he is the spitting image of his father. Every time I look at him I think I am looking at my son.

Over to you. I look forward to your cynical response.
 

mustaphadrink

Senior Member
Dec 13, 2013
1,987
372
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QUESTION: How did life originate? Evolutionist Professor Paul Davies admitted, “Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.”[SUP]1[/SUP] Andrew Knoll, professor of biology, Harvard, said, “we don’t really know how life originated on this planet”.[SUP]2[/SUP] A minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. Even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration in the supposed evolutionary age of the universe, not even one average-sized functional protein would form. So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design?
 

nl

Senior Member
Jun 26, 2011
933
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Other religion-like practices of otherwise non-religious people include:
  • Belief in superstition and luck
  • Belief in astrology and signs of the zodiac
Other religion-like practices of otherwise non-religious people include:
  • Evolutionary belief - Belief that the improbable (and impossible) are actually the main cause of nearly everything by long periods of time and accidental drivers and natural selection.
  • Believing in magic - Things just happen "auto-magically" without a known cause.

Note: Some categories of religious practice may overlap with others. There can also be a syncretism or blending of religious practices.
 

mustaphadrink

Senior Member
Dec 13, 2013
1,987
372
83
Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life? By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. It might explain the survival of the fittest (why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments), but not the arrival of the fittest (where the genes and creatures came from in the first place). The death of individuals not adapted to an environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to an environment. E.g., how do minor back-and-forth variations in finch beaks explain the origin of beaks or finches? How does natural selection explain goo-to-you evolution?
 

mustaphadrink

Senior Member
Dec 13, 2013
1,987
372
83
Other religion-like practices of otherwise non-religious people include:
  • Believing in magic - Things just happen "auto-magically" without a known cause.

Note: Some categories of religious practice may overlap with others. There can also be a syncretism or blending of religious practices.
Good one nl. Must remember the "auto-magically" one as it is so true.
 
J

Jda016

Guest
I am reposting your post because it is so good and I would like to add that I SAW and HEARD Richard Dawkins say on TV that he was not an atheist, he was an agnostic.
That is actually quite interesting!

The Christian can say "I know God exists, because He revealed himself to me."
The Atheist says, "I know for a fact that there is no God."


Dawkings would like us to think that they are opposite, but equal. They are not equal. The Christian asserts his belief based on personal revelation, while the Atheist asserts his belief on nothing.


I think Dawkings knows this and has to say he is an agnostic, because to say that he knows for an absolute fact that there is no God, is absurd.


The Christian has his personal testimony to make his claim. The athiest literally has nothing within which to make his claim.
 
Sep 14, 2013
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This is sufficient to say that you have shown that atheists are a cynical lot who believe there is no truth outside themselves. That my boy is a recipe for disaster as PRIDE always goes before a FALL.

You and all your atheist friends need to develop a bit of humility as it has been said they that think they know everything know nothing.

I will have to think about giving you the DVD details because what I have found when I do that the atheist usually uses the information to heap more cynical know it all comments which add nothing to an intelligent discussion. All they do is sneer and try and make everyone look as thought they are idiots to believe the truth. You are one of those judging by your comments about my facts.
I'll wager this DVD doesn't even exist. Otherwise you'd be more than happy to give us the details on this obviously groundbreaking footage.
 
Mar 10, 2014
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Well being an athiest only because my friends tricked me somehow back in the day, rally made no sense to me..
Because i thought how could all this come, everything traces back to something and in the end that last thing that gets traced back too is God himself
 
Dec 25, 2009
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When humans breed animals, they start with a dog and end with a dog. They start with a cat and end with a cat. They start with a monkey and end with a monkey. The start with a cow and end with a cow. In other words, nothing turns into anything. What they start with is what they end up with.
The followings are quotes from Aronra, who can explain this concept far more eloquently than I can.
"Evolution produces great variety via -usually subtle- changes in physical or chemical proportion. But every new species or genus, (etc.) that ever evolved was just a modified version of whatever its ancestors were, and obviously one cannot outgrow their ancestry."

"No matter how much you or your heirs may change, you obviously can’t outgrow heredity. The very concept of common ancestry is a multi-tiered and intertwined complex phylogenetic system which shows why there can’t be any distinctly separate “kinds” to begin with! At the same time, the act of speciation splits the population presenting an eventually impassable boundary between them. We often see this demonstrated live in the form of “ring species”, where different evolutionary stages exist all at once in a geographic rather than chronological distribution. Subspecies (A) may breed with subspecies (B), and (B) may breed with (C), and (C) with (D), but (A) and (D) cannot interbreed because by the time their territories overlap again, they’ve grown too distant genetically, and can’t come back. This is when we see the formation of new features, organs, or skeletal structures, each examples of new genetic “information”. What all these show is that even though a new species of perching bird (for example) is “still” a finch, it is now a different “kind” of finch, a distinct descendant species proving there is no “boundary” against macroevolution."

"So evolution,at every level- is just a matter of incremental, superficial differences being compiled atop successive layers of fundamental similarities. These layers of similarity represent taxonomic clades which encompass all the descendants of that clade, which is why birds are still dinosaurs, and humans are still apes,according to character traits definitive of each of those groups."

The issue that you are taking terms from classification methods made for human convenience and then trying to make it seem like these are distinctions that nature actually makes, rather than just humans attempting to make discussion easier on some levels. Do you understand how the quote I posted respond to your statement and how it relates to the issue I think you are having?
 
Sep 14, 2013
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Well being an athiest only because my friends tricked me somehow back in the day, rally made no sense to me..
Because i thought how could all this come, everything traces back to something and in the end that last thing that gets traced back too is God himself
If everything traces back to something, where did god come from?

I guess it's turtles all the way down
 
P

phil112

Guest
If everything traces back to something, where did god come from?

I guess it's turtles all the way down
As people that profess disbelief in God do, you just trapped yourself. Because you can't understand it, it must not be true. Where did everything come from if there is no God? I guess we actually don't exist do we, as there is no explanation for us.

God told me everything I know. He didn't tell me everything He knows.
 
Sep 14, 2013
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All your doing is stating the god of gaps.


You can't explain how... Therefore god.
 
Aug 25, 2013
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IntoTheVoid said:
If everything traces back to something, where did god come from?

I guess it's turtles all the way down
As people that profess disbelief in God do, you just trapped yourself. Because you can't understand it, it must not be true. Where did everything come from if there is no God?
Phil, Void is not trapped. He is simply stating the religious conundrum. If your argument runs that everything must have a beginning, and that beginning is God, then Void is simply reminding you that God too, by your own logic, must also have a cause.

Note this bit from Wikipedia:

"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The phrase was used by Stephen Hawking in 1988, but has been commonly known since at least the early 20th century (see below). The "turtle" metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of a "primitive cosmological myth", namely the flat earth supported on the back of a World Turtle.

And on what does the World Turtle rest? Some folks say we shouldn't ask that question, but in Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, Bertrand Russel in a lecture posed the question to a heckler: "What is the tortoise standing on?"

The heckler responded, "You're very clever, young man, very clever. But it's tortoises all the way down!"

And you think Void is trapped? :)
 
Aug 25, 2013
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Well being an athiest only because my friends tricked me somehow back in the day, rally made no sense to me...
Are you saying your friends tricked you into becoming an atheist? Those bad people. :)

jsander said:
Because i thought how could all this come, everything traces back to something and in the end that last thing that gets traced back too is God himself
The old conundrum is this: If you state that "everything traces back to something", which is what you've said, and you think that something is God, the question becomes, 'Why stop with God?' If the world must have a cause, why not God?

Why does God not need a causal event? Why arbitrarily stop with God. What is your response?
 
Aug 25, 2013
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I'll wager this DVD doesn't even exist. Otherwise you'd be more than happy to give us the details on this obviously groundbreaking footage.
Hmm. I hadn't considered that possibility, but surely Mustaphadrink wouldn't do that to us. I was a little wary at the time that he never named the DVD. We'll see what he says.
 
Aug 25, 2013
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The Christian can say "I know God exists, because He revealed himself to me."
The Atheist says, "I know for a fact that there is no God."
You have presented the atheist statement as the opposite of the Christian response, but I propose that you have not worded the atheist reply correctly. You have not given the atheist a reason for rejecting belief in God. That is unfair as all atheists have reasons they do not believe. The exact opposite of your theist response should read: "The atheist can say, 'I know God does not exist because he has never revealed himself to me.' "

Here is a fact, I suspect I am an atheist because I have never had any revelation that God exists. It does not mean I know him not to exist (as in your reworded atheist response), but it does mean that I have been given no reason to think a deity exists.


Jda said:
Dawkings would like us to think that they are opposite, but equal. They are not equal. The Christian asserts his belief based on personal revelation, while the Atheist asserts his belief on nothing.
This is a totally erroneous belief on your part. As an atheist I have many reasons for not believing in God.

Jda said:
I think Dawkings knows this and has to say he is an agnostic, because to say that he knows for an absolute fact that there is no God, is absurd.
In The God Delusion (I gave the quote above) Dawkins states his belief: "‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’ " Elsewhere Dawkins has stated that he 99.9% sure that God does not exist. How you get from that, that he is an agnostic, I can't understand. Your claim flies in the face of what he himself has written. If it is me you don't trust then check out page 51 of The God Delusion for yourself.

Jda said:
The Christian has his personal testimony to make his claim. The athiest literally has nothing within which to make his claim.
Absolutely false! Jda, have you read any books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Michael Shermer, Dan Barker, or some other atheist author I have not named?
 
Aug 25, 2013
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nl said:
Other religion-like practices of otherwise non-religious people include:
Believing in magic - Things just happen "auto-magically" without a known cause.
Good one nl. Must remember the "auto-magically" one as it is so true.
I can't think of any instance where atheists resort to magic as an explanation. We resort to science; but I have often heard of many on your end being accused by atheists of explaining things with magic. The talking snake, the talking donkey, Moses turning his staff into a snake, the parting of the Red Sea, and so on. Perhaps you are just trying to get even?

Note: I only raise these issues because you accused us of thinking magically.
 

nl

Senior Member
Jun 26, 2011
933
22
18
Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life? By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. It might explain the survival of the fittest (why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments), but not the arrival of the fittest (where the genes and creatures came from in the first place). The death of individuals not adapted to an environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to an environment...
This was a good point and well stated.

Survival of the fittest has been understood.

Q. How does "Arrival of the fittest" happen? What causes the origination of helpful new traits to come forth (and to be preserved in the genetic code to be passed forward)?

Hopefully, it's not "magic" but something better that will come forth in the explanation for "Arrival of the fittest".
 
Sep 14, 2013
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This was a good point and well stated.

Survival of the fittest has been understood.

Q. How does "Arrival of the fittest" happen? What causes the origination of helpful new traits to come forth (and to be preserved in the genetic code to be passed forward)?

Hopefully, it's not "magic" but something better that will come forth in the explanation for "Arrival of the fittest".
Well Your answer would DEFINATELY be 'Magic' wouldn't it.