The non-thinking that is Religion.

[Thee Alex]

Originally Posted by alien_syndm

Lack of belief is still belief ! It's just a different way of saying the same thing.
If I cross the road I believe it to be safe or I disbelieve it to be unsafe.

If I believe 'God' to be non existent, I disbelieve him to be existent. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here - are you trying to argue that black is white?

[Dashingmajor]

Originally Posted by alien_syndm

I just looked up atheism at Dictionary.com

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Looks to me like it's a belief. So if it isn't a religion then what is it ?
A philosophy ?

But having a belief doesn't mean that what you believe is a religion.
I believe that the Scotland rugby team could win the six nations, but you don't see me praying to Frank Hadden or Jason White.

I used to believe in Santa Claus, but at no point did I worship him.

These beliefs are founded from evidence. Scotland are a decent team, and on a good day, can beat most teams that they will compete against. They have improved in their fitness over the past 6 months,and the players are experiencing top flight rubgy, giving tham much better skills.
So based on this I believe they can win.

I have evidence and reason. Religion has conjecture.

Originally Posted by alien_syndm

Well if wikipedia said it, it MUST be true then !

My Chambers dictionary confirms that it is derived from the French univers, which is in turn derived from the Latin universum so it appears that wikipedia is correct.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm even half as intelligent as some who post here, because I'm not, and I wouldn't be helping the debate any, but as far as I see, the burden of proof lies with religion, and as yet the best that I've heard is.

"But there must be something else"

As yet, evidence supporting this seems to be thin on the ground. But most atheists are intent on finding out, not just "knowing" or "believing" there is.

[AlanG]

Originally Posted by Dashingmajor

My Chambers dictionary confirms that it is derived from the French univers, which is in turn derived from the Latin universum so it appears that wikipedia is correct.

This is a microcosm of this entire thread.

alien_syndm has belief in a god. He looks at the word universe and probably repeats some snippet he has heard somewhere which isn't relevant to the discussion but seems to back up his idea that god created everything.

Others saw this claim and not only thought it smelled a bit fishy (due to most people not understanding the roots of words) but then looked for where "universe" came from. No one could find anything backing up alien_syndm's claim but found other evidence which contradicts it.

alien_syndm then attacks the sources of the evidence counter to his own idea "if wikipedia said it, it MUST be true then" trying to deflect the burden of proof away from himself. Anything but admit that that the evidence counters his hypothesis.

or to put it in simple terms, Alien_syndm had made his mind up and found an anectode to back himself up and accepted it no questions asked, the atheists/sceptics of his claim had no idea if this anecdote was true but tried to verify it before deciding if it was true or false.

[RiseAgainst]

im interested if Alien_sysyexseg believes all other religions are false too, like Islam. Or did their story of the creation of the universe get made up just like the mighty religion of atheists?

[Thee Alex]

Originally Posted by RiseAgainst

im interested if Alien_sysyexseg believes all other religions are false too, like Islam.

If he's a Christian, and believes the Bible to be the inerrant 'Word of God' (which he seems to think the 'universe' is) then he has to believe that all other religions are wrong.

Deuteronomy 13:6-9 (NIV)
If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods"....You must certainly put him to death.

Awkwardly, the Koran says pretty much the same thing.....

Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. - Sura 2:98

On unbelievers is the curse of Allah. - Sura 2:161

Slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. - 2:191

Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. (different translation: ) Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God's entirely. - Sura 2:193 and 8:39

O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. God does not guide an unjust people. - Sura 5:54

Fight those who believe neither in God nor the Last Day, nor what has been forbidden by God and his messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay the tribute and have been humbled. - 9:29 (another source: ) The unbelievers are impure and their abode is hell. (another source: ) Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute.

So we are in a situation where the two major global faiths command their followers to kill each other, whilst claiming they have the same 'god'!

Even if there was a 'god', one of these belief systems would be wrong! So how do you choose? Maybe by going to church every week Christians are just making 'God' angrier? Perhaps Mosques really piss 'him' off? Or perhaps the Buddha is getting all irate at BOTH of them?? How about Thor, or Zeus? They can't be best pleased....

Alien_synmblmn, you think that Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc are all wrong, you can't imagine how they can believe things that are so clearly made up. Now you know how we atheists feel about Christianity. You just believe in one god more than we do.

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by Thee Alex

If he's a Christian, and believes the Bible to be the inerrant 'Word of God' (which he seems to think the 'universe' is) then he has to believe that all other religions are wrong.



Awkwardly, the Koran says pretty much the same thing.....

To be fair, the God of the bible and the God of the Koran are the same dude.
The Koran is just the third revelation from the God of the Bible.

[Thee Alex]

If you have any doubt as to how harmful religion is to our world, and all our futures, just think about Pakistan and India, one Muslim the other a mixture of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains.

The MAIN bone of contention between these nations is religion, and they both have nuclear weapons. Think about that for a few minutes.

Now imagine one of them decides to deal with the other once and for all, very quickly China gets sucked in (shares borders), then Russia, then Japan, then the US, then the UK.... not a pretty picture. And all because some people have a different idea about a non-proven entity than their neighbours. It sounds ludicrous doesn't it?

[Thee Alex]

Originally Posted by LesMts

To be fair, the God of the bible and the God of the Koran are the same dude.
The Koran is just the third revelation from the God of the Bible.

Yeah, I said that a bit further down, during one of my many edits!

[graham enzk]

Originally Posted by alien_syndm

Is science not being touted here as having "disproved" the bible.

you don't need science to disprove the bible just common sense and logic.

i "disproved" the bible when i was about 4 or 5 by pointing out that the ark was too small to house the amount of animals it did for over a year based on the dimensions given for it. and remember the animals didn't go in 2 by 2 but 4 each of the clean type and 2 each of the unclean. obviously they tried to save a bit of space by having ducks and crocodiles and possiblly hippos swim but it still wouldn't work. even if they didn't have to eat to live (as god had invented death by this time, something he apparently omitted when he created everything in the first 6 days.)
when do we mention dinosaurs?
there were loads of other things to point out in RE to make the teacher real uncomfortable. now if the bible couldn't stand up to scrutiny from a small child (with no scientific training i might add) what chance has it got with real science?
this is what makes me wonder about the intelligence and rationale of people that believe in it. it is never consistent and it shoes a real lack of knowledge of anything beyond localised observation based in that time period.
so not really the words of an omnipetent being that exists outwith time and space then.
flat world etc, blah blah....

[Thee Alex]

Noah's Ark - a sinking ship (with only one pair of rats)

[Rebelius]

Originally Posted by Thee Alex

Alien_synmblmn, you think that Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc are all wrong, you can't imagine how they can believe things that are so clearly made up. Now you know how we atheists feel about Christianity. You just believe in one god more than we do.

dude, Buddhists are atheists too.

And why does everyone seem to resort to calling alien_syndm by the wrong name? Does it do anything for your argument to just call someone the wrong thing? Or does pointing out that you think his name is silly just show how intolerant you are?