What Facts Should Every Atheist Know?

Atheism is not a sin

I think a good thing for atheist to know is the flaw of pascals wager. The fact that it works only if you have two choices but when you suggest another spirtual belief into the mix it fails to work because there are more than two options

The earth is about 4.5 billion years old and the universe is about 14 billion years old.

Possibly something of a timeline with the various gods and in what era they made their debut and how long their reign was. Maybe thats something for another book entirely.

The Earth is not a “closed system” and, therefore, does not tend towards decay and entropy.
The Christians claim that the second law of thermodynamics proves that evolution could not have happened.
The second law of thermodynamics states, informally defined:  commonly known as the Law of
Increased Entropy, while quantity remains the same (First Law), the
quality of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time.This refers to a CLOSED system.  The earth is an open system, receiving massive amounts of heat and energy every day from our sun.Is our UNIVERSE a closed system and tending toward decay and entropy?  I have not idea!

The Earth is not a “closed system” and, therefore, does not tend towards decay and entropy.
The Christians claim that the second law of thermodynamics proves that evolution could not have happened.

The second law of thermodynamics states, informally defined:  commonly known as the Law of Increased Entropy, while quantity remains the same (First Law), the
quality
of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time, gradually moving from order toward disorder,

This refers to a
CLOSED system.  The earth is an open system, receiving massive amounts
of heat and energy every day from our sun.

Is our UNIVERSE a closed
system and tending toward decay and entropy?  I have no idea!

Burden of proof: The person making an assertion must furnish evidence to support said assertion.

It is ok to vote for an Atheist

The critical role of falsifiability in evaluating any claim.

Occam’s Razor

Atheists are not defective people and atheism does not correlate with lack of morals or criminial behavior.

There is no such thing as a “sin”

Here’s one: Concepts which require a heaven are a flat earth idea, i.e., the rapture, bodily ascension, the assumption of Mary, etc. How does someone go to heaven from the South Pole? We could also possibly throw in the story of Mohammed supposedly riding his horse into heaven (for Muslims).

(I have always loved throwing that one out there whenever I encounter street preachers, especially the youth group kind, on the sidewalk. I never get a straight answer.)
It should also be noted that the Catholic Church, during the Middle Ages, specifically used heaven to push the idea of geocentrism and deny heliocentrism. Those passages were used to “prove” Galileo wrong.

Everyone should know about the Recurrent laryngeal nerve, and how it is an evidence for evolution; 

“The nerve’s route would have been direct in the fish-like ancestors of modern tetrapods, traveling from the brain, past the heart, to the gills (as it does in modern fish). Over the course of evolution, as the neck extended and the heart became lower in the body, the laryngeal nerve was caught on the wrong side of the heart. Natural selection gradually lengthened the nerve by tiny increments to accommodate, resulting in the absurdly circuitous route now observed, which, if designed, could only be described as unintelligent.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve

How about opposing abortion?  

Isn’t it a sin to oppose one of the Atheist Sacrements? LOL!

About 63% of all conceptions are aborted naturally. If there is a god that runs the universe, that god is by far the most prolific abortionist there will ever be.

Believing evolution is just a theory is like believing gravity is just a theory.

There ARE transitional fossils: try Google.

If evolution is not true, then why does everything we have learnt from sequencing DNA about how closely related different animals are, exactly match what we previously learnt from studying fossils?

There’s no sin in opposing something that doesn’t exist.

Works as well for these “atheist sacrements” of yours as it does for Jehovah the Maniacal.

The crushing irony is that for many atheists and skeptics, the closest thing you’re going to find to a “sacrament” is likely to be freedom of speech… something completely at odds with any notion of it being a “sin” to “oppose” any particular point of view.

The intentions of the founders of a government have nothing to do with the actions of those  acting on it’s behalf today.

Of course you can blame Christians for something if the power and influence of government is controlled BY a Christian majority pandering TO a Christian majority and enacting Christian agenda.

How something is BEING used has nothing to do with how it is INTENDED to be used.

– Atheism is not “the positive assertion that there definitely is no God”:  Atheism is the default nonbelief in the existence of gods in the absence of evidence for them. Nonbelief in any positive claim does not require evidence against it if no evidence exists in its favor i.e I don’t need evidence against fairies to say they don’t exist if no evidence is available to show that they do.

–Atheism does not automatically grant rationalism: You can be an atheist and believe in all manner of unsupported claims: homeopathy, crystal healing, vaccine-autism “link”, alien abductions etc. If your rationalism ends at religious claims, you’re doing it wrong.

– Atheism is not evolution and vice-versa: You don’t have to be an atheist to accept the scientific fact of evolution. Likewise, atheism is a position that can be taken without the knowledge of evolution. Atheists existed and had rational reasons for their position before and after Darwin.

– There are concrete definitions for the words “evidence” and “scientific theory”: Evidence is not just “what sounds right” and a “theory” in science is an extremely well supported position that is has ample evidence and little relation to the popular definition of theory, which is more of a “guess” and in science would be more properly defined as a “hypothesis” (though not all guesses can even be called hypothesis either). When you hear “It’s just a theory, not a fact” with regards to some aspect of science, you know you are dealing with someone who understands almost nothing about actual science. Don’t be that person.

– There is no evidence that supernatural beliefs are required for ethical behavior: When someone says “You can’t be good without God”, ask for their evidence. Once they’ve stopped saying “Hitler was an atheist” ask if vegetarianism leads to genocide (Hitler was a vegetarian). Then ask them if they have any evidence that a lack of belief  causes less moral behavior. Do nonbelievers have higher incarceration rates (they have lower ones)? Do democracies with high rates of nonbelief have higher crime rates and less social wellbeing (the opposite is true)? Can they provide any scientific evidence to back up their claim?

Another atheist lie. And a stupid one, about definitions, at that.  Easily Exposed.

Secular does not equal “atheistic”.  Are you really that stupid?  The US government was founded on not just avoiding endorsing any religion but on avoiding the passing of “any laws prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Which is the opposite of what Officially Atheistic Governments have done.

And they killed MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of Christians  . 

You can’t hide it.

You can’t run from it.

Its out there, and the people in the churches are going to REMEMBER.

Also, if an omniscient, “omnibenevolent” (this can be debated, though some might agree) being made an atheist, then they’d know why he/she doesn’t believe and would respect their creation. Check out “Atheists…what if you’re wrong?” on YouTube. This isn’t my suggestion for the list, though; just my two cents.

This is a good one for *everyone*, not just atheists.

The greatest catch-22 in life is this:

1) Being right feels good.

2) Finding out you have been wrong feels bad.

3) Being wrong and remaining ignorant of the fact feels indistinguishable from being right.

If 2) and 3) were switched around the other way this world would be a much better place.

So question everything. Don’t be to hard on yourself when you realize you were wrong about something – in fact, try to learn to feel good about such realizations. That’s what learning feels like.

Provide evidence of your assertion.

You MUST do this.

All modern religious teachings, mythologies, and rituals borrow heavily from earlier teachings, mythologies, and rituals. For example, a Christmas tree is a symbol to remind early pagans that, despite the world looking cold, dark, and barren in the height of winter, it would soon get warmer and greener out. Jesus wasn’t the only god to die for our sins and spend three days in hell for it.

I can laugh at it, as fantasy. More accurately, as a troll. I said it before, I’ll say it again: real evangelists are far better at making Christianity look bad than you are. Leave it to the experts.

It’s about to get more complicated…

I would guess a good start would be basic stuff about evolution, age of the universe, and age of various religions; also, note correlations between religions, omissions from editions of the Bible (and noted translation errors, copy errors, areas of possible change in writer, etc.), religious splits, basic religious history of various countries (pick some major ones, I know atheists can live in obscure areas but we can’t research every single country’s religious history), a shortlist of famous (and I mean famous, household names, not some obscure radio presenter) atheists both living and deceased, some facts about ‘atheistic’ governments/regimes (e.g. that there is no consensus among historians as to what religious beliefs Hitler held, but he was technically Catholic IIRC) and…yeah, I can’t think of much else.

Oh! Thermodynamics. Basics of it anyway, in layman’s terms. Apparently there is some new argument that because thermodynamics doesn’t work that means all science is wrong? I remember that from somewhere.
Also information on the difference between a scientific ‘law’, ‘theory’ and ‘hypothesis’ and other such terms.

That’s really all I can think that anyone would need to know in order to successfully defend their position.

Awww… look everyone – a troll! Isn’t he cute!

Or an atheist.

Hence why I said it should be for people in America. Frankly, you can be an atheist over here in Europe without knowing anything, or needing to know anything, about religion whatsoever. And that kind of tells the lie for the necessity of something entitled ‘things all atheists should know’.

But also – whilst I admit that I am not American and so am coming from a position of partial ignorance – what you are talking about is a tool kit for out/vocal atheists in America. Atheists who are not out (either because of pressures, or because they just don’t care) are not going to need this tool kit (although the not-out ones may need a different one).

I refer you to the last (I think) ‘Ask Richard’ column, where one of the most common responses was if you aren’t interested in it, don’t feel pressured to learn all about atheism. That certainly suggests it’s possible to be American and not be armed against that BS.

Some quick documentation appears to show that it’s a disputed issue. I’m certainly open to the idea that he wasn’t a vegetarian, especially since it’s also unclear whether he was or wasn’t an atheist. The point is showing the fallacy of “Bad person is X therefore X is bad”. For something undebatable you could substitute “Do moustaches lead to genocide?”, since that handily includes both Hitler and Stalin.

“Atheism is  a world view?  So its not just “lack of belief in God”?”

Yes it is a world view, not a particularly deep world view but it is a world view

“O.K., then your world view that all existence, life, mind, and reason
itself are the product of mindless forces, requires evidence.”

Not necessarily you can not believe in god(s) and still not believe in the scientific explanation of the universe.

“The problem is, you can not demonstrate that in any experimentally repeatable manner.”

But neither can you, I am assuming you are a theist, prove that your god exists with experimentation. However there is scientific evidence for “mindless forces” creating all of existence there is none for “intelligent design”

“Great is thy faith. ”

Maybe but faith in something real is better than the delusions of goat herders from 5000 years ago.

All fossils except those of species that ended with extinction are transitional fossils.

Disbelief is not an assertion.

John Adams (2nd president of the United States), in the Treaty of Tripoli (article 11, 1797) states “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Onward, Christian soldiers? I think not.

What if I make you cookies first?

Murder is illegal homicide.

Abortion is a legal activity.

Therefore, abortion is not murder.

He is on the right site patheos is a form for open discusion of religion. And america was founded by atheist aand christians and deist and humanist so you live in a country that started on atheist rule to an extant

It’s okay to say “I don’t know”.

Have nice shiny Internet for the best advice yet.

Awwww look at the little troll ministering to the evil atheists.

A good old one.

We are all atheistic in nature, we just believe in one less god than the christians/muslims/jews.

Seems like David Mabus has been resurrected

Murder is illegal homicide.

Abortion is legal and is not homicide.

Therefore, abortion is not murder.

A proper explanation of the second law of thermodynamics. One that actually explains what the law is, why we use “order” as an analogy and when that analogy breaks down. Obviously this can’t be explained in a couple of sentences so I’m not sure it’s fit in your book/list. If you want me to to post a full explanation I can but like I said it won’t be short and I think Hemant probably already knows the concept.

While I’m at it I’d like the same thing for quantum mechanics. I think both can be explained to a reasonable degree in maybe 500 words for the 2nd law and maybe 1000 for quantum. QM though you could break up into “Quantum physics at the macro scale”, “superposition and quantum weirdness” “Observing does not change reality, you have to interfere to observe”

I think those are the biggest atheist misunderstandings of science but I am biased as a physicist. I might also suggest something positive, a lot of atheists get pretty angry when they realise that they’ve been lied to for so long. Some advice to help them through that might be good but I don’t know how to phrase that in a coherent and useful manner.

Oh! Darwin… Oh! Darwin!… Oh! Darwin. Yea sex is so very secular.

The only requirement for being an atheist is to not believe in deity. This works in two ways, for one you will not have to participate in conferences or follow a specific way of life or ideals or morality to belong to this group. This also means that other people won’t have to follow your way of life or ideals or morality either.

As a bonus, there are atheist people who are not rational people either and believe in things like Aliens impersonating every thing that was a deity in our history, for example.

Here’s something I know with absolute clarity: Any god that set the first humans up to fail by planting the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” and a crafty talking snake in their midst and then punishes the bulk of humanity with eternal torture for not accepting his solution to the problem that he himself created, or at least knowingly allowed to happen, is not worth worshipping.

We have mountains and mountains of evidence to support or refute pretty much any claim we might come across. We constantly don’t see Elves. We constantly see how things fall downwards. We constantly don’t see the actions of deities. (Unless, of course, that’s exactly what you want to see.)

My point here is that it seems clear that pretty much NO claim is judged without evidence and that we have oodles of everyday, commonly available evidence upon which to judge any claim placed before us. Indeed, depriving someone of access to sensory evidence is a well know psychological method of control because it renders judgement of claims well nigh impossible.

Let me put an example to you. Suppose I claimed that I owned a shiny red shuplup. Suppose also that my wife claimed that I do not. According to this common ‘burden of proof’ trope, listeners should be biased in favour of my wife. But why? Until you know what a shuplup is, whether they can be polished, whether they’re only available in black, and whether or not they even exist, you cannot make a rational judgement about the validity of either claim. In this contrived example we have NO evidence on which to base the judgement and yet people seem to be claiming that a judgement SHOULD be made. Don’t get it.

Atheists must never have their achievements undervalued because they don’t subscribe to the ideology of the theist’s sky-daddy. Some of humankind’s greatest scientists, artists, writers and actors cannot be discounted or discredited because they  believe in one god less than monotheists.

Quote: “International readers are eligible to win as well!”

*Ahem Ahem 🙂

I like your use of random capital letters, as though that provides validity to your claims. . .

Because Christianity has been so kind to the world in the past, what with the millions of people killed during the Crusades, and the millions killed by the Third Reich and what not.

Why are there an inordinate amount of trolls posting on this one?

I tried the read the whole thread, but please forgive me if there’s some overlap:

– Atheism and agnosticism are not incompatible.  One is about what you claim to believe, the other about what you claim to know.  An individual can be one or both (or neither).

– Atheism is an adjective.  It’s not a belief system, it’s not a philosophy, it’s not a school of thought.  After the nonbelief in gods, atheists are completely disparate in their outlooks, philosophies and thinking.

Fantastic

The founding fathers would be rolling in their graves today

More than a spiritual belief, Pascal’s wager takes many assumptions that are as hard to believe in than the catholic dogma itself :
There is only two options :
-either the christian dogma is right and the christian god will send you to hell if you don’t believe in him, or to heaven if you respect the religious duties (even if you’re doing it only because of the wager).
-either there is no god at all, and death is the end of your whole being.
The wager doesn’t work if the first option’s probability of happening is zero.
And you have to accept the deal, meaning that heaven is infinitely better than hell, that risking to live religiously for nothing isn’t that much of a loss compared to be rational when there is no god.

Which makes a lot of claims. (sorry for my poor english)

What does it mean for a government to be officially atheistic? Do you mean that the government officially? 

Unfortunately, governments with official positions on any deeply controversial issue often decide to punish the people who disagree. Ideologies that are officially atheistic have only existed in the last few centuries. In that time, technology has improved and populations have grown. As a result, it has become easier for an ideology which has run off the rails to rack up really big death totals.  If the Inquisition was still around in a violent form they’d  get a large total too. The problem here isn’t atheism. 

 This is also why the vast majority of atheists don’t want a government to have any form of stance on religion. They favor secular (in the American sense of the word) government, not atheistic government. 

Blasphemy is illegal in many countries, and you can get stoned for it in a few ones (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia at least). Enjoy your first amendment 🙂

That non-atheists can also be rational people… all those who profess to have a religion or faith are not creationists or scientifiic denialists….

This guy is orders of magnitude more coherent than Mabus. We’ll see where he is in a year or two though.  

“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”
                                        – Gene Roddenberry

(the caps of god and humans are not mine, but were in the quote…)

The mind is physical, not spritiual a soul.  If you damage the brain, you damage the mind.

I think it’s important that atheists have a proper understanding of the Bible.
-There is no historicity at all to the Torah through at least Judges. The events described are either unattested (the exodus) or disproven (the destruction of Canaan).-While we have found references to a “house of David”, there is no hard evidence for a united monarchy of Judah and Israel, or any kings before Omri. There is some history in Kings, but not a whole lot we can back up.-The Bible is foremost an anthology. The texts its composed of were written by a variety of people in various times and were heavily redacted and edited over centuries.-Also, per the anthological nature, there is no unifying message spanning the OT and NT, or even between various books of each bible.-There was never one “Bible” that got “corrupted”, it’s been evolving and diverging since the first word was written.-The Hebrew Bible does not reference Jesus. The NT is misinterpreting.

… And? What has that to do with this topic?

To what officially atheistic government are you referring? 

Atheism is a noun. Atheistic and atheist are the adjectival forms.

Sorry Grady, you can’t convince people who tend to read blogs such as this to accept your inherited biases.

If the god of the bible could be demonstrated to exist then I would no longer be an atheist.  Nor would I convert to Christianity for such a being is portrayed as a vile monster within the very texts that believers point to as proof on his love and mercy.  “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” – Isaac Asimov

Okay, going back to suggestions for the list:

* We are all human, and have the same drives and desires. We all fulfill them in different ways;

* “There is no god” and “There is no evidence for god” are completely indistinguishable in all practical ways. Worrying about whether something is Ultimately True™ is philosophy, which hasn’t resulted in anything useful yet;

* Know the difference between a standpoint, an ideology, and a movement;

* You can’t tell people they’re wrong, you can only present the evidence. Also, don’t expect to see the change, since this will happen later. When they change the subject, you’re making progress;

* If you want it to be true, that’s when you start examining it really closely;

* Yes, very many people can be wrong. Guide yourself – don’t let others (any others) do it for you;

* You can live forever, if you reach the right people. Chances are Mark Twain will get the credit, though.

There is a difference between having an answer to a question and having a *correct* answer to a question.

Actually, Grady is, unfortunately, correct about officially atheistic goverments.

The Soviet Union was such a government, and atheism was the official position of the state.

As Christopher Hitchens points out, “Lenin and Trotsky were convinced atheists who used state policy to oppose religious belief.”

The Gulag system killed millions of believers.

This needs to be faced up to.

Trying to act like it did not happen will not solve anything.

Yes, unfortunately according to that same doctrine the majority of his victims went to Hell right along with him for the crime of having the wrong religion or the wrong sexual orientation.

It’s a twisted philosophy indeed the one capable of giving out the same horrific punishment to the murderer and to the murdered.

Several great nuggets in this post for the list.

While I agree that learning more about the science is helpful, it’s also good to note that we can’t all be scientists. We can point out that we all trust the process of science every day, from our doctor’s advice to the big bridge we just crossed. And to reject that process in one or two specific areas because it doesn’t match what an ancient holy book or our parents told us is ridiculous.

Chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related to humans than gorillas (or anything else).

It has been sufficiently proven through both mapping DNA and evolutionary biology that there was no “Adam and Eve.” It would have been impossible. No Adam and Eve, no original sin. No original sin, no need for redemption, and no Jesus. The entire basis for Christianity unravels without Adam and Eve. Game over, end of discussion, you lose.

That’s a succinct fact that should go on the list! A great one. These comments are devolving into general discussions.

Hmm, things every Atheist should know…

Red light means stop.

Don’t drink and drive.

NO means NO (unless you have a pre arranged signal that aardvark means no).

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you don’t have any biases, you do.  

Internet trolls go to the special Hell with the child molesters and no win, no fee lawyers.

Laughing at yourself is good, if it goes on for more than a few minutes it is bad, seek help.

You are not alone.

Interesting. You said:

“I don’t know what a shuplup or a god is.  If you claim that one exists
my response as a sceptic might be: I don’t believe you, show me.”

My response would be, “I don’t know what a shuplup is. Therefore I can draw no conclusion whatsoever as to whether or not one exists.” At the risk of getting separated by semantics, I think if you were to claim you didn’t believe me that would indicate you were coming to a conclusion of non-existence based on zero evidence. That’s a bit ‘faithy’ for my tastes.

However, having said that I now realise that the very fact you and I have been alive for X years and have never come across the word shuplup, is a good piece of evidence that shuplups probably DON’T exist. It’s so difficult to come up with a claim that we experienced humans cannot bring evidence to bear upon. Grrr….

I think gods are different from my ideal, though admittedly flawed, example though. We DO have some idea of what they’re supposed to be. I know it’s de rigeur to dimiss gods because they’re not well defined but we do have vague concepts and notions about the sorts of things gods are generally supposed to do and about what attributes they supposedly possess. Therefore we also have information about what evidence we would expect to see of them in the real world.

Non Sequitur

Probably. But maybe not.

The Treaty of Tripoli has long since been relegated to the dust bin of history.

And it is an equally good idea to keep an eye on current events in Atheism.  They could, if they get control, affect your life in extremely undesirable ways.

Learn their mailing addresses, don’t be afraid to write them!

Out them wherever you can.

We recently exposed a minister who was an atheist….he is leaving town. 

And we have our eye on another one.

See my blog (via the link in my name) and read  “Abortion – some unemotional analysis”. Or go straight to:
http://www.amirrorclear.net/academic/papers/scourge.pdf

no, it’s not. 

it’s pointing out the futility, for actually rational people, of basing our judgements and actions on a totally contradictory, nonsensical, mythological system of ethics and morals. 

if you believe various sections of the NT to be true, then you must believe that yes, many of hitler’s victim are “burning in hell” right alongside him, for rejecting jeebus. jeebus was very clear about that, several times, in the NT. cherry pick all you want, but lack of faith condemns many, according to the xtian holy texts. don’t try to pretend otherwise.

 it’s illogical and hypocritical for those of us who know writing like the NT to be mythology, to at the same time use such works as support for our arguments. if i understand correctly, that was Claudia’s point. 

One thing atheists (and everyone for that matter) is that the main purpose of religion is to benefit the clergy.

And by the way, Mary, it does not “exactly match”.  Lots of room for “intepretation” and your world view is going to affect your interpretation.

You’re right.  Atheism is no protection against Totalitarianism.

And since we’ve also had (and have) theocratic totalitarian states that commit atrocities, perhaps what we should be looking out for is the totalitarianism aspect.

(There was not state policy against being a Christian, or any other religion, in the Soviet Union.  Church property was confiscated, being openly religious did mean you and your family would be assigned the worst jobs, and if you were outspoken enough, you could end up in a gulag or dead on trumped up ‘enemy of the state’ charges.  But not officially because you were Christian)

I simply believe in one more God than atheists.

Actually, you are alone.  If you think the world cares about you when you are old or disabled, you are delusional.

 I would Like this comment, but feel that it’s not really the correct sentiment; it makes me angry and sad.   This is a damn good point, and one that us Americans would do well to remember. 

Science is not a religion.  It is merely the best method we know of to help us understand the universe.

I just say what I believe, for example that I believe there are no gods. I don’t need to provide evidence that I believe that. Who can validly claim that I don’t believe that?

But when it comes to claims about whether or not there are gods in the universe, (rather than whether or not I believe there are gods in the universe), whatever you say about you are not likely to change the mind of a believer; it ends up being a matter of debating points, not establishing the facts.

As I said elsewhere here: in the 21st Century, 1000s of gods are worshiped, and 1000s of religions are practiced. Every religion is a minority religion; whatever beliefs a religious person has, most religious people in the world have contradictory beliefs. It is rare for a religious person to make an honest attempt to explain that.

This is what I have learned about atheists…that after telling me there is not God to tell me what to do, they turn around and try to, you got it, tell me what to do!

All they while saying they don’t tell anyone what to do.

And, as was pointed out elsewhere, this blog “The Friendly Atheist” is anything but.  What’s more, Mehta know it but doesn’t change it.

Quite dishonest, IMHO.

Here are 3 major obstacles to extending our knowledge and
understanding of anything complicated, such as society or the universe:

1. There are vastly more ways to be wrong than to be right. 2. Knowledge and understanding come in dribs and drabs, not all at once. 3. The inquiry is conducted by fallible human beings.

If we systematically address each of these obstacles, we end up with “the scientific method”.
Evidence-based reasoning; open publication; arguments to force more
research; models & paradigm shifts; skepticism; peer review; etc.

If we fail to address these, we end up with out-of-date incompatible religions (plural).
The “religious method” often resolves conflict by suppression,
including force & censorship, or by spawning new religions.
Incremental knowledge can meet resistance for centuries.

Religions start as failed sciences, and continue as hobbies.

i was told by a Christian that if i’m not a Christian, i’ll be going to Hell, even if i have a different religious belief that tells me i can go to Heaven if i practice righteous beliefs. hmmm… 

(1) The Bible was written by a bunch of different people. We know that Constantine didn’t order a massive re-write of it, but on the other hand the people who wrote it disagreed with each other on a lot of important stuff.

(2) Christians who claim mainstream Biblical scholarship supports the Bible’s (contradictory) accounts of Jesus’ life are ignorant or lying. Mainstream scholarship rejects the claim that gospels are eyewitness reports.

(3) The line of transitional fossils leading to humans from our chimpanzee-like ancestors is remarkably complete. Link: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex3

(4) The theory of universal common ancestry is verified beyond reasonable doubt not just by the fossil record, but by the patterns of similarities among modern organisms. This includes the fact that modern organisms fit into taxonomic “family groups” (kingdom, phylum, family, genus, etc.)

(5) Claims that huge numbers of scientists are rejecting “Darwinism” are nonsense. Upwards of 99% of scientists working in relevant fields accept the theory of evolution.

(6) “Atheist” just means someone who doesn’t believe in God.
       (a) It doesn’t mean you have  to want to imitate everything Richard Dawkins does.
       (b) You can be an atheist without subscribing to some strict sort of philosophical materialism.
       (c) You can be an atheist and believe in objective moral truths.

Somehow I doubt that that’s because you’re a Christian.  I’ve come across atheists who I wish would shut up.

Giordano Bruno died for your sins.

From Robert Ingersoll “Love was the first to dream of immortality, — not Religion, not Revelation. We love, therefore we wish to live. The hope of immortality is the great oak ’round which have climbed the poisonous vines of superstition. The vines have not supported the oak, the oak has supported the vines. As long as men live and love and die, this hope will blossom in the human heart.”

1. Read the bible. Most Christians haven’t read the whole thing cover-to-cover.

2. Church leaders do not teach or preach the entire bible. They cherry-pick. Nor do most encourage their followers to read the entire bible on their own.

3. Christians who are appalled by the idea of atheism are themselves atheists with regards to thousands of other Gods out there. A good refutation of Pascal’s Wager: “I suppose you will then worship Mohammed and Brahma, just in case?”

4. Many Christians will expect you to turn to Christ when times are tough. I wish no hard times upon you, but when they arrive and you remain an atheist, your Christian friends are in for a surprise.

5. People will say startling things to you if they find out you’re an atheist. My recent favorite was being asked why I was a blood donor if I was an atheist. Expect surprises.

Good luck

this.

for most americans, at least, this is the best starting point. the book you’re reading? written by hundreds of people, over thousands of years, redacted and changed and altered… it’s like Harry Potter fan fiction. if that’s all you could read, do you really think you’d be able to “know” what the “true” harry potter narrative was? it’s the same thing with most holy texts. so many people have had a hand in the version you’re reading, you might as well play a game of telephone with your 6 and 8 year old nephews. when more young americans understand this point, the fundamentalism here will begin to wither and die. 

because frankly, if it’s all about mythology, well… WOW or LOTR are way more fun, yo. the bluehairs don’t get that, but the younger folk do. 

my official entry for this thread and that great bag:

Follow the Money. 

always. in everything, not just religion and/or freethinking. the money tells you what you need to know. 

Oh the love that comes shining through, jesus would be so proud of you.

Another idea, which is no doubt becoming increasingly self-explanatory, is to learn rhetoric and the techniques of argumentation. In particular, study the fallacious arguments, which will help you both to refute them and to avoid them:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

non religious govs that act like theocracys are bad….no duh.
Soviots and maoists and North Korea are not based on a lack of belief but a positive belief in their ideology that they treat like ubquestionable religious doctrine.
Action agains other politics amnd religious aren’t due to lack of belief but due to the positive belief that the competition must be irradicated.

Obviously this belie f isn’t due to atheism as political tyranys of all stripes have shown it especially the theocratic.

Ah yes…watch the atheists because if they get in power they lmay act like us. You’ve proven the point you persecutiong monster

Atheists do not, in fact, eat babies. (However, we have been known to eat Sugar Babies, Baby Ruths, and other baby-themed treats.)

Don’t let christians tell you that you’re immoral because you don’t believe in their god; their “holy book” commands and/or condones rape, murder, torture, genocide, and many other wonderful atrocities.

I like the ‘Under God’ one you mentioned in your post, but also about our motto not being added until around the same time, and about the Founding Father’s, what they thought, their religions, etc. That the majority of them wanted a secular government, any of them that voted for religion in the government were swiftly out-voted, and the last of the major Founding Father’s to die (James Madison) was the one who probably fought hardest for a secular government (so hard, in fact, we’re not even sure what religion he was a part of, if he was a part of one, or if he was even a theist or not).

Do point out where anyone in the above thread has told you what to do. I’m sure a few have had the temptation to tell you to “get lost” but it seems like even that has been held back.

So by all means, show me where you are being ordered about by us terrible widdle atheists. Because I’m sure you’re not just a troll whose thowing virtual feces around with no regards for evidence or decency.

Right?

The bible is the oldest game of telephone, ever.

I just want to go on record as saying I care about Farrentarrel.  And JDatty.  I’d prefer the company of the former, but I’d help either one in need.

My fact is there are no facts every atheist should know, because you taking a position does not automatically force you to defend it against every religious stranger with something to prove, especially if it makes you uncomfortable.

By the way, Hemant, you didn’t mention when the contest ends?

No problem Grady. You can be ruled by the Ayatollahs any day you want. I for one, don’t like being “ruled” by so-called people of faith. Even if they are Southern Baptist Ayatollahs (or another word that starts with an A). 

So christians don’t promote worshiping that god?

So… how is it bias to recognise that abortion terminates the life of a member of the species homo sapiens?

Your view of the world makes me sad. 🙁

Using Newton’s theory of gravity, you can only get to a few decimal places. Mercury was always disobeying the “law of gravity”. There was a search for the planet Vulcan that would have caused the disturbance of Mercury’s orbit. Instead, Einstein formed the theory of general relativity, which explained Mercury’s orbit correctly. Newton’s theory of gravity is still used because it is a simple equation and very close.

Maybe this one is only important to us young atheists, but here it goes:

You are not too young to know what you’re talking about. Your atheism is not just a phase you’ll grow out of. You’re not doing it to anger your parents. Things won’t be magically different in 10 years. There’s no evidence that they’ll decide to give you then.

This is a really important point, IMO.  Proof would make me believe. Nothing would make me worship a monster.

No. There was never any intent to get rid of religion on a grand scale. Organized religion was simply seen as competition, but people weren’t thrown into Gulags just for being Christians.

Stalinism in particular was an ersatz-religion. Stalin wanted people to worship him. It was a personality cult that wasn’t improved on until Kim il-sung in North Korea – who is the country’s “Eternal President”

I think you’re confusing athesitic with antitheistic.

While I personally am quick to accept the Soviet’s official stance as atheistic, it was not in practice atheistic, but was actually counter-deistic. Atheistic being that the government does not believe, support, or acknowledge the claims of any religion. Counter-deistic is when a group goes out after all deist, theistic, or otherwise non-conforming belief(s) and violently squashes them. It was a means of terror and control, religion was chosen because there was not an overwhelmingly common religion to the USSR, (Serbs, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Buddhists, etc.) and there were a lot of religions that hated each other so the if I can’t have mine you can’t have yours argument worked. 

Please be careful, fear and control are products of tyranny, not atheism as your shortsighted half argument would lead people to believe. 

Don’t forget that he lied to them.

God: If you eat that, then in that day you shall surely die.
Snake: You won’t die. You’ll be like God, with knowledge of good and evil.

They got knowledge and didn’t die. Hmm.

I used the moustache one the other day, actually 🙂

Geocentricism was the prevailing scientific view of the day. Galileo’s persecution was mostly down to his ego and provocation of the Pope. 

Atheists need to stop portraying it as faith vs science.

We have live time experience of not meeting extraterrestrials, but you have to prove the statement that extraterrestrials positively do not exist.

More bullshit and lies

China has opened itself up to religion in the last few decades. It guarantees freedom of religion since the 1980s. The state officially recognizes Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. There are tens of millions of Christians in China.

Jesus wasn’t the only god to die for our sins and spend three days in hell for it.

Sorry, but you’re about half a decade out of date with your historical scholarship. Frazer and Co. who advocated the dying-rising gods idea has very little traction in mainstream scholarship. The problem is methodological: Christian language was used erroneously to describe events in pagan myths and then a parallel declared. Even if there is a parallel, that doesn’t prove borrowing in any case. But there’s no resurrection a la Jesus that predates Christianity. 

You missed the opportunity for a Firefly reference there

not quite

That’s like  a homosexual saying to a straight guy that he just sleeps with one less woman. Their reasons for not sleeping with a whole bunch of other women are not the same. 

I think it means that even someone smart enough to be an astronaut can still engage in cognitive dissonance to the point of being deluded in some aspects of their lives.

Americans do tend to believe that God is a required belief in order for children to learn how to be good. I think that if people think that their children cannot be good without believing in God then there are other underlying issues and they are hoping for a simple solution.

Church leaders do not teach or preach the entire bible. They cherry-pick. Nor do most encourage their followers to read the entire bible on their own.

They do in the (growing) reformed evangelical churches in the UK and Australia.

not even close

There have been a lot of good suggestions. I’d like to suggest a few more:

1. Lots of different religions claim that they have slam-dunk apologetic arguments for their religion and their religion only.

2. What makes one religion seem ridiculous and another seem reasonable is a function of what religions one grew up around more than it is a function of how much sense the religions actually make sense. Someone growing up in a Catholic area will find transubstantiation to not seem that unreasonable compared to reincarnation. Someone growing up in a heavily Hindu area will likely see the reverse. Don’t expect members of individual religions to realize this though.

3. Religious beliefs are frequently a product of how one was raised what social groups one has later in life. This is true for other beliefs as well. People who are atheists may be atheists partially out of logic but it is likely that your atheism arose partially due to luck. Don’t look down on people who are in an environment that continuously reinforces their religious beliefs. But for the grace of the FSM go you. 

I’m sorry, but what you have refuted is a particular kind of Christianity. Fundamentalism. What you are saying would not raise questions at Harvard Divinity School, or in any mainline denomination in the country. Not all Christians have a problem with evolution, or require Adam and Eve to be literal people. And this is not some new-fangled modern approach. Augustine held back on his conversion until he realized he didn’t have to read the entire Bible as historically true.

I’m repeating myself from a comment above. But I want to concede, there is no proof for the existence of God. But there is also no reason to let one strain of a vast tradition stand in for the whole.

JDatty:

Almost everybody who died in Golag were not believers and got there not for their Christian or any other religious beliefs. 

While Lenin and Trotsky were convinced atheists they were at power for too short time – Stalin, who was official leader for about 30 years and uncontested demigod for 25, created his own pseudo religion.  He just did not want to tolerate any competition from traditional ones.

Indeed during WWII when he needed any help he can get he temporary reversed his policy and let Eastern Orthodox Church to play larger role.

Still there is one more fact every atheist should know.  Being atheist does not guarantee any virtues.  Atheist may be liar, thief, murderer or anything else just like anybody else.

Just because an idea is tenacious doesn’t make it correct. The majority of people once thought the world was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth. The fact that most people still believe in God doesn’t mean he exists. A proper answer of “I don’t know” should not be substituted with “God did it.”

Most Christians don’t believe God “runs” the universe.
Accidents, natural disasters, illnesses, etc. are a part of life in the physical world.

I think every atheist should be well educated on Darwin’s Finches, the outcome and success of the experiment, and the failed attempts to debunk it and why they failed.

I’m not going to write an essay on it since it’s paraphrased on Wikipedia just fine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches

I would really like one of those totes! haha 🙂

I don’t see how Christianity can really stand without having a literal fall which Jesus is saving us from.  Once you don’t have Adam and Eve and the Fall, it seems the rest is a bunch of hand waving to save a tradition in which people are invested.

“A History of God” by Karen Armstrong does this quite well, at least until she hits the Reformation.  

You just made an assertion.  The Burden of Proof is now on you.

Wow!  You are really trying to convinece youself that you aren’t full of shit too!

I like Atheist Trolls with an intellectual air who like to posture.  It gives me a good laugh.

Hmm… I’m open to suggestion.

But I’m personally a fan of chewy chocolate chip and macadamia.

Cadbury puts out a nice bag of cooking chocolate chips that contains a decent amount of actual cocoa butter. I use those. They’re awesome. ^_^

Atheism and theism are not ideologies.  They are merely answers to the question “Do you believe in god?”  If you answer in the affirmative, then you are a theist.  If you answer in the negative, then you are an atheist.  Both atheism and theism can be a part of ideologies, but that does not make them responsible for the crimes of follows of the ideologies they are a part of.  These crimes fall squarely on the the ideology and those who carried them out.  Atheists should remember that this should be applied to theism as well as atheism.

Faith can be used to justify any position.  Evidence-based reasoning is the counter to this because it cannot be used to justify any position.

“The universe is huge and old, and rare things happen all the time.”  – Lawrence Krauss

If you simply assert that there is no credible evidence for the existence of gods you will need to either A) refute all evidence put forward or rely on previous debunkings or B) refute all evidence put forward for the existence of gods.

Neither A nor B are difficult but they are tediously time consuming and boring after a short while. This list might help others in such regard.

The argument can go several ways:

I say that there is no evidence and you say ‘prove it’
I say that there is no evidence and you say “yes there is” and I say what is it?
If I say I h ave not seen any credible evidence for the existence of gods so I do not believe in gods it is up to anyone who disagrees to show me the errors of my thinking, which of course must include evidence. Similarly when someone says they believe in gods we ask ‘what is your evidence for such beliefs?” and then they must prove/show that evidence.

If I say I do not believe in the tooth fairy because there is no credible evidence, only a believer will argue that I am wrong and thus must show the credible evidence. I do not have to prove there is no evidence to hold this position. I also do not believe there is any credible evidence to support the belief that mountains are really sleeping giant rock men. I do not need to prove this to hold this position. I do not believe that bats turn into butterflies during the day and do not need evidence to prove this to hold this position. You cannot have and do not need proof of a negative to hold that position when it is based on the lack of credible evidence to the contrary.

In respect of imaginary things you do not need evidence or proof they do not exist. Lack of credible evidence is all that is needed to not believe. Only positive credible evidence of the existence of something previously thought imaginary can logically switch your position to belief from non-belief.

It was not lack of desire to believe that made many people atheist, but the slow realization that there is NO credible evidence to support belief in imaginary gods that switched our position. Lack of credible evidence is in fact enough to support non-belief. I’m from Missouri – Show me. Even if you say you don’t believe or that there is no evidence for the existence of gods the burden of proof is on those who argue in the positive for some thing. I do not need proof to say that I don’t believe little green men live on Mars. Any person who thinks I’m wrong has to show credible evidence for why anyone should believe that little green men live on Mars.

The default position is NOT that gods exist, no matter how many people say differently. Belief in gods requires credible evidence. Belief that there are no gods requires that there be no credible evidence. For over 2000 years there have been claims but no credible evidence. Refuted and debunked claims, zero credible evidence. Even if you could prove that Jesus never existed you cannot prove lack of existence of a supernatural being. Without evidence of the supernatural being there is no reason to believe in one. Believers may ask for proof but they know there is no such thing. They are making the claim that something exists – burden of  proof is on the claimant.

I need prove nothing. There is no credible evidence to support belief. Without the evidence there is no reason to believe. None. It’s just a fairy tale. I also need no proof that Zeus did not exist, nor Thor. There is no credible evidence to support belief and many reasons/evidence to support disbelief.

Because Grady/ Morrison90/etc. are trolls for the sake of trolling.

Fair point.  Except that I genuinely don’t have a clear idea of what is meant by “god”.  Ask a theist what they mean some time.  It can be quite entertaining and it saves all those “I don’t believe in the god you describe either” comments that the smart theists come back with.

…

Andrew, that definition doesn’t match against my experiences of common usage.

One example of how faith was explained to me in primary school was that faith is what takes you further than evidence alone can take you.

The metaphor was of crossing one of the local bridges in town. It was a very sturdy, well-constructed bridge that has never to my knowledge had any issues. However, even so – when going to cross it, there is a small flicker of doubt that maybe this time it will fall under the weight of the cars currently on the bridge.

The idea was that, because the bridge was very well constructed and had never had any problems, it only required a very tiny leap of faith to bring ourselves to use the bridge.

This was then used as the basis for explaining that being good little Catholic boys and girls required a much larger leap of faith – and that this was somehow noble and praiseworthy.

One of the tricky things about language in general is that it’s a barely organized anarchy. Anyone can substitute any meaning for a word at any time and call that their definition – and they’re right to do so. Defining a word is an action (performative utterance) that anyone can do. Because language (like evolution) is a bottom-up process, not a top-down process.

People keep trying to pin language down to a legislative model and it never works.

So there is no ‘the’ definition of ‘faith’. There are many definitions. Which definitions we use depend on context.

In the absence of any overriding principle, common usage is a good place to start.

My experience of common usage is that ‘trust due to evidence’ is called scientific reasoning.

Whatever else it may be, faith is something other than reason. This was always presented to me in the context that faith is somehow better than reason – hence the notion that they are distinct somehow.

Usually this is in the context of me asking a believer for evidence for their belief. They always give me something back – a feeling, they were raised that way, intuition, and so on. I’ve never heard a believer give me something that qualified as actual evidence. So I can point out how all the ‘evidence’ the believer provides doesn’t count as a good reason to believe anything.

The position they fall back on?

“But I don’t need evidence because I have faith.”

Many, many believers I have spoken to use the word ‘faith’ in this sense.

Like it or not this is a common usage of the term ‘faith’. Neither you or I can do anything about it.

You’re welcome to say that the word ‘faith’ means something different to you. That’s fine.

But you shouldn’t waggle your finger at other people who choose to use that particular form of common usage as if it is somehow incorrect or misleading to do so.

*waggles finger @ Andrew*

Tut tut.

Officially the government was atheist, but being religious was not illegal or reason to be sent to the gulag. 

Officially.In reality, the government was Leninist, and being religious could greatly increase your chance of disappearing.

As an aside, being gay WAS illegal, and could get you five years in prison.  Which we should keep in mind when we’re blaming religion for persecution of gays.

Atheists would learn well to recognise common logical fallacies:

Straw Man.
Loaded Question.
Argument from Ignorance.
Begging the Question.
False Dilemma.
Slippery Slope.
False Analogy.
No True Scotsman.
Non-Sequitur.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Just do stories.
Etc, etc.

Know when you are using them and when people are using them against you.  Point them out.  It’s fun.  Some of the trolls are having fun using them today.

When a “believer” makes the claim that morality comes from “God” I always ask them “So if you found out today that God really doesn’t exist you’d be out raping and murdering tomorrow?”

If you need the threat of “God” and damnation to keep you from harming others then I feel sorry for you.

It’s
Just
Water

If it worked, then ordinary tap water would also work, since it has had the same exposure to the same molecules that homeopathic remedies have.

Yes, there are studies out there which are laughably flawed.  If you have a good one, send it to James Randi and collect your million $.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1208-feb5video.html

Okay.

I’m with the others in that I have a prior conception that both homeopathy and the vaccine-autism link are bunk ideas.

But I’m willing to have my mind changed if your evidence is good.

Do you have any citations to back that up?

The Bible starts with two creation myths, not one.

Radioactive dating establishes the age of the Earth extremely well.

The age of the universe is measured by its expansion and accurate to within about 100 million years. The only way to fudge it is by a varying expansion rate.

Homeopathy has failed to show consistent effects above that of the placebo. Though there have been a few studies that claimed a certain effect, the aggregate data shows nothing significant compared to a placebo, as well as showing bias and methodological errors with previous trials.  In addition the supposed effects of homeopathic “remedies” frontally contradict known physics.

So in sum we have people advocating the curative properties of small bottles of water (no explanation is given as to the effects of the liters of other water you usually consume) while having the weight of evidence against them and while offering mechanisms that would require a complete overhaul of known physics, again offered without evidence.

Sounds a lot like creationsim to me.

I concur, you do not seem to understand QM as well as you think you do. 

“I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”Richard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law (1965)

Babies aren’t born believing in deities. All religious belief originates from cultural exposure. I believe it’s important for everyone (but especially atheists) to think outside the “culture box.” When talking to Christians, don’t feed into their cultural assumptions and don’t let them get away with defining the terms of the debate. Instead of focusing on their particular deity and getting sucked into an argument about the historicity of their holy book or the personality of their god, call them out on the fact that the details of their religion are irrelevant to atheism, that the details of Christianity are just as irrelevant as the details of Sikhism or Zoroastrianism or ancient Norse mythology.

I can calculate the number 1 to 10 thousand decimal places that doesn’t mean anything. You can accurately predict gravity to 5 or 6 decimal places and confirm with measurements. Science it tells you what you know, and how well you know it. 

It is a consensus among historians that don’t call themselves “biblical” historians that the torah’s author(s) are untraceable, and thus uncountable. 

As a teenage atheist my advice to others would be that if you can’t find people in regular life that you can share your beliefs with look to the internet, on online communities like this as well as actual forums you can get to meet other people like you and get to fit in.

87 % of conversational statistics are made up on the spot

Ahem, Another International Neverwin commentor

The founding fathers were mostly deists, not theists, and if they’d known about evolution, they’d probably have been atheists. 

Erp, while my comment was glib and short. It was meant to point out that most historians who try to glean history from the bible alone (“biblical historians”) are at odds with the rest of the historical community. While there are some historical overlaps, the number of inconsistencies would put the bible on equal historical footing with Alternate History fiction. 

speak for yourself.

I say, Read the bible if you want to. Doing so will, as implied, give you a leg up in debating many christians if you are so inclined, but it will also subject you to hours of tortuous writing and only a handful of enjoyable stories.

I suggest you read Tina Fey’s “Bossypants.” You’ll get some good laughs, though it won’t help you much with the atheism thing.

One thing atheists should know/agree on is simply the definition of ‘atheist’. 

You clearly neither know nor understand the topic you are trying to discuss.  

I assume that under officially Atheistic Government you mean different kinds of communist governments. Overwhelming majority killed by Stalin, Mao, etc. were their fellow citizens most certainly not Christians, typically atheists as well.  Most of those killings had nothing to do with religion.

It’s not just the dilution that is insane, I think I read that 200c was like have a ball of water that reached from the earth to the sun and adding one molecule of diluent to it.  But my favourite bit is how they get the water to remember; each dilution has to be banged briskly ten times on a leather and horsehair surface – priceless 😉

It’s used for emphasis and inflection. Very common in this day and age. VERY. 

Well I agree that definition of ‘Biblical historian’ have it wrong (the ID equivalents).  I was actually thinking about the ‘uncountable’; I think you meant ‘unaccountable’. 

As far as the Bible and history, first one must remember that it is a collection not a single document and that many of individual pieces within the collection are compilations.  After that one can look for historical info.  For instance the king lists for Israel and Judah may be fairly accurate and we have some cross-checks with other sources.   Stories about the early kings (David, Solomon, Ahab) are mostly legend, but, later sieges and the death of Josiah at the hands of the Egyptian ruler seem accurate (though biased).   It is not history but it is a historical document (much like Euripides plays are historical documents that cast light and what mattered to the ancient Athenians [and other Greeks, apparently when  the people of Syracuse captured an invading Athenian army, the captives who had memorized the latest plays by Euripides received better treatment in exchange for recitations]).

It was not murder from the point of view of Nazi and Nazi Germany.  For most other countries it was murder.

JDatty:

The main reason we can calculate where all the planets of the solar system will be in the year 10,000 is stability of Solar system with very little influence of unpredictable major changes.  Biology does not have such a luxury.

At the same time discoveries of fossils and living organisms fulfill predictions of ToE.

I want to say that if you are playing devil’s advocate, you need to up your arguments notch of two up.  So far your arguments sound like produced by a fundamentalist, but semi-educated one.

Good one.  Listening to Dawkins will show how misplaced accusation of his radicalism and militancy are.

When a government becomes atheistic, the people don’t stop believing, they just keep it secret.  Fo instance, Stalin’s army committed many atrocities and many, if not most, of the soldiers were closet believers.  They were not an army of atheists.  I know this from my family history.

I’m reasonably certain they’re sockpuppets and it’s the same chump.

That Occam’s Razor has a rigorous mathematical counterpart.

Nobody is blaming someone who didn’t exist for anything.

Have you read the book itself?  I mean Gulag Archipelago?

The Soviet government prosecuted small (in USSR) sects or individual that it (government) saw as a political threat.  It does not make it right, but does not support your assertions either.

Makes sense, I was thinking it might have been someone that was banned, came back, banned again, etc.

That doesn’t change the relevance of Adams’ words.

 Damn straight.  That needs to be writ large in Captain Kirk lettering.  How any religion with a city made of gold can claim to care about the poor is completely beyond me.
Sell the Vatican, feed the World.

Oh, and also – you don’t *have* to argue with theists if you don’t want to. You are allowed to walk away from arguments.

And lastly – regardless of your position, nobody has the right to discriminate against you because of what you believe or don’t believe. Nobody can deny you employment, shelter, service at a shop, medical care, or your basic human rights because of what you do or don’t believe. But it is up to you to defend your rights – nobody else will do it for you.

This thread isn’t a productive place for a discussion on abortion, but the bias is in assuming that all pro-choice people consider the embryo or fetus to be a human.  Whether their reasoning is correct or incorrect, it is not the majority pro-choice position that abortion is killing a human but still morally acceptable.

Earth is at least as old as the oldest rock found on the planet.  The universe is at least as old as the oldest thing in it.  It is estimated that beer was invented around 11500 years ago when cereal crops were first farmed. This is nearly twice as old as creationists claim that the age of the universe it.  Other things older than the creationist universe include proto-writing, rice farming, copper pins, the wheel, pottery, the plough, jewellery and bee keeping.

Don’t forget religion.

I don’t think that contradicts  anything Pollracker said?

It should be mentioned, however, that Pascal’s wager is utterly irrational on so many different levels that it is quite funny what his goal was.

Might be an idea to bear in mind that atheists don’t usually get yelled at by people from Harvard about their lack of belief in a god. 😀

If this thread was about trying to defeat all Christian arguments, I’d agree with you, but I don’t think it is. As far as I can understand, it’s far more about preparing people for what they might meet in the nastier fundamentalist populace in America.

I guess all I’m saying is I don’t think people here are saying what you fear they’re saying, so don’t worry. 🙂

I think the most important fact, one that blogs like this exemplify, is simply this:

You are not alone.

Curious whether you dispute the claim of the cited Ord piece.

I recently read an interview of the highest catholic honcho in Sweden. He lamented the fact that religion is having so little influence of society and people’s lifes. And he he said the biggest mistake the church has done here is to link religion with morals! According to him, that is not at all what his religion is about. Maybe the same mistake will backfire in the US?

Okay Erp, your first comment makes more sense, and yes the authors would be unaccountable. But since we don’t know who they were or how many there were they are also uncountable. (think math) We can set a lower limit, but not an upper one. 

A fact atheists should know?

That virtually no serious historian doubts the existence of Jesus of Nazareth (Jeshua ben Joseph) – unbelieving Bart Ehrman says he doesn’t know any.That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact about the state of contemporary historical scholarship.

In my experience (and also in the experience of Atheists I know) too many Atheists are ignorant of the state of scholarship in their claims about the historical Jesus.

The earth is 4.5 billion years old and homo sapiens are 200,000 years old.  The bible says the earth is 6000 years old and went from two people to 10 billion in that time frame.

Something atheists should know?

Whether or not there was a historical Jesus is profoundly irrelevant to atheism.

Please read what you type before you press enter. Articles are important to the written word. 

And another thing, the claim:

 There existed a man who went by ‘Jesus of Nazareth’

 and the claim that:

 The synoptic gospels are an accurate representation of the life of said person.

are almost comicly distinct. Even if I decide to grant you the first claim, you still have ALL of your work ahead of you. You have to prove all sorts of supernatural nonsense about him that you’re no closer to verifying now than anyone was 2k years ago.

Yikes, I just saw that I got sort of Ninja’d by you, didn’t mean to re-iterate your thunder 🙂

Thanks for this. I really needed the laugh. 😀

But Neil Armstrong, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John W. Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt all did not.

According to the cite in Wiki, it’s about 50%, but I haven’t read Barry’s link yet, so his number may be more up to date.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage#Epidemiology

“Most atheists that I know or have read, reject (or lack belief in) all
gods because they reject (or lack belief in) the idea of the
supernatural, where as Christians don’t reject the supernatural.”

That’s actually a good point. A very, very good point.

I_Claudia said it better than I. Apathism is a terrible position in the US. If we didn’t care enough to debate the topic, we’d be steamrolled by the theists.

Perfect!

O_o

I absolutely love that show. 

It’s the only thing on television that I will actually shift my daily schedule around in order to watch.

Hehe. I hate TV in general, but from the 8 or so episodes of House I’ve seen, it’s the same formulaic episode week after week. 

In fairness, I did like it at first and it may be better now.

Faith is like virginity.. once you lose it, you feel like an adult.

Everybody should know what counts as evidence.  The Doppler effect counts as evidence for an expanding universe.  DNA similarities between species count as evidence for evolution and speciation.  The Bible counts as evidence of the views of the 4th century writers.  Making an assertion is not evidence and some things aren’t evidence for the things that they are claimed to be.  The bible isn’t evidence of God any more than Harry Potter is evidence of magic or Lord of the Rings is evidence of hobbits.

Religion like systems of thought are no better than religion (Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis…the usual PoMo suspects).

Haha I love how that link argues that my grandfather would likely have very accurate memories of his wedding day, when in fact when he told me about it he had forgotten a few important things, and between himself and my grandmother, they couldn’t fill in the gaps, despite it being such an important day. 

Haha, suddenly oral traditions are incredibly accurate ways of passing information. 

Shorter version: If there is a God, he’s a murderer because people die.

Joe, what evidence for God, if any, would you accept?

No worries. I doubt Andrew is paying attention anyway. ;o)

Whether or not there was a historical Jesus is profoundly irrelevant to atheism.

Except, as ACN has just demonstrated, it is atheists who are most prone to spouting stuff that would be laughed out of any serious ancient history department on this issue. 

My view is that the gospels represent the stories of several “Jesuses” all squished together so as to seem like one person 

Which of these was James of Jerusalem the brother of? 😉

or just made up.

Then they were written by very very clever guys who did some pretty intricate research about the place and culture they set their story in (considering that none of them were written in Palestine). Though that does make it difficult to suggest as some do that they were illterate goatherds.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/assets/pdf/2005/TimelineOfTheBible.pdf

Who cares?  Maybe one did, maybe none.  It’s not a very interesting question and it doesn’t demonstrate that Jesus was somehow divine.

Here’s a fact I

If.

Simply false. There is Jewish and Graeco-Roman attestation.

Citation needed?

More importantly, you need to understand that the “scholarly concensus”, as you so authoritatively put it, are not made and backed up by any sort of detailed historical evidence. What they are backed up by, is a reasonably good understanding of how myths and new religions start. It is accepted/observed that myths are usually not whole-cloth fabrications. The characters and stories  are typically exaggerations, deifications, or mischaracterizations of events/people that did exist, did happen, and did do real things. So when a historian or a biblical scholar says something like “a historical jesus likely existed”, what they mean is something like:

 There was a guy walking around saying loony things, possibly about fig trees and mustard seeds, possibly going by the name Jesus of Nazareth. It is also possibly that this deified/mischaracterized/exaggerated persona was actually an amalgamation of similar persons/characters running about at the time. 

The historians are not, in this case, validating any of the crazy mythology. Indeed, no competent historian COULD acknowledge such mythological habberdashery as a “historical account”. They don’t acknowledge the biblical accounts of this mythological figure as accurate representations of his life, but rather as an indication of the existence of a persona(s) for an author to mythologize!The point that Anna and I are making (sort of coming at it from different directions), Anna feel free to correct me if I’m putting words in your mouth, is that even if you could prove conclusively that there existed a person named Jesus of Nazareth (and my point is that you are EXCEEDINGLY hard pressed, even on this point!), you are no closer to proving that he died and was subsequently resurrected. Or that he was born of a virgin. Or that his father was god, himself, and a disembodied holy spirit. Or that he performed miraculous healings. Or that we all must devote our lives to him to receive eternal life in heaven after death, else risking eternal damnation. The list goes on.

The three basic bullet points I came up with were:

If you’re an atheist, it doesn’t mean you need to do anything.
There are plenty of non-believers out there, even if they don’t call themselves atheists.
Evolution is a fact.

A lot of the comments here are already making me second-guess my priorities, now that I’ve browsed them a little, but I elaborated somewhat on why these occurred to me as especially useful on my blog:

http://cubiksrube.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/what-facts-should-every-atheist-know/

No, it’s not

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/36/302.html

The technical cite I have in mind is (doi:10.1109/18.825807); one of the authors has a PDF freely at tinyurl.com/33t9def if you care to read the math. Be warned, a late undergraduate to graduate audience will consider the reading level heavily technical math. With a good undergraduate course in probability and a good one in theory of computation, it may be comprehensible; good graduate courses may leave it explainable to others. My approach was to find a math PhD candidate and buy him a few drinks after I took some intro courses; such an approach will at least be likely to amuse the PhD candidate.

Obviously, it’s not only on the simplicity, but specifically for simplicity against describing the specific and full set of evidence. (No, you cannot reason out the universe in purely platonic fashion; you need to test against experience, to see which experienced universe you should be describing.) The “supported or contradicted by any evidence” is explicitly tested for falsification against evidence — which puts limits on practical implementation via the halting problem. (How do you know a description is in an infinite loop, or merely not finished getting to the final characterization of evidence?) However, if it’s non-halting, it’s not eligible as a “description” (for that ordinal; see below).

It also requires assuming a technical version of “there is a pattern”; the idea of “covers all the necessary features” is handled by the linguistic universality of Turing Automata over unrestricted grammars. Isomorphically, anything recognizable is isomorphic to a program for a UTM. (Though more technically, the theorem extends to experience mapping to arbitrary ordinal hypercomputation a la Turing’s PhD thesis topic, and languages of the arithmetical hierarchy.) Pedantically, it’s also dependent on the self-consistency of ZF or equivalently powerful axioms capable of the construction of set theory, automata and formal grammars, and probability; however, as the theorem is constructive, it is independent of the Axiom of Choice. If you throw all this out, it leaves Hume’s Problem of Induction in an irresolvable and infinite Ramsey Theoretic sea… which is a philosophically legitimate alternative, but not one theists find potable; crudely, it leaves you unable to distinguish whether your glass has piss or beer. Throw out ZF as well, and you may also be unable to figure out your share of the bar tab afterward, to add insult to indigestion.

It’s less useful in practice than you’d hope, due the aforementioned halting problem. However, it can still be converted to a greedy search (pseudo)algorithm that has a nontrivial taxonomic kindred to science, although even that merely allows effectiveness and not efficiency. Still, this is better than some of Hume’s hopeless backwaters.

Or, translating back to English: it works, as long as anything resembling language works. If you don’t want to use language, you may go sit quietly in a corner and are not allowed to protest paying the whole bar tab. Even if you’re willing to use a language, it doesn’t let you be sure you have the best (most likely) description, but it does let you tell a better description from a worse one.

The main practical application seems to be it’s REALLY good for making handwaving philosophy majors go mutter in a corner. Some atheists find this capability occasionally useful. =)

First, the question of whether or not the universe is Turing computable is still deeply unsettled on the one hand (Wikipedia has some discussion), but more importantly moot on the other. As I alluded earlier, the theorem extends trivially to any ordinal degree of hypercomputation, not only to degree zero (vanilla Turing machine).

Second, science works with finite amounts of evidence/experience/data; thus, finite strings. Science predictions are about subsequent evidence, and (if you look closely) about the probabilities rather than  absolute certainties. You might also note that Hume’s problem of induction is explicitly referenced; and such induction is the fundamental objective science seems to pursue. Yes, the sense of hypothesis is hideously more formalized than the norm for science; however, it’s stronger thereby, with the form used by science remaining a practical approximation. Treating this form of hypothesis as “conjecture, and characterization thereunder” seems to allow a homomorphism. 

Third, if you make it through that in under a week, you’re probably not doing the paper justice.

We’re talking past each other, it seems.

Context.

Q) Why are particular kinds of flowers widely considered to be beautiful.

1) Because we have evolved in such a way as to find them beautiful.

2) Fairies.

2) Gremlins.

Apply Occam’s Razor to these three hypotheses.

As far as I can tell – the method reccomended in the paper doesn’t fit. At all.

All it tells us is that converting our data to bit strings and compressing it can be shown to lead to more accurate predictions of a certain type by a certain kind of model than if we converted it to a bit string and did not compress it.

Fine.

I placed the problem description above into a text file.

I then compressed that file.

I then took the binary of the zipped file and converted it to base 64.

UEsDBBQAAAAIAKKmLj8nT7+5gwAAAK8AAAAIAAAARGF0YS50eHRdjb0OwjAQg/dKfQevXSrBIzDAzMR8pBflRJqgu/yob08YWJA82JL9+b7gEQ6QMt6kRVyNpHhJ2gzZw8fcWQ1dNo4HXE42nPKGkvHkIapFfI3rPM3TacGFHVVjdEagxuCWYxt1SbDqAgidxp19917S4ATe/zDnBVcSFbZfvCnvUZKtH1BLAQI/ABQAAAAIAKKmLj8nT7+5gwAAAK8AAAAIACQAAAAAAAAAIAAAAAAAAABEYXRhLnR4dAoAIAAAAAAAAQAYAOzGO7a7cswBmXPpsbtyzAF2auSxu3LMAVBLBQYAAAAAAQABAFoAAACpAAAAAAA=

…

Not exactly helpful in concrete practical terms, is it?

Anyway – we’re probably going to start going round and round in circles and we’re getting WAAAAAY off topic. I’d still like to hear a final comment from you on the topic in response to what I’ve posted here – but after that I think we should drop this digression and let things get back to normal.

Whatever the outcome, thanks again for the paper. I’ll struggle my way through that when I can find the time.

As if the stack of unread books next to my bed wasn’t big enough already.

…

I’m never going to get to play Skyrim at this rate.

Did I miss it?  Was there a winner?

I want that bag

Let’s just say hitler had a religion that told to kill everyone except gerbles……