"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

[Jumpin]

vivster said:

o_O.Q said:

"We atheists do get an enormous amount of satisfaction from the fact that we're not complete morons and are in fact able to employ critical thinking" 

but the thing is... you (not you personally but atheists generally) end up following the same patterns of thought that religious people do and you have no idea how unbelievably amusing it is to see the lack of consistency and awareness

where do you think all of these anarcho-communist that want to bring heaven on earth are coming from? what about the people that want to bring about "equality"? its motivated by the same paradigms that influence religious people... the only different is that god is being replaced by the state/man

"It's one of the very few things that helps to hold the balance against all the negative things we do receive because of our belief"

i'm sorry but i don't buy that argument...atheism is the IN thing now, its trendy to be atheist in modern countries now especially among the youth, just look at the answers in this thread for example

to imply that you become some sort of a pariah for being an atheist just isn't in line with what's actually going on... if anything its more of the opposite

" it's one of the few things that helps us cope"

lol stop

"atheism isn't a position that you can hold. It's a mere byproduct of using the scientific method."

its actually not... you can't show me a scientific experiment that disproves a god or the supernatural... we can't even measure the vast majority of the matter around us

The scientific method doesn't have a bias. It's there to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt. It does not lend itself to absolute negative statements like "there is no god". It's only meant for absolute positive statements, like "there is no proof of god". And it isn't rigid either. If the scientific method ever finds definitive proof of a god then that will be another fact and everyone who believes in science will also believe in that god because he has been proven to exist. I mean why not believe in something that has been proven to exist?

And how is atheism an "in thing"? Basically everyone who has not been indoctrinated by parents to believe in some sort of god follows atheism because if there is no evidence of something, there is no point in wasting time believing it. Atheism isn't really a belief, it's the absence of a believe. It's the trust in the scientific method and critical thinking. Though "trust" is again a bad word because facts do not need trust to be true. If we can see something and we can measure something and we can verify it and reproduce it, it is real. Everything that wants to be real needs to follow those simple rules.

Atheists have not been indoctrinated to not believe in any gods, they have come to that conclusion themselves. An atheist household doesn't speak of god, because they are of no concern, much like magic ponies. Atheism isn't indoctrination like Religion, it's the absence of indoctrination. You have to teach a child what a god is. To teach a child to not believe in god you just don't mention god and it will come to that conclusion itself. If a god exists, it would be easy for people who have never heard of it to believe in it. But they don't unless they find solid proof, which does not exist yet.

And even if you don't agree, atheism has nothing to do with politics or society for that matter. It's nothing but a simple conclusion based on verifiable facts that does not affect anything. As for Atheists dangling their superiority constantly in front of religious people. We wouldn't have to constantly remind people of how stupid they are if they'd just stop trying to wear they stupidity as a badge of honor and stop interfering with people who don't believe in their magical ponies.

Atheism doesn't have policies or rules to oppose on people. Religion does. And it does so frequently.

You're mixing up Atheism and Agnosticism.

Agnosticism is the absence of belief/knowledge.

Atheism is the belief that there are no gods.

There's also strong agnosticism which is essentially someone who commits to believing that the nature/existence of a God/gods is unknowable. Also, someone who commits to believing that both the existence of gods or the existence of no gods are both possibilities for the nature of existence.