LymeswoldSnork
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2004
- Messages
- 217
Sunday Assembly hasn't.I heard about that 'atheist church' too - I think it eventually faded away for obvious reasons.
Sunday Assembly hasn't.I heard about that 'atheist church' too - I think it eventually faded away for obvious reasons.
As far as I'm concerned, God has got nowt to do with it...we do it to ourselves. (opinions may vary)Stephen Hawking claimed people are just computers that simply just turn off when we die.
Thirty miles from me is Nashville which just went through a school shooting and It goes back to the age old question why bad things happen to good people and young children ?
I'm not a member of any atheist organisations at the moment, but I don't see a problem with organized atheists working to protect their rights. An organisation is usually better to do lobbying than single persons.
Not so much here in Western countries, but primarily in countries where the religion's name begins with an 'I' and ends with an 'M', atheists are regularly persecuted and murdered.Who do you imagine is trying assail atheists’ “rights”, whatever they may be?
maximus otter
Well .. the Church of England did have a thing for torturing atheists to death and setting fire to them - which you could see as assailing their rights.Who do you imagine is trying assail atheists’ “rights”, whatever they may be?
maximus otter
Well .. the Church of England did have a thing for torturing atheists to death and setting fire to them - which you could see as assailing their rights.
A while back and past persecution on religious grounds during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I is no guarantee of future religious persecution, but having a degree of wariness might not be utterly without justification.
that is just awfulIt's also a problem in parts of America as well; atheists regularly lose their jobs, are disowned by their families, and it's almost impossible for an atheist to be voted into any public position in many states
the point remains that atheists apparently believe that the universe and everything we perceive around us arose out of nothing unnatural and that human beings amount to merely evolved flesh and blood automata.
The mystery still remains, and always shall.Thankfully Christianity has moved on from the ghastly times of Bloody Mary, the Inquisition and such like (other ideologies maybe not as much), but the point remains that atheists apparently believe that the universe and everything we perceive around us arose out of nothing unnatural and that human beings amount to merely evolved flesh and blood automata.
I must admit that I find it hard to reconcile the "but where did everything originally come from" question with the fundamentally nihilist stance of the atheist without considering that it all started with something beyond our human comprehension.
I am a football atheist too!I am vaguely aware that some people get very attached to football teams. If I looked more closely I would probably see stuff about it in all sorts of places. However my attention is so focussed elsewhere that I don't even have a view of "not being interested in football". I've come out the otherside and am mostly oblivious to the questions that may surround it and what it means to those who do have an interest.
I also confess that I have never meet an atheist.
I do know covid killed about 7 million people world wide and their religious beliefs did not seem to help them.
Well exactly.I've taken a quick straw poll (sample size one) and this suggests that the actual difference (for at least those like the sample individual) is that they just don't care any further about the question than you've summarised above.
I am vaguely aware that some people get very attached to football teams. If I looked more closely I would probably see stuff about it in all sorts of places. However my attention is so focussed elsewhere that I don't even have a view of "not being interested in football". I've come out the otherside and am mostly oblivious to the questions that may surround it and what it means to those who do have an interest.
I am a football atheist too!
It's gods all the way down.Atheists think that the Universe spontaneously came into being. Religion has the view that God or gods created the Universe, without explaining how those deities came into existence.
Thus, essentially the same question is left unanswered.
Well exactly.
Personal belief is always a result of a straw poll of one!
Oh wow! I had a long theological discussion with my lady about her (French Catholic) beliefs after dinner yesterday. She is genuinely credulous of the Marian apparitions, whereas I remain hugely sceptical, but we both agree that the universe and everything couldn't merely have arisen out of nothing. So neither of us are atheists, but I could not be described as a follower of organised religion either.Touche! What I meant was that there's no point in asking me for first hand experience of atheism so I nipped into Mr Frideswide's study and asked him!
Those things don't follow. I think you're assuming that atheists think the universe sprang from nothing. Atheism says nothing about the origins of the universe, or our ability to ever know. Perhaps that's science you're thinking about, which really doesn't say much more about it really. Also, you seem to be equating 'the universe couldn't have sprung from nothing' with 'a god exists', as though it's one or the other. I don't know why....but we both agree that the universe and everything couldn't merely have arisen out of nothing. So neither of us are atheists...
Where did all the stuff come from then?Those things don't follow. I think you're assuming that atheists think the universe sprang from nothing. Atheism says nothing about the origins of the universe, or our ability to ever know. Perhaps that's science you're thinking about, which really doesn't say much more about it really. Also, you seem to be equating 'the universe couldn't have sprung from nothing' with 'a god exists', as though it's one or the other. I don't know why.
I don't know, why are you asking me. I'm long in the tooth but I wasn't watching the universe come into being. Our universe might be a product of a larger, multidimensional parent universe with physical laws we don't understand and can't investigate, at least at the moment. And, yes, that invokes infinite regression, but so does a theory that a deity created everything.Where where did all the stuff come from then?
The point is, religion doesn't answer the question, nor does atheism, which just posits there is no convincing evidence for a god or gods, and science gets nearer the beginnings of the universe with observation (which disagrees with the sources from which our notions of a god originate), but still doesn't answer the question. 'We don't know' doesn't equal 'this conception of a deity is true'..
It's gods all the way down.
I was a Hare Krsna for 12 years living in a temple. The Vedic knowledge on which the Hare Krsna religion is based on goes into immense detail about the process of creation and who God is. Christianity doesn't because that type of knowledge is not it's purpose.The mystery still remains, and always shall.
However, religion adds an extra layer of complexity. Atheists think that the Universe spontaneously came into being. Religion has the view that God or gods created the Universe, without explaining how those deities came into existence.
Thus, essentially the same question is left unanswered.
I can attempt to differentiate between the two. One is an extrapolation of observation, regardless of whether it's intuitive to someone, and doesn't assert anything it can't support with at least some evidence. The other is mythology intuitive to people thousands of years ago who were incapable of making those observations. One is a hypothesis derived from what can be known now, the other is a story about something far beyond what could have been known by people in the distant past.I must say all these theories about what exactly happened so many nanoseconds after the Big Bang seem just as fanciful and meaningless as theology.
Thanks to observation, we have then opportunity to explore ever closer to the moment of the Big Bang.
Christianity does not explain who God is, what His names are, or any real details other than a very broad outline and it also does not explain the process of creation as both of those are not the purpose of Christianity.Theology on the other hand makes no testable predictions, so is a completely different magisterium.
I love dreaming up theological constructs with various degrees of plausibility. My flippant statement 'it's gods all the way down' is one of these; if we imagine a god that created the universe, then we can also imagine a god that created that god, and one that created that god, and so on. This is a form of infinitism; there does not have to be a start to the chain of creators, any more than there needs to be an edge of the universe.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitism