i haven't read the article yet but reading the description i just knew it was a sham. just because a person is an atheist doesn't mean they don't believe anything is good/bad or right/wrong...

It's funny, because comments like that really won't fool most atheists anyway. Usually, the atheist/agnostic crowd are the first to argue that morality has nothing to do with religion or a belief in Sky Daddy .........though I'm starting to think that believing in Ceiling Cat might be much more amusing than Sky Daddy.

Yup. Failure of the Divine Command Theory to explain the nature/origin of morality. One of the first topic discussed in my intro to moral philosophy class.

The fact that you acknowledge ceiling cat gives me reason to post, he is watching!

But preaching that athiests have no morals isn't aimed at athiests, it's aimed at believers in order to caricature non-believers. It's another weak argument that believers can cling to in order to feel justified in their faith.

Just for the record. When you generalize then you will almost always miss the mark. We generalize based on what we hear from the most outspoken (and often most ignorant) from a specific group. There are atheists who don't believe in morals, but then there are Christians who don't either. I will point out though that I often hear this type of generalization pointed towards people who believe in God/creation/right-to-life. I know that this will get me downvotes for saying this, but we also often generalize because we don't want to hear the opinion of these groups so we say "oh you all believe in (fill in the blank), so I refuse to listen to you (or choose to downvote you)." But then here I am generalizing myself. I won't hold it against you if you don't downvote...because I know it's just the jerks who downvote that way.

The only generalisation I make about Christians is that they believe in a god. That's a fact I'm pretty sure of. It's enough to discount what they have to say without going any further.

The same goes for athiests. It's enough to discount what they have to say without going any further.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Although I'm not entirely sure how not believing in a any sky-daddies makes one less credible

I don't agree with the tactics the man (the supposed pastor) used myself. However I like how everyone remained pretty civil. The hug and make up at the end was good. This kind of thing can devolve into bad blood and that gets everyone nowhere quickly.

Yeah - the fact that atheists have sense of right and wrong flies directly in the face of some hard core anti-atheists and their beliefs about the source of morals.

Our sense of right and wrong and our empathy are traits independent of religion. Religion can be applied later on to pervert what we already have, to make some actions that would be immoral naturally to seem righteous, and to make actions that aren't naturally evil to seem evil.


As for discrediting people based on whether they believe in supernatural or not... I'd like to give the benefit of doubt to atheists and believers alike, while not belonging to either group. If you have a compelling, fact based argument, it should deserve a consideration no matter what camp you stand in.

Only when discussing theological matters. If you don't believe in Him you really have lost credibility in the field of studying Him.

How can you study something that doesn't exist and has no evidence of existence?

By studying the writings of the ancients who did believed He exists. Studying the writings of contemporary thinkers who believe He exists. And studying the holy texts (Bible, Qu'ran, Baghavad Ghita). How can you say there is not evidence of existence without study?
That would be like me saying I have not studied dinosaurs...so obviously they never existed. Where is your evidence? (I know the evidence is everywhere...but then I believe evidence of God is everywhere...so the analogy works for me)

As for validity of comments in this thread (or any other religious thread on Plime), someone with background in religious studies (secular) is probably better equipped than someone with background in theology (non-secular), no matter what their personal faith is.

Even when discussing meanings of religious texts, the core of theology, a secular opinion can be equally valuable to conversation than non-secular. I don't personally think that negative attitude toward homosexuality, for example, is a core Christian value. In my opinion, the basic message of Jesus overruled whatever negativity was written to the old testament. If I happen to know the bible better than someone else who's actually Christian, I don't think his opinion on the matter is automatically more valuable just because he has his faith.

As for this actual topic, how goddamn weak is your faith if you have to support it with troll sockpuppets?

First of all I've studied the Bible (various versions) extensively. I was raised a Christian and lived and breathed the bible.

Every evening from growing up until I left my parents religion was spent studying the bible in some form for at least an hour. Literally, no exaggeration.

I've studied 'god' and come to the conclusion that there is no god due to using simple logic and exploring the 'evidence' provided to support a belief in any gods.

Secondly, your analogy between evidence of dinosaurs and evidence of god is poor at best and laughable at worst. Their is physical evidence, proof, of the existence of dinosaurs, fossils, bones for instance.

There is NO proof or evidence physical or otherwise of any god let alone the Judeo-Christian god I presume you believe in.

When you say you see evidence of god in everything, what exactly does that mean?

Of course atheists kill babies! We see Budhist monks do it all the time!
/irony