Atheism: an irrational philosophical system

Wrong again. That would be "scientism." Yes. That's how we know we're getting closer to the truth. Which would you rather be: almost right, and getting closer, or eternally and unchangingly wrong? As a rational person, I have no need for faith. But I have plenty of trust in the findings of science. Why would it? Atheism merely says that there's no reason to believe that God exists. It's not an explanitory framework. I suspect you're conflating several separate philosophies that atheists tend to hold. The thing is I suspect you're doing the same with theism. Neither atheism nor theism are explanitory frameworks. They're simply different positions on the question "is there reason to believe that God exists?" Oh, I believe in plenty. I just have no faith. Why do I begin to suspect you don't really know any atheists? Maybe about 55% or so. Atheism is considerably more common among scientists than the population at large.But of course my point was, if belief in God is so rational, why doesn't every scientist believe in God, instead of a little more than half? You'll pardon me if I think that says a little more about your debate abilities than anything else.

That says nothing about my debate abilities. All that proves is that people are grounded to their own ideas 99.9 percent of the time, no matter how much debating you do with them. This applies all the more so when it comes to things like beliefs. Come on Einstein, you should know this. Just because your debates don't accomplish much with me, that doesn't mean your bad at debating. Pardon me though, If I say your statement says a little something about your intelligence. If I doubt your intelligence, I doubt to trust you with your beliefs.[This message has been edited by roboto85, 01-26-2004]

I'll go toe-to-toe with you in any venue you choose. I'll pit my brains and knowledge against yours any day of the week.

OH, so your arrogant and stupid. Nice combo.

Behave yourself.And the word is "you're", not "your".And Crashfrog, let's not forget that ugly little situation in that other topic, closed a few days ago.Rarely arrogant, sometimes stupid,
Adminnemooseus

See, this is what I'm talking about with your debate skills. Of course I'm not judging you on whether or not you convince your opponent. I'm judging you on your ability to understand your opponent's position and make your own position understood. You seem to be failing at both.It's "you're", by the way. Also, ad hominem attacks are infantile, not condusive to intelligent debate, and against the forum guidelines:

quote:

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Respect for others is the rule here. Argue the position, not the person.

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You know, those rules you agreed to when you registered. Just a note. Now, was there something of substance you wanted to talk about? After all I've made a number of as-yet-unchallenged rebuttals to your misinformation about atheists. Do you have any response besides name-calling?{AHEM - SEE PREVIOUS MESSAGE! - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 01-27-2004]

Like I said he has no understanding of what atheism actually is.Don't you agree that it is irrational of him to write his post when he is so completely ignorant of the point of view he is trying to attack ?

Well, I'm glad to see admin action a little sooner this time.(Surely though you can realize that I was composing my much-longer message while you were writing yours, and so had already posted it before I read your post. I'm not in the habit of ignoring admin posts, by all means.)[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-27-2004]

roboto85You state. What major things are easily explained my friend.

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'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.'
(Daniel Patrick Moynihan)

I think that Atheism is a very rational alternative belief system. It is a safety zone for those who do not have enough evidence to believe in God. If I were God, I would have much greater mercy for the honest atheist than I would for the wannabe Christian who strives to keep up with the intellectuals yet uses his "I've got the right answers" mentality to prop up a weak ego. Hopefully, I am not that wannabe.
Everyone pray for me, and atheists keep me in check.Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. Immanuel Kant

First of all, that's offensive to a degree. Stating this, you were really the one who started it. Not only that, it's straight out wrong. As I stated, all I meant by my statement you responded to, was that 99% of the time, debating with people isn't going to get them to change their ideas. Especially their beliefs. Hence, my statement, "It didn't accomplish much." That's why I felt you made a stupid un-thought out offensive reply. Forgive me for stating my feelings on the matter. And forgive me for not knowing what you, "of course" meant by your statement. Nothing more is implied in that statement other than, 'your debate skills are cruddy.' This is now an arrogant statement, humble people, whether or not they think they can win an argument, don't go shuving that into other peoples faces. So yes, he is, or that was arrogant.Put those two together and you got I wasn't just calling you names for no reason. You were asking for it. And I guess to put that into our guidelines, I should have said. "I felt you made an arrogant statement, and an unintelligent comment. Whether or not this conveys what you really are, that's what I felt." SorryAnd I don't need a lesson in grammar. This is message board grammar, I don't think about every word, or the spelling of every word I write. If you do, the more power to yah. Let's not get nit-picky here.

Well, I wasn't aware I was even suppose to reply. As I stated I didn't want to get into another big debate with people when it's not going to "accomplish much" anyway. I expressed my viewpoints towards Atheism, and you expressed how you felt I was wrong. How do you know we're getting closer. Science only knows as much as man knows. According to me, I know this sounds far fetched, but Science could also be decieved in some matters by outside forces. Are you ready to humble yourself to admit this? Is it impossible that I could not be decieved by outside forces? No, it is not impossible. So why is Science off the hook here? And besides, unless I'm the one who's doing the research, why should I put my trust and faith in other men that what they say is correct? But we know, of course, they could be wrong. People don't trust the Bible because they don't trust other men. People were willing to give up their lives for the fact that they witnessed Jesus' resurrection. And yet people don't trust. And how do we know science didn't come up to a fork in the road, some while back, and only be getting further and further away from the truth? We really don't "know", we merely "think" we know. You have no faith in God. You believe in plenty... You believe God doesn't exist. You believe that our existence serves no real purpose. You believe the Universe came about by itself. You believe any joys experienced in life are natural reactions and mean nothing. You believe that if the whole world ended today, it wouldn't matter. You believe that there's no real hope for the future, or atleast the imminent future. As I stated, you believe in nothing.But your right, I really don't know much about Atheists. I question how you can live, thinking that your life serves no purpose, other than the purpose to keep yourself alive, and maybe help a few people along the way.And now, I may have been jumping the gun with some of these statement. Meaning: just because you dont believe in God, you may believe in something else. Like the forces of nature are one day gonna step in and make everything better. I don't know. But as far as I know, if you don't believe in God, it's basically you, and the Universe.Those are my THOUGHTS, if you really think being an Atheist gives you a happy fulfilling life, than please post your thoughts. If it doesn't, why are you trying to spoil everyone elses?

How about... why we're here, where we're going, where everything came from, why the earth is such a beautiful place when humans don't destroy it, why there is so much evil in the world, why life can either be happy and fulfilling, or miserable and pointless... the list goes on. You think, because we have these things, that somebody might have wanted to tell us. The answer is yes, somebody did tell us. And we can have a happy fulfilling life knowing these things. Some choose to reject, which is up to them.Science attempts to explain the same things by giving technical reasons. For example, the Earth was created when these rock forms came together and formed and everything just worked out nicely. Science gives reasons how things happen, which it's suppose to do and does fine. For the big stuff however, it falls short in the Why department.

It may be, but the method of science is such that if a deception like you describe is at all possible, then there would be literally NO means of uncovering it. What's the purpose of postulating unfalsifiable hypotheses if I can postulate an uncountable number of likewise unfalsifiable competing hypotheses that are equally consistent with the objective facts? How would you objectively differentiate them? Because science operates as independant of individual beliefs as is humanly possible. Because if you were so inclined, you COULD apply their methodology and repeat their observations. There is no reliable evidence that this is true. While this may be true for crashfrog, it certainly is not true for me. [Rrhain = "on"](*chuckle*)I love it when people try to psychoanalyze others over the internet. I always learn so much about them.[/Rrhain]The fact is, Mr. Roboto, that I believe my existence serves lots of purposes. I don't believe the Universe "came about" at all. Wrong. Naturalism does not include a belief in complete meaninglessness. In my case, it includes the belief that meaning is subjective as opposed to objective, however there is still meaning in the world. Define "world" as you've used it in this context. I disagree with you in any case, however for certain defintions I think your scenario is impossible anyway. No. False. Wrong. Incorrectomundo. Actually, at the start of that paragraph you said: So now which is it? Well, in my case your question is based on a false premise -- I don't live that way. And...? So what? I happen to think this universe is great, and I don't need some imagined being to tell me that everything is gonna be alright some day. As far as I'm concerned, things are alright right now.[This message has been edited by ::, 01-27-2004]

Well, that would have been the mature way to put it. And then the mature thing of me to say would have been to calmly explain to you how I was responding to the tone of arrogance that permeated your first posts, and that offended me. But name-calling pre-empts intelligent debate. I think we're both guilty, so we might as well call it off.