Atheists: Time to Come Out of the Closet!

Wow! Talk about evading the issue.--Percy

You're only off by one about the number of fake churches.--Percy

You're playing semantic games. I used the same terminology as Dredge. He said all churches except the Catholic Church are fake. Whatever Dredge meant by "church" and "fake", I in effect said that the Catholic Church is also fake.Will you continue to ignore that Dredge called your own church fake and that followers like you are "too stupid or too mentally unstable or too intellectually dishonest to see the truth of Catholicism. One day, Christ will remove all false religion from the face of the earth - including your fake Christianity."--Percy

I agree that we understand right and wrong from a very early age, but it seems like after that it gets complicated. To me it seems like at a simplistic level morality has portions that are innate (theft, murder) and other portions that seem subjective or relative (eating cows, wearing a hijab). But murder isn't always wrong in some societies, for example advocating it as punishment for capital crimes, as in some states in the US. And theft isn't necessarily wrong in all circumstances, such as stealing Nazi gold during WWII.But despite the complications I can't help feeling that some morality is innate for most people, almost as if we're born with it.--Percy

Atheism is not the study of human origins.The scientific perspective is that the human species, indeed all species, are the result of natural processes. It's interesting to see your claim evolve. You originally said, "All career criminals and serial killers are atheists..."If you didn't invent your claim out of thin air then you should have no problem providing statistics supporting it. In the absence of such statistics, the numbers Tangle offered render your claim extremely unlikely. Do you have a breakdown of the percentage of inmates by whether or not they're career criminals?Concerning serial killers, you may recognize these names (from Serial Killers, Murderers and their Religion / Faith): Why do I have a feeling that for anyone who doesn't fit your claim you're going to qualify it with "not a true Catholic and therefore an atheist."The real world is unlikely to oblige made up claims.--Percy

I think some of us are finding your use of the term "mindless natural process" confusing. I was hoping you would answer Tanypteryx's question, but since you haven't let me ask it in another way. Does your use of the term "mindless natural process" imply that you believe there's such a thing as a "mindful natural process"? If not then the "mindless" modifier isn't necessary since all natural processes are mindless.As Tangle has explained, an atheist is just someone who doesn't believe in God or gods. Believing that natural processes have no "goal, purpose or direction" isn't part of the definition. Some atheists might think that way, some not.Your terminology is also somewhat anthropomorphic, which is problematic since it makes your meaning unclear. Does the Higgs field have purpose, to provide mass? Do natural processes have a direction, toward increasing entropy? It is people who give life meaning. That's why everyone believes that how we treat other people is what's important. Some people think they need God to tell them that, some don't.--Percy

Is God perhaps more expansively playful than commonly believed, or is it just a trap for the wicked?--Percy

And how did God arise?Also, your arguments are baseless. The casting of disparaging names carries no weight. Anyone can do it about anything, e.g.: "To argue that meaning and purpose could not arise from a meaningless and purposeless universe is so irrational it could only be the result of mental illness."See?Do you have any fact-based arguments for your position? Regardless what you believe, almost everything we are made up of and that we normally come in contact with is made up of electrons, protons, neutrons and photons. If there's meaning in the universe then you will have to find it there, because that is all there is.(Yes, space is seething with a fantasmagoria of subatomic particles flitting in and out of existence, and zillions of neutrinos are passing with no interaction through our bodies every instant, and there are other particles in the menagerie, and then there's who knows what else that we haven't discovered yet, but I'm trying to keep this simple. Keep your hopes up, though - maybe they'll discover a meaning particle.)--Percy

Your whole post is dripping with disingenuousness. Everyone's a god-fearing Catholic who says they are until they do something you don't like, and then they're not. How convenient for you. Life must be wonderful in that little fantasy world you've constructed for yourself.And how many Catholics actually describe their relationship with God as God-fearing anyway? Online, "God-fearing" is described as not actual fear of the Lord but as "awe or profound respect," or that "to fear God is to be in awe of his power and knowledge." I think most Catholics would use words like love, compassion, faith, omnipotence, eternal and infinite when describing how they view God, not fear.One of the fundamental principles of Catholicism is that we all sin, that we're all guilty of sin, especially the original sin. There's nothing in Catholicism saying that sin makes one a non-Catholic. In fact, Catholicism probably has one of the more rigorous systems in the religious world for dealing with sin with its confessionals.What you're doing has a name, the no true Scotsman fallacy, and you've been reminded of that repeatedly. Do you think repeating something obviously false on its face over and over is going to turn it into something true? Determined lying is a sin, which means by your own standards you're not a true Catholic.Catholics are about 15% of the prison population in the US. Plenty of Catholics commit crimes, some of the most heinous by priests, maybe even the one who offers you the Eucharist on Sunday. Even high priests have been convicted of crimes, like papal advisor Cardinal Angelo Beccie a few days ago. 252 priests have been criminally convicted of child sex abuse, many times more have settled with their victims out of court, and who knows how many more are hiding within the church, transferred around to hide their transgressions. Your entire church hierarchy seems to be rife with crime. How can you continue to be associated with what can be legitimately described as an outlaw church?Perhaps as a Christmas gift to EvC, but also to yourself, you could stop repeating self-evidently false claims.--Percy

Forgiveness is fundamental within Catholicism. "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them." John 20:23But you don't believe that. Your religion, which can't really be called Catholicism, seems to have a solidly fundamentalist focus. You've taken a poll, have you? You're just dripping with statistics, are you? This isn't just the dunderheaded bluster it sounds like?--Percy

That's not your definition? The one from the Bible? You reject that one? So in your world being a career criminal is a different class of sin, one that casts them out from the community of Christians. Where in the Bible does it talk about different classes of sin? You should perhaps worry about yourself. You haven't exactly been a font of truth and consistency. Your tactics are lie, deflect, counterattack - you haven't tried truth yet. You're calling Biblical verse Romans 3:23-25 unbiblical? Gee, dueling Bible verses. Who ever would have guessed that could ever happen? Romans 3:23-25 or 2 Corinthians 5:10? Decisions, decisions. Yet fearing God is just a figure of speech. As I explained in an earlier post, it doesn't mean actual fear. The God of the NT is a God of love who doesn't rule through fire and brimestone. You must be an OT Catholic. There you go, using deflection again. Apparently we can't paraphrase you to refer to something you said earlier, only quote you word for word, else you'll call us liars. What a wonderful Christian you are. What you originally said about all career criminals and serial killers being atheists was wrong. Somehow you've decided in your own unCatholic mind that there are some types of sins that remove you from Christianity. You're going against your own religion, mentioned even in the Lord's Prayer, about forgiving those who sin against us. There's nothing in the Bible about not forgiving the sin of being a career criminal or a serial killer. How many times do you have to be reminded of the no true Scotsman fallacy?Religiously, you have lost your way. You're not preaching love. You're preaching hate.--Percy

As Billy Martin once said in a commercial, "I feel very strongly both ways." The Bible is the same. Whatever position you want to argue, the Bible has a passage for you. Both the North and South used the Bible to support their respective positions on slavery.Most Christian religions today preach a God of love, not of fear, but you're free to preach a God of fear if that's the way you see it. And you can have your own views of who qualifies as a Christian or as a Catholic, but many don't see it the same way you do. I can see where someone who believed in a God of fear would believe this.

2 Corinthians 11:11-15:

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For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.

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--Percy

You're just making my case for me. Every religion has its own set of beliefs and interpretations of scription, many that stand in stark contradiction to the beliefs and interpretations of other religions. Protestants and Catholics both believe the other have misinterpreted the Bible. Sunni and Shia Muslims both believe the other have misinterpreted the Quran. Vaishnavist and Shaivist Hindus both believe the other have misinterpreted the Vedas.You think you've found the one, right and true religion in Catholicism. Adherents of other religions believe the same about their own religion. Who is right? No one. No need. I think his boss already knows.--Percy