My "Beef" With Atheists

That's actually not true. The majority are evolutionists, but we have a very good mix of Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Christians, at least a few Muslims, and other theists. Of course, this is rather off-topic. Stop right there. Your question here is "does the basic assumption that the Unvierse as we observer it actually exists provide evidence that the universe was intelligently created by an external entity, or that it formed itself?"There are several things wrong with this question, first and formost your assumption that the existence of the Universe requires either a creator or must be the result of a "spontaneous birth" that "came from nothing."There is no model in physics suggesting that the Universe "came from nothing." We have had multiple discussions on this topic here, and becasue it's not the real topic here I'll try to be brief, but I think it's important because you're basically claiming that /ex nihilo> are the only options, and that second option is basically a strawman of modern physics.

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Nobody realistically suggests that the Universe "came from nothing." That's an assumption on your part, and it basically means you're arguing against an argument that does not exist. In no model of physics I'm aware of does the Universe spontaneously appear out of nothingness. The most basic wat yo explain this is to remind you that time is a dimension of the Universe, just like length, width, and height. Our perspective on time is incidental - it's not really any different from the spacial dimensions. The moment of the Big Bang is the lowest possible value of time - T=0. Time cannot have a negative value, and so this means that there is no "before" the Big Bang. Saying that the Universe "came from nothing" is a non sequitur, because in order to "come from nothing" there would have needed to be "nothing" at a time previous to the Big Bang, and there quite simply is no time previous to T=0. Basically your scenario requires that there be a location farther North than the North Pole, which is of course impossible.

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So there we have your first problem: you've defined the only two possibilities as and , and so your argument is flawed right from the start.

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Truthfully, I don't have the answer to that question. No one does, who can at least fully provide the required evidence to the rest of the world to make either side presumed correct.

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My problem with atheists is that it is a fine belief... only in a world where the only axiom we know to be true, does not in itself exist. Atheism is a great belief in a reality where there is no reality. I'm all for it. And even then, I can't state atheism as a fact.

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...what? "A reality where there is no reality?" That doesn't make sense. At all.

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It appears as if, however, this is not the reality in which we live. This reality can most certainly in fact, lend itself to an outside intellect and force that we cannot comprehend, simply because of the only axiom we can empirically observe as fact. Why? Because of its very existence. In a world of "something" it hardly seems reasonable to assert that 'it came from "nothing"' as some sort of self evident truth. Therefore, to suggest that "something" came from "something" can be construed as a more reasonable stance. Of course, neither can be proven or dis-proven at this time.

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Nothing comes from nothing. Ex nihilo spontaneous formation violates teh Laws of Thermodynamics, which state that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Surely you don't suggest that Atheists disagree with the Laws of Thermodynamics? This is simply further extrapolation of your strawman argument regarding the existence of the Universe, a straman belief that is not actually held by any Atheist I know of.

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Of course, 'what about the intelligent force itself', the atheist would respond. "Where did it come from? It must have come from nothing, so your argument is negated." My response is that I know absolutely nothing about this dimension/realm, do not know the laws that govern it, or even if there are any laws. In this dimension, the universal truth of why there is an intelligent force, and how long it has existed (which is kind of a faulty statement, considering time would most certainly be skewed or non-existent in comparison to our reality), could and most likely would make perfect sense, if the human mind could even comprehend it. The point is, by taking this stance at least you are paving the way for some sensibility to our universe, by leaving the door open to the possibility of what is unknown and could be, what is outside of this "shoebox." The path of the atheist is that of complete and utter insensibility and close mindedness. The atheist firmly shuts the door on all room for sensibility, "I cannot see it, it does not apply to this reality, therefore it doesn't exist, or demand any time of day in its possibility of existence. "It" is nothing more than a flying-spaghetti monster to me. Which is nothing but absurd. Why can’t you see that?"

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Here you're arguing "I don't know, and you don't either, so it could be," which is a blatant argument from ignorance, followed by the ad hominem "Atheists are just closed-minded." Both are examples of fallacious reasoning.

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Atheism is a unique beast in itself, in that simple rationale does not support it. Now, I’m not talking about weak atheists, or de facto atheists, who simply suggest that a higher power has not revealed itself in any way to me, so why should I recognize it as anything more than a fairy-tail like entity. This is sort of a primitive and distanced approach taken out of the book of mammals that do not have the ability to reason. They roam the world without the slightest concept of such a thing as a “God,” so why should I be any different? This approach is “I do not see it, therefore why should I even think about it as a reasonable concept. Therefore, I am not deciding for or against something I shouldn’t even be thinking about.

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This is a much more distanced and agnostic approach, but still harbors traits of the close minded. It, in itself is a reasonable stance, however, it still completely shuts the door on the possibilities of the universe that the human mind should, and is capable of exploring.

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Are you serious?

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It seems that you have more of a desire to insult and deride Atheists as "primitive" and "unreasonable" than to actually present any arguemnts against Atheism itself.

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Strong atheism, on the other hand, the general stance of there is no proof whatsoever, therefore “God doesn’t exist,” deserves the most rebuking. First of all, the proof thing can most certainly be debated (yes yes, not unassailable), but the circumstantial evidence of such a power (just how "loving" is not relevent) can certainly be depicted as nothing other than overwhelming.

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How so? Without presenting this evidence, you're making a bare assertion, and that just doesn't fly. What evidence of a higher power, regardless of its characteristics, do you find to be overwhelming?

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And yet, there are people, and even those I’ve come across, that state as a fact that God does not exist. And they will go as far as rebuking, and mocking you for thinking otherwise. “Why are you creating up a fairy tale?” “If it wasn’t for the indoctrination that society has instilled in humans, the concept of a higher intelligence outside our reality wouldn’t even exist, no more than giant flying potato that rules over us all. And THERE IS NO POTATO, this is absurd, and why should I be accepted to have anything to do with this.” I’m sorry, but the big difference is (as touched on earlier), we are here, reality does exist, we reside in a reality that is totally and utterly un-explained. And If I were isolated from all civilization on an island, I would come to the same conclusion, that has nothing to do with flying potatoes but rather, “Hmm, it seems quite reasonable to suggest that some kind of higher power/intelligence had a hand in creating what I see around me. Perhaps there is some sense and purpose to all of this. Just perhaps, maybe [sarcasm].” Hardly un-reasonable.

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Here your argument finally starts to come together. You posit that:

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1) the Universe exists
2) we don't know why the Universe exists
3) ergo, the Universe must have been created.

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This "logic" is so fallacious as to be astounding. We know the Universe exists becasue we can observe it. But our lack of knowledge as to why the Universe exists is irrelevant - you're using an argument from ignorance. It's a simple "God of the Gaps" argument, a line of reasoning that's been ripped apart for obvious reasons so many times it's frankly ludicrous that anyone still tries to use it. "God of the Gaps" essencially places "God" into any unknown, from the "cause" of the Universe to why good things happen sometimes to anything else personally unexplainable. The problem, of course, is that our ignorance of teh Universe is ever shrinking - "God" used to drive the sun around the Earth, and now we know that this is not the case. The gaps that god fills are ever shrinking, and it's silly to assume that anythign you cannot personally explain must be the direct result of a deity that you cannot objectively even show to exist.

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Further, you're assuming that the existence of the Unvierse by itself lends credence to the existence of a Creator, when this is simply not the case. You certainly haven't shown it to be the case, you've simple stated, matter-of-factly, that it is so, a bald assertion.

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But the existence of a rock doesn't mean the rock was created by anything beyond purely natural forces that have nothing to do with any deity.

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An egg does not necessarily imply a chicken - it could be an egg from a robin, or a snake, or a Fabrige egg made by a human being, or simply an egg-shaped rock. You're engaging in a black/white fallacy, defining two possible explanations as the only explanations when there is no reason whatsoever to assume that we are limited to those two.

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This on top of the fact that your second option is a massive strawman, as described above.

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I think what it all boils down to, is true Atheism is most certainly a pathological disorder [perhaps related to narcissism] consisting of the following things somehow intertwined into a poisonous combination where the individuals who fall subject to it are blinded themselves. First of all, I think it’s a rebellion. So often, I think you will find that atheists at one point had some religious affiliation, found out how much bologna there was in all that, and completely went the other direction, and found the ultimate antithesis, atheism. But the rebellion goes further than this. It’s a rebellion against religious society as a whole, not only in the present, but going as far back as the birth of human existence.

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This certainly is the case with some Atheists. You could even say that my own personal vehemence against fundamentalist Christianity is the direct result of my own personal experiences with it. But that's not the reason I'm an Atheist. I beleive in no deities becasue I see no evidence that any deities exist. Present to me objective, reproducible evidence that a deity does exist, and I will believe in that deity. Until then, deities go right along with elves and fairies as imaginary things that I don't think exist because I have no reason to think they do.

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Remember, at birth, we are all Atheists. None of us believe in gods until we are tought to do so, Babies can hardly be rebels against a religion they don't even know exists, can they?

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Religious folks, believers in God/higher intelligence, can generally be construed as loons/brainwashed. And in this day and age, even radicals that threaten the very existence of human kind. “If these people are loons, and radicals, and brainwashed, why would I want anything to do with that they believe.”

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I could make a very, very strong case for that, but that's not really the topic here.

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Religious folks believers in God/higher intelligence throughout the centuries have been un-enlightened, un-informed, un-intelligent, barbarians, that had no understanding of science, and progress, and we are in an entirely different class from them! “If these people believed in God, and Gods and higher powers, why would I want anything to do with these primitive silly views? We have advanced science harnessed from the great minds of society that explain what they couldn’t. Belief in God/higher intelligence is simply old fashioned, and has no place in today’s society.

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So rational or not, true atheism is the ultimate rebellion from the belief-set of our primitive forefathers, and the dimwits that still embrace and hijack such views today.

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Again, thsi reasoning is simply not true. No Atheist I know escews beleif in any deisties simply out of spite or rebellion from a deity that secretly he/she knows to exist. It's difficult to rebel against someone else's imaginary friend after all, and that's how most Atheists view god(s).

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Atheism is simply a disbeleif in any god or gods. Nothing more and nothing less. There are different ways to arrive at the conclusion that god(s) do not exist, but it's not an act of rebellion. It's a lack of faith.

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And more than this, and coinciding with this rebellion, is simply put, arrogance. The atheist has the answers that 95% of the world today, and 100% of the world of the past has been blind from. This makes them feel good, enlightened. Science has revealed that science itself reveals things in a way that everything makes sense, does not require supernatural explanations. Everything fits like a puzzle, and there is no higher intelligence required to put it together. “Guess what, I don’t want anything to do with your silly, primitive views, they are far beneath me. Dig your ditch, hold on to your gun; believe in your God, just like billions of loons today, and billions of loons of old, except there’s one thing you don’t know. You’re primitive, and I’m advanced. I’ve got science; you’ve got a black book written by some dudes with beards 1000s of years ago. I don’t care if there’s any sensibility whatsoever in our Universe, I don’t care that I think something that undoubtedly reflects intelligence came from nothing, when it could have just as easily come from something, say intelligent. You know why? Because I have the answer, and you don’t. And you’re most certainly ignorant. And I'm especially sick and tired of you trying to convert me to your non-existent God.”

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And the most arrogant aspect of it all, is their inability to acknowledge that they simply don't know. Quite a pity.

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This is an appeal to popularity. In Columbus' time, 95% of the world and 100% before that beleived the Earth was flat. Popularity is irrelevant to whether an idea is factually correct or not. This argument is further flawed because, of those 95%, very few of them can agree on which deity actually exists, or in what number. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists (not all of whom are theists, but that's not the point), and all of the myriad sects of each cannot even internally agree, and so your appeal to popularity fails to even appeal to a popular belief as you imagine it.

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Further, all of the Atheists I've ever met quite willingly admit that they don't know. I've never met an Atheist who believes that it's impossible for a deity to exist, simply that, given the absence of evidence, it's unlikely and there is no reason to believe in one. Even Richard Dawkins, who I strongly suspect exemplifies the type of Atheist you "have beefs with," readily admits that he cannot be certain that deities do not exist, but rather that he finds it unlikely in the absence of any convincing evidence whatsoever.

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I'm fairly certain you don't beleive in Zeus or Thor. Is that disbelief borne of a feeling of superiority over those who do believe in such deities? Is it a rebellion against both of teh Thunder Gods, whom you secretly know to exist but outwardly rebel against by refusing to acknowledge them?

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Or do you not believe in Zeus and Thor simply because you have no reason to believe in them? No evidence to show you that they do, in fact, exist?

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Isn't it reasonable, then, to conclude that Atheists might actually mean exactly what they say when they tell you that they don't believe in any god(s) becasue they have not found any objective evidence that would convince them to do so?

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I’m sorry, but as far as I can see, there cannot be many other possible explanations for the phenomenon of atheism. And I would like to say, I can give my full respect to agnostics. They acknowledge that the answer is beyond them. “Maybe there’s a higher intelligence, maybe there’s not, I just flipping don’t know .” Fair enough. Deists deserve some respect, for at least acknowledging that it makes more sense to presume that for “something” that comes out of “something” makes more sense than something coming out of nothing. Especially when that “something” is the most finely tuned clockwork one could begin to imagine. And the theist that states his beliefs as fact, can be grouped in the same category as the atheist, in terms of arrogance and close-mindedness. But at least he’s not making any reservations. He believes in something, quite frankly, because there is “something” that demands some sort of explanation. Either that, or there is absolutely no sense, sensibility or purpose to the universe. And yet, this is what the atheist embraces and insists on. Just doesn’t add up.

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So in conclusion, simply put, in a world where we’re not here, atheism rocks as a belief set. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be here to believe it. But under the unfortunate circumstance that we are here, I guess it only makes sense to put atheism where it belongs, and that’s certainly “not here.” It would be even better if it regressed to “nothing” that way it could reside peacefully with its shoddy explanation of reality’s existence. From “nothing” you came, and from “nothing” you will return.

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Your argument is flawed in so many ways that it's difficult to summarize them all imto a concise conclusion. Your basic premise is a black/white fallacy on top of a strawman, and your followup "reasoning" consists of further strawman arguments, appeals to popularity, appeals to ignorance, and ad hominem arguments.

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Your reasoning is fallcious, Watson75. Egregiously so.

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Atheism is a simple disbelief in any deities, and is perfectly reasonable in a Unvierse where no objective evidence has been uncovered to suggest their existence, any more than fairies ot elves. It has nothing to do with rebellion or arrogance, it simply has to do with following evidence, and only evidence, wherever it leads.

So you aren't actually here for debate, you're here to preach to a choir or accept concessions. That's not the way it works. That doesn'r bode well. Your first reply and you're going to go off-topic in your own thread? I see this getting admin attention quickly. So you say. But you haven't shown how I've supposedly twisted your words, you've simply stated that it is so. More bald assertions. To me, it sounds like you're furiously backpedaling becasue you have no argument. I rebut you, and you say "but that wasn't what I meant!"If I have misunderstood you, by all means show how. Be specific. I'd much rather argue against your true argument than waste time, but I really don't see how I;ve distorted anything you've said. You have your reasoning backwards. Let's use an example:Imagine that you have a deck of 1000 unique cards, and you draw 100 of them at random. What's the chance that the exact sequence of cards you draw would actually be drawn? The probability is so low as to be next to impossible, and given the same deck randomly shuffled you'd likely never ever draw that same sequence even if you spent the rest of your life doing so.And yet you still drew that sequence. Why? How?Becasue given a deck and cards being drawn, some result was inevitable, and every single result was equally improbable.But your use of probability is even worse, because we don't know how likely our Universe was. It may be that a universe with exactly these physical laws is the only possibility, or one of a select set of possible alternatives.It only gets worse from there. Inherent in your argument is the assumption that our Universe is a "desired" outcome - essentially you're assuming your conclusion (that we are created) in your premise by assuming that we are a desired outcome as opposed to an irrelevant side effect of a universe that happened to be favorable to our form of life. It's circular reasoning.And let's not forget the basic fact that while you're somewhat correct when you say:

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You know, how if one thing was to change just a tad bit, none of it would work.

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you're missing the most important point: If one was to change something just a tad bit, none of it would work exactly like our Universe. That's not to say it wouldn't "work" at all, jsut that the results would be different. Those results may or may not be favorable to life (let alone our type of life), but again that only matters if you assume that our form of life is a desirable outcome, which forces your premise to contain your conclusion - circular reasoning.But the largest, most glaring flaw of the "complex Universe" argument:it's an argument from incredulity.It boils down to "gee, wow, I am personally amazed at how complex the universe is, and I am incredulous at the idea that this could have arisen without an intelligent agency behind the whole thing."This is fallacious reasoning. Your personal credulity has no bearing on whether the Universe is designed or not. Merely saying "complexity is the result of design" is not evidence, as rocks are extremely complex and yet have no designer. Marveling at the extreme improbability of our Universe existing as it does has absolutely no relevance to whether the universe has a designer or not, any more than the improbability of rolling a specific sequence of dice rolls implies the existence of a luck fairy. I'm not shutting the door on anything, Watson75. I don't argue that the existence of a deity is impossible, simply that I have not seen any objective evidence suggesting that a deity does exist. In the absence of evidence, I have an absence of belief. There may well be "purpose and sensibility" in teh Universe, but until I see evidence of such, I am forced by objectivity and parsimony to say "It does not appear so." Of course it's a legitimate question. But the answer is likely less than what you'd prefer: the mere existence of the Universe is suggestive of nothing more than the existence of the Universe. The existence of a deity is simply one possibility with no supporting evidence, no different from the possibility of fairies hiding in a garden. And I have answered it. Quite to the contrary, it means that you're accepting a non sequitur argument. That the universe is designed does not follow the fact that the universe is complex. That's not "paving the way for sense," that's maintaining a logically unsound mindset. Really? I thought this was a debate forum. Once again, you seem more interested in preaching to the choir and accepting meek concessions than actually debating anything. What a shame, becasue it shows that you have no way to argue against my rebuttal. I assure you, I am exceedingly disappointed that someone on the internet may dislike me. As opposed to a "fake" Atheist? And I can see the different wavelengths quite plainly: my mind works exclusively on objectivity and evidence, while yours delights in subjective emotional fancy. I maintain logical consistency, and I have yet to see you make a single argument without multiple fallacies. It's not suggestive of a Flying Spaghetti Monster at all. However, the FSM is equally as likely as any other deity for whom there is no objective evidence. That is to say, not likely in teh least, and certainly not worth believing in, but not impossible.

I answered the question.

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Of course it's a legitimate question. But the answer is likely less than what you'd prefer: the mere existence of the Universe is suggestive of nothing more than the existence of the Universe. The existence of a deity is simply one possibility with no supporting evidence, no different from the possibility of fairies hiding in a garden.

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I thought I was extremely clear here, and considering the rest of my post. The mere existence of the Universe is not suggestive at all of anything. We don't know if a complex Universe requires a creator. We don't even knwo if our Universe is particularly complex at all! We have nothing else to compare it to. Our Universe may be unusually simple, or unusually complex, may require a Creator or may not, and we have no data from which to make any of those determinations. So the mere existence of the Universe is not suggestive of any of those things. In the absence of any evidence, all possibilities are equally likely, and there's no reason to violate parsimony by suggesting the existence of a deity simply because you like that idea the best.That would be a no, Watson75, complete with an explanation of why.It's a shame that I requested that the mods promote your topic despite the fact that it was a redundant wall-of-text, I follow up by responding in detail to both your initial post and your response to me, and in both your first response as well as these two follow-ups you simply ignore the vast majority of what I've said, change the subject, dodge rebuttals, and demand simple "yes or no" responses instead of detailed ones. Why, if I can give you the courtesy of reading and responding to the entirety of your posts, can you not do the same for me? That does not demonstrate good-faith debate. And yet you haven't shown why there is a difference between(the existence of teh Universe is suggestive of a creator)and(the existence of a garden is suggestive that there are fairies hiding there)Once again, you've flatly insisted there is a difference, responded with ridicule, and cannot see how they are exactly the same. You don't know what sort of Universe would be suggestive of a Creator, because you have no other Universes to compare ours to. There is no reason to assume that the existence of a Universe suggests that the Universe has a Creator any more than the existence of a garden is reason to assume that there are fairies hiding in it. Are both the Creator and the fairies possibilities? Of course. But there's no reason to beleive either are present becasue there is no data to suggest as much.To paraprase Dawkins, you'll understand why I'm an Atheist with respect to your deity when you understand why you are an Atheist with regards to fairies. I've answered multiple times now. Are you incapable of comprehending my responses? Are you simply too lazy to read them all? Or are you purposefully dodging in an attempt to make me appear to be avoiding your questions because you have no answer for my rebuttals?Your second response: ...that's not the way debate works, Watson75. Bare assertions are invalid. Period. If you cannot show where and how I have twisted your meaning, you're little more than a child whining "but that's not what I meant!" when told he's wrong.If you cannot counter my rebuttals, then you are conceding by default. Again, I've answered all of your questions, some of them multiple times. Frankly I'm becoming tired of repeating myself. I answered all of them in each of my posts, Watson75. I haven't "waffled" once. I've answered your questions directly and supported my answers. You, however, have failed to respond to the vast majority of my rebuttals. I've pointed out dozens of logical fallacies contained in your previous posts. Simply ignoring them does not make them go away - it makes you appear to be a dishonest debater, and that (combined with taunting the admins) is why you've been suspended.When you return, I'd appreciate a full response to my posts. If your time it too "valuable" to spend giving full responses while expecting others to spend their valuable time reading and responding to yours, you really don't belong on a debate forum.So let's go back over what's gone wrong here: It's not. Others have used the "puddle/pothole" analogy, where the puddle beleives the pothole must be perfectly designed just for it because it fits perfectly, and changing it even slightly makes the puddle no longer fit. But the puddle fits the pothole, not the other way around.I used a probability explanation to show you why your assumption that the Unvierse must be gigantically improbable is incorrect - given that a Universe is going to exist, some properties must show up, and every single possible result is equally improbable. When someone wins the lottery, it's a on in a million chance, but someone eventually will win. Every single player has an equally improbable chance of winning, but one of them will happen. In the case of our Universe, we have no idea what other possible values could exist in alternate Universes, and indeed ours could even be the only possibility - we have no data. So we don't know what the probability is, and we know that some result had to exist, and we know that our Universe does.To say that the "finely-tuned" physics of the Universe for our form of life suggests the existence of a Creator requires that you assume in the beginning that our specific form of life is a desired result, which of course requires an intelligence, making you entire argument circular.Your reasoning thus fails because you don't understand probability, you are claiming that the container is designed for the liquid rather than the liquid fitting whatever shape the container happens to have, you violate parsimony in the absence of evidence by introducing an extraneous entity where none is required, your argument is circular by containing your conclusion in your premise, and you appeal to your personal incredulity.This was all pointed out in previous responses, and you ignored it all. Your reasoning is so flawed that it must be discarded as entirely wrong, not even a little right.As I said before,

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This is fallacious reasoning. Your personal credulity has no bearing on whether the Universe is designed or not. Merely saying "complexity is the result of design" is not evidence, as rocks are extremely complex and yet have no designer. Marveling at the extreme improbability of our Universe existing as it does has absolutely no relevance to whether the universe has a designer or not, any more than the improbability of rolling a specific sequence of dice rolls implies the existence of a luck fairy.

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If you want to debate, then you must answer my rebuttals. If you again choose to try to deflect the argument onto a new tangent and completely ignore my points while simply insisting that you're right, then you honestly don't belong here.To the mods, I apologize for requesting this topic to be promoted. I had assumed that Watson75 actually wished to engage in debate, and simply had an overly verbose and redundant writing style. This has not proven to be the case.

Social darminism != scientific Darwinism. The observation that the diversity of life is the result of random mutation guided by natural selection where the most fit are more likely to procreate is not the same as believing that this is the way human society should work.As has often been stated but is always ignored, the Theory of Evolution makes no statement with regard to morality. It's a scientific theory, and as such holds no more moral argument than the Theory of Gravity. Explain how a lack of belief in any deities somehow relates to parisitism. You are the one who brought up love in this discussion. Nobody else did. I'm still not sure why you did. Love is a human emotion, and it is objectively observable that emotions exist. Their causes in the human brain are complex, just as consciousness is.None of your blathering about love has any relavence to Atheism. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any deities. That's all. It makes no statement with regards to love or any other emotion. It doesn't even have any inherant moral lessons, or a statement regarding human or Universal origins. It's just a lack of belief in gods, nothing more. Very few Atheists are religious, since very few religions involve no gods. Non sequitur. Science makes no statements regarding morality or ethics or values. Religions do make such statements, but it is also not necessary to derive a system of morality from religion. Human empathy, a desire for society to benefit above the individual, a belief in inherant human rights, each of these is adequate to form a system of values and morality, and yet none require religion or science. Contradiction in terms. Science has nothing whatsoever to do with morality. Further, science explicitly deals with only that which can be detected by the senses. An undetectable, unobservable "spiritual realm" is clearly not in the purview of science, either. Who has claimed that morality is objective? It's objective to note that human morality exists, but morality itself is subjective, dependant entirely on the personal beliefs and opinions of the indivdual. There is no objective standard that says "theft and murder are wrong." Only religion claims that (see the Ten Commandments). Most people agree that theft and murder are wrong, but through compeltely different systems of morality including religion as well as those I mentioned above. In some ethical systems, what you or I would call "murder" would be considered "good," and what you or I would call "theft" would be considered "use of community property." So you think Atheists should be executed based on your own strawman misconceptions of what we may or may not believe. Quite the moral genius you are. You disgust me.It's a good thing that the first person who brings up Nazis in an argument automatically loses.As an aside, did you know that the Nazis were not Atheists? They were Christian. It's difficult to stomach, but read Hitler's Mein Kampf sometime, and read transcripts of his speaches. He wholly self-identified as a Christian, and in fact his anti-semitism was directly from the writings of Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Revolution himself! He tried to candy-coat his racist garbage with distortions of science as an addlebrained "justification" for genocide, but his motives were theological in nature. He had a wonderful relationship with the Catholic Church. If you'd really like to discuss the Atheism/Christianity of the Nazis, feel free to create a new thread. I'd enjoy utterly decimating your silly assertion that Naziism was somehow Atheist in nature with these things that we call facts.

So you assert. Of course, you haven't demonstrated why scientifically examining love (determining the reactions and patterns in the brain that signify it, psychological analysis of people who feel love and its effects, etc) is bad. It's an appeal to consequence fallacy - clearly Atheism is factually incorrect because love is spiritual!That doesn't provide evidence that deities exist, and it's built on a strawman to boot. Love is both. It's an emotion, so it's subjective. Yet it's objectively true that people do feel love, and it can be observed. Irrelevant. Birds may or may not feel love. Other animals may or may not feel love. None of it has anything to do with Atheism, which is again why I'm confused as to why you brought it up in the first place. Perhaps it's a language barrier? As an Atheist, I feel love, and yet I see no reason to assume it's from any "spiritual" source. It seems to be the result of the workings of my brain, like other emotions such as depression, anger, joy, etc. Note that we can chemically duplicate some of those emotions independant of any "spiritual" anything. Rocks are inanimate. How would rocks feel anything, let alone love? I have yet to see how you're tying the spiritual into science. Nothing regarding anything spiritual has ever been objectively shown to exist. Why are you so obsessed with talking about an emotion? I still fail to see its relevance. You make the claim that love is spiritual in origin, which is a non sequitur, a bald assertion with no evidence to show that your assertion is correct. Then you insist that scientifically examining human emotions is apparently "bad," even going so far in your last post to compare it to Nazi philosophies, but you still fail to show how scientifically studying a human emotion is "bad."Then you pretend you never brought up the Nazis, and ignore my refutation of your assertion that Naziism is an extension of Atheism or even just materialism.You make less sense than Tesla (the poster here, not the scientist). That's a very difficult thing to do.

I haven't demanded anything. I've pointed out that you haven't shown why studying the actual objective aspects of human emotions is "wrong." Incorrect, and impossible. You can'r measure that. It's subjective. ...what?! What fairy-tale land do you live in? Science is a system of objetively investigating the observable Universe. How can science persecute anyone?! Why does studying the objective aspects of human emotion like their effect on the brain somehow lead to persecution?!Your position isn't even wrong, it's complete and utter nonsense! It's one non sequitur after another!