To those who ascribe themselves to Atheists...

It amazes me just how many straw men are fit into this post/article.

Maybe the cause for your sadness is because you've been taught by others that:

Your origins are by Chance
that you have Entered this world through an Accident
that you are in a state of Loss because no-one can be trusted, and that every person cares for nobody but his own self.

None of this is true. No sadness. Not taught by others. No claim that anything is by chance. No state of loss. More empathic than you think.

And

all that you have been taught, a belief system

Atheism is not a belief system, as much as religious folks want it to be. It just isn't. There is no dogma, no holy books, no doctrine, no preists, no prophets. There are no beliefs you must hold be qualify as an atheist whatsoever. You just have to lack a belief in God(s).

I didn't bother to read the rest of the article/post after noticing the above false assumptions / statements.

Maybe the cause for your sadness is because you've been taught by others that:-


- Your origins are by Chance,
- that you have Entered this world through an Accident,
- that you are in a state of Loss because no-one can be trusted, and that every person cares for nobody but his own self.

Hi, here are some words of advice to you Qatada in order to avoid responses like Pygo's: if you want to preach to atheists, don't begin your sermon with something that is false or generalizing. If you think atheists are living in sadness or they don't trust people then perhaps you should get to know more atheists in hopes of remedying your blatant ignorance of them; this might make your attempts at preaching a little less ridiculous in the future, and perhaps a little more successful. Imagine a Christian's sermon to Muslims beginning with the following: "Maybe the cause of your violence is because you've been taught by your religion that: -you should terrorize infidels; -you should be intolerant of other beliefs" ETC.

I hope my point has been made

format_quote Originally Posted by

There are no beliefs you must hold be qualify as an atheist whatsoever. You just have to lack a belief in God(s).

That's news to me. I always thought an atheist believed there is no need to have a god to explain how things happen. So I am wrong?

format_quote Originally Posted by Lynx

Hi, here are some words of advice to you Qatada in order to avoid responses like Pygo's: if you want to preach to atheists, don't begin your sermon with something that is false or generalizing. If you think atheists are living in sadness or they don't trust people then perhaps you should get to know more atheists in hopes of remedying your blatant ignorance of them; this might make your attempts at preaching a little less ridiculous in the future, and perhaps a little more successful. Imagine a Christian's sermon to Muslims beginning with the following: "Maybe the cause of your violence is because you've been taught by your religion that: -you should terrorize infidels; -you should be intolerant of other beliefs" ETC.

I hope my point has been made

I know many a atheists who are sad. Sad because of existentialist crises they are going through. They cannot live happily knowing (in their minds, according to their worldviews) they were a product of accidents.

So its you who needs to remove his ignorance. Maybe Qatada's post was not directed to ignorant happy atheists like yourself. Perhaps there are genuine curious sad atheists among your ilk, seems Qatada was addressing them.

format_quote Originally Posted by - Qatada -

Abiogenesis? Common Ancestor? Aren't these hypotheses which are taught?

It is also taught that the earth goes around the sun. None of this has anything to do with atheism. None of this is taught in the name of atheism or specifically to atheists.

If something isn't controlled, it's Coincidential, in other words - by chance. No?

There is nothing about atheism that requires atheists to beieve it's coincidental.

You have a "belief" - that there is no God. That is just as similar to a "belief" that there is a God. Except on the other side of the spectrum.

First, that is one definition of "atheist" but not the one most atheists use when they self-identify as atheists. They usually mean what I said, a lack of belief in God. That isn't the same as a belief there is no God.

But regardless of which definition of "atheist" we use, it still isn't comparable to religions, as it would only be one single belief, not a belief system, and not a belief about any of the things you assumed / claimed.

format_quote Originally Posted by Lynx

Imagine a Christian's sermon to Muslims beginning with the following: "Maybe the cause of your violence is because you've been taught by your religion that: -you should terrorize infidels; -you should be intolerant of other beliefs" ETC.

That is an excellent analogy. And I suppose some Christian who said it, upon being corrected, could make the same claim that mad_scientist made immediately above, that it isn't directed to all muslims, but just the ones it is true of. Of course, nowhere in either the OP or your analogy is that stated.

Finally, I know a lot of atheists. I know some who are not happy (just like I know people of all walks of life who are not happy). But I have never met an atheist who:

format_quote Originally Posted by mad_scientist

cannot live happily knowing (in their minds, according to their worldviews) they were a product of accidents.

Do you actually know such people? Where do you find them? I expect I know far more atheists than you, so why I have I never found one? Are they the product of living in muslim culture or something?

format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis

It is also taught that the earth goes around the sun. None of this has anything to do with atheism. None of this is taught in the name of atheism or specifically to atheists.

If you don't believe in the hypothesis of Abiogenesis, what do you believe caused life?

There is nothing about atheism that requires atheists to beieve it's coincidental.

First, that is one definition of "atheist" but not the one most atheists use when they self-identify as atheists. They usually mean what I said, a lack of belief in God. That isn't the same as a belief there is no God.

What's the difference?

But regardless of which definition of "atheist" we use, it still isn't comparable to religions, as it would only be one single belief, not a belief system, and not a belief about any of the things you assumed / claimed.

We're debating Atheism [non-belief in God] vs Theism [belief in God] right now, not religion. (see earlier post.)

That is an excellent analogy. And I suppose some Christian who said it, upon being corrected, could make the same claim that mad_scientist made immediately above, that it isn't directed to all muslims, but just the ones it is true of. Of course, nowhere in either the OP or your analogy is that stated.

Finally, I know a lot of atheists. I know some who are not happy (just like I know people of all walks of life who are not happy). But I have never met an atheist who:

If you've read the article, you'll figure it is talking to such a targetted audience. And this is why I never titled it; "those who are Atheists", rather i said - "those who ascribe themselves to Atheists."

Do you actually know such people? Where do you find them? I expect I know far more atheists than you, so why I have I never found one? Are they the product of living in muslim culture or something?

You're fooling yourself if you think every person who ascribes themself to Atheism is happy.

Qatada, you're just making us look bad. Are you familiar with the expression "lobbing softballs"?

bro Yahya, trust me - there are professed atheists who really do want to see a different perspective on life.


I'll tell you something which the readers who don't know Advanced Grammar never noticed (so they gave the responses they did).



Allah says;

aladheena kafaroo [Verb form] - those who profess disbelief.

Kaafiroon [Noun form] - Disbelievers.


Verbs are temporary, Nouns are Permanent.

This article was addressing: aladheena kafaroo - 'those who profess disbelief' - i.e. they are temporarily upon disbelief because they do not see any other alternative. But if they saw another perspective which made more sense, they would believe.

This article was not addressing the Kafiroon - those who are Permanently stuck upon Disbelief, even if convincing alternatives come to them.



Just something to think about.

format_quote Originally Posted by - Qatada -

bro Yahya, trust me - there are professed atheists who really do want to see a different perspective on life.

Some do, but that doesn't mean getting them into that perspective is liable to be an easy task. Touchy-feely armchair psychology never convinced anyone of anything, and among the atheists I've seen and talked to more often than not their atheism isn't caused by trust issues at all but seemingly by a virtually incurable all-or-nothing mentality about claims of the paranormal, believing on some level that the entire invisible world is a single multifaceted object that cannot have any part of it removed without the whole thing being unraveled. Not so much throwing the baby out with the bathwater as assuming all babies to make the bathwater as dirty as the one they grew up with. This is why you'll so often hear them make claims, which make sense only to themselves and other atheists, that if we are to believe in God or the angels then we may as well believe in leprechauns and fauns too. It's the same fallacy involved in the silly argument that the sheer number of religions in the world somehow makes the odds of any individual one of them being right lower: they don't grasp the possibility that the odds aren't automatically even between multiple things just because they have some similarity or connection between them. God's existence is supernatural and elves are supernatural, so God's existence must be as bogus as elves. (This is made all the worse by--and perhaps also partially caused by--the common circularity of their standards for evidence, that things which are not physical demand physical proof, and the only thing that would convince them of the supernatural is evidence from the natural world.) You'll notice as a result that while there are relatively very few theists indeed who believe in everything paranormal that is not too obviously contradictory to everything else, there are practically no atheists who are not hard materialists despite atheism itself not automatically denoting that. While some, if not most, of us theists examine proposed supernatural realities on their own merits, individually, and at the very worst reject them otherwise simply because they're inconsistent with supernatural beliefs we already hold, their perceptions apparently do not contain or notice any percentages between 0 and 100. Long story short, if you want to make an alternate perspective seem appealing to them then focus your energies on setting your own viewpoint above the herd. Don't explain to them why they need something more, only what's so special about the particular something more that we offer. You'll notice how racists who change their minds seldom do so because they suddenly understand something about the very logic of their view which undermines the way they look at the world itself, but instead because they have got to know people of the race they despise who are not what they expected them to be.

I made this post to give Qatada advice. I did not point fingers at any individual, specific people either on or off the board and I am not speaking to anyone else but Qatada: as such, I will not entertain any argument from anyone else here. Neither my hands nor my emotional state is up to the tedium of repeating the same debate we always have a twelfth time. Just save it.

format_quote Originally Posted by - Qatada -

By denying God, you are believing He isn't existent.

No you aren't. You can deny God exists, but you can only deny God if you believe he does exist!

format_quote Originally Posted by - Qatada -

Maybe the cause for your sadness is because you've been taught by others that:-

- Your origins are by Chance,
- that you have Entered this world through an Accident,
- that you are in a state of Loss because no-one can be trusted, and that every person cares for nobody but his own self.

Nope. The third would make me very sad, if I believed it to be true - which it obviously isn't. As to the first two, I really can't see why they would trouble anybody. Origins in the dim and distant past, so what? 'Through an accident'? Well, actually my parents told me that! It never bothered me. Why do you find the idea of them so troubling?

format_quote Originally Posted by - Qatada -

Generally, atheists will try argue in favour of such concepts.

I think you have imagined that.

I have never heard an atheist argue that "no-one can be trusted, and that every person cares for nobody but his own self". Sure, an atheist COULD believe that, but it certainly isn't common amongst us, and hopefully isn't common amongst anybody else.

Your OP seems to declare it as a matter of fact applicable to atheists as a group. And as Lynx pointed out, that is about the same as stating as a matter of fact that muslims are violent terrorists. It is an offensive misperception that some people hold and like to push, even though its wrong regarding most atheists/muslims.

Read his post above. Read mine. Read Trumble's. Actually consider what has been said. You are missing the points being made perhaps, which is why you are dismissing us as inelequent simpletons.

Also note that calling people inelequent and "not using intelligence" isn't going to win you any converts, and will only make you look weak and defensive, especially when you miss the points that are being made by said people.