Yes, Atheists do Exist.

format_quote Originally Posted by IAmZamzam

Forgive me but I don’t think that you would. You would just brush it all off as still being too tribalistic for your taste.

Just because something is tribalistic doesn't mean I'd brush it off as not existing. Sports teams are tribalistic. I do not lack belief in baseball.

I think you even told me once that you care just as much what effect beliefs have on people as whether or not they’re actually true.

Yes, you recall correctly. I am as concerned with the actions of followers as in what they believe or if what they believe is true. I don't mind that my friends believe in things I don't, so long as these beliefs help them or inspire them to be good to each other, and so long as they don't harm them and inspire them towards harming others.

That is an entirely different matter than my own beliefs though, or lack of them.

I was going to congratulate you for taking a step up with the lottery analogy, but then I deleted my kudos when I saw this

format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis

...and enter Russel's teapot, the FSM, the UPI, faeries, and ghosts. You absolutely cannot disprove any of those either. That doesn't mean you should believe they exist, or that they are remotely likely to exist.

I brought those up because the post I was responding to is exactly what inspired them.

The Santa, FSM, UPI, Russell's tea pot, and the numerology analogies are all made to show that just because you can't disprove something doesn't mean we should believe them. The FSM and UPI examples were purposefully designed to be ridiculous to make this point especially blatant.

I can see why the ridicule that comes with the FSM and UPI examples may be seen as offensive or arrogant, but you don't seem to have a problem with lacing your posts full of adhoms and personal attacks, so why should I be terribly concerned?

I am now convinced that you’re incapable of learning. Thanks for bursting my bubble.

There we go again.

format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis

Atheists are…not all materialists. They are not all evolutionists.

Just like a fair number of them become atheists as old men. Again it’s true in theory. And again you present absolutely no evidence.

Wait. What? Do you deny the existence of people who don't subscribe to evolution and also don't believe in Gods? Do you deny the existence of people who don't believe in Gods but believe in other spiritual things like ghosts, chi, etc? There are plenty of people in Asia and elsewhere who follow sects of eastern "religions" that don't require any God belief. Do you deny that?

I’ll say it again, Pygoscelis, although you’ll just dance around it again. Most theists aren’t absolutely 100% certain that God does exist. Therefore we “lack belief” in atheism. That puts us in the same boat as you

I already addressed that. Perhaps you missed it.

format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis

You hold a belief that I lack. And I don't know you personally, but I will bet very strongly that you hold this belief pretty strongly and that it is dear to you. Atheism isn't dear to me at all, and I don't hold to it with intent. I am a skeptic, but if actual convincing evidence came along, I would be quite open to accepting the facts as they are proved. Unfortunately theists usually make their Gods and the claims about them unfalsifiable, so no such evidence is likely to be found.

(1) You never listen to a word I say about anything.

If that were true you would have nothing to respond to, such as the text above.

(2) It never does any good to explain these things to anyone

If nobody understands you, then you are not explaining yourself very well.

the sermon is rooted entirely in holier-than-thou “us vs. them” scorn, not reasoning, and thus the people making it are not open to persuasion of any kind, and

Have you actually read through and thought about the responses? Religion deals in answers, revelation, tradition and faith. Science deals in questions, falsification, and revision and progress. Which you prefer is up to you. The two can co-exist to a certain extent as Indian Bro has said. Mixing them can expose religion to scrutiny as Independent has said. Perhaps the core difference and source of conflict is that religion regards faith as a strength and science regards it as a weakness.

(3) a paper I’m working on already is going to address it anyway.

Please post it to the forum. I would like to read it.

Try the fact that you yourself make statements like “He is wise in this…science is falsifiable, that’s how it progresses, and if Islam made falsifiable claims, it could be falsified and that simply wouldn’t do, because then he’d have to admit that he didn’t have the absolute truth handed down from on high”

You call this arrogant but you don't address it. If Islam boldly made a testable claim, and we tested it, and we found it false, that would be a serious problem... it would force Muslims to admit that they had to make a revision and didn't always have the absolute truth. Am I wrong? It makes good sense that Islam wouldn't make such testable and falsifiable claims.

Well I guess that if someone had met me during my own atheism and guessed that ten years later I'd be a Muslim then you would probably have looked at him funny, sure. But while I don't claim to be able to see the future I do claim to be an at least marginally competent judge of character, and to have a working memory. I don't know what will be but I know what I have seen and I know what I see now. That I can't look directly at this man's soul is my one and only comfort in all this. I'm praying that I'm wrong about him. I'm praying for him. But the behavior he's put on display is predictable to a tee.

Well, okay, not entirely. I had a little mental poll running with myself in this thread, for example, and lost it. I didn't expect him to make it anywhere near two pages before saying "tribalism". I thought he'd be out long before that.

He is wise in this…science is falsifiable, that’s how it progresses, and if Islam made falsifiable claims, it could be falsified and that simply wouldn’t do, because then he’d have to admit that he didn’t have the absolute truth handed down from on high.

Now that...is tribalism. QED.

format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis

I don't think that should surprise anybody. Of course people will address the claims that have been put to them. If you are raised in a Christian society, you are going to address Christianity. That doesn't make his points regarding theism in general any less interesting (the cartoon part of the video - the part I enjoyed and posted the video for).

That is one of only many excuses I've heard, along with "Christianity is the most damaging religion", "Christianity is the one which makes the most impact", "Christianity is the one which has the most local impact around here", "Christianity is the most disgusting", and so on—of which the last is probably the closest to the real motive.

As for his "points"...well, what's the use in discussing them? I could explain at length all about what a rejector or kafir actually is in the original Arabic of our scripture but you'd just argue that it's irrelevant to his points since he's not talking about Islam specifically. I could argue that he's tarring all believers with the same brush and the video is just a hateful smear campaign disguised as a plea against hateful smear campaigns, but while this is blatantly true you would brush it off with the phrase "straw man". I could argue that I myself don't exhibit the pattern of behavior he's talking about but then you'd just say, "Well, then it's not addressed to you, is it?" But then why are you bringing it to me? And I see that pointing out that the video is just an embittered attack on Christianity in disguise has already failed me. I don't suppose it'll do any good to explain that these angry and nasty traits listed in the video are actually associated with atheists in conjuction with other people and not with God? That's the trick. And it is common. I didn't say universal but common. Very, very, very, very, very common. How many popular writers for atheism don’t exhibit them? Christopher Hitchens is the poster child for it. If only someone had gone up to him and bored a hole through him and drained out all the bile you could have buried him in a matchbox.

That wasn't the point of the video at all. The point of it was that Christianity defines all religion and atheists are poor, poor martyrs whereas Christians--pardon me, theists--are the genuinely aggressive people who are just projecting their own faults onto others. Mind you, that wasn't supposed to be the point of it but it's easy enough to see through the smokescreen. The point is supposed to be that atheists who always get yelled at just for being what they are and wrongly accused of being aggressive are just having that done to them because theists are really feeling that its their own selves who are being turned away, not our God.

Thing is, I still never act aggressive toward anyone for being an atheist just on general principles. And while I admit, disturbed as I am by the fact, that I'm slwoly starting to develop a bad association--to get a chill when I hear someone announce that they are an atheist--it's only because I so rarely meet one who isn't aggressive and antisocial and REALLY immature--or at least arrogant. When they're talking about God or religion, that is. Or at least Christianity (or fill in the blanks with whatever religion they have bad blood with here). Sometimes I get just as bad as them in response. It's hard to be patient with childish people nine hundred times in a row. But this happened slowly. At first I had no problem at all. Nobody ever gets traumatized on purpose.

Who cares if they exist. They are harmless. The most they can do is hurt our feelings and go bwaaaaaaah you believe in santa and we don't.

What would make religious claims "falsifiable" in the first place?

format_quote Originally Posted by glo

Quite.
I cannot think of a test which would prove (or disprove) God's existence either. Hence it continues to be a question of faith.

If you can't commentate on that, then why allege that:

format_quote Originally Posted by glo

stand up to scientific scrutiny.

I can only draw a few conclusions from the above all of them render the belief of atheism lacking on multiple levels and where 'science' plays absolutely no factors, at least no factors that deal with the origin of life that don't render themselves to fairy tales.
If you're comfortable marginalizing your religion to some relic of antiquity which has no place in modern society save for a few pithy sayings by which some can live their lives then do so only in part and don't include the whole!

best,

format_quote Originally Posted by Berries'forest

Sister with the arabic name that's a nice saying^.

format_quote Originally Posted by Berries'forest

So the purpose of the video was to advertise the self pity atheists have?

No. It is this guy's attempt to understand and explain why so many theists will say things like:

"Atheists reject God"

"Atheists hate God"

"Atheists think they know better than God"

"Atheists are arrogant and don't appreciate what God does for them"

"Atheists don't want to be responsible to God"

I have spotted each of these statements, and others like them, on this forum. None of them make any sense if you recognize that atheists don't believe in God.

This guy in the video disagrees with me that the statements above come from theists simply not believing atheists when we say we don't believe in God. I think some of them read from their religions that we all know God exists (we saw that earlier in the thread), so they think that and hold to that no matter what an actual atheist may say.

The guy in the video thinks there is more to it than that. He thinks theists say these things because they feel rejected when the atheist doesn't share their view, and he thinks they do so because they somehow mix their own identity with that of their God.

Regardless of why it happens, it happens a lot. No matter how many times I say I am an atheist and that I do not believe in God, some theists continue to declare or assume that I believe in God.

Do you have your own theory of why this happens? Why do theists so often accuse atheists of secretly believing in Gods?

Never mind. Every argument I've had with you, Pygoscelis, has been exactly the same from the very start. Exactly the same. I explain till I'm blue in the face why religion isn't "tribalistic" and you, in fact, are the one being tribal with your scornful dismissals like, “He is wise in this…science is falsifiable, that’s how it progresses, and if Islam made falsifiable claims, it could be falsified and that simply wouldn’t do, because then he’d have to admit that he didn’t have the absolute truth handed down from on high.” You refuse to listen to me and you continue to repeat yourself.

I explain till I’m blue in the face that you don’t “lack belief” in anything, except in the same sense that anyone who isn’t totally 100% convinced of any position doesn’t, and therefore anyone who isn’t convinced of their own views to the point of flagrant overconfidence could just turn right around and say that they have a “lack of belief” in atheism and throw your own arguments right back at you. You refuse to listen to me and you continue to repeat yourself.

I explain till I’m blue in the face what’s wrong with the “if God made the universe then where did God come from?” argument. You completely ignore everything I say, accuse me of being cryptic and not making any sense without saying why—without asking for any clarification at all—and continue to repeat yourself. Like none of it ever happened.

I explain, time and again, what’s wrong with all these Santa Claus/flying spaghetti monster/fairy analogies. I give you reason after reason. I may as well be speaking Martian. You clam up, force yourself to miss the point, and pretend that the only thing that matters is the supposed thrust of the argument. All the while hypocritically criticizing me for my “adhoms”. (Why oh WHY does nobody ever use that term correctly???) What, do two wrongs make a right now? I don't care what the point of the analogies is. Is that clear?? No of course not. And it won't matter even if it is. You’re not literally incapable of learning, you’re just unwilling to do so. There are none so blind as those who will not see. This really is amazing. Farcical, even: that I have to get into so many and such impassioned debates about the ethics of comparing people’s most deeply cherished convictions to spaghetti monsters. It is so farcical, in fact, that it’s an insult to my limited mortal lifespan. I’m going to have to make a vow to myself now never to deign to do it again.

Maybe the example of Umar is appropriate. Maybe someday somebody will get through to you. But that somebody apparently will not be me. I’m not the man for the job. I’m either not talented enough or at least lack the fortitude. It requires more patience than I have at this admittedly delicate juncture in my life. You’re trying me way too much. I can do you no good. You are more mellow and courteous towards believers than most of the atheists I talk to and I hope I haven’t given the impression that I undervalue that (in fact you've probably come across looking like an angel in some of our arguments, which may give people an excuse if they want to make some real ad hominems--which is another potential problem)—but all this obsessively constant talk of tribalism is indeed a huge, huge projection. If you’re not the single most changeless and intractable human being I’ve encountered on this or any other message board, you’re at least beyond any hope of positive change by my hand, nor do I predict that anything you can say might ever have any positive effect on me. Therefore I don’t see anything to it but to put you on my “ignore” list and just pray for you. Sorry.