Corgan Sow

My sentence although rather vaguely, did not stereotype a whole atheist groups, rather to your kind based by your remark. Vice versa, it can apply to Christians as well and Jove should know what I'm talking about.

You are of no different from Christian fundies who refute atheists with "His ways are higher than mine. Ditto".

Again, this is an infidels board. Prove to me that you folks are different from the likes of Christiananswers.net

Radcliffe Emerson

I abandoned Christianity and became agnostic after reading the bible all the way through (took 2.5 years), and finding things I found absurd. I then began studying the history, especially of the New Testament, about when it was actually written, the inconsistencies, and how so-called inspired books were merely voted in by councils of men, while others were cast aside. The history of early Christians being declared heretical and killed for not sharing the same beliefs of the church also tied into my studies.
Constantine forcing a council to adopt the Trinity as official belief at the Council of Nicea in 325 despite there being no biblical evidence to support it, etc.
I also got involved in debates about which version of the bible was correct, making me realize if men can change the bible, adding and deleting verses over the centuries, it's obviously not as sacred and inspired as the church has always claimed.
This info made it crystal-clear to me the bible is just a book of stories, not actual history. I also started briefly studying other religions and came to the conclusion none of them have the right to say their belief is the only correct one, and noone knows if there is really a 'god' or not, people just like to believe and hope there is.

Autonemesis

Perhaps, but that is not atheism. That is the II EOG forum.

WJ

Well we might agree. The forum itself makes no sense and in fact is non-sense!

AJ Ayer for something!

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Once God is defined, such a thing either cannot exist, or cannot be 'God'.

Keith.

Jove

Two words, friend. Dark. Cobra.

Machina knows what I'm talking about.

Autonemesis

That's very helpful. Now all the rest of us watching this thread need to do is read Machina's mind. Thanks for the tip!

Jobar

Hello Jove, and welcome to II.

I also urge you to read the Atheists' Testimony thread which Hans pointed out on page one. (My own statement is on pg. 3 of that thread, about three quarters of the way down the page, IIRC.)

I too grew up Christian (Southern Baptist). I found the sermons I was forced to listen to on Sunday mornings boring; the only thing I was allowed to do other than listen, was to read the Bible. I was shocked and disgusted by the atrocities of the Old Testament God, and was confused by the inconsistencies in the New Testament. When I asked the adults around me for answers, I found no one could give me any better response than "Have faith!" It slowly dawned on me that I simply had no faith- that all the tales of miracles and wonders related in the Bible were far less interesting, and even less believable, than the science fiction and fantasy tales I read for fun. So at age 14 I told my family I did not believe, and despite talks with preachers and teachers I became more and more certain that religion was a crock.

All that was more than thirty years ago. And today I am calmly certain that there is no God, and that 'supernatural' is as senseless as a circular square.

Corgan Sow

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Actually, Jove, I'm kinda leaning towards agnosticism too, but I'm not the type who make assumptions mandatory. I'm one of Christians who is dissastisfied with the way God works, yet, have some conviction with some of His ways.

Who knows, God of Christianity maybe real.

And human, like us.

But my beliefs are rather vague now.

And seriously, this board isn't very much pro-fundie towards one side despite advocating secularism. Keep searching, Jove.

Koyaanisqatsi

My remark was in response to a comment from your post:

Brainwashing implies an active attempt to alter someone's mind, usually in a negative or deceptive manner, without the knowledge or assent of the person being "brainwashed."

It further implies that the person being brainwashed is being conditioned to accept something that is false as true.

Since none of the supernatural claims of the Judeo/Christian mythology contained within the bible have ever been established to be anything other than works of fiction, pointing that out cannot be considered "brainwashing."

And since the single defining quality of being an atheist is simply that you lack a belief in a god or gods, there is also no way that an atheist can be "biased."

How can you be "biased" toward a lack of a belief, especially in the context you made this baseless accusation; re: "biased or 'fundie' atheist articles?"

That accusation means the "articles" are also intent on deceiving somebody into accepting a false concept as true, which is, of course, impossible, since there can be nothing false about a lack of beliefs and the reasoning behind it.

Theism is an admittedly untenable belief structure (christianity even more so), based as it is upon faith and operant conditioning. These are extant, demonstrable facts.

How does pointing these facts out and exploring what that means equate with either a "bias" or a (false) accusation of "brainwashing?"

Categorically false. There are, at least, two fundamental differences, of course.

<ol type="1">[*] I point out what is extant; they obfuscate what is extant.[*] My position is, ultimately, tenable; their position is, ultimately, untenable (accept for a call to either "faith" or a derivation of solipsism).[/list=a]

All you need to do is read.

Excuse me, I should amend that. All you need to do is read and comprehend.

[ August 16, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>