NOGO

Baptists are a funny bunch.

There is a simple assumption here which is not stated.
It is assumed that the quantity of water over the falls has been the same for the past 5000 years.

These people also assume that readers are complete idiots otherwise they would be ashamed to write such nonsense.

This is called pseudo science. It appears rational and logical but in fact it is total nonsense. What the fundies are doing here is a poor attempt at fighting back. Religion has been on defensive for some time now as science advances. So now they have decided that they would also do science to defend religion.

Don't be fooled. There are many sites on the web where you can find refutations on all of these. Look here for example
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...th/index.shtml

Fred

What follows was written by Cecil Lewis, a WWI fighter pilot who fought from 1915 through to 1918. He fought during the Somme push, the Fokker scourge, early night fighting etc. The passage that follows is related to the telling of a friends death and the famous WWI prayer "O God - if there is a God, save my soul - if I have a soul." said at the funeral.

"I was not quite so cynical as that. I did believe I had a soul, a speck of radio-active divinity, a drop of the life force, within me.
But it was only on loan, so to speak. When I had finished with it, that drop went back into the bucket, into the agglomeration of surplus vital energy we, for want of a better term, called God. I did not believe in reincarnation, the same drop inhabiting another body; the odds were against it. Besides, the drop merged back into the whole; it was not an entity that could be fished out and popped into another body. The life force was a blind instinct: God was not a conjurer.
And I renounced, with reincarnation, all other forms of personal immortality, sugar candy that the world sucked to comfort it, unable to face the cold fact that death was the end. What merrit was in me, I asked myself, that I should continue ? Had I such virtues, were the graces of life so arranged in me, that they were worth perpetuating ? I could not so delude myself. I was an experiment, an essay in creation, to be discarded when worked out. A chemist does not repeat an experiment, he tries another. Not to do so would be to deny all evollutionary appetite in life. With the whole range of creation before me, from amoeba to ape, witness to this progress, was I to suppose that I, a human being, was the end ? Was the whole majestic unravelling to stagnate in little me ? Only a sublime conceit, or a monumental cowardice, could frame such an hypothesis."

Merc

I am now an atheist because when I was 19 years old and trying to read the Bible for the first time, my atheist boyfriend laughed at me and asked me why, if God created the world and all in it, is there so much crap in the world? The literal image he created in my mind at that moment has stayed with me the rest of my life. I hated him for enlightening me. Until then, I was raised as a 'sin-counting for Confession' Catholic.

Even though I now don't believe in God, life is still beautiful. The awe for nature I achieve on a star-filled night, or watching a robin feed her young is as good as any religious experience I ever attained in church; which was surpassed by the instant I heard my first child's cry at birth. Why should I want anymore from life? Death will just be a permanent end to the life I have chosen to lead.

(edited to correct typo)

DMB

Tarnaak: Many theists seem to think that anyexplanation is better than none.

I am an atheist because I do not find religious stories and explanations of the world the least bit credible.

I am neither a cosmologist nor a physicist, so I don't understand a great deal about current scientific hypotheses about the universe. I am not afraid to say "I don't know". I suspect also that the final word has yet to be said on these hypotheses and that doesn't bother me. At least they will be shaped and reshaped by the scientific method, not by snake-oil salesmen and ju-ju men. I don't feel obliged to make up for my lack of knowledge by grabbing hold of the totally unbelievable stories put out by these characters.

With regard to the age of the earth and the evolution of living beings, I think that there is hardly any doubt that the scientific theories are correct. There are still plenty of details to be discovered and exploited as yet, but the broad details are there.

Hypothesising a god/creator doesn't solve any of the problems of origins: it merely pushes them back to a need to explain the origins of god. So I'll stick with William of Ockham's razor on this one.

I am in my sixties and certainly have had to face up to my own mortality and that of those I love. I have seen no evidence of the existence of a soul. Our experience of *self* is tied to the operations of our brains. When the brain is no longer working, we cease to be.

Accepting that we are mortal gives us a strong incentive to make the most of the only life we can be certain of having.

Pyrrho

You have a very interesting post, making many good points, but I don't want to focus on your good points (what fun would there be in that?). So I will confine the remainder of my comments to the one paragraph quoted above.

Why do you regard it as unpleasant to think about you not existing 150 years from now? You did not exist 150 years ago. Does that upset you? If not, why would you be upset about having the same situation in the future? Not existing cannot be unpleasant. It is only possible to suffer if you exist.

You might be interested in reading some of the writings of Epicurus.

AJ113

The OP is bordering on the fallacious. To be atheistic is to have an absence of beliefs so it is not something that we actively choose to do.

The answer is exactly the same as it is to any question concerning a default neutral positon:

Q: Why are you not a rock climber?
A: I have no desire to be, nor is there any reason for me to be a rock climber.

Q: Why are you not an astronaut?
A: I have no desire to be, nor is there any reason for me to be an astronaut.

Q: Why do you not believe in Santa?
A: I have no desire to believe, nor is there any reason for me to believe in Santa.

Q: Why do you not believe in a god(s)
A: I have no desire to believe, nor is there any reason for me to believe in a god(s).

SanDiegoAtheist

It makes another assumption in that it assumes that all the rock layers worn away in the formation of the gorge are the same density and thus erode at the same rate. While I don't know the specific geology of the area of Niagra Falls, the depth and length of the gorge is such that I seriously doubt this to be the case.

In any case though, it's always silly to see a supposed 'disproof' of the age of a geological feature based SOLELY on what is well known to be a transitory physical feature. Rivers change their course frequently (geologically speaking, just check out all the oxbow lakes along the Mississippi), and change in volume as well based on local weather patterns and such.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

Tony

I’m an atheist because of I was brought up in non-religious environment. I had no religious information during my childhood at all. I had communist propaganda instead of it.

Many people in Western countries believe that believe of religious people in religion is the same as believe of soviet people in communism. It’s not entirely true. I can’t say on behalf of all soviet people during 74 years of communist regime, but during my 27 years of life in Soviet Union (from birth to immigration) I’ve NEVER met a person who truly believed in communism. Everybody pretended. I’ve NEVER seen the same enthusiasm at communist leaders that I see every Sunday on TV churches. We secretly hated our communist party and government and envied people in Western countries. When communist leaders died – we made jokes about it. We always had jokes about communist leaders. We told those jokes to our friends quietly in the kitchen. We developed so-called “Kitchen Culture” (anti-communism jokes), because we couldn’t talk openly about politics.

Since beginning of my school I liked to read about nature. I also liked physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. All my questions got answers based on science and logic.

In my early teens I started to study psychology, logic, philosophy and sociology. I learned how people think, how brain works, etc. I read a lot and thought a lot about the meaning of life, religion, death, etc. By that time I didn’t know what to think about religion. In Soviet Union only old people went to church regularly. But after I learned the basics of psychology, logic, philosophy and sociology I realized that there is no god. There is no reason to believe in any religion. I just don’t need it. It’s absolutely illogical, has no proof, caused so many wars, deaths and problems. It’s used by bad politicians and religious bosses against their own people. So many people were tortured, burned alive, etc. So many religious people waste their time, money on something that simply doesn’t exist…

The life after death…

NO.

It’s normal for any living thing to be afraid of death. It’s hard to be honest and brave. It’s hard to admit that only you are responsible for your mistakes. But with honesty comes a great pleasure – YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIE TO YOURSELF ANYMORE. And everything makes sense after that. And your achievements are the result of your hard work. And nobody is watching you. Your moral standards are higher when you responsible for your life. You do good things because it’s right, not out of fear of super power. And you don’t have any conflicts between reality and what religion says.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers!

Nowhere357

I don't believe in "life after death", and I think this is the default position.

Nonetheless - Mageth used the analogy : "Once the candle of the brain blows out, "poof", non-existence. So "life" after death is, well, nonsensical."

Before the candle expires, it may ignite a forest fire.

I like to answer the question "is there an afterlife for the soul?" with another question: "Is there an afterlife for the body?".

The answer of course is both yes and no.

Corona688

Big bang != evolution. The origin of the universe and the origin of life aren't the same thing. [quote][b]And the problem with how life could have started without god isn't that there's no possible mechanism, but there are LOTS of possible mechanisms. Strawman. Nobody claimed man evolved from nothing in a short period of time. If you are truly interested in what actually happened rather than slinging logical fallacies around, consult a university biology textbook. Take it to the evo/cre forum. They'll happily dice your arguments and links to shreds; they're nothing we haven't seen and demolished before. Where? There is simply no REASON to believe in any god at all.

And frankly, the very concept of god itself is a non-sequitor; it is impossible to support OR deny it the same way it's impossible to support or deny the fact that I have an invisible noncorporeal hippopotamous in my garage that grants me wishes.