Before I rant I want to clarify a few things.
I am an atheist. I don't believe in gods. I understand I can't disprove them however my disbelief is supported by science & reason. I am perfectly aware of aggressive atheist and atheist that make us look bad but there are people like that anywhere you go. I will probably need to edit the OP as/if replies come in to clarify my thoughts better.
There are a few things that bother me about some people who follow the Bible. As well as some things I have seen people say about atheist.
1) Faith is by definition is believing something without any proof. Therefor, you can't claim anything within The Bible or God to be true because you can't prove it.
You can claim to [u]believe[/u] it, you can even claim you [u]believe it to be fact and truth. [/u]But the [b]keyword[/b] is [u]believe[/u].
You cannot claim it as fact or truth alone since you cannot prove anything.
2) Denying science, why can't some of you believe God's creations led to science and its Scientific Theories?
From what I have observed most everyone that denies Scientific Theories are people who don't understand the theories or have been mislead by false creationist versions of scientific theories.
3) Some make an argument that because atheist haven't read the Bible they can't say anything because they haven't seen both sides.
A) There isn't two sides, there are tons of different religions and mythologies. Unless you have tried every modern religion don't go around telling people because they haven't read the Bible their biased.
B) Many atheist actually come from a religious background and even if they haven't there are still a good amount of atheist that have read the Bible.
4) Atheist have morals, atheist are not anarchist that just run around doing whatever they want. Some people make the assumption because you don't have scripture to guide you or a God to hold you accountable that you have no morals.
5) Atheist aren't biased or close minded. If you live your life with a view point based on facts, science and reality. Thats not being close minded or biased. That doesn't mean being religious automatically makes you close minded. However, if you look at [u]most[/u] religious people, they never research other religions.
6) Atheist are not a unified group, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in gods. Atheist have no leader, no scripture and do not have a unified belief system. An atheist is simply an individual with a disbelief and aside from that commonality every single atheist is radically different. Atheist can differ drastically on political & moral issues. Overall our point of views can be drastically different on just about everything.
To be completely honest, I don't think most people can handle being atheist. In the sense that many people can't cope with the harsh realities of life and thats what religion is good for. A belief in God is comforting for most people and a safety net for some. There are many people on this earth who [u]need[/u] religion to function. Of course, there are a lot of people who exploit religion as a means for power gains, cults, extremist actions and terrorism which is why i dislike organized religion.
Lastly, I think the most important thing anyone can do is [b][u]think for yourself.[/u][/b] Be an individual, form your own opinions, ideas and try and stay away from labels. Do not just accept things because you were raised a certain way or your parents told you so. Be a skeptic, question everything and research things until your satisfied. (Always cross check your research lol) I personally, don't care what anyone believes as long as your not a sheep and you came to what you believe because you forged your own path.
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Very good post. I can't stress this enough, Atheisism is not a unified group! Sure we talk in group chats, but we all share slightly altered viewpoints. You have gnostic atheist(antitheists) and agnostic atheists. You have pro-life and pro-choice (mostly pro choice). People have there own value systems and there own viewpoints. The only thing given is that we all do not believe in Gods.
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>Be OP >Be an idiot >Generalize >State you "want to know about other's beliefs" >Look at the vocal minority in specific beliefs >Generalize >Be an idiot >Embarrass actual intelligent atheists
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+1,000,000 It really grinds my gears when religious folk confuse belief with absolute truth. You can't argue evidence with someone who doesn't understand the difference. Then they use the Bible as a historical document when it's a complete formulated work of fiction. Christianity is funny because the OT and NT are supposed to be inspired by the same God, but they contradict each other at every step.
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I absolutely agree with the end of your post. Most people with religion have their beliefs because that's what they were taught while growing up. What baffles me is that they freely admit that they've never given any thought to that and then proceed to tell me my beliefs are wrong.
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Well I'm religious but acknowledge science. I can believe that the bible didn't happen, or at least a good part of it. I don't think Moses parted the Red Sea. However, I do believe that there is a higher power bigger then us. And like you said. It's faith. I can't prove it.
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The truth of the matter is that I believe everyone is closed-minded, religious and irreligious alike. And for the most, it's due to reasons outside of our control. As an English major, I have really learned to understand just how much of an influence the literature and ideas of an age can affect the way people think and perceive the world around them, even without realizing it. This is especially true when you look at it from a historical perspective--when you examine the literature, ideas, and thought movements of the ages so to speak. You can really see just how much people are the product of their times. Even I myself am a product of my times and I'm sure that the scholars of the future will look back and realize that even better than I ever could. Anyhow, the point being, I don't lend much credence to any ideologies altogether. And while I know I am seriously going to be flamed for this, I would say that atheists and atheism as a whole are just as influenced by their times as the religions are. Atheism is a product of the Enlightenment as are the ideals commonly associated with it like scientism, empiricism, and the like. The whole notion itself that God is simply a matter of belief--something you merely believe or disbelieve in--is the product of Calvinism's reduction of the sacramental mysterious nature of religion to the empirical and scholastic. Atheism is merely the logical result of the Protestant Reformation's reduction of God combined with the ideals of the Enlightenment. Ever wonder why we in the Orthodox world never had an atheist movement like the West that wasn't directly influenced by Western ideas? Because we never had an Enlightenment or Reformation. The history of our ideologies, literature, and the like did not develop in the same way as the West which inevitably produced atheism. We never reduced God to a matter of belief. In fact, we never reduced God to something that can exist or not exist. Guess what, I don't believe God exists. And I don't want him to. If God could exist, then He wouldn't truly be God because He would be confined by the standards of human reasoning. And this is precisely what the West started to do from the time of the Anselm with all that Scholasticism stuff that the Orthodox Church never accepted. It's only logical that such a trend of thinking would lead to atheism. It already led to Protestantism. That said, promoting people to utilize the ideals of the Enlightenment, which is what you are doing whether you're aware of it or not, isn't much different to someone like me than when religious people promote their ideologies. I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm just giving you a humbling reality check that we are all the product of our times, influenced more so by literary history than we would like to admit.
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gjallarhorn is better
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You're truly beautiful.
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What's this? A calm post in the sea of flame threads?!
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[i]I? I am a monument to all your sins.[/i]
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I'm agnostic, solely based on the idea that you can't prove a god does or doesn't exist. If the bible is true about God giving us free will, I'm open to corrections about this, who's to say God doesn't keep himself hidden so not influence are decisions. But where I take a stand against religion is where its implied that we are punished for choosing not to believe in God. Typically athiests tend to argue logic without providing facts behind it. But they neglect to realize that the human mind is extremely limited. Its only recently that we are starting to understand how the universe. And its certainly plausible we discover evidence of a godlike entity. Will we? I don't know. In the grand scheme of things who cares what someone else believes in. As long as we treat each other right.
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The thing I believed to be interesting was when I watched a documentary about Ancient Greek gods. The one I watched said that religion evolved from that. That many split off and just believed that "Zeus" was the main god and stopped using "zeus" and started with just "god". It was a good watch, I can't remember which one I watched but it was on youtube.
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You should watch a series that came out when I was a kid. It's called Ancient Secrets of the Bible. Not saying that it proves the Bible to be completely correct, just that a lot of the stories in the Bible have been archaeologically proven. Watch it and let me know what you think.
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I am a Christian, and I don't think I've ever "rejected" scientific theories, I just don't believe in some. But when you say that we can't claim the Bible and Jesus to be true (which is, in fact, truth), why can you guys "claim" to say the Earth is millions of years old, and that the Earth was created by a sudden explosion of space matter, and that humans USED to evolve from apes? We both have the right to claim what we believe is right. But, when God opens your eyes to the reality of his mercy and love, you will finally see, what Truth is.
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The problem with religion on these forums is that no one shuts up about it.
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Edited by Plissken77: 5/14/2015 1:53:08 PMI know Christians that are close minded, and I know atheists that are close minded. What I find most frustrating about this issue is that both sides bring it to this forum with the same old "I'm right, you're wrong, I'm not a close minded, low IQ troglodyte like you are." posts. Whether you agree or not, your post is just another example of this. These posts aren't constructive in any way. In fact they are nothing, but divisive. Instead of creating a platform for constructive dialogue between people of differing world views, they inevitably descend into name calling chaos.
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I'm a Christian and none of this really applies to me. I think you are just generalizing after talking with annoying Christians.
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I'm a Christian, but I respect your views, honestly, some other Christians make the rest look bad, just how some atheists and people from other religions do. I'm Catholic, so unlike other branches of Christianity, we actually believe in science, and we believe that some parts of the Bible aren't meant to be read literally.
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OMG, can we have a little less religion today, please? this like the 40th Religion post today.
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Edited by Arian: 5/14/2015 12:11:28 PMNot a christian but explain how science proves your atheism?