My comments especially to TW but also to you Null portrayed a total lack of compassion, a total lack of desire to understand both of your points of view, a total lack of loving my neighbour as myself. My comments were overflowing with arrogance and pride. It was an attack so vile and corrosive that I simply don’t possess the words to describe how ashamed I am of what I did. What I did and said goes against everything I believe about how humans should treat each other. It does reveal however only a portion of what I am capable of doing. Sadly my journey is far from my desired destination. Again, I’m sorry beyond words.

Because of that,I hardly feel that I have any right to make any more comments on your site. The fact that you even bothered replying amazes me. Thank you.

I’ll keep my comments short. Most of the stuff I said previously, I’ll not even try to explain or justify.

You seem to think that atheism, by definition, is against ‘god’. This is what I meant in my previous post when I took the time to define atheism: a lack of belief in a god or gods. I don’t know how many times I can say this. That’s all it is.
—————-
I’m getting it, slowly perhaps, but I’m getting it. Your diagram was wonderful. I laughed out loud at my own stupidity.
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For what it’s worth, and I know it doesn’t come across earlier as I was trying to make different point, I’m totally in favour of separation of Church and State, I’m totally in favour of there NOT being prayer in schools and I’m totally in favour of Intelligent Design NOT being taught in schools. Your observations about that program are bang on.

Actually, Null, you don’t know the answer to what would make me not believe or give up my belief. The answer is, show me or tell me what evidence there is that Jesus a) didn’t die on the cross b) that he survived his time in the tomb, c) that he didn’t rise from the dead and wasn’t seen by those who claim to have seen him.

Again, please accept my sincere apologies for the nasty, disgusting display of desperately un Christian behaviour. And thank you for the generosity of replying to my repulsive post.

The way the reasonable, debating, questions are mixed with vitriol and childish dismissal (”I am already bored”) is quite entertaining.

Given his stated position on the matter (atheists are dull of mind etc.), I have to wonder what his motives for posting are…

…but I for one find it very difficult to conjure up an attitude of respect for atheists. I find you to be dull of mind and slow of thought, completely void of self-awareness and lacking all but a minuscule amount of personal insight.

At least we know where we stand.

TW: no worries, you’re more than welcome. My main concern for posting here rather than over at AP was because Michael appeared to be absent (for what I assume are very good reasons). Feel free to respond here as you see fit.

Null! You got it dude! In your “How I became An Atheist” you said, “I was born.” Absolutely correct. Almost nobody outside of Christianity understands what you so succinctly declared. All of us, every single person born, comes into the world declaring that we are not responsible to anyone or anything but ourselves. Our deepest desire is to live as though there is no God. Good job Nully.

Sadly, once again, you misrepresent my position.

You have extended the explanation of my path to atheism to include a declaration that I have not made, to wit that I am not responsible to anyone or anything by myself.

Over my lifetime so far, I have accumulated responsibilities, some relatively minor, some quite major. I take those responsibilities very seriously, and any claim that you make to say otherwise is a sham.

I do not have a desire to live as if there is no god, I do live as if there is no god. I cannot do anything else.

Before responding, since you were raised by non-religious parents, what exactly did they teach you about religion? Was it spoken of in a pretty un biased light? I guess it must have been since TW doesn’t know any atheist parent who would present religion in a negative light. Anyhow for what it’s worth >

My parents taught me nothing about religion; anything that I know about it has been garnered through my own interest in the subject and my own research therein. As difficult as it seems for you to understand and appreciate, not everybody is fixated on the subject of religion or interested in supplicating themselves to a deity-concept.

I would gather, from conversations with other atheists, that my parents were akin to most other non-religious parents, although I obviously haven’t spoken to all on the subject. Instead of, as you seem to presume, taking pains to badmouth religion, my parents had no interest in the subject whatsoever, and neither promoted nor denigrated religion or any of the ideas of god.

In summary: religion wasn’t discussed, there was no reason to discuss it.

Well, for starters, that there is no Creator behind the Creation. You believe there isn’t. You hope there isn’t, but you can’t prove there isn’t.

Here you’ve taken one statement and have attempted to extrapolate it, and come to an incorrect conclusion. While I have no belief in a god or gods (creator-like or otherwise), I don’t hope that there aren’t any gods. To do so, I would have to have a belief that such gods existed to hope that they didn’t — if I were as wishy-washy as your premiss suggests, I would do well to hedge my bets, à la Pascal’s wager. Your claim here doesn’t logically follow, and presumes an attitude on my part that I do not have.

You are quite correct in saying that I cannot prove that no gods exist. I put it to you, however, that you cannot prove that there isn’t an eleven-inch long invisible orange crocodile flying in circles in my bathtub. No matter how much I maintain that such is the case, any investigation by you or anyone else couldn’t prove that my crocodile doesn’t exist. Does this then mean that it does exist, simply on my say so? Of course not. There are an infinite number of things that neither of us can disprove. Positing something, however, doesn’t automatically lead to a cogent argument for its existence.

Right, that’s why we have all these atheist blogs that talk about nothing but God. Just educational concerns. Um hmm.

It’s not just education, I merely picked that single concept as an example. I’m sure that there are many reasons why atheists are concerned with religious decisions being used to alter society for all, whether they are believers like yourself, believers in other religions, or non-believers. If this is the case, I presume that you have no issue with, say, islamic sharia law being used as the basis for setting public policy in your locality. I know that I certainly do.

I certainly can’t declare why any other atheist talks about religion on their weblogs but I do see a number of them are using it, it seems to me, as a place to vent their frustration at theocratic attitudes (this is the camp I primarily belong in). Some others seem to use it as an outlet to discuss their apostasy, (e.g. exchristian.net), some others seem to like to counter the pseudo-scientific claims made by the religious (e.g. Pharyngula), some appear to like to take a wry look at religion (e.g. Saint Gasoline), some perhaps for political reasons (e.g. One Good Move), but that is only my impression of them, and I won’t be so presumptuous as to claim that that is their primary motivation, just how it appears to me.

There are only two things that all of these appear to have in common: 1) they’re maintained by people who don’t have a belief in gods, and 2) they think that it is important enough to speak out and alert those who do not follow such things to the possible consequences of ignoring them.

Well, there’s probably about a million things but something like, How is it that light comes in identifiable beams, rays and particles each completely different but producing exactly the same effect? Why does the ocean have currents and why do they move in the directions that they do? These two have nothing to do with religion or non religion but if religion is the angle that you’re looking for, one classic one would be, How is it that life springs accidentally from non life? I heard one scientist say, after they first erroneously thought they’d found life on Mars, “We know exactly what kind of environment and what elements are needed for life to come into being,” and my thought was, well, then, after a hundred or so years of trying, why don’t you just create it already. You don’t need to try to address this last comment Null. I’m already bored with your answer.

My point, in asking you to explain the “things” that you meant, came from the vagueness of your initial assertion.

In fact, I have a very good understanding of the properties of light, both conceptually as particles and as waves. This comes primarily from studying for a degree in laser engineering, and currently working within a science department of a learning establishment, but what do I know, eh?

As you stated, quite unapologetically, in the last sentence there, you are “bored” with my answer even before I have proffered one. This shows nothing if not that you are disinterested in learning about how things actually work. This is, sadly, a not uncommon attitude amongst the religious: “I don’t care how it works, my god(s) [delete as appropriate] did it, and so I don’t need to question it.” As this is the case, I won’t bother to bore you with any kind of wonderfully educational and interesting scientific ideas. It saddens me greatly to see such wilful ignorance in action.

This next paragraph you wrote is a bit long, so I’ll break it up into managable chunks and respond to each in turn.

Slightly disappointed? You’d be slightly disappointed? Give me a break! “Sure honey. I think Jesus never existed and that God is an invention for the weak at best, and a delusion of the sick at worst, but go ahead and worship the Christian God if you want. I’m only slightly disappointed”

Again, you misrepresent the considered atheist’s position. You are more likely to hear something along the lines of “Are you sure, it’s a big committment? Have you investigated it properly? I’m happy to talk to you about it if you want to.” De facto atheists (those that don’t even think about religion or god concepts – like my parents) would probably have said something along the lines of “Oh, ok, whatever makes you happy. What do you want for dinner? Can you still eat fish?”

Of course, I’m not denying that some (perhaps victims of violent cults, clerical abuse or scientology spring to mind) won’t attempt to actively dissuade people of attaching themselves to religious organisations; every situation is different, and there is no “atheist bible” to try and work out what to do from.

This may seem facetious to you, but I hope it demonstrates that not everyone is concerned or thinks about religion with as much fervour as some religious people do.

Right Null. At what age do you think these “considered” parents “wouldn’t disbar their children from investigating religious claims.” Children of Sunday School age are incredibly curious about the world around them and how it came into being. So, when the kids are invited to Sunday School or Summer Bible School would that be ok?

As I’ve said before, I can’t speak for all (or even any) atheistic parents, but my mother took me to the local sunday school in the village we lived in. Once. I never went back. Apparently (although I don’t recall — my mother has explained this to me) it was requested that I not go back as I had asked too many “awkward questions”. I don’t know what those awkward questions might have been, but I have a fair idea considering the things that have floated about in my head for a number of years. I also had no desire to go back – there was nothing there for me. I never bothered to ask her why she took me in the first place, it’s irrelevant.

If kids are invited to a sunday school class or bible camps, I can’t say how an individual parent might respond. I suppose that there are several alternatives. I can make a good guess as to what my own parents might have said if it were asked of them, something along the lines of “do you want to go?”, to which I would have probably replied “no, not really”, and that would have been the end of it.

Is that what your parents encouraged you to do? Explore and investigate? Or does that freedom come later when they can’t tell their kids what to do anyway?

My home life was very much, as you say, explore and investigate. It was always this way, and I’m grateful to my parents for allowing me the freedom to make, and learn by, my own mistakes, to discover for myself what the world was like.

These atheist parents are open and honest with their children about their beliefs but refrain from any influence huh? So if an atheist parent thinks that Christianity is based on superstition, and that parent is open and honest about those beliefs with h/her child what is s/he going to be telling the children? That’s right, Christianity is based on superstition. Do you not think that those thoughts and comments, coming from a parent and reinforced by the child’s peers might just have a bit of an influence upon the child in forming a certain bias against Christianity?

Again, you are misrepresenting the atheist position: it’s not just the christian god that isn’t believed in, it’s all gods. You seem to have a particular worry that christianity specifically is made to look bad in the atheist home. Obviously, again, I can’t talk for all atheists, but I suspect that I wouldn’t be too far wrong to suggest that what you’re likely to see, and seem to fail to grasp, is that whatever message is given to children of such a home, it would concern all religions, not just the christian one.

But then it also seems that you have this idea that, in christian homes if parents teach they children about the christ and the bible and whatnot, there must be equal time spent in atheist homes saying “there is no Jesus, there are no gods, there is no heaven”. Frankly, I find this absurd.

Do you really think that, when you take the time to read the bible with your children, that there’s an atheist parent somewhere with the same bible reading it to their children, pointing out the fallacies, contradictions and barbarity of that tome? No, what’s far more likely is that the child is playing a game or reading some other kind of book (I hear that the Harry Potter series is very popular), doing their homework, or some other non-religion focussed activity.

Here’s a diagram of how a typical day might go, just to help you visualise it. (Of course, I don’t know the dynamics of a christian home, so I’m making an educated guess here from my limited knowledge of christian home-life activity).

Perhaps I should explain this a little.

In the first column, I have put what may be considered a typical child’s day from a christian home. The minutae of the diagram are to give a feel, not a description, of the general idea.

In the second column, I’ve described what it seems to me that you presume the day of a child from an “atheist home” is like.

In the third, I present a typical school day in my own childhood, and I suppose of just about any child of a non-religious home.

Do you understand where the differences lie between columns two and column three? Do you see that the only difference is the lack of time spent on religious ideas? Do you see that, aside from the time considering gods or whatever, the other things are the same? Do you understand: not everyone bothers themselves with ideas of gods?

The very fact that in an atheist home, God, by very definition of an atheist home can NEVER be spoken of in a positive light. Don’t you think that might have an influence on the child.

That is patently untrue and, yet again, misrepresents the atheist’s position. Discussions about god concepts can be had in a number of non-derogatory fashions: “this is what some other people believe”, “this is what so-and-so means by ‘god’”, “let’s watch Jason and the Argonauts“. etc. This is simply a straw-man argument.

You seem to think that atheism, by definition, is against ‘god’. This is what I meant in my previous post when I took the time to define atheism: a lack of belief in a god or gods. I don’t know how many times I can say this. That’s all it is. Any other ‘position’ you want to put on atheism is coming from your own presumptions: it is not necessarily reflected in us unless we desire it to be so.

Have you ever, even for one second, considered that some people take absolutely no time to discuss ideas of god or religion at all? They simply say that they don’t believe if someone bothers to asks them, but after that, the idea goes away and they get on with their god-less life. Can you comprehend this?

Yes, of course you’ll see atheists on the Internet with vocal weblogs. Those are the ones that do think about it, and still find it lacking. I’m one of those people. I’m also sure that, if you looked, you’d find plenty of weblogs that don’t mention religion or gods at all, although perhaps it’s a rarity in weblogs of citizens of the USA. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to find them with a Google for the terms you might use to identify outspoken atheists, but that’s my point: gods don’t even figure into it.

Not everyone is as interested in the ideas of gods or religions as we both are, or of prayer and supplication and worshipping as you are.

When Church is never seen as being important enough to attend on a regular basis, that the names of Jesus and God are only used while cursing, that issues of separation of Church and State, keeping prayer out of the school, that Intelligent Design is a conspiracy of the religious right are only talked about with religion receiving a negative tone (and don’t give me some crap about atheist parents only speaking in neutral tones or only speaking to each other behind closed doors), that prayer is never a part of the child’s life etc. etc. etc. etc. who would even think that those behaviours wouldn’t set up a powerful message about the unimportance, insignificance and the very repugnance and stupidity of all things religious in the child’s mind?

Again, for some reason, you think that everybody should be as concerned with your religion as you are. Sorry, but not everyone is.

Why is going to a church important? Can one not worship your god anywhere or at any time? Is it truly unimaginable that some people do not wish to cower before your god and your priests?

Are the names of Jesus and your god so protected, when they’re not even used correctly by christians? You call your godman “Jesus”, but if he existed and you were able to speak to him in the street, in his own alleged time, using that name, he wouldn’t even have understood you. In fact, your god doesn’t even have a name, just a vague nom de guerre handle: “god”.

From what I understand, there are people within the USA who spend their lives devoted to keeping church and state separate. Most often this comes in the form of resisting pressure from christians, but it equally applies to all other religions. Why do they do this? To protect everybody. How to you think the christians would react if, by some chance, muslims decided that they would like to start changing the federal laws to reflect islamic sharia? I’d happily wager that these christians would then be screaming for a separated state and church.

Do you, for instance, think this lack of belief in the ideas of christian applies only for atheists, or does it apply equally for muslims and hindus and every other non-christian person on this planet? Or is it that the fact that they have an alternative to your religion, rather than a lack of it, enough for you to say “oh, well, they’re just wrong, but at least they’re not like the atheists!”?

On a topic you mention there I have to respond to individually: if you have the temerity to claim that there is not a hard-boiled religious centre (and, more specifically, a christian one at that) at the core of intelligent design, I’ll simply cease to speak to you. I can discuss ideas, reasons, arguments and counter-arguments for most things, but to be deliberately mislead about something so obviously insidious as the lies and propoganda that is intelligent design, I will simply have to close the door and walk away. I’m sorry, but I have absolutely no truck whatsoever with that particular canard. At least creationists have the guts to say what they actually believe and not hide behind a transparent micro-veneer of pseudo-academia, regardless of how wrong I or anyone else thinks they are. For their conviction, I respect them, even if for their ideas I do not.

You cannot possibly be that naive. Any university age child coming out of a home like that is hardly going into any investigation of Christianity from an impartial standpoint, especially when professor reinforce the parent’s negative bias, and that bias view will be precicesely because of the indoctrination of the atheist parent’s world view. Even if words aren’t used, the non involvement in anything Christian will say all that’s necessary for the child to get meaning of what the parent’s beliefs are all about.

Preposterous. I am aware, even if you are not, of people that have come to a religious conversion later in life. You, yourself, even pointed out that you came to christianity later in life, although you didn’t make apparent your previous position, if any. I can only assume that you had some sort of vague christian beliefs, and have since become ‘born-again’ as I believe the expression is. Please feel free to correct me if this isn’t the case.

Do you honestly think that the only people that have any influence over someone are parents and teachers? And you consider that I am naïve…

In fact, I have been considering another degree, this time in theology or philosophy as I have an interest in the subject of beliefs, and why people have them. At this moment, though, I’m more inclined to a more formal philosophy, but I haven’t fully made up my mind yet.

Both beliefs require faith. Atheists’ faith is in their powers of intellect. Christian faith is in the person of Jesus the Christ.

This is equivocation, and I hope that you can see the difference between these two separate meanings of the word “faith” that you’ve used here. Not to understand or to deliberately confuse faith as trust and faith as belief is to commit a fallacy.

I stand by my comment. Take it any way you want.

I can only presume, then, that you are unapologetically equivocating. At least I know where you stand here.

What evidence for Jesus being exactly who he said he is would you or any other atheist find compelling? I care about your answer to this. Please let me know.

Before I answer your question, I’d like to make an observation.

It’s often said, by atheists, that they know exactly what evidence they would require to make them believe in a god, whether they explained what that evidence was or not (the details are unimportant). I have never, not once, read or heard any similar concession made by a theist. Not once. Ever.

I have, contrarily, seen or heard this conversation or something that generally follows along these lines (the position of the questioner is unimportant also), any number of times:

Questioner: So, you think that a god exists?
Theist: Yes.
Questioner: Do you believe this, or know this?
Theist: I believe it, but I think I know it also.
Questioner: Can you provide concrete evidence for the existence your god?
Theist: No.
Questioner: So, you can’t claim knowledge, only belief.
Theist: I guess not.
Questioner: What would it take to change your mind from that belief?
Theist: Nothing could. I have a firm faith that what I believe is the truth. Nothing could shake this from me.

So, before I give you my evidential requirements for any kind of acceptance of an existence god, I hope you understand why I don’t even bother to reciprocate the question, when I (very, very likely) already know the answer.

Basically, what I would like to see would be some kind of miracle. Right in front of my face. I would need your Jesus to come to me, holey hands and everything, speaking English (I don’t understand Aramaic but that shouldn’t be a problem) and tell me exactly what he meant when those stories about him were written those many hundreds of years ago, and where the latter churches went wrong, if they did. A puff of smoke, or some kind of descending from the sky (celestial escalator?) would be good too. Maybe a putting right a little of what is wrong with the world too (you know, like curing AIDS, cancers, that sort of thing).

Of course, if your god exists then it already knows exactly what it would take to make me abandon my disbelief. It also knows what to do about it if it wants such a transformation on my part to take place. It also knows why it is refraining from doing so.

From this, I can gather only one of two things:
1) that your god has no knowledge, no desire, no will, no plan or no ability for me to be part of its everlasting heavenly assembly; or
2) that your god does not exist.

Ockham’s razor comes in handy here.

Sooo, when you asked things like, “what happens when we die?” dad said go to the library and figure it out on your own? Hmm.

You presume too much. I’ve never asked anybody this question. You may find this inconceivable, but it’s the truth. Ever since I was able to think soundly, I’ve known what will happen when I die: I’ll get put in the ground, or charred up and scattered to the winds. I know which I prefer, but I’ll be gone so it won’t actually matter what happens. Of course, this all presumes that my body is recoverable after my death.

Isn’t it amazing how Christian parents never go to the park and play with their children? And we certainly don’t take our children to school. I don’t know where they go Monday to Friday mornings but it better not be school. In fact I wouldn’t be caught dead helping my children with their homework, if they ever went to school that is. I mean, that’s too much like something an atheist to do. I’m not sure what you’re talking about > what’s a library, or a play or a recital? I was so ashamed when my two oldest completed University. What a disappointment for a Christian parent. Common, Null, what kind of dreamworld are you living in?

Ok, here you’re not only mistaken (if you care to read my previous reply more carefully I did make mention of christians taking children to the park) but you’re also nit-picking and utterly missing the point. My point was not the precise details of each of these things individually, but you’ve obviously taken it to mean the literal, rather than the metaphorical, meaning. Perhaps I had taken it for granted that you would be able to read between the lines.

My point, to make it explicit seeing as you’ve failed to understand, is that the life of the non-religious child only differs from that of the christian child by the religious elements: the bible teachings, the time spent at church, the pressure to go to a good christian university, etc. Otherwise we all eat, shit and sleep exactly the same way.

This is just an extension of the diagram I posted above. And, just in case it’s still not clear, I’ll say it once again: not everybody is as concerned with your religion as you are.

Pondering the great questions of life is not the sole domain of the atheist.

I would agree, I support anyone who is interested in metaphysical thinking to do so to their own contentment. I would ask you to provide evidence to support your assertion that atheists claim that are the only ones who are able to contemplate this, though.

However, on the flip side, we have the religions: each one claiming to have the “One Way” and “The Truth”: it is precisely at this point that they openly lay claim to the idea that pondering the “great” questions of life (and having the answers) is for them, and them alone. Unfortunately, each one fails to back this up with their words, their actions and their so-called evidence.

One huge difference between a Christian raising kids and non Christians raising kids is that non Christians have all the weight of mass media, movies, popular music and popular heroes supporting their anti Christian values and morals.

Pfffft! (That was me spitting out my coffee.) Are you serious? Perhaps that’s the situation in Canada where I believe you’re located, but it most certainly isn’t the case where I’m from.

How many atheist TV channels do you have? How many regular atheist tv shows do you see? I’m quite confident that number is a big, fat zero. Compare that to the number of exclusively religious channels and regular tv shows. I have two channels on my cable service, and that’s without subscribing to any extras. Sunday is filled with christian and other religious programming on other channels. To say that the media has an anti-christian bias is to completely disregard the facts.

As for popular culture, you again presume too much: you seem to assume that it is only christians that think certain aspects of the mass media are just tripe. I can tell you for a fact that I avoid popular culture as I would the black death: I find most of it vacuous, tepid and trite, and wouldn’t inflict it on my own child, if I had one, for fear of rotting their brain.

“Anti-christian” is a very strong perjorative, and I hope you can back up this assertion. If you are content to redefine it as ‘non-christian’ then I will agree. But all this does is re-inforce my earlier statement: not everyone concerns themselves with your religion.

I’ve been a Christian parent and I’ve been a non Christian parent (our 7 adopted kids range in age from 30-years-old to 2-years-old). As a Christian, it feels like our children are deluged and overwheled with “the world’s” values and moral standards. When our oldest daughter graduated from high-school, the song that the graduating class chose to march out to was “I’m On The Highway To Hell,” by, is it Guns and Roses? I wasn’t even a Christian yet and I found that really sad. As Christian parents, making sure that we speak to our children about our beliefs on a regular basis still makes the concept of a level playing field feel like a motor boat pushing against a supertanker. I’m sure that’s gratifying to you but it’s heartbreaking to us.

I’m not sure what you think I would gratifying with this anecdote: playing a Guns and Roses song at a graduation? To be honest, I have none of their music, don’t know much of it and, frankly, I find it awful. However, a song with the title “I’m on the Highway to Hell” could be seen in a number of ways: you chose to see it in one, specificially literal, way which isn’t surprising, considering your newly-found relationship with your god.

Perhaps the children (and I’m presuming the content of the song here) were using it as a metaphor for saying “right, that’s us all growed up now, and we have to face the big, bad, ‘hellish’ world. So what, let’s fix it!” Personally, I’d rather see it that way, it offers a little more hope for these children than your portentous interpretation.

I will leave TW to respond to those questions you posed independently.

Makarios: You are creating a fight where none was intended. Your writing style switches between reasonable, open for debate to argumentative and at times childish without any apparent warning or reason.

Replying to me comments is entirely down to you – I actually don’t care either way.

If you want *my* opinion then ask for it, don’t ask “what do atheists think.”

When my children are old enough, I will explain to them that *we* have no idea how life on Earth began. They are, and always will be, able to come to any conclusions they wish. Life may have been part of a spontaneous, chance event and if so, it does not diminish the wonder about it.

Null, please come home from work. TW is starting to feel like a haemorrhoid. TW, if you don’t have any original thoughts, maybe you could just let Null do the talking. Please!!!!

Quite an ironic comment really, given that the majority of your posts repeat tired old routines from various other theists. It is interesting that as you replied, you get more and more angry and offensive. I almost get the feeling you feel like we are having a conversation face to face. We aren’t. You also are under the mistaken impression that I care if you respect me or not.

I find you to be dull of mind and slow of thought, completely void of self-awareness and lacking all but a minuscule amount of personal insight.

This is even funnier. When you run out of an argument to present you resort to insults. At the same time (both here and planet atheism) you talk about Atheists being rude and hating theists. It is almost comical.

Seriously, are you 14 years old?

Again, there is no “Atheist Bible” from which I can say what others think – that is part of the point. It is interesting to note the structure of the sentence though, the use of multiple negatives makes a straight answer difficult. The use of the term accident also (unintentionally or otherwise) brings in a value judgement. We are brought up to think of accidents as bad things which should be avoided, however the chance which caused the origin of life certainly would not be described in that manner. Also the term “accident” caries with it strong anthropomorphic connotations – it is rare for people to call a chance event in nature between non-living objects an accident.
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Oh man, is this what I’m going to have to go through every time I want to find out what you think? Just an answer TW. That’s all I want. For the sake of argument, let’s say accident carries a marvellously joyous connotation. You can do this – I think. Do you believe, and will you teach your children when they’re old enough, that life came to be on this earth by accident, or, if you wish, will you tell them that life on this planet certainly did not come into being by the decree of some supernatural power?

Look, TW, I’m never going to get sentence structure correct. I didn’t care about it in school and I don’t care about it now. What’s important is that almost all people can understand the meaning behind even a fairly crude sentence. If you are able to do that as well, then we can continue, but if not then we might as well call it a day right now.
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This falls foul of selection fallacy though, the atheist blogs you have visited may not be representative of atheists as a whole (and probably aren’t). Add to this the fallacy that “faith” deserves special respect and you can see this is a pretty empty question. Neither Nullfidian’s blog or mine is disrespectful to people “of Faith” but we do not suffer idiocy.
Do you say that people of faith should be allowed to say stupid, offensive and rude things without any commentary simply because they hold your faith? Is religion immune to analysis and assessment?
More relevantly, turning this question around, are you saying that Theists dont disrespect atheists?
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Null, please come home from work. TW is starting to feel like a haemorrhoid. TW, if you don’t have any original thoughts, maybe you could just let Null do the talking. Please!!!!

In response to your convolute statements Christians disrepecting atheists, I can’t talk for other Christians (see I can almost talk just like you), and for what it’s worth I’m only talking about and only will talk about Christians specifically and not Theists in general, but I for one find it very difficult to conjure up an attitude of respect for atheists. I find you to be dull of mind and slow of thought, completely void of self-awareness and lacking all but a minuscule amount of personal insight. And if the truth be known TW, I’m starting to feel this most strongly towards you. It’s possible, you know, that you’re just not cut out for this type of discussion.
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This is a bit of a misunderstanding on your behalf. There is an infinite number of things you can not prove don’t exist. The theist picks one (or three depending on your view point) and believes in them despite the lack of evidence. The atheist simply doesn’t. This is not “believing there is no God.” Even the wording of your sentence carries the implication that God exists and Atheists choose not to believe in him.
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ok, well, this just isn’t going to work. You and I exist on two separate plains or something. But let’s say that you win and I lose (please don’t come back with “this was a discussion and not something to win or lose”) Ugh, this is sooo boring. Look, could I ask you to just listen in on Null and I, or at least be satisfied if I don’t respond to your comments, ‘cause I’m not going to respond any more. I think you must just be way, way smarter than me or something. Sorry.

TW, I’m interested, are you saying that atheists don’t believe this is all there is? Do they talk about an after life with their kids?

I can not speak for any atheists other than myself and my children are too young to have headed in to this conversation, so there is no real answer. Some atheists will believe there is some form of after life others will not. I am of a scientific bent and as a result I tend not to dwell on things which are by definition unknowable. Personally I feel that promising all manner of “good things” to people in the next life so that they will obey what ever strictures are placed on them in this life is simply dishonest.

I am sure Valhalla is a wonderful place though.

Are you saying that atheist parents don’t see life on this planet as an accident? If it isn’t accidental what is it?

Again, there is no “Atheist Bible” from which I can say what others think – that is part of the point. It is interesting to note the structure of the sentence though, the use of multiple negatives makes a straight answer difficult. The use of the term accident also (unintentionally or otherwise) brings in a value judgement. We are brought up to think of accidents as bad things which should be avoided, however the chance which caused the origin of life certainly would not be described in that manner. Also the term “accident” caries with it strong anthropomorphic connotations – it is rare for people to call a chance event in nature between non-living objects an accident.

Are you saying that atheists don’t disrespect people of faith? ‘Cause I gotta tell you that the atheist blogs that I’ve been cruising through sure sound like that’s how atheists feel.

Blimey. When have I ever said that? This falls foul of selection fallacy though, the atheist blogs you have visited may not be representative of atheists as a whole (and probably aren’t). Add to this the fallacy that “faith” deserves special respect and you can see this is a pretty empty question. Neither Nullfidian’s blog or mine is disrespectful to people “of Faith” but we do not suffer idiocy.

Do you say that people of faith should be allowed to say stupid, offensive and rude things without any commentary simply because they hold your faith? Is religion immune to analysis and assessment?

More relevantly, turning this question around, are you saying that Theists dont disrespect atheists?

Although not aimed at me per se, you write:

Well, for starters, that there is no Creator behind the Creation. You believe there isn’t. You hope there isn’t, but you can’t prove there isn’t.

This is a bit of a misunderstanding on your behalf. There is an infinite number of things you can not prove don’t exist. The theist picks one (or three depending on your view point) and believes in them despite the lack of evidence. The atheist simply doesn’t. This is not “believing there is no God.” Even the wording of your sentence carries the implication that God exists and Atheists choose not to believe in him. This is not the case.

Why do you not believe in Ahura Mazda? Why dont you accept that he exists? What about Odin? Why dont you accept that he exists?

I don’t have time to post a full response just now, but I will do so when I return from work this evening.

Before responding, since you were raised by non-religious parents, what exactly did they teach you about religion? Was it spoken of in a pretty un biased light? I guess it must have been since TW doesn’t know any atheist parent who would present religion in a negative light. Anyhow for what it’s worth >
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Both think the other is living out wishful thinking. I can’t for a moment imagine what this ‘wishful thinking’ that atheists live under is.
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Well, for starters, that there is no Creator behind the Creation. You believe there isn’t. You hope there isn’t, but you can’t prove there isn’t.
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Both are obsessed with the concept of a Creator God. Quite wrong, although I will admit that some of us are concerned that such things are taught to children as fact when there is no evidence to support this claim, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is not the case.
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Right, that’s why we have all these atheist blogs that talk about nothing but God. Just educational concerns. Um hmm.
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To be honest, I’m actually quite surprised by this statement. It has never occurred to me that christians think that atheists lack reason or are intellectually dishonest.
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Well, you can start thinking about it now.
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The accusation that an atheist is “too intellectual” will never come from me.
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Can you give me examples of some of these “things” that we atheists don’t understand yet simply accept and believe?
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Well, there’s probably about a million things but something like, How is it that light comes in identifiable beams, rays and particles each completely different but producing exactly the same effect? Why does the ocean have currents and why do they move in the directions that they do? These two have nothing to do with religion or non religion but if religion is the angle that you’re looking for, one classic one would be, How is it that life springs accidentally from non life? I heard one scientist say, after they first erroneously thought they’d found life on Mars, “We know exactly what kind of environment and what elements are needed for life to come into being,” and my thought was, well, then, after a hundred or so years of trying, why don’t you just create it already. You don’t need to try to address this last comment Null. I’m already bored with your answer.
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Both sides rarely admit to the fact that they indoctrinate their children with their beliefs. If you talk to most considered atheist parents, they will likely tell you that they are open and honest with their children, and refrain from forcing them to accept any particular kind of worldview. In fact, I’ve often heard that most secular parents would not attempt to disbar their children from investigating religious claims, although might be slightly disappointed if they took to a particular religion.
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Slightly disappointed? You’d be slightly disappointed? Give me a break! “Sure honey. I think Jesus never existed and that God is an invention for the weak at best, and a delusion of the sick at worst, but go ahead and worship the Christian God if you want. I’m only slightly disappointed” Right Null. At what age do you think these “considered” parents “wouldn’t disbar their children from investigating religious claims.” Children of Sunday School age are incredibly curious about the world around them and how it came into being. So, when the kids are invited to Sunday School or Summer Bible School would that be ok? Is that what your parents encouraged you to do? Explore and investigate? Or does that freedom come later when they can’t tell their kids what to do anyway? These atheist parents are open and honest with their children about their beliefs but refrain from any influence huh? So if an atheist parent thinks that Christianity is based on superstition, and that parent is open and honest about those beliefs with h/her child what is s/he going to be telling the children? That’s right, Christianity is based on superstition. Do you not think that those thoughts and comments, coming from a parent and reinforced by the child’s peers might just have a bit of an influence upon the child in forming a certain bias against Christianity? The very fact that in an atheist home, God, by very definition of an atheist home can NEVER be spoken of in a positive light. Don’t you think that might have an influence on the child. When Church is never seen as being important enough to attend on a regular basis, that the names of Jesus and God are only used while cursing, that issues of separation of Church and State, keeping prayer out of the school, that Intelligent Design is a conspiracy of the religious right are only talked about with religion receiving a negative tone (and don’t give me some crap about atheist parents only speaking in neutral tones or only speaking to each other behind closed doors), that prayer is never a part of the child’s life etc. etc. etc. etc. who would even think that those behaviours wouldn’t set up a powerful message about the unimportance, insignificance and the very repugnance and stupidity of all things religious in the child’s mind? You cannot possibly be that naive. Any university age child coming out of a home like that is hardly going into any investigation of Christianity from an impartial standpoint, especially when professor reinforce the parent’s negative bias, and that bias view will be precicesely because of the indoctrination of the atheist parent’s world view. Even if words aren’t used, the non involvement in anything Christian will say all that’s necessary for the child to get meaning of what the parent’s beliefs are all about.
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Both beliefs require faith. Atheists’ faith is in their powers of intellect. Christian faith is in the person of Jesus the Christ. This is equivocation, and I hope that you can see the difference between these two separate meanings of the word ““faith”” that you’’ve used here. Not to understand or to deliberately confuse faith as trust and faith as belief is to commit a fallacy.
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I stand by my comment. Take it any way you want.
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As soon as compelling evidence presents itself, honest atheists will change their minds. It’s really that simple
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What evidence for Jesus being exactly who he said he is would you or any other atheist find compelling? I care about your answer to this. Please let me know.
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They taught me to find out my own answers, if I could.
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Sooo, when you asked things like, “what happens when we die?” dad said go to the library and figure it out on your own? Hmm.
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They teach their child to read. They take their children to the park and play with their children. They take their child to school and help them with their homework and offer to take them to the library if they need to. They go to the child’s school plays and recitals. When the child is old enough, the child may want to go off to university, and the parents support their decision with pride. The child, now a young adult, joins clubs or societies that have some bearing on their interest, and make friends with like minded individuals……
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Isn’t it amazing how Christian parents never go to the park and play with their children? And we certainly don’t take our children to school. I don’t know where they go Monday to Friday mornings but it better not be school. In fact I wouldn’t be caught dead helping my children with their homework, if they ever went to school that is. I mean, that’s too much like something an atheist to do. I’m not sure what you’re talking about > what’s a library, or a play or a recital? I was so ashamed when my two oldest completed University. What a disappointment for a Christian parent. Common, Null, what kind of dreamworld are you living in?

I’ve been a Christian for 25 of my 56 years. I’ve come to meet a lot of Christians in that time and I don’t know one of them who accepted Jesus into h/his life without YEARS of thought and investigation. Pondering the great questions of life is not the sole domain of the atheist. One huge difference between a Christian raising kids and non Christians raising kids is that non Christians have all the weight of mass media, movies, popular music and popular heroes supporting their anti Christian values and morals. I’ve been a Christian parent and I’ve been a non Christian parent (our 7 adopted kids range in age from 30-years-old to 2-years-old). As a Christian, it feels like our children are deluged and overwheled with “the world’s” values and moral standards. When our oldest daughter graduated from high-school, the song that the graduating class chose to march out to was “I’m On The Highway To Hell,” by, is it Guns and Roses? I wasn’t even a Christian yet and I found that really sad. As Christian parents, making sure that we speak to our children about our beliefs on a regular basis still makes the concept of a level playing field feel like a motor boat pushing against a supertanker. I’m sure that’s gratifying to you but it’s heartbreaking to us.
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To TW -
. When atheist kids are taught that this is all there is.
. When they’re taught that they are the highest good and there is no other
. When they’re taught that they’re an accident and that may be good or not good depending on their degree of depression
. When they’re taught, with or without words to despise people of faith, it’s called good parenting
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TW, I’m interested, are you saying that atheists don’t believe this is all there is? Do they talk about an after life with their kids?

Are you saying that atheist parents don’t see life on this planet as an accident? If it isn’t accidental what is it?

Are you saying that atheists don’t disrespect people of faith? ‘Cause I gotta tell you that the atheist blogs that I’ve been cruising through sure sound like that’s how atheists feel. Or maybe your saying that atheists do feel this way but they keep those thoughts secret from their kids. No, that can’t be it ‘cause Null is certain, even though he isn’t a parent, but he’s heard about it alot, that atheist parents are really open and honest about their beliefs with their kids. So what is it that I’m wrong about within this context.

The cartoon at the beginning is funny though :-)

Makarios writes:

. When atheist kids are taught that this is all there is.
. When they’re taught that they are the highest good and there is no other
. When they’re taught that they’re an accident and that may be good or not good depending on their degree of depression
. When they’re taught, with or without words to despise people of faith, it’s called good parenting.

What utter nonsense. I know of exactly zero atheist families who teach their children in this manner. I certainly dont. It seems for this theist, religion is the ONLY thing which prevents him from becoming sub human. The rest of us have different choices.