What is the best.......

[Clipper Nation]

If you really think about it, everyone's an atheist, as religious people deny the existence of all gods but their own, and everyone else just doesn't worship any god, tbh...

[Blake]

That's not exactly true for the atheists that affirmatively declare God does not exist.

That's not an absence of belief.

Degrees of soft or hard atheism are irrelevant to the purpose of this thread.

[Blake]

Oh ok, so you lack belief in the scientific theories of the creation of life and evolution and think that they have no business being validated in the public domain until fully proven.

Huh.

Atheism is a lack of belief in god(s)

I don't recall saying it was.

Neat. So what is your opinion then?

[Yonivore]

Degrees of soft or hard atheism are irrelevant to the purpose of this thread.

I disagree. Variant of all religions are germane to this thread. There are variations of every religion with varying degrees of (for lack of a better term) "evangelical" vigor. Some variations of Christianity are less offensive than some variations of atheism.

So, the variants are relevant.

[Yonivore]

Technically speaking, atheism is strictly a lack of belief. A GNOSTIC atheist would say that their lack of belief is informed because of a certainty of the lack of god/s. An agnostic atheist (like myself) would say they lack belief, but don't know whether or not God exists.

Most gnostic atheists don't claim to be gnostic because of belief though; many will logically deconstruct any God you happen to bring up and try to show that logically your God is impossible.

I was guilty of being imprecise, on this question, earlier in this thread or another so, let me restate my position; there is a variation of atheism that believes there is not a God(s) which is different than lacking belief. It's an affirmative declaration of a belief. It is those to which I was and continue to refer -- regardless of what is actually said in the course of the discussion.

[clambake]

pretty clear that yoni needs atheism to be a faith.........apparently to validate his faith.....that he was indoctrinated into by humans.

[Blake]

I disagree. Variant of all religions are germane to this thread. There are variations of every religion with varying degrees of (for lack of a better term) "evangelical" vigor. Some variations of Christianity are less offensive than some variations of atheism.

So, the variants are relevant.

please explain how the hardest of hard core atheists are more offensive than any variation of Christianity.

[Yonivore]

please explain how the hardest of hard core atheists are more offensive than any variation of Christianity.

Atheism and Mass Murder

"It is true that it's possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the detail it produces evil because the individual people are actually living in a rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it can produce it, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and ins utionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We're talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God."

"Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism … .there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal162 acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao …
The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined.
The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole -bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand.
Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation!"

[Blake]

Atheism and Mass Murder

... Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation

Roflmao.

An unbiased source not filled with a number of logical fallacies would do a better job of proving your statement to be true.

[clambake]

damn pinko's!!

[Clipper Nation]

Sounds like a motherlode of baseless demonizing and logical fallacies, no wonder Yni posted it tbh....

[SnakeBoy]

Neat. So what is your opinion then?

I think the world would be pretty boring if everyone believed the same thing.

[LnGrrrR]

I was guilty of being imprecise, on this question, earlier in this thread or another so, let me restate my position; there is a variation of atheism that believes there is not a God(s) which is different than lacking belief. It's an affirmative declaration of a belief. It is those to which I was and continue to refer -- regardless of what is actually said in the course of the discussion.

Usually though, those who say there definitely is not a God back it up with logical points. (Unless you respond with "god can't be comprehended logically" which pretty much ends the argument. Of course, they'll ask you how you figured that out...)

There are some that just "know" he's not out there I guess, just like hose who "know" he is, but most hardcore atheists I know (which isn't many) can defend their lack of beliefs very well.

[Blake]

I think the world would be pretty boring if everyone believed the same thing.

yeah, I can see how world peace might be boring to some.

[SnakeBoy]

yeah, I can see how world peace might be boring to some.

Comrade, maybe someday you'll have your wish and everyone will be the same.

[Blake]

Comrade, maybe someday you'll have your wish and everyone will be the same.

I sense sarcasm so I'll ask:

What is a negative of everyone together believing in world peace other than it being ”boring”?

[LnGrrrR]

I sense sarcasm so I'll ask:

What is a negative of everyone together believing in world peace other than it being ”boring”?

Answering for him but...

Even if everyone didn't believe in a God, that certainly wouldn't assure world peace.

And everyone may believe in world peace, but doing takes a lot more work. Not to mention the logistical difficulties of actually trying to achieve that...

Then also you'd have to probably curb some liberties in order to gain that peace, unless you're brainwashing a few billion people.

[Blake]

I think world peace is logistically possible without curbing liberties, if everyone believed in such a possibility.

[AussieFanKurt]

I have to agree with LnG, world peace doesn't come about by no religion or belief in god.

It could help but I think ignorance and general hate of a culture (religion can be included in this somewhat) fuels war etc.

[SnakeBoy]

You are really moving the goal posts around Blake. You originally asked which religion (or atheism) was best for society. Now you have replaced that with "world peace" which has nothing to do with your original premise.

[Blake]

I have to agree with LnG, world peace doesn't come about by no religion or belief in god.

It could help but I think ignorance and general hate of a culture (religion can be included in this somewhat) fuels war etc.

I agree with both of you.

[Blake]

You are really moving the goal posts around Blake. You originally asked which religion (or atheism) was best for society. Now you have replaced that with "world peace" which has nothing to do with your original premise.

No I didn't.

I asked for your opinion based on the original question. You went off on a tangent.

I simply played along by pointing out the flaw in your tangent.

Feel free to get back to my op at any time.

[DMC]

I think world peace is logistically possible without curbing liberties, if everyone believed in such a possibility.

It's actually not possible at all unless everyone is dead. Even then the animals are killing each other, and even plants are eating insects at an alarming rate.

As long as people feel they have rights, they feel they are en led to use force to defend them. I think I have the right to own land, and you think it's a free country. You trespass and I shoot you. Both of us exercising our rights, you getting shot. Those types of scenarios will always happen. , even when there was only Cain and Abel, they fought over what, the affection of an invisible sky buddy because one person burnt an animal and the other only had fruit or some . God has always despised the vegan. That's why he didn't allow them to eat apples but it was ok to kill and eat an animal.

[LnGrrrR]

I think world peace is logistically possible without curbing liberties, if everyone believed in such a possibility.

Logistically? Possible. But realistically? Highly improbable. (Like... Hubble Telescope high.)

[Blake]

It's actually not possible at all unless everyone is dead. Even then the animals are killing each other, and even plants are eating insects at an alarming rate.

You're comparing us to animals? I think it's safe to say humans on the whole generally believe killing is bad.

That said, if we want to continue this tangent, we'd have to delve into what we all feel world peace means.

I'd rather not, tbh.

As long as people feel they have rights, they feel they are en led to use force to defend them. I think I have the right to own land, and you think it's a free country. You trespass and I shoot you. Both of us exercising our rights, you getting shot. Those types of scenarios will always happen. , even when there was only Cain and Abel, they fought over what, the affection of an invisible sky buddy because one person burnt an animal and the other only had fruit or some . God has always despised the vegan. That's why he didn't allow them to eat apples but it was ok to kill and eat an animal.

I disagree that we have a natural born right to own land.

But that's a whole different tangent.