theist trolls in

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Atheist troll above this comment

You would think the fact that prayer can be rigorously shown to have no impact on survival after a natural disaster or surgery would at least put an end to the idea of divine intervention from prayer. But to believers, personal anecdotes relayed by like minded adherents always trump statistics. After all, scientists and mathematicians are all godless tools of the devil.

Stanhope reinforced to me that, religion aside, he is a true asshole (for wishing terrible things for others for their belief systems).

I don't think he was so much wishing for terrible things as he was wishing for a disparity between non-belief (receiving tons of money) and belief (eating FEMA food rations). Nothing wrong with raising money for an idea that has the added benefit of helping a family out.

Anecdotes are the only thing selfish theists have. "Hey nevermind the horrible tragedy that has happened to countless people, *my* dog was saved, therefore god is good. The god-fearing woman even admits it. She prayed for herself...and her dog. Fuck the rest of them right?

it's a common theme for theists. horrible tragedy for others, but anecdotal heartwarming moment for *me* = god exists and is awesome.

@brycewi19 you tell me who's the bigger asshole, The atheist who is a prick for helping out another atheist and specifically not helping a theist or the selfish theist who cares more about her dog surviving than her fellow neighbors surviving.

Where exactly is he wishing terrible things for others? He does admit that he hopes they feel bad when they're eating from the FEMA truck and they come to help the atheist woman out, but that's not the same thing as what you're arguing.

The guy may be a dick about it (and he admits as much), but he proves a point, God is not required to do nice things. Theists would have you believe otherwise. Not only that, theists do things only out of fear of going to hell. atheists don't have that hangup.

I would hasten to guess that most prayers made by the devout fall into the category of meditative exhortations on behalf of others with a view to their well-being or similar sentiments-That the effects of such contemplative meditation can't be codified to satisfy another individual's satisfaction is completely meaningless.
Rigorously shown to whose satisfaction? Who but an egoist or some faithfully obsessed compiles such 'statistics' or would take the time to prove, falsify, or invalidate the actions or motivations of another individual, but some delusional autocrat? Probably some asshole I most certainly would never want to sit down with and break bread with.

What is the interest of another in your own life but a string of anecdotes and experiences, emotions or shared actions and interests? Pretentious reckoning of what another person is thinking or feeling, another meaningless tool in the bag of tricks of someone who is more likely to concern themselves with their own ego's health and vitality than that of his fellow man. Not being a theist yourself, and having I am guessing in the realm of personal experiences with any very little direct knowledge, you like many atheists satisfy your own minds delight in wagging a finger in the faces of anything remotely resembling the meta-gnostic or metaphysical, cordoning yourself in the limitless expanse of your own perceptions and experiences.

Atheists have plenty of hang-ups brother, as evidenced in some of the most virulent spit-popping imaginable.

Gee, now I guess I'll hit play and watch this video..Yep, that's what I thought. Self-serving shit.

All those words strung together and not one coherent communication.

i understood him quite well.
what part of @chingalera 's communication do you find incoherent @VoodooV ?
i thought he was being very clear.

People love to bash Americans for lack of geography and science knowledge, but this smart British fellow just said "Hurricane" with reference to Oklahoma and nobody bats an eye?

As someone who is pretty much agnostic, I can't help but chuckle at people who follow a religion and the anti-religion folks sniping at one another over beliefs.

I will throw this out there, however, Atheists can be just as preachy as Theists, given a soapbox and an ear or two to bend. Both need to get over themselves, because realistically we still know just the smallest fraction of the way the universe and everything in it works.

A question to believers in prayer being positively answered...why does God hate amputees? Never once in the history of humanity has a prayer asking God to fix a missing limb been answered in the affirmative. Sounds to me like God is a f*cking dick.

Hopefully we can get back on topic after another ching-jacking

@Grimm, Mordhaus is a textbook example of the misunderstanding of atheism I was talking about earlier.

Atheism is the calling of bullshit on theist claims. Atheism is not "there are no gods" I'm sure there are some atheists who do believe that, but that's not atheism, that's anti-theism.

If you can prove a creator exists, an atheist will believe it. IF you can prove it, then it's no longer a myth, it's a fact and that creator becomes part of the realm of science. You really gotta remember that a creator is separate from religion. There could be a creator, but a religion can still be wrong or immoral.

There is actual nuance to this stuff. But people, in general, don't give a shit for nuance. Binary thinking at it's worst. That was the mistake @brycewi19 made earlier. Stanhope not wishing someone well is *not* the same thing as him wishing them ill

If you think religion is putting out a bunch of false claims that haven't been proven, then you're an atheist. If you're agnostic, then you're an atheist. Even if you think there could be a creator, just that you don't think any of the religions are right..that's still atheism. You're not saying no gods exist, you're just calling bullshit on their claims because they haven't proved them.

It's not left vs right, it's not the fallacious "both sides suck" idea the ching-jacker was trying to sell earlier.

Back when i thought Atheism was "there are positively no gods" I didn't didn't agree with that either.

As I stated in my earlier statement, SETTING RELIGION ASIDE, Doug Stanhope acted like an asshole. He shows a lack of human-ness here. And I'm not saying that others aren't being selfish. I'm saying that when you isolate Stanhope's personality, you see an asshole standing there.

The thing is, I don't think he'd even disagree with that.

If anyone is confused about the difference between Atheism and Agnosticism, it is certainly not me or the widely accepted delineation between the two. By your statements, you are by far more of an agnostic than an atheist. The literal meaning of Atheism is without gods, you do not believe in them. If, however, you believe there 'could' be something like a supreme being but are skeptical due to lack of hard evidence, you are an Agnostic.

Proponents of the New Atheism outlook, such as yourself and Richard Dawkins, tend to look at Agnostics as fence-sitting cowards that are unwilling to join the movement to openly criticize Theists at every turn. In reality, we are simply a middle of the road group who want to remain open and, mostly, congenial to both sides of a bitter debate. If you choose to think that Agnostics are in fact Atheists, that is certainly your prerogative, but most regular Atheists and Agnostics will disagree with you.

The Wise One: Maybe some otters do need to believe in something. Who knows, maybe just believing in God...makes God exist.

Sea Otters: Kill the Wise One! KILL THE WISE ONE!

*Controversy
*Religion

Adding video to channels (Controversy, Religion) - requested by Mordhaus.

I'm sorry, I used to think that way too, but it's just not so.

You're confusing atheism with anti-theism. You're stuck in a "if you're not with me, you must be against me" binary mentality. The lack of (or being without by your definition) something is not equivalent to being opposed to something. Bald is not a hair color

As for your argument about "New Atheists," you're just creating a strawman. Never claimed anything about agnostics, especially nothing as derogatory as you seem to be implying.

It can be argued that everyone is agnostic since no one knows with certainty of the existence of a creator. People claim to have faith, but by definition, that's believing without proof so that doesn't hold up as "knowing" People also claim to "know" but their evidence never holds up beyond human conceit.

That's why I mentioned Grimm in my last post, we were talking about this subject on another sift, the mis-communication of what Atheism is. There's that tired theist claim that Atheists hate god. well you can't hate something if you don't have evidence that it exists.

An atheist is not in opposition to a creator, it's just that there is no proof and every claim out there so far can pretty much be summed up as human conceit. An atheist would probably be excited to find proof as it would expand on our understanding and thus, improve science even more.

I'm not confusing anything. Atheism is, by definition, the opposite of Theism. If you profess that you have some belief that there may be 'something', but you want scientific proof, then you have placed yourself in the definition of Agnostic. You can identify yourself as Atheist, which is what many do since Dawkins released 'The God Delusion', because he chose to try and force/shame/delude Agnostics into just calling themselves Atheists.

As far as a strawman, would you say that Dawkins is an Atheist? If you say yes, then perhaps you would like to know that on page 70 of the aforementioned book [Dawkins] views permanent agnosticism as "fence-sitting, intellectual cowardice". I imply nothing, while you personally may not feel this way, a well recognized New Atheist felt strongly enough to put it into print in his own book.

In any case, I understand your opinion. My opinion simply differs, I feel that you are a Theist if you believe deeply that there is 'something' of a god out there, an Agnostic if you are unsure and would like proof, or an Atheist if you feel that there is no such thing. You can certainly lump me with Atheism based on my commented beliefs, but I will lump you with Agnosticism based on yours.

Atheism is a spectrum, though. At one end you have people who outright deny the existence of gods and, at the other, perhaps you have people who are completely unaware of the god concept and have never given it a thought. These people are still 'without gods'.

Agnosticism, however, is not much of a spectrum. The agnostic believes that the truth about existence of deities is unknown and/or unknowable. It is not a position of uncertainty; it is a definitive claim about the limits of human knowledge/understanding.

They are not mutually exclusive as they are addressing different questions. You can simultaneously be an atheist or theist as well as a gnostic or agnostic. Fun fact: Most existing Christian churches are officially agnostic; gnosticism is considered blasphemous. Most Gnostic Churches were declared heretical and destroyed centuries ago.

Actually,, atheism is the lack of theism, not the opposite. A good analogy was posted above, baldness is not the opposite of hair, or even the opposition of hair, it is simply the lack of hair. A semantic difference to be sure, but an important one if you wish to truly understand the terms.
edit: perhaps a better analogy would be 'the opposite of matter is not empty space, it's anti-matter'. Atheism is being empty of theism, not necessarily against it.

Maybe you should learn to read and derive meaning from the word then, sparky??

There's atheism, anti-theism, agnosticism, theism, gnosticism.

Then there's assholeism...that's where Stanhope lives.

To you and to anyone who upvoted this I don't believe you have a fundamental grasp on how religion works.

Look its fine if you want to pretend that people who worship something are just being fools because "statistics say" whatever. But at least have a good understanding of what makes the believers tick first.

I am not a religion person and I am sure there are probably not a lot of them on this site. But I would rather not see people diversify themselves from part of the population.

Religion is a necessary tool in a lot of places and we should not be so dismissive.

After all isn't there enough of that already in this world? Division?

If we lose a shared perspective on tomorrow what then?

@Mordhaus

The terms atheist and agnostic are not mutually exclusive.

Theism/Atheism addresses belief
Gnostic/Agnostic addresses knowledge

If someone asks if you are an atheist and you answer "no, I am agnostic" you are not answering the question because it was not about knowledge of god's existence it was about belief in god's existence.

The god exists.

If you believe that statement is true you are a theist.
If you do not believe (disbelieve) that statement is true you are an atheist.


Just because you "don't know" or think it's possible "there could be something like a supreme being" does not change the fact that right now you are not convinced that a god exists.

Gnosticism:
(in the general sense being discussed here) addresses the issue of what one knows or claims to know. For any claim regarding the existence of a god, a gnostic is an individual who claims knowledge that the assertion is true and an agnostic (literally, "one who lacks knowledge") is someone who makes no such claim.


So if you claim to be agnostic the question if you believe in the existence of god is still unanswered.

Are you...

An agnostic atheist
does not believe any god exists, but doesn't claim to know that no god exists

or

An agnostic theist
believes a god exists, but doesn't claim to know that this belief is true


*BTW I borrowed heavily from this page http://wiki.ironchariots.org/?title=Atheist_vs._agnostic

You missed the point....he was doing a ju-jutsu asshole reversal move.

With all these people and CNN giving credit to God and Jesus for saving their lives which btw clearly implies God DID NOT save the people who died (now who's implying terrible things on others?). Then why do they need our help? They have Jesus on their side and God clearly has a plan for them right? How is that "wishing terrible things for others" by acknowledging their belief that God is going to take care of them?

I wonder why he comes across like an asshole when he takes their belief to the next logical conclusion? Because we all know it's bullshit and you'ld have to be an asshole to say "god saved them, god will help them, they don't need our help" but that was the point he was making....god didn't save them, god is not going to help them, they do need our help.

Agnosticism is the belief that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown. Wikipedia

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[8][9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[9][10] Wikipedia

It is only since the rise of New Atheism that we have the opinion that Agnosticism is not a separate belief from Theism/Atheism. As far as Agnostic Atheism/Theism, those are still considered a sub-division of Agnosticism, not Atheism or Theism respectively.

As far as myself, I would say I lean toward Agnostic Theism, simply because I hope that there is a greater design to the Universe other than random chance.

Rebecca Vitsmun, The Oklahoma Atheist, Tells Her Story has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760 on that post.

Your aversion to the word "atheist" is interesting. You "lean toward...theism" not because you believe but because you "hope" it's true.

There is no leaning....you believe a god exists or you don't. If you "don't know" then you "don't believe". You can hope all you want but if you don't believe that makes you an "agnostic atheist".

All that means is right now there is nothing that convinces you a god exists. You can be open to the idea, you can hope that there is some greater design...but until that day when you are convinced there is a god you are both agnostic and atheist.

I don't think you like being called that because you associate some negative things with other people who are also atheist. But being atheist does not define what you believe. It only means you agree with them on a single issue "do you currently believe that a god exists" and that's all.

wait...
are you guys all jumping on @Mordhaus for claiming he is an agnostic?
what... his version of atheist-lite rubbing your guys crotch hairs the wrong way?

man,thats fucking rich.

guess even atheists have their gospel to preach.
are you all trying to save @Mordhaus's non-existent soul?

i guess im just trying to understand the motivation here,or why ya'all even care WHAT mordie chooses to define himself as.

You.. didn't really read much of what anybody said, did you?

The basic argument isn't against the people, but at this point has basically boiled down to what the definitions of "Atheism" and "Agnosticism" are. Nobody is pissed off @Mordhaus / @VoodooV for what they believe in,

Let me translate. "As someone who pretty much doesn't take a position and is either afraid to deny or not faithful enough to believe, or just likes that fringe belief, I can take the high ground and avoid conflict."

And no, I am not speaking of you per say. I am speaking of the agnostics on the "soapbox" who can be every bit as preachy about their lack of reality as the religious and the atheist.

Excellent observation. Anyone who argues for the sake of argument can sport the garb of a preacher. Welcome to the church of me me me me me, MMMMM....Baaacon!

That's all wrong. Wikipedia is wrong, and you are wrong. The word atheism has been abused and warped to shy away from what the word of it actually means.

A-theism - not theism.

It's not plus(theism)/minus(atheism). It's plus/zero. Atheism is the neutral; theism is active belief.

Imagine a word like anti-theism would be the opposite of the spectrum; and yet a-antitheism would also be the neutral = a-antitheism == atheism.

Perpetuating a lie doesn't make it true.

Technicalities matter; semantics matter.