@kceaton1

I wholly agree that I detest these once atheists that have literally taken what is normally a balanced "naught" position as to God(s) existence barring evidence and instead these anti-theists ditch that stance and deem that not only is all religion a wash, but any God is as well. They're very "militant" in nature and seem to draw in those that are less secure about their own opinions; kind of like the Westboro Baptists. Unfortunately, they are also very pro-active, boisterous, and vitriolic in nature--worse of all they call themselves atheists still, giving the rest of us a bad rap.

And they're everywhere. The only place that I can go and say anything about Christianity without being ridiculed is a Christian forum. This goes from the obvious places like atheist forums, to a place like this, to even the comments section on CNN.com. Antitheists seem to outnumber thoughtful atheists at least 100-1.

Some of them though are just plain tired of the charades they have had to play with men they worked with, people they once respected--but, those same people might as well put their workmate, friend, and neighbors into brutal conditions for a simple principle held: atheism. It's happened before, not as ruthless as it may have been in the earlier centuries, but black listing someone in a community can happen. I've seen it happen innumerable times first hand! I can't blame some for their outrage and pointed damnation they hold for others; it was created by those that may complain that the volume and acidity of their words may be too strong--or too true.

Some have been mistreated, and some are just on the hate bandwagon because they are angry, insecure people who scapegoat religion for the evil in the world. Much like an anarchist blames all the evil in the world on governments.

Of course religion has it's share of idiots as well. They are almost always the fundamentalists, like the Westboro clan. Papa (George H. W.) Bush once said that atheists should have no rights in the U.S.--if he had his way--they would not be citizens nor would they be patriots. Because, this is a nation "under God"--atleast after that was added. Maybe Papa Bush didn't know that historical part. Religion also has a grand stand in politics and the media. That is yet another thing that must be remembered is that when an anti-theist does speak it will outrage the religious; but, atheists, anti-theists (even Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhism, etc...), endure the endless exposure and should be expected to remain quiet... Fox News is the epitome of which I speak as it is nothing more than a pulpit for the rich, white, Christian, American, white collar worker.

Stupidity, of course, is not exclusive to any particular group of people, but is common to all of them.

But, there is one more consideration that HAS to be mentioned. As this point gets me to go after religious people all the time. If this makes me anti-theist, because I voiced a concern over what is being said--then anti-theism is far more wide-spread and has NOTHING to do with atheism. I do think this may be a common misconception from just my general experiences on the messageboards, here and elsewhere.

The problem is: Science!

This is especially true for all of the fundamental type religions. They all have a huge laundry list of minor science flaws to HUGE science flaws. Fundamentalism Christianity in the U.S. tends to take the lead in this war of fact versus opinion. There are plenty of fully qualified scientists out there that are religious, but ones that tend to go against the full body of evidence and scientific community to prove a religious claim tend to be "not fully qualified". They tend to use full scientific data and factual evidence to create a new theor...I mean hypothesis (many will try to use "theory", but their reason for their arrival at the new understanding tends to have no basis) and inject a very large amount of opinion, sprinkled with some facts. One such example is the red-shift video provided above by @shinyblurry .

The video I posted does have a basis, the phenomena was legitimately observed:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0606294

Obviously it isn't conclusive, but it definitely has merit and should be explored rather than dismissed. I would really like to know the difference between something like this and the pure speculation accepted as fact in big bang cosmology, such as the existence of dark matter and dark energy. They are little more than fudge factors, as well as cosmic inflation, to account for the glaring holes that don't fit observation. That isn't science, but you excuse it because..?

Science can become a VERY heated area of topic when it comes to religion. This begins when a religion: tries to debunk a theory or a part of it, to commandeer a theory and direct a new conclusion to fit an already preconceived destination which has not been peer-reviewed or tested, repeating scientific theories in religious pamphlets or media while purposefully undermining the theory by not presenting in full and correct context or actually printing falsehoods, lying about the nature of scientific testing, repetitiously incorrectly stating current stances on various theories (like radio-carbon dating, etc...), attempts by any churches through the state to eliminate the teaching of branches of science--especially ones that have been tested so much that have attained the rank of THEORY (Evolution, etc...), again the use of lying in media against science--this has reached every facet of media-large and small.

Here's the problem with the so called theory of evolution. What Darwin observed was microevolution, not macroevolution. He observed that species will adapt to their environments. That is scientific fact, and a great discovery. What he did from there is speculate that because species adapt to their environments, that those adaptations would lead to new species, and therefore, that all life has a common ancestor. Since it wasn't something that could be observed, what was supposed to prove his theory would be evidence from the fossil record. There was only one problem with that:

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

The total lack of transitional fossils was a complete embarrassment to Darwin. The excuse made was that because the record was so poor, more time was needed to unearth the fossils. Here we are 150 years later, and those transitional forms have failed to materialize. The fossil record is composed mainly of gaps. It also defies all the predictions of gradualism. All the major body types appeared suddenly in the Cambrian explosion without any discernable evolutionary history, and they appeared highly diversified. All the major phyla, classes, orders etc were there at the beginning. Species appear suddenly in stasis and leave just as suddenly. Macroevolution is not science, it has never been observed nor can it be tested. It is a just-so story which does not fit observation.

Christians don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with what isn't science. Macroevolution was a giant leap made by Darwin for which there was no evidence, and the fossil record does not match the predictions of the theory. Because of this, evolutionists have moved away from the fossil record and have used other lines of evidences to prove macroevolution, like common genetics in our DNA. The problem with that is, common genetics also indicates a common designer, and is better indicated by it actually, because of the mosaic pattern we observe in the genome.

I'm sure there are more. History has been a great use to show us what religion WILL do to science, even though all that is being shown is the truth. It truly is a dangerous weapon. If you can't except truth what hope do we have for you. Yes you can be a good person, but somehow you're flawed, unable to except reality.

Historically the church supported scientific inquiry. Science got its start in Christian Europe, and many of the greatest scientists were devout Christians.

When I was a believer (no matter what @shinyblurry says I was; I was Mormon and shiny seems to believe that his religious path is of course a T3 hard-line; were as Mormons just get the basic 56k dial-up...) I FELT the presence of God, or more accurately The Holy Ghost. I had no problem believing in everything science told me when I was religious. I knew it was the truth and I knew that God would not want me to ignore the grand insights into the workings of his masterpiece. I could feel in my soul, the first year I had physics, that something profound had just happened. I had found something I had been searching for my whole life. I felt connected to everything. I began to dismiss those that were religious around me and disliked evolution--to me evolution was so simple and yet such a wondrous way to create the most complex of things from literally the simplest. A literal masterpiece. So I do know that some can believe all that science says, but it's very hard in Christianity.

There are two kingdoms in this world, the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Heaven, and they are both supernatural kingdoms. You can get a supernatural experience in a false religion, but it is just a corrupt copy of the real thing. Were you feeling a burning sensation in your chest? What you were feeling wasn't the Holy Spirit, or the presence of God, but the false spirit that pervades the mormon church. The presence of God is something that goes beyond feelings and sensations. This is how people get duped into false religions, because they get a spiritual experience from a false spirit.

I grew up secular, and when I became a Christian I was more than willing to accept the conclusions of science. I had believed them all my life because they had been taught to me as factual. I was even willing to intergrate them into my faith. It was only after investigating these things that I found, to my shock, that there wasn't any actual evidence for these things, and that they were neither testable or observerd. I changed my mind based on my investigation of the facts and not because of any religious duty. I would still believe it if I thought there was convincing evidence, but it isn't there.

Since you're scientifically minded, let me give you a challenge. You appear to be quite confident that evolution is proven true, so if that is the case, see if you can refute the arguments in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890510628/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

So I hope I made a point with this. Anti-theism comes from quite a few directions. The most usual and common sight is that you'll see between someone defending scientific theories, while the less common will be those that have been directly burned by the religious community they most likely once belonged to. The last is of course what was brought up in earlier posts: atheists who turn into anti-theists. They tend to be the kind that will assert that religion is evil no matter how small or insignificant it may play a role in someones life.

It's because they have no idea how much of western civilization is built upon Christian principles and philosophy. What they need to do is educate themselves:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595553223

In the end most atheists boil down to this:

Stephen speaking to a religious friend...
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

~Stephen Roberts

Thought I'd throw in one more bit about the anti-theism comments above, like @GeeSussFreeK 's.

I wholly agree that I detest these once atheists that have literally taken what is normally a balanced "naught" position as to God(s) existence barring evidence and instead these anti-theists ditch that stance and deem that not only is all religion a wash, but any God is as well. They're very "militant" in nature and seem to draw in those that are less secure about their own opinions; kind of like the Westboro Baptists. Unfortunately, they are also very pro-active, boisterous, and vitriolic in nature--worse of all they call themselves atheists still, giving the rest of us a bad rap.

Some of them though are just plain tired of the charades they have had to play with men they worked with, people they once respected--but, those same people might as well put their workmate, friend, and neighbors into brutal conditions for a simple principle held: atheism. It's happened before, not as ruthless as it may have been in the earlier centuries, but black listing someone in a community can happen. I've seen it happen innumerable times first hand! I can't blame some for their outrage and pointed damnation they hold for others; it was created by those that may complain that the volume and acidity of their words may be too strong--or too true.

Of course religion has it's share of idiots as well. They are almost always the fundamentalists, like the Westboro clan. Papa (George H. W.) Bush once said that atheists should have no rights in the U.S.--if he had his way--they would not be citizens nor would they be patriots. Because, this is a nation "under God"--atleast after that was added. Maybe Papa Bush didn't know that historical part. Religion also has a grand stand in politics and the media. That is yet another thing that must be remembered is that when an anti-theist does speak it will outrage the religious; but, atheists, anti-theists (even Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhism, etc...), endure the endless exposure and should be expected to remain quiet... Fox News is the epitome of which I speak as it is nothing more than a pulpit for the rich, white, Christian, American, white collar worker.

But, there is one more consideration that HAS to be mentioned. As this point gets me to go after religious people all the time. If this makes me anti-theist, because I voiced a concern over what is being said--then anti-theism is far more wide-spread and has NOTHING to do with atheism. I do think this may be a common misconception from just my general experiences on the messageboards, here and elsewhere.

The problem is: Science!

This is especially true for all of the fundamental type religions. They all have a huge laundry list of minor science flaws to HUGE science flaws. Fundamentalism Christianity in the U.S. tends to take the lead in this war of fact versus opinion. There are plenty of fully qualified scientists out there that are religious, but ones that tend to go against the full body of evidence and scientific community to prove a religious claim tend to be "not fully qualified". They tend to use full scientific data and factual evidence to create a new theor...I mean hypothesis (many will try to use "theory", but their reason for their arrival at the new understanding tends to have no basis) and inject a very large amount of opinion, sprinkled with some facts. One such example is the red-shift video provided above by @shinyblurry .

Science can become a VERY heated area of topic when it comes to religion. This begins when a religion: tries to debunk a theory or a part of it, to commandeer a theory and direct a new conclusion to fit an already preconceived destination which has not been peer-reviewed or tested, repeating scientific theories in religious pamphlets or media while purposefully undermining the theory by not presenting in full and correct context or actually printing falsehoods, lying about the nature of scientific testing, repetitiously incorrectly stating current stances on various theories (like radio-carbon dating, etc...), attempts by any churches through the state to eliminate the teaching of branches of science--especially ones that have been tested so much that have attained the rank of THEORY (Evolution, etc...), again the use of lying in media against science--this has reached every facet of media-large and small.

I'm sure there are more. History has been a great use to show us what religion WILL do to science, even though all that is being shown is the truth. It truly is a dangerous weapon. If you can't except truth what hope do we have for you. Yes you can be a good person, but somehow you're flawed, unable to except reality.

When I was a believer (no matter what @shinyblurry says I was; I was Mormon and shiny seems to believe that his religious path is of course a T3 hard-line; were as Mormons just get the basic 56k dial-up...) I FELT the presence of God, or more accurately The Holy Ghost. I had no problem believing in everything science told me when I was religious. I knew it was the truth and I knew that God would not want me to ignore the grand insights into the workings of his masterpiece. I could feel in my soul, the first year I had physics, that something profound had just happened. I had found something I had been searching for my whole life. I felt connected to everything. I began to dismiss those that were religious around me and disliked evolution--to me evolution was so simple and yet such a wondrous way to create the most complex of things from literally the simplest. A literal masterpiece. So I do know that some can believe all that science says, but it's very hard in Christianity.

So I hope I made a point with this. Anti-theism comes from quite a few directions. The most usual and common sight is that you'll see between someone defending scientific theories, while the less common will be those that have been directly burned by the religious community they most likely once belonged to. The last is of course what was brought up in earlier posts: atheists who turn into anti-theists. They tend to be the kind that will assert that religion is evil no matter how small or insignificant it may play a role in someones life.

In the end most atheists boil down to this:

Stephen speaking to a religious friend...
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

~Stephen Roberts

/long

>> ^shinyblurry:

There were about a hundred proofs in that series from all areas of science..typical of someone intellectually incurious, you pick one out and focus on that ignoring all the others..don't you get it..if even one of those are correct the theory of evolution can't be.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
OK, I watched it all and I have to say I am completely unmoved.
The only people who contend that radio-carbon dating is an exact science are people who don't know anything about it. The fact that carbon dating is inaccurate does not change that fact that it's the best method we have to try and determine the age of anything that precedes culture. You know what else is an inaccurate science: cancer treatment.
There are all sorts of reasons that carbon dating can get messed up, they are not hard to research, and no one out there, no one, is saying that they never get messed up. But it is still an infinitely better estimate than trying to determine the age of the Earth through someone's interpretation of scripture.
We need to use estimates all the time to try and paint our picture of the universe as we know it. If you look up the Andromeda Galaxy on wikipedia, wikipedia will tell you that the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. The fact is, that's our best estimate. It might be only 2 million light-years away, or it could even be 4 million. We use our best estimate and our best understanding of science as it works at that time.
I'm curious, does the bible say anything about the distance of the Andromeda galaxy from Earth?



Oh, my apologies, I thought you were asking me to watch the video. I'll see if I can't watch the whole series.

There were about a hundred proofs in that series from all areas of science..typical of someone intellectually incurious, you pick one out and focus on that ignoring all the others..don't you get it..if even one of those are correct the theory of evolution can't be.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
OK, I watched it all and I have to say I am completely unmoved.
The only people who contend that radio-carbon dating is an exact science are people who don't know anything about it. The fact that carbon dating is inaccurate does not change that fact that it's the best method we have to try and determine the age of anything that precedes culture. You know what else is an inaccurate science: cancer treatment.
There are all sorts of reasons that carbon dating can get messed up, they are not hard to research, and no one out there, no one, is saying that they never get messed up. But it is still an infinitely better estimate than trying to determine the age of the Earth through someone's interpretation of scripture.
We need to use estimates all the time to try and paint our picture of the universe as we know it. If you look up the Andromeda Galaxy on wikipedia, wikipedia will tell you that the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. The fact is, that's our best estimate. It might be only 2 million light-years away, or it could even be 4 million. We use our best estimate and our best understanding of science as it works at that time.
I'm curious, does the bible say anything about the distance of the Andromeda galaxy from Earth?

OK, I watched it all and I have to say I am completely unmoved.

The only people who contend that radio-carbon dating is an exact science are people who don't know anything about it. The fact that carbon dating is inaccurate does not change that fact that it's the best method we have to try and determine the age of anything that precedes culture. You know what else is an inaccurate science: cancer treatment.

There are all sorts of reasons that carbon dating can get messed up, they are not hard to research, and no one out there, no one, is saying that they never get messed up. But it is still an infinitely better estimate than trying to determine the age of the Earth through someone's interpretation of scripture.

We need to use estimates all the time to try and paint our picture of the universe as we know it. If you look up the Andromeda Galaxy on wikipedia, wikipedia will tell you that the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. The fact is, that's our best estimate. It might be only 2 million light-years away, or it could even be 4 million. We use our best estimate and our best understanding of science as it works at that time.

I'm curious, does the bible say anything about the distance of the Andromeda galaxy from Earth?

I WAS KIDDING! Did you not read the next line? However, I think being specialtive of data that comes from the distant past is prudent. If one did not question the geocentric model like Copernicus and Galileo, but rather agreed with the Aristotelian consensus would we be better off? Most of the tools we have for looking at the distant past are murky at best, so while useful always have to be taken in stride, which is what I have been saying all along.

Radio age dating, and stellar cartagrophy have all shown themselves to be off by large margins at times. For instance, the believed age of the universe has increased 5 billion years in my life time...a very large number when trying to make other measurements like cosmic inflation and other dependent things. Small and large variances would undo very fundamental understood physical properties of the universe. If the age of the universe changes by any amount, any new theory trying to explain cosmological inflation has to be reworked from scratch...or at the very least re-propagated.

I never said throw it out, I said approach it with cautious skepticism, the same would go for radio carbon dating. It is good for estimations and approximations, but the fact is the data sets could be wildly inerrant. For general things like tectonic tenancies and the slow moment of things overtime, this isn't as big of a deal. But for making very detailed climatic predictions about the overall direction and the results of said direction of the weather is putting to much credence in the information at hand.

If the science is bogus, it doesn't necessarily have to be disproven in a timely manor either. It was nearly two thousands years from Aristotle to Galileo, and that was with something that could bee seen, this can never been seen. Your mistaken my faith in God for my ability to use reason as well. I started an atheist and have a firm back round in science and scientific thinking. The modern movement of science by consolidation more resembles church that true empirical thought. I find that true science is dead, and what is alive now is conjecture by consensus. The empirical model is dead. Science now has more faith than most would care to comment on. Belief in aliens because of the large amount of space and large amount of planets is evidence of faith before empiricism. If you want faith, church is ok, but science is chop full of non-agnostic positions.

My desire is to not be ignorant. I find the current fear mongering as a play on ignorance. I find people defending the radical data as definitive as naive. But I also see pollution as a problem that should be corrected if not just for the sake of doing it or the planet; but for breath of fresh air in the morning, a commodity that is hard to price.

Try not to be jaded by people you assume I am like and look at my argument more fully next time. I don't think you read exactly what I said but you read more what you wanted to read from someone named like I am named. I also was very crass and kinda rude to start off my comments in that thread, so maybe I had it coming

Anyway, it is a problem that is bigger than any one of us, so us calling each other names or mocking each others believe systems is not going to get us anywhere. I will endeavor to not get sarcastic when on a mountain dew high if you will read my objections for what they really are, based in rational skepticism. When confronted with skepticism, my position is to remain as agnostic about projections about what I am skeptical about until that thing is resolved; it is the only logical position.

In reply to this comment by asynchronice:
"O shit, they had climatologists in the 300,000BC"

LOL...you've got to be fucking kidding me. Let's throw out carbon dating too. It's unverifiable! You weren't there ! And how do they know what stars are made of ? They can't verify it !

I don't get the defensiveness here. No debate corporations will use this data for profit. They will use ANYTHING for profit. And governments will always want to tax more of their citizenry. It has no import/relevance on the scientific facts being given. And if the science is bogus, then it will be disproven. PERIOD. That's just how it works. Just because you're spoiled and think the scientific community has to give you a day, a time, and detailed description of what will happen, isn't a reason to dismiss it. If you want that, go back to church.

It weirds me out that people go to great lengths to show how it is all a conspiracy to instill fear and get money; just look at the facts, and make up your own goddamn mind. And if you choose to be willfully ignorant, then do people a favor and stay out of the debate. Some of us actually want to understand what's going on.