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Haha that was northern German. "Wat soll der scheiß, ey?" Classic.

According to the dictionary, atheism is a denial or disbelief in God.

reference.com
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA

–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

cambridge
atheist
noun /ˈeɪ.θi.ɪst/ n [C] Definition
someone who believes that God or gods do not exist

websters

Atheism
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity

So go ahead and argue with the dictionary. I know what an atheist is..and I also know what an agnostic is because I used to be one. I would suggest that atheist propaganda isnt a good source of information to bring to an argument and that maybe you should figure out what the meaning of something is before you correct someone else.


>> ^mentality:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Atheism takes a stance, which is that God does not exist. It's the agnostic that says he doesn't know. Don't you even know what you believe? All I've ever told people is this..that there is plenty of evidence to believe that God exists..however, my testimony isn't necessarily going to be good enough for people..which I why is tell them to seek out the truth themselves. I have told anyone who has honestly inquired that God will reveal Himself to anyone who dilligently seeks Him out, as He directly promised. This is not about me and never was. I don't have any motive other than doing what the Lord commanded me to do. The conversation never turns around here though, its mostly a blanket wall of denial and dogmatic assertion. I don't have any trouble speaking or appealing to the deeper thinkers..its the shallow know it alls that can't hear anything.

You make the fundamental mistake of not understanding the term Atheism.
Atheism is the lack of belief of God(s), not the belief of no god. Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God is unkowable. So one can be an agnostic atheist.
You also make another fundamental mistake of misusing the term evidence. You may feel your "evidence" is enough to sustain your faith, but that doesn't give it the rigor to be considered evidence in a scientific sense.
Frankly, when you complain of others' hubris and denial, while misusing terms and bringing up theories that you clearly don't understand, you make yourself look bad, and make people of faith look bad. Faith is a private thing, and doesn't need someone so poorly educated as you as its champion.

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Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.

At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.

Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.

It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.

I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.

When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.

Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.

At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.

For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.

Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.

What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked *exactly* like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.

It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.

Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.

So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.

I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.

So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.

So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..



>> ^TheSluiceGate:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Well, according to the dictionary:
dict.org
Atheism \A"the ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.
merriam-webster.com
Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
dictionary.reference.com
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.

The problem here, as MaxWilder suggested, is that arguing about what the word atheist means is just semantics. We could both quote dictionaries until the cows come home, but it would make no difference to the central argument. It's for reasons like this that other new terms such as "rationalist" or "humanist" are being coined all the time as a way of distancing traditional atheism from the word atheist itself. I realise now that me trying to clarify the manner in which many people commonly define their lack of a belief in a god is actually quite pointless. I'm even going to disregard that you didn't respond to the reason why it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. This thread needs to be brought down to brass tacks.
Let's simplify the central point here, the central point of both the video you posted, and of all the arguments in this thread: Can you give one reason why you , shinyblurry, personally believe that there is a god? Just your one best argument for a god's existence.
For my part, and in the interest of fairness, I will tell you briefly how I arrived at being an atheist. (You can comment on this separately if you wish, but please, not before addressing the above question!)
I was about 13 years old when, as a child brought up a catholic and attending weekly mass, I began to question the morality of the god described in the bible. I looked at the atrocities he committed and asked myself what I would think of a real flesh and blood person alive today who behaved in the manner of the actions attributed to him in the bible, and whether or not this person would be worthy of the praise and admiration heaped upon him. This central idea led to an increased questioning of all the aspects of the religion I had been brought up in, and an awareness that although there were many great ideas and philosophical truths in catholic teachings, there was no conclusive proof either in the bible, or in the world in general, for the existence of a supernatural god of any kind.
So if you, shinyblurry, were recording a video in the style of the one that you have posted, what would you be saying on camera was the one central reason for your belief?

>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, according to the dictionary:
dict.org
Atheism \A"the ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.
merriam-webster.com
Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
dictionary.reference.com
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.


The problem here, as MaxWilder suggested, is that arguing about what the word atheist means is just semantics. We could both quote dictionaries until the cows come home, but it would make no difference to the central argument. It's for reasons like this that other new terms such as "rationalist" or "humanist" are being coined all the time as a way of distancing traditional atheism from the word atheist itself. I realise now that me trying to clarify the manner in which many people commonly define their lack of a belief in a god is actually quite pointless. I'm even going to disregard that you didn't respond to the reason why it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. This thread needs to be brought down to brass tacks.

Let's simplify the central point here, the central point of both the video you posted, and of all the arguments in this thread: Can you give one reason why *you*, shinyblurry, personally believe that there is a god? Just your *one* best argument for a god's existence.

For my part, and in the interest of fairness, I will tell you briefly how I arrived at being an atheist. (You can comment on this separately if you wish, but please, not before addressing the above question!)

I was about 13 years old when, as a child brought up a catholic and attending weekly mass, I began to question the morality of the god described in the bible. I looked at the atrocities he committed and asked myself what I would think of a real flesh and blood person alive today who behaved in the manner of the actions attributed to him in the bible, and whether or not this person would be worthy of the praise and admiration heaped upon him. This central idea led to an increased questioning of all the aspects of the religion I had been brought up in, and an awareness that although there were many great ideas and philosophical truths in catholic teachings, there was no conclusive proof either in the bible, or in the world in general, for the existence of a supernatural god of any kind.

So if you, shinyblurry, were recording a video in the style of the one that you have posted, what would *you* be saying on camera was the one central reason for your belief?

Well, according to the dictionary:

dict.org

Atheism \A"the*ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.

merriam-webster.com

Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity

a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA

dictionary.reference.com

–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.
>> ^TheSluiceGate:
>> ^shinyblurry:
<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/video/God-does-exist-Testimony-from-an-ex-atheist?loadcomm=1#comment-1200441'>^criticalthud</a>:<br />@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry</A><BR>Actually, atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. Look it up in a dictionary sometime. A lack of belief, ie, you don't know, would be agnosticism. An atheist is saying he does know there isn't a God, which is a leap of faith, considering there is no evidence to the contrary.
Personally, I think it takes more faith to be an atheist. If you ever feel like challenging your beliefs, which is what anyone who is seeking the truth should do
Good point shinyblurry, but....
Atheism is not a statement of a claim that there is no god - it is the rejection of the proposition made by theists that they believe there is a god. Atheism does not assume any positive claim of the non-existence of a god. A statement like this requires proof, and proving a negative statement is impossible ( http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=You_can%27t_prove_a_negative ) which is why the statement "I am 100% sure there is no God" is just as irrational as a 100% belief in a god.
Dawkins put this well on his "belief scale" which (quoting from another site) goes something like as follows:
1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
3. Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.
4. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.
5. Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.
Dawkins describes himself as a 6.999999 as he knows that being a 7 on this scale would be just as illogical and rational as being a 1.
It doesn't take any faith to be an atheist. Let me explain like this: A theist makes a claim that god exists and that they have proof. They present the proof to an atheist. The atheist takes on board the claim, does research of their own, tests the proposition being made by the theist (presuming it is possible to do so - and logically if it cannot be tested, it cannot be presented as evidence!), and comes to a conclusion of whether or not they believe the claim being made as to the existence of a god. If they reject the claim they remain atheist. If not, they become a theist. There is no faith required in being an atheist.
This video doesn't really offer any proof, as it is one man's personal, untestable, experience.
Therefore I remain atheist.

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