A little article I wrote about why Atheism is not a belief
http://chrisfaulkner.org/index.php/2015/07/11/rebuttal-to-an-op-ed-in-christian-informer/
Comments are welcomed and appreciated
http://chrisfaulkner.org/index.php/2015/07/11/rebuttal-to-an-op-ed-in-christian-informer/
Comments are welcomed and appreciated
Hi Chris (I'm assuming your name is Chris based on the site name anyway!). Interesting article, there's a few things I'd love to discuss with you if you're up for it? I'm atheist myself, but there's a few things I disagree with, and am also interested in asking you some questions about your views if you don't mind.
If you want to check some of my own writing out, just to see that I am atheist and that I'm genuinely interested in good discussion, you can find some of my own work in my Steemit profile (and can see a discussion I had with another user under the Why Be Good article), or check out some of my writing here.
http://answers-in-reason.com/author/trolleydave/
I appreciate the time you took reading my article. I did write that pretty much off the cuff. I'm sure there are grammatical errors abound but I was reading from the Op-Ed and positing the question and answering it (off the cuff). I'm sure there are a lot of things people in general will disagree with and that's fine. That's what makes us human, however from my perspective, that is how I see them, unless someone offers a better point of view.
Of course atheism is a belief. You believe that there's no God. So how can you say it isn't a belief??
And instead of doing a good faith investigation into whether God exists and what he demands from us you do nothing.
Not only that, atheism is a religion. It answers all the questions: How did we get here? We evolved. What happens to us when we die? We rot. Does life have meaning? No. Are there absolutes? No.
Atheists would say that there's no reason to help someone else if we didn't care about them personally because the joy you get from giving is simply a brain hormone that evolved to further the survival of the species. Ayn Rand was perfectly happy to let people starve in the streets.
In fact every religion that isn't based on the God of the Bible is perfectly happy to let children starve in the streets. They claim to think that the child did something bad in a previous life and is suffering for it now. It wasn't until Christian missionaries went to third world countries and helped them that some people from other religions went and did the same so they didn't lose members.
The most vocal atheists are those that hate God with a passion. Nobody hates the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. So how do they hate God when they claim he doesn't exist? It's simple. They hate God because they don't like the way he runs his universe. Or because of something that happened to them. So they deny his existence. The good thing is that so many of them are so obnoxious that they turn off people they could "convert".
I think that a lot of so-called atheists look at the evidence for God and decide that they'd have to give up their sexual sins if they believed in God so they refuse to believe.
[And instead of doing a good faith investigation into whether God exists and what he demands from us you do nothing.]
Why do you believe that atheists do not investigate God's existence with the desire to actually see whether it is a truth claim or not?
[Not only that, atheism is a religion. It answers all the questions: How did we get here? We evolved. What happens to us when we die? We rot. Does life have meaning? No. Are there absolutes? No.]
Atheism does not answer those questions, usually branches of philosophy or science answer those questions and atheists adopt them according to what is most psychologically compelling to them. Your answers are also terribly reductive and somewhat of an over-generalisation.
[Atheists would say that there's no reason to help someone else if we didn't care about them personally because the joy you get from giving is simply a brain hormone that evolved to further the survival of the species. Ayn Rand was perfectly happy to let people starve in the streets.]
Again, another strawman, there is plenty good reason to help someone you do not know, and it does not just boil down to brain chemistry.
[In fact every religion that isn't based on the God of the Bible is perfectly happy to let children starve in the streets. They claim to think that the child did something bad in a previous life and is suffering for it now. It wasn't until Christian missionaries went to third world countries and helped them that some people from other religions went and did the same so they didn't lose members.]
You have a very limited view of other religions. For instance, Islam has a tenet that promotes the taking care of orphans and widows. How much study have you actually done of these other religions you are criticising?
[The most vocal atheists are those that hate God with a passion. Nobody hates the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. So how do they hate God when they claim he doesn't exist? It's simple. They hate God because they don't like the way he runs his universe. Or because of something that happened to them. So they deny his existence. The good thing is that so many of them are so obnoxious that they turn off people they could "convert".]
I am pretty vocal, I write articles, and help run a debate group based around the topic of atheism and faith. I do not hate God, I simply do not believe that God exists, and that there are no good reasons or arguments that are compelling enough to make me believe that God does exist.
[I think that a lot of so-called atheists look at the evidence for God and decide that they'd have to give up their sexual sins if they believed in God so they refuse to believe.]
Then you think incorrectly.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond but I don't think you read my entire article and instead based your response off the title alone and assumed things.
How can we hate something that doesn't exist? Hate is a very strong word and I try to stay away from using it or feeling it. Why don't we hate the tooth fairy or santa claus? Because those are made up stories meant to encourage kids to brush their teeth or to be good and put at a level a child would understand. The bible is a more "grown-up" version of the tooth fairy, meant to scare and entice adults and more caters to that demographic. Adult Christians wouldn't believe in Santa Claus now would they? That'd be absurd. God is just an Imaginary friend that is shared by a lot more people. Churches find it really hard to reach younger children but they do so in other ways that are toned down. You wouldn't read the Song of Solomon to the pre-school class? Because you understand it and they won't, you have to really dumb down the story and add a whole lot of colorful pictures to entice the young ones.
Religion is based off of fear, and usually when I say this to a christian, they always come back as say "I don't do this because I fear God, I love God", but this is also how a slave treats their master. When someone has been abused so much that their mind is not their own, the master has 'broken the will' of the slave and replacing 'Fear' with 'Love', it's a common tactic of a narcissist. I could go on and on with this but I think you get the gist of what i'm saying here.
Atheists are not bad people, they just refuse to accept the recycled dogma thrown at people over the many thousands of year to get governments to control large amounts of people. Fear is Fear, we just see things from outside the box. When you're inside the box, it's kind of hard to grasp the real picture when your mindset is based in fear.