Charlie, were you and Todd Friel separated at birth?

 

    The only hate I've read on this site comes from theists, no joke, Christans spew more then others, or maybe its a bad perception because Christans out number other believers.

    It's impossible for atheists to hate gods of any type since we DO NOT BELIEVE in any gods.

Wow. I can't even begin to fathom how people like you function in society. The majority of your statement was completely untrue, but do to your being brainwashed from birth, you don't really seem to care."Since you know nothing about it"... Bullshit. They know more about the bible than most christians ever will, seeing as they've actually READ it. Attempting to educate people is not to be confused with "trying to ruin peoples lives". They countered ALL the points, and even made a few new ones, which your little friends kirk and ray either deflected in asking another question without answering, or attempted to answer with the same old christian "god doesn't need a reason" bullshit. Christianity is the perfect lie. Anything goes according to what you perceive as "good", and god did it. Anything goes wrong, god did it 'out of love' or 'to prove a point'. Christians couldn't possibly begin to explain where god came from, so they came up with the little "god doesn't need a creator" jewel we all know and love. Every argument or statement an atheist makes is automatically wrong, seeing as we're 'evil for not believing', so you just disregard every point we make as "work of the devil", and therefore invalid.

 

In conclusion, if you're christian, quit asking atheists for reasons why god doesn't exist. Even if you're given one, you'll deny it. Let atheists continue to be the more intelligent open-minded, and you continue believing in the big magic man in the sky that's all powerful, but needed an entire week to create the universe.

 

 Have you ever read the Bible? I have, and based on your e-mail, i would assume you never have. The fact that we are getting away from the bible causes hatred?? You are  completely right. Lets get to work getting back to the bible shall we kids? Step 1) Revoke women's rights, after all God made them for the soul purpose of entertaining men, from now on, women are not to act, speak, or even think without the permission of a man, if she does, she shall be stoned to death in accordance with the bible! 2) Blacks need to be removed from our society and burned on the cross for their crimes, after all God painted them that way to let us know they are evil. 3) As stated in the bible, anyone who does not believe in your god, must be tortured and stoned to DEATH! 4) Any man who lies with another man, shall be tortured and put to death in accordance with the bible. Wow kids! I think we are making progress! We already have enough rules to completely remove hate from our world. What you silly athiests don't understand, is that we don't HATE Gays, Women, Blacks, and people who do not share our beliefs, we just want them dead, or, under our control, it isn't HATE it is simply doing God's Work! So jump on the LOVE train boys and girls, and kill a minority, be a Special Agent for Jesus! Oh and make sure you continue to attack science and genetic research, and make sure medicine does not advance, but if you get sick, don't waste your time praying(we all know that won't work) just go to a doctor(that heathenistic science pushing scum) and he will cure you, remember when your life is on the line, choose science, cause after all a dead Jesus agent, is a useless Jesus agent!

 

Fuckin hypocrits

 

 

 

I think you need to get your nose out of the bible and into a dictionary and see what the definition of hate is.

 

 

Oh trust me, Kirk and Ray are doing a fine job making a mockery of your religion just fine.

 

Proof please. So the crusades and the inquisition were ok with you though? Right?

Stand up, sit down, I don't care what you do, just don't poison the young minds in our public schools with your tales of ghosts and goblins. Boy is your god going to be pissed when he hears that you are judging people. Isn't he the only one allowed to do that?

Anyway, Satan and me have some Grand Theft Auto to play...

 

    WOW !!  These are some good comments, I just wish the "Charlie" was around to chat, maybe.

                                                  

     It's no wonder I like this web site.

Yes , absolutely , I AM "trying to make a mockery of people who believe in a higher being." 

No, I already switched to Geico.

Yes, all us atheists that donate to charity, give blood, support policies that prevent death and disease such as increasing the use of DDT, support science and technology, and support the betterment of standards of living...yup, we're despicable.

Guess again. There's no hatred of religion or god belief. There's no hatred of individuals or groups that have a god belief and subscribe to a religion. The hatred is only when those things influence public policy. When laws are passed, wars break out, people are persecuted or oppressed, because somebody believes their god gives them permission we have a problem. It's the atheist's caring for fellow humans that drives this hate. Atheists want to see this sort of suffering and non-sense eliminated. We seek only to encourage people to think, and think for themselves, and stop accepting fairy tales as the guiding force in their lives, and over ours.


Only toward those that pretend theirs is the only one true way and have "proof" of their god of choice.


I agree. They did a great job representing christianity as having no evidence for the existence of the god they follow.


Well, it was Ray and Kirk that claimed they could prove the existence of a specific god and that they could do it without using the buy-bull. It would seem they were the ones "turning over a rock". They presented not a single item that proved their position. They presented only faith.


I'll leave that task up to religion. Research the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. I have music, love, friends, family, beer, picturesque landscapes, and a whole world to enjoy. Making myself and those around me happy, helping others, is all the purpose I need.


If statistics showing the most theistic countries as being more violent is irrelevant then your claim that people pushing away from god is causing the increased violence is equally irrelevant. However, there are actually stats showing the former. There isn't a shred of evidence showing the later. You're just plain wrong. We can also look at historical trends in those stats. We find that as a country becomes more theistic we find violence, mortality, equal rights, and so on worsen, including the United States.


Again it was Ray and Kirk that were there to prove points. Brian and Kelly were there to refute them.


Really? have any proof of that? something outside of the buy-bull? Or is that a personal threat?


And to you.

 Chah-lie bit me.

Many self proclaimed christians do not know their scripture, but that doesn't really make them less christian than you, because all they have to do is believe unerringly what their pastor tells them to be a member of your little club. Ignorance, and an unwillingness to question authority are perfectly fine in religions. Most atheists I know have read quite a bit of christian scripture, since it is so readily available in our culture. I'm the rare exception in having read 3 different versions of the christian doctrine as well as most of the available texts of several other religions (islam, judaism, buddhism, shintoism).

As far as the proof argument goes, there is incontrovertible proof of many things that refute religious scripture. That the earth and universe are much older than the arbitrary and short time period christians, muslims, and jews seem to think it is is a big whammy. We could go on and on with such factual scientific and historical tidbits, but even focusing on those misses the point and is yet another utterly pointless bone of contention to be discussed.

The real issue here is what exactly religion is, and that is by definition dogma. Most religionists can easily see the flawed thinking involved in every other dogmatic system.....other than their own. What they fail to realize, is that it is the inflexible absolute nature of dogma that is the very problem.

It is the fundamental difference between faith, and BLIND FAITH. There is nothing wrong with placing faith in something, assuming your allowed to exercise skepticism and scrutiny when necessary, but religion does not allow this at all. You must by definition blindly believe, because somehow that makes you a holier person? Do I even have to point out the flaws here? Can you not see the flaws in this way of thinking if we were discussing Norse Mythology, and those few in the world who STILL BELIEVE in this ancient religion?

This brings to mind the time a mormon almost punched me in a WalMart parking lot when I pointed out to him (because he wouldn't stop bugging me) that he was as atheist as I was about zeus, aphrodite, and thor, and that I just took it one more god than he did. But, anger and violence is often the last resort of such people.

Any system of thought or belief that requires you to commit BLIND faith in something, is fundamentally wrong, stupid, and potentially dangerous. Whether it is christianity or fascism we're talking about, this aspect of the situation always rings true for anyone willing to think outside of their own innate fear and cultural indoctrination.

The non-scientist among us certainly does place faith in our scientific community and in the scientific process. But such faith is not BLIND faith. We are FREE, unlike YOU, to retain our skepticism. We are free to question, unlike you. We are free to doubt, unlike you. And this freedom reigns throughout the entire system of rational and scientific thought, and thus becomes a wonderful self correcting mechanism. See an eminent scientist release a paper on some new fangled and controversial way of interpreting some aspect of the world, and watch a ton of fellow scientists fall on his conclusions like a ton of bricks to prove him right....or wrong.

No one is allowed to do that to the pope when he says using condoms is bad even though millions who could have been saved from HIV infections have become infected to make him and jesus happy. Not all aspects of religion are this insidious and downright evil, but all religions have the potential to be so, BECAUSE you're not allowed to say no to dumb things.

Science and rationality EVOLVE over time as we learn about, understand, and apply more of what we know. And it is this evolution over time that has slowly over history peeled back the veil from religion and shown it to be as assinine as any other dogma.

In the case of christianity it all started with the Protestant Reformation (which was ironically enough instigated by technology.....the Printing Press), and over the centuries hence christianity has had to accede its authority over the western world bit by bit.

In modern western culture I would say that battle lines seem to have formed over this issue simply because many feel it is about time for the rest of the inanity to be held under scrutiny until it further weakens or just goes away.

Though it would be nice to believe that all atheists come from troubled backgrounds, I would say the situation is the exact opposite, or at the very least immaterial to the discussion. I know people who have had troubled lives who are devoutly religious as well as many who are atheists. The same can be said for for those I know who've led relatively sedate lives.

The mitigating factor in all of my experiences has been whether or not someone developed the intellectual curiosity (and courage)  to examine such issues beyond the veil of cultural indoctrination. Those that are comfortable questioning religious tenets in so overtly a religious nation, usually become "spiritual but not religious", agnostic, or atheist thinkers. Those who cannot make this socially risky move outside of cultural conformity, stick with what mom and dad raised them to be.

I was raised in a religious household (baptist), and thogh many years of reasoned discussion has amazingly enough weakened my mother's grip on religion, it has not done so with my brother who remains a devout baptist. Unlike many baptists though, my brother and I know where to leave this issue and remain best of friends.

I wish that were the case with the other gazillion southern baptists I'm surrounded by here in the deep south, most of whom seem to have forgotten that whole "love thy neighbor" and "judge not lest ye be judged" thingy.

 

Dear Charlie,

Let me sum up your letter:  You believe we are bad people, we are full of hate, and we are going to hell because we are immoral.  Our whole reason for being is to destroy others.  We have no valid arguments and no real understanding of the world.  Our mere existence is contributing to the decline of society.  But you wish us well.

Wow Charlie, you sound really angry and really scared.  My impression in reading your letter is that you have made up your mind about not only us, but about the nature of reality and God.  You are certain about your understanding of the world. 

It is our goal to challenge the assumptions of people like you, who hold to the bronze-age mythology of the bible.  We have found that the magical ideas about the way that the world works that are presented in the bible are false.  God is a magical person, Jesus is a magical person, heaven and hell are magical places. 

We don't believe in magic.

Or at least we have no evidence of the existence of magic, and so we don't believe.  Just like we don't believe in bigfoot.

I can understand why we would scare and anger you Charlie.  We are challenging your certainty.  No wonder you think we are bad.  But we're not bad, really.  We just just have a knowledge that you lack.  We understand that the world is too complicated for one book to make valid sense of.  We understand that our lack of knowledge is not proof that magic is real.  We understand that bronze-age priests did believe in magic (just like you do) but that the fact that they wrote about the magic doesn't make it true.  We also understand that however powerfully a story moves us emotionally, that doesn't mean that it is literally true.

It is one of the great paradoxes of learning - uncertainty is the gateway to wisdom.  You are certain of your god and of his magic.  This is a mistake you are making.  Because you are certain, you have lost your ability to question.  After all why question what is certain?  If you will open your mind and consider the possibility (just the possibility) that the bible is wrong about so very, very much, you will discover that there is a whole world of possibility waiting.

In this world of endless possibility, there is only one way of deciding what's true, and that is evidence. 

Not faith. 

Not revelation. 

Not the word of an authority, not even a divine authority. 

Only evidence.

This is the world of reason.

Come on in.  The water is fine!

Suffering Succotash!

I don't belive this is a place of hate at all. I think of it as a place of enlightenment and understanding. However... I can't speak for anyone else here, but I actually am begining to hate theist. Every time I hear one of their cop-outs a little peice of me dies. In my mind, they are people who are either mentally or emotionally ill-equiped to deal with the crushing truth that is reality. The idea that everything truly is meaningless is just a bit much to handle for them. There is no higher purpose. There is only this life. And the only thing that gives it any sense of meaning is to live happily and to make others happy. Apart from that, there is no meaning. Atleast no meaning that I can grasp. That being said, I hope everyone here finds something to give their life some peronal sense of meaning.

I have noticed that more athiests have read the bible than those who claim to believ in it.