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thinkahol *

SKIPPING SUNDAY SCHOOL: A DOCUMENTARY - 0 views

www.henlivision.com/...DAY_SCHOOL__A_DOCUMENTARY.html

sunday school skipping

shared by thinkahol * on 07 Jun 10 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 07 Jun 10
     
    Is God dead? The US is seeing a substantial downward trend in religious adherence, especially in young people. "If the trends continue, 'the Millenial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships,' says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources. In the group's survey of the 1,200 18- to ...29-year olds, 72% say they're really more spiritual than religious ... Most young adults today don't pray, don't worship and don't read the Bible ..."
ben wells

Why do people laugh at creationists? - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

creationism evolution id intelligentdesign stein

shared by ben wells on 17 Apr 08 - Cached
  • ben wells on 17 Apr 08
     
    This is a biting critique of Ben Stein and his movie called Expelled in which he decries the mistreatment of creationists and attempts to debunk evolution. The youtuber doing the critique articulates the rhetorical tactic of colluding free speech and the scientific method- the idea that anybody's OPINION is somehow just as valid and important as a SCIENTIFIC THEORY because we're all entitled to free speech. (Those who think that should go look up what it takes for a hypothesis to become a theory.) That's not how it works and anyone who's even slightly serious about figuring out fundamental truths about our existence should reject that notion outright. Only the trained professionals, please. I can certainly say whatever I want about anything- but I shouldn't be listened to as any serious beacon of knowledge if I can't back up my claims with evidence. (And "because the Bible says so" or "there must be an intelligent designer because it's just so complex and I don't understand it" is not evidence.)\n\nI still don't get why we need to have all this stuff figured out in order find fulfillment and to live our lives happily. We greatly underrate ourselves. The video is also really fascinating because it reminds us just how amazing and fascinating our world is - he lists off many discoveries of the past 150 years - amazing stuff. All Ben Stein accomplishes is making himself resemble a life-size douche (a South Park episode comes to mind).
Kylyssa Shay

If You Can't Explain the Origin of Life and the Universe Then Why Don't You Just Believ... - 2 views

www.squidoo.com/Atheist-Issues

atheist atheism god belief

shared by Kylyssa Shay on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Kylyssa Shay on 30 Jun 09
     
    An Atheist answers the strange question of if you can't explain the origin of life and the universe totally and completely then why don't you just believe in God because the Bible explains it all?
thinkahol *

'You just don't understand my religion' is not good enough | Julian Baggini | Comment i... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...understand-my-religion-faith

'You just don't understand my religion' is not good enough | Julian Baggini Comment free guardian.co.uk

shared by thinkahol * on 09 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 09 Nov 11
     
    Too often, faith is mysterious only selectively. When questions get tough, a god can disappear in a puff of ineffability
Bakari Chavanu

Dawkins vs. Collins: analysis of the debate. - 1 views

richarddawkins.net/,Gary-J-Whittenberger-eSkeptic

religion atheism dawkins science evolution

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 28 Sep 09 - Cached
  • In the first exchange, Dawkins and Collins apparently agreed that the proposition "God exists" is either true or false. Dawkins indicated that science is appropriate to the task of answering the question, but Collins disagreed: "From my perspective, God cannot be completely contained within nature, and therefore God's existence is outside of science's ability to really weigh in."
  • "God cannot be completely contained within nature," he implied that God can be partly contained within nature, which makes God open to scientific analysis.
  • By inventing a category called "supernatural" and relegating hypothetical things to it, they apparently hope to protect those things from the requirement of evidence.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • What does this mean? Does it make any sense to say that something exists outside space and time? When we apply the word "exists" to something, don't we mean that we can observe it or its effects in space and time?
  • Have we ever observed anything outside space and time?
  • By insisting that God exists "outside of nature," Collins nearly makes his supernatural compartment so small that there isn't enough room for God.
  • He is certainly correct that the inefficiency of evolution, not to mention its "errors of design," is inconsistent with the traditional idea of God as an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being. This traditional kind of God would be more likely to operate through Creationism, but this hypothesized mode of operation is not supported by the evidence of biology, genetics, geology, and cosmology.
  • Dawkins proposed two possible explanations for the values of the physical constants we find in our universe. One is that these constants couldn't be any different from what they are; they simply are what they are.
  • Within this great mulitverse environment, there are bound to be some universes that have the physical constants at just the right values to support the development of life, and we find ourselves in one of them.
  • Although Dawkins seems to present the two best currently available alternatives to Collins' God hypothesis to explain the life-enabling values of the physical constants of our universe, he and Collins both seem to accept without any skepticism the proposition that our universe is improbable. But how can they just assume this? In my opinion, they do this through a misapplication of probability theory. In the debate they used the "gravitational constant" as an example. They correctly noted that if the gravitational constant (G) were different by one part in a hundred million million, then life, as we know it, would not be possible in our universe.
  • One must know how many items with the feature are in the population and how many items without the feature are in that same population (or alternatively, how many items altogether are in the population).
  • In fact, we do not know that any other universes exist at all! Without knowledge of other universes, Dawkins and Collins misuse probability theory to conclude that our universe is rare
  • More must be said about Collins' contention that the application of Occam's razor supports the God hypothesis over the multiverse hypothesis. It doesn't. The God hypothesis is less parsimonious than the multiverse hypothesis for two reasons: 1. it invents a totally new type of entity, a supernatural being "outside time and space," which is not necessary with the latter hypothesis, and 2. it leads to the classic problem of infinite regress. If there must be something outside our universe, i.e. God, to explain the existence of our universe, then there must be something outside of God, i.e. "Z," to explain God. Then something is needed to explain "Z," ad infinitum.
  • Alluding to St. Augustine and commenting on the book of Genesis, Collins said "It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God."
  • Collins responded that if one accepts God's existence, then it is not unreasonable to expect that God might occasionally intervene in the world in a miraculous way, and that if one accepts that Jesus was divine then the Resurrection is "not a great logical leap." But these are big "ifs," and although Collins tries to show that they are plausible, he offers no good evidence to show that they are probable.
  • Collins implied that this altruism is a sign of God's existence and a gift from him.
  • Dawkins responded that good and evil don't exist as independent entities but that good and bad things simply happen to people.
  • Collins' "moral law" argument is another variation on the "God of the Gaps" theme. If science doesn't yet have a complete description of a phenomenon, then there must be a super-being behind the scenes who is responsible for whatever is in the gaps.
  • Collins' idea of a "moral law" is premature and far too rigid when one considers the variability in moral rules across different geographic areas, cultures, ethnicities, and religions.
  • "Faith is not the opposite of reason. Faith rests squarely upon reason, but with the added component of revelation." Part of the difficulty here is that "faith" has several different meanings and unfortunately Collins isn't clear about which meaning he intends. "Faith" may refer to a religion or worldview, as in "My faith is Islam." It may refer to an attitude of trust or confidence, as in "I have faith in my physician."
  • In his concluding remarks Collins indicated that he is interested in many "why" questions for which he believes answers may not come from science but from the "spiritual realm." In his concluding remarks Dawkins indicated his doubt that the future discoveries of science would support any of the beliefs of the traditional religions, beliefs that he regards as parochial, but nevertheless worthy of some respect. And on that conciliatory note, the debate was concluded.
  • Who won the debate? From the perspective of style or mode of expression, perhaps Collins won. At times, Dawkins seemed to come across as a bit testy and abrasive.
  • Gary J. Whittenberger
  • Maybe the best approach in any such discussion forum is to try to flush out first exactly where the theist is positioned on the spectrum of belief by a series of clear questions. eg for Christians: - Do you accept the literal truth of the Bible (completely, or just the New Testament?) - Do you believe in Jesus's miracles, virgin birth, physical ascencion to Heaven? - Do you believe that God regularly intervenes in the natural universe eg by answering prayers, or in the design of organisms? etc
  • Bakari Chavanu on 29 Sep 09
     
    Excellent article and good for discussion. Would like to read others in this group think.
Dripa B

Greta Christina's Blog: Atheists and Anger - 0 views

gretachristina.typepad.com/...atheists-and-an.html

atheism religion

shared by Dripa B on 22 Oct 07 - Cached
  • atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces.
  • the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God."
  • I'm angry that it took until 1961 for atheists to be guaranteed the right to serve on juries, testify in court, or hold public office in every state in the country.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.
  • I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.
  • I'm angry about what happened to Galileo.
  • preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them
  • believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I'm angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe
  • they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.
  • Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I'm angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices
  • trustee of the local Presbyterian church who told his teenage daughter that he didn't actually believe in God or religion, but that it was important to keep up his work because without religion there would be no morality in the world.
  • parents and religious leaders terrorize children -- who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they're told, and (b) are very literal-minded -- with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion
  • priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.
  • religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people's trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again
  • I get angry when believers insist that the parts about Jesus's prompt return and all prayers being answered are obviously not meant literally... but the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination, that's real. And I get angry when believers insist that the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination aren't meant literally, but the parts about caring for the poor are really what God meant. How the hell do they know which parts of the Bible/ Torah/ Koran/ Bhagavad-Gita/ whatever God really meant, and which parts he didn't?
  • believers chide atheists for being so angry. "Why do you have to be so angry all the time?" "All that anger is so off-putting." "If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?"
  • Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it... all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.
Kylyssa Shay

Ask an Atheist - 0 views

www.squidoo.com/Ask_an_Atheist

atheist atheism religious tolerance religious politics religion American atheism American atheists

shared by Kylyssa Shay on 16 Jul 09 - Cached
Kylyssa Shay liked it
  • Kylyssa Shay on 16 Jul 09
     
    Once I could read I had access to hundreds of religious texts and religious books as well as books on philosophy and nature. I read them voraciously, trying to figure out this mystery called belief. After reading many books about beliefs and belief systems written by brilliant people and talking with a few pastors and a minister, I came to the conclusion that God was probably not real.When I was ten, I was outed as the child of an atheist by a teacher who then made an ignorant remark that set the tone for years of abuse both physical and emotional. She said, '[She] is an atheist and that means that she hates God.'If the teacher had known what an atheist was or if the children's parents had, I would have been saved years of suffering. As an adult, I have found that many people in America still don't have a clear idea of what an atheist is and it bleeds into society. It affects the way atheists are treated to this day.Most people in America learn about atheism, not the way I learned about belief, but by word-of-mouth from religious parents and peers who learned the same way. Most of the things I've heard when religious people discuss atheists come from fear and speculation. The lack of understanding makes people hate and fear atheists.To educate people about atheists and spread tolerance through education I'm offering to answer your questions. I'm hoping that instead of basing your opinion of atheists on hearsay you'll choose to ask an atheist instead.
thinkahol *

No, I don't believe in God | Alom Shaha | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...god-atheism-islam

atheism

shared by thinkahol * on 07 Jun 10 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 07 Jun 10
     
    I'm not grandstanding, or insulting the faith I grew up in. I've written this to confirm to myself that I'm not alone
Dripa B

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Scientific American - 0 views

www.sciam.com/article.cfm

atheism christianity creationism evolution religion science

shared by Dripa B on 19 Sep 07 - Cached
  • Dripa B on 19 Sep 07
     
    Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
Kylyssa Shay

Atheists Don't Believe in God - 0 views

www.associatedcontent.com/...eists_dont_believe_in_god.html

atheist belief God atheism in god

shared by Kylyssa Shay on 23 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Kylyssa Shay on 23 Mar 09
     
    I've heard it far too many times, I think, the assertion that to be an atheist a person must first think God is real and then hate, or deny God. By the logic that a person must first believe in something to think it isn't real every fundamentalist Christian believed evolution occurred before they denied it.
Skeptical Debunker

Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...us_rel_home_school_evolution

home schoolling Christian evolution propoganda

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction." "The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program." Those who don't, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs. Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press. "I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids," said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago. The textbook publishers defend their books as well-rounded lessons on evolution and its shortcomings. One of the books doesn't attempt to mask disdain for Darwin and evolutionary science. "Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling," says the introduction to "Biology: Third Edition" from Bob Jones University Press. "This book was not written for them." The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its "History of Life" chapter that a "Christian worldview ... is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10
     
    Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons. Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory. "I thought she was going to have a coronary," Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. "She's like, 'This is not true!'"
  • Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10
     
    Home Fooling.
Susan Thur

Why Not Believe? Reasons Why Atheists Don't Believe in Gods - 0 views

atheism.about.com/...whynotbelieve.htm

believe why

shared by Susan Thur on 21 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Susan Thur on 21 Apr 10
     
    It is difficult to credit any one religion as being True or any one god as being True when there have been so many throughout human history. None appears to have any greater claim to being more credible or reliable than any other. Why Christianity and not Judaism? Why Islam and not Hinduism? Why monotheism and not polytheism? Every position has had its defenders, all as ardent as those in other traditions. They can't all be right, but they can all be wrong. Too Many Gods...
Jack Frost

Atheism and politics: Don't read this post, I'm going megaton. - 0 views

atheismandpolitics.blogspot.com/...his-post-im-going-megaton.html

Religion Atheism Christianity God Islam Jewish

shared by Jack Frost on 28 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Jack Frost on 28 Apr 10
     
    Some inflammatory thoughts about things religious people say and believe. This is not for the feint of heart or the easily offended.
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