Your reason for atheism

Speedwell wrote: »

Yes, you want everything simple. A simple man you are. Divine simplicity, that's your bag. If you can't say it while standing on one leg before you put your foot down, it's not for Danny. Thinking is just too much work for you, and you don't want other people to be all in-your-face about it either. Got it, lazy.

I got news for you. This subject isn't simple, and the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. The mere fact that you think you can explain your worldview in "10-15 lines" makes it reductionist and simplistic and not very useful, and insults everyone from the writers of Genesis to the modern Jesus study academics. Wake me when you've put in the effort.

Just as I figured, apart from attempted put downs you haven't anything to offer. You're just another one of those' It's all too complicated for a 5/8 like me' to comprehend.

realdanbreen wrote: »

Any advance on the tooth fairy being the reason?

The tooth fairy for adults? AKA God.

Ares Magnificent Kale wrote: »

Do you wouldn't have wanted to see the end to slavery and chimney boys. Both of which were championed by "religious" people ( whatever they are!) and abolished. It was the "non religious who opposed their abolition.

Sorry, please back up and try again, I didn't understand what you are asking me here.

realdanbreen wrote:

Well I have always liked to keep it simple. You and me and shep the dog and Daisy the cow exist today and live our lives-fact. Somewhere at sometime something was created to get you, me, shep & daisy to this point-fact. I believe there must have been a creator while others like yourself don't believe that .

Is there any evidence for a creator? Or an argument for a creator that isn't dizzyingly circular?

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

'The tooth fairy did it, how else could the tooth be replaced by money's is the religious answer.

'i don't know do I'll wait until I have more information' is the skeptic's answer

"I know it can't be the tooth fairy because fairies are made-up stories, and every time anyone has observed money placed under a pillow in exchange for a tooth, it is done by the tooth-losing child's adult family members" is the rationalist's answer.

realdanbreen wrote: »

I never said the creator was simple.

Is your "creator" more or less simple than the scientific explanation (Big Bang, Abiogenesis, Evolution etc.)?

Speedwell wrote: »

Because religious people spend so much time trying to force society to conform to their beliefs.

Religious people in general do no such thing.

Sam Kade wrote: »

Religious people in general do no such thing.

Let's see...first of all you have all the totalitarian Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia (where women can't even drive, and the king has a divine mandate), the likes of the Taliban and Da'esh/ISIS/Goat Rapists International, the Republicans in the USA whose party platform endorses state funding of abstinence-only sex education, conversion therapy for LGBT people, total bans on abortion and creationism in state curriculums thanks to their courting of the evangelical "Moral Majority", the various pro-life/anti-choice campaign groups across the world like the Legatus Lackeys (the Iona Institute, Youth Defence, the Pro-Life Campaign, SPUC etc.)...need I go on?

Ares Magnificent Kale wrote: »

You said religious people conform society. I said, it was religious people who forced the abolition of slavery and the use as young boys as chimney sweeps. Both agaisnt the wishes of the non religious people.
Would you have preferred if the "religious people" did nothing and these 2 practices continued. After all, they conformed society to their wishes, some you obviously object to!

Are you OK? I mean, I've seen you post a lot and you normally think much better than that.

There is nothing in the Bible against slavery. Slavery exists today. Where slavery has been abolished, Christians differed with each other, sometimes violently, about its abolition, and the abolitionists were in the minority. The vast majority of slaveowners were, and are, religious people. Today, the advocates of slavery in its many forms, from forced labor to forced pregnancy, are overwhelmingly religious. As for the use of children as chimney sweeps, I don't know a lot of about that, but I am sure the practice would have been abolished long before the late 1800s had not "good Christian people" made use of their services. I've seen the argument made convincingly that the abolition of the use of children as chimney sweeps was due to the increase in household cooking and heating technology, as well as in chimney cleaning technology that made the use of children to sweep obsolete.

I looked for a while at some mainstream resources about both issues and I was unable to find evidence of any concerted effort by atheist activists to preserve slavery or child labor. Do you have links?

I'was never spiritual person and that might be understatement. As a child I was sent to school psychologist because of basically stage fright (exam anxiety and so on) and she was trying to teach me different breathing or relaxing techniques. I didn't even believe those work. Years later I started buying some herbal pastils that I am now sure were just a placebo but at least they were tangible. It's very hard for me to believe into anything I can't see actual proof of or get some clear results. I despise alternative medicine, I am seriously sceptical about claims of cosmetic industry and so on... Spirituality of any kind bores me, I don't even do poetry. Similarly I always found philosophy too abstract but I find sociology and anthropology fascinating as a was of explaining how the society works because they at least pretend t g ere is method to their findings.

I just don't think I am wired to be religious and despite plenty of religious influences around me it never stuck.

Speedwell wrote: »

Awesome, that is exactly how we feel about religious creation myths. (The ones that aren't clearly refuted by what we now know about how the Universe actually works, that is.)

Right so apart from any more red herrings you will have no problem posting what you now know about how the universe was formed.

Speedwell wrote: »

You're the one serving red herrings, Dan. I don't have to disprove your claim by stating how the universe was formed. It could have been any of a million ways, I suppose, none of which involve the Christian God as their creator. Suppose I told you I believed it was a computer simulation (some people actually believe this because it is not inconsistent with observed facts and calculations; I do not happen to believe this because I haven't been convinced by sufficient evidence for it yet). You would still have to prove there was such a thing as that Christian Creator God in which you believe. You are far from off the hook, and your argument is not the "gotcha" that your books about "how to debate an atheist" may have led you to think.

That's fair enough. Basicly your theory is that the universe could have been formed in any one of a million ways. Or you also think that the universe might have been formed as a result of a computer simulation.

realdanbreen wrote: »

You need to concentrate a bit more when reading my posts. I never said the creator was simple. Anyway I have laid out my stall for believing in a creator, what's your explanation for being in existance today?

The only part science really can't explain is how the universe started. We have a theory of the big bang that probably makes mathematical sense, but that's beyond me, I accept that the smart people know what they're doing. Our own solar system however we know a lot about. We know how it formed, through a natural process, we have a number of theories on how life took off that we probably won't be able to test properly until we find life somewhere else.

So even if some creator started the universe off knowing full well it would lead to life and a good possibility that there would be sentient life in it at some point. That doesn't mean the creator created us. We're the byproduct of a changing environment, we're the byproduct of millions of years of random events. I guess it could be argued god started it knowing how every atom would interact with every other atom over the course of billions of years, but it makes the whole process a bit redundant, if the god is all powerful and can do what he likes why spend billions of years making a universe to make a particular animal? Why not just make the animal. What does he want that animal for in the first place?

Ares Magnificent Kale wrote: »

You said religious people conform society. I said, it was religious people who forced the abolition of slavery and the use as young boys as chimney sweeps. Both agaisnt the wishes of the non religious people.
Would you have preferred if the "religious people" did nothing and these 2 practices continued. After all, they conformed society to their wishes, some you obviously object to!

Who were the non religious people that the Christians convinced to stop keeping slaves. If this happened in Europe most people that owned slaves would have also been Christian. The humanist movement among elites probably did as much to brings rights to commoners than religious dogma which had been around for thousands of years.