Atheism causes creationism

I've never heard one plausible explanation for why creationists would exist if not for their having believed those unfortunate "you can't believe in evolution and God" arguments, and then reacting to them by making their own form of evolution... or whatever it is they make their own form of.

Furthermore, I would put forward that it's not merely a catalyst, but the source of creationists. It's a very simple model, there are no competitors.

Also, I made this argument a year ago on afterhours (I'm mad) and it was not beacuse I read so and so, it was because it's a patently obvious conclusion to come. And I worry for some of the people who are so ideologically entrenched that they can't make this very simple connection.

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

In other words, what was the first cause, i.e. the uncaused cause ? Or did something spring from nothing ?

Nobody knows, but the default religious position i.e 'god did it', is a very very poor attempt at an explanation.

Why? Because not one single religious person, be they christian, muslim, jew or otherwise, has even the faintest notion of what a god would be, nor have they any clue whatsover of what form such an entity might take, or why it would be concered about the sex lives of two gays in Oklohoma. This notion that a creator of the universe should be uncannily like us in all our foibles is pathetic.

And yes, something could have sprang from nothing, nobody really knows what 'nothing' is anyway. So you're right in saying that there may be realities unavailable to our senses and that what we know may not be all there is. It's just that the mainstream religions have offered nothing by way of answering those questions, nor will they ever. In fact what answers they have offered by way of their holy texts have been embarrasingly naieve. In fairness those texts were a product of the times they were written in, but nowadays most people ought to know a little better.

Zombrex wrote: »

And a sun set is "only" photons cascading through the atmosphere. A water fall is "only" water droplets being pulled to Earth by gravity.

This constant need by (some) religious people to invent made up reasons to find something beautiful or wondrous other than because it is simply beautiful or wondrous is really quite distasteful. You can't enjoy something for what it is you have to make up a reason for why you should enjoy it as if you are embarrassed to simply find pleasure in things as they are.

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

There's this ludicrous idea that some religious people hold that because we understand a certain thing, we don't feel it. Just because we know that love is caused by chemical reactions in our brains doesn't mean we can't fall in love.

A man said it better than I even could

Isn’t this enough?

Just this world?

Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, NATURAL world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you’re so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just ****ing silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
Then whatever, that’s ok.
But here’s what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long
As my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting ****ty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties.

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Just as long as we agree with your opinon as to what is moral, what we should believe, how we should believe it, and how you think we should live.

Nah that would be a desperate and quite disingenuous straw man. The issue most atheists have is not with people of differing beliefs. In fact life would be very boring if everyone believed the same things on everything.

No the issue is with people who not just have, but espouse, entirely unsubstantiated beliefs… such as the idea there is a god. You can harp on about the “physical” all you like but at the end of the day some of us are asking for more than just the physical and STILL not getting any substantiation for god claims.

For example I ask for any evidence, argument, data OR Reasons to lend even a modicum of credence to the idea such an entity exists and despite casting the net that much wider than most I still do not get any replies back except for… as you put it yourself… “tired old ad hominem arguments”... or the tactic of submitting open questions as if open questions are evidence for baseless conclusions.

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

I have never seen anything else put forward to challenge them.

Not surprising because it is impossible to challenge a position that is asserted without any substantiation. The best you can do is enter into a "Yes there is, no there is not, yes there is, no there is not" childish circular argument. As long as the claims of theists are asserted based on nothing, then there IS nothing to challenge. The position is unassailable.

That is why theists go out of their way to NOT give any evidence, playing cards like "It is just faith" or "You have to go find the evidence for yourself" to cop out of presenting a shred of it. As long as they maintain a position of not substantiating their claims in any way, then the position is unassailable and un-falsifiable.

As Christopher Hitchens says however "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". As long as you simply assert there is a god without substantiating your claim in any way, you will not see anything to "challenge" that claim because you are offering nothing to BE challenged. You just declare your own fantasy and head for the door.