An Afterlife? (gotta love me^^)Follow

Each person has to weigh the evidence they have collected and decide if it is enough to disuade them from their beliefs. In this case the various pieces of evidence I have collected are enough to disuade me from belief of the easter bunny or santa claus. It may not be enough to disuade you which is fine, I am ok with the idea of you or anyone else continuing the belief of them.

If you are able to provide me with adequate evidence that they do exist and that my evidence is incorrect perhaps I will have to adjust my belief system


Hence your belief system is as valid as believing in the Easter Bunny, QED.

So long as you're ok with that fact, all is well.

Personaly, I have slightly higher standard for my own personal beliefs.

That wasn't a debate, that was repetative boring crap, i like debates, even if i lose them, and that was definately not enjoyable in any sense of the word. When i say this i mean that because you cant prove that it IS enjoyable, i am right to say it could never be, and if you ask me about it, i'll just repeat this scentence to you, re-worded.

If by that you mean it's open minded and able to grow as I do then thanks for the debate. Im sorry it's not up to your standards.


My standards should't be important you. I don't have a problem with people who believe anything untill they try to convince other people.

I just think you're just a little to scared to be an Atheist and have decided to go with your current thing. I'd be surprised if you're not an Athiest in ten years.

Atheists and are funny people, for a group that claims to have all the answers (read: there are none, it's all one big cosmic coincidence), they sure have found a nice relious niche to seek saftey and solace in ;)


No, Atheists are just willing to say "I don't know" about scary questions instead of accepting answers created to ally people's fears. Atheists are the only ones with courage enough to accept the fact that we just don't know the answer.


By agreeing with other people who have similar religious beliefs (read: none), they get to have the same warm fuzzy feeling any Christian does, being ("well if I'm wrong and when I die there IS somebody standing there all P.O.ed, at least all these assh0les are coming with me ;)


Not really. There aren't many meetings of Atheists. I don't go hang out with my Atheist freinds in a big building on Sunday to sing hyms about the lack of a God and how he didn't send his son to not die for my sins.


I just find it tragic that the "minister of your own religion" laws require some sort of cosmic entity to be involved in order to getto then nice tax cuts ;_;


Um, yeah.




BTW atheists, don't think I dislike you personally, I hold the same contempt for anyone who's beliefs originate from fear &/or a need for the whole safety in numbers thing ;)


You're talking about the one group of people that the opposite is true of. There are less Atheists than "theists". You could argue some people are Atheists to fit into some sort of peer pressure driven "cool" esteic or something, I guess, but fear certainly isn't a driving force.

Lets compromise on your offer, i'll agree to shut up, and we can both walk away, i don't think we can chose what state our dignity is in.

Kind of makes sense that *religion* developed in human society. Must've been way scary to watch the sun disappear each day and wonder if it was going to come back. (and similar impressive natural events)

Anyway, the strongest driving force we possess is our fear of death, the curse of awareness of our own mortality. And life has always been pretty brutal and random. Bad things happen to good people as well as *bad* people.

It's not surprising that belief systems developed that support people through tough times - *religion is the opiate of the masses*.

Just seems so obvious to me that there is no basis in fact or logic for any religious beliefs. For many atheism is a hard reality to accept but the only choice for me. And in the end, it just makes every human life that much more precious because it's all we have.

In the end there can be only one truth, a rose by any other name is still a rose.

I know, I know, just as the major players in a debate agree to disagree, some git with 15 posts to his name get's done reading the whole thread and brings up silly **** from 3 pages ago :P

Quote:

The Big Bang theory is in itself just a theory, so how can it be any more plausible than there being a creator? Infact, it is more possible to believe that there is a creator, and science proves that.

One of my favorite Christian/catholic etc arguments really. Even within the bounds of the Bible, Why is the possibility of the whole sand>man rib>woman thing being a metaphor so incredible? Or is the creation of a "Big Bang" too tall an order for god? Not to say there is sufficient evidence for either, but I've just always loved how people can discount decent theory with quite a bit of agreeable evidence simply because it's not in the handbook verbatim.

Quote:

Ok this has gone past the point of an argument, and now consists of xythex defending his statements at any cost, xythex knows he is wrong, and he knows that we know that he knows he is wrong. Keep diggin xythex, your'e doing a good job, or at least its keeping you away from reality.

Actually I thought Xythex did rather well, considering he was turned in to the common enemy in the last few pages. The reason I love these discussions online is because I rarely will participate IRL... it always degrades to what happened here. These discussions should be an unbiased exchange of ideas, but very few people I've met can detach themselves from their beliefs enough to keep from debasing ideas they can't see the logic in/can't wrap their hatracks around. While I disagree with Xythex as much as I agree with him, he definitely maintained his composure the longest... you get a cookie ;)

Quote:

By agreeing with other people who have similar religious beliefs (read: none), they get to have the same warm fuzzy feeling any Christian does, being ("well if I'm wrong and when I die there IS somebody standing there all P.O.ed, at least all these assh0les are coming with me ;)

Not really. There aren't many meetings of Atheists. I don't go hang out with my Atheist freinds in a big building on Sunday to sing hyms about the lack of a God and how he didn't send his son to not die for my sins.

ROFL rate up for the visual ^_^

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Just in case anyone cares (doubt it)
I guess I just can't comprehend spontaneous creation... how can there be an "accident" if there wasn't a planned result, and something planning it? Not to say I have found a religion I agree with, or a definition of god for that matter, and I've studied many, from Christianity to Tao to Satanism, and found wisdom in each, (except for Scientology, g0ddamn thas some funny **** :D). I can't comprehend the lack of a purpose to all this, but I see no way a "God" could create free will (yes, I believe in no predetermined, undeniable "Fates") and set the rules in opposition. I suppose I feel there must be an afterlife, meaning a progression, an evolution beyond the physical, but I have no idea what it would be. Above all, my morality is based on perhaps the one thing I'm sure of, that when I do go, the only "judgement" I fear is my own... for who's could be more objective?



Edited, Fri Jul 2 21:44:05 2004 by lerrisB

Edited, Fri Jul 2 21:44:37 2004 by lerrisB

No way! Real strawberry tastes like ***. Cherry Garcia rocks! WTF is wrong with you?


BTW, to rephrase that, there is a fine line from heatedly telling someone to backup their mouth, or to expand on their beliefs, and letting it degrade into "My God's better than Your Dog!" "is not!" "is too"... and as here, it always disolves into the latter :P


Edited, Sat Jul 3 06:38:39 2004 by lerrisB

/shrugs
I'm only human. I dislike bullshyters, waht can I say? Would you believe them? they're usually just trying to make themselves look special by lying about their beliefs.
i dunno.. I've jsut been haning around with too many sceptics to believe anyone else. I should just form a cult

Smasharoo wrote:


No, Atheists are willing to say that they DO in fact know that there is NOthing..period.
Agnostics is waht you're thinking of I believe....which IMHO is a step up in thinking.



This is a good point. HOwever why is it such a tall order for us to believe that we do not have the mental faculties to comprehend waht the total truth is and instead each must attach names, shapes, and other earthly attributes to things that are clearly beyond our plane of being,these attachments being based on our own idividual experiences in life.

If we all lived in differnt color rooms I think we'd be trying to convince each other that the whole world is the color of our own rooms. This is utterly typical of human nature.




well, is there any basis in fact or logic to
-----------> THIS!

Hey, I thought you said you ditched Existentialism.

Oh...its all clear to me now, thanks.