Two scientists discuss why they became atheist, or why they became Christian

Daylight63 said:
Clearly. I'd recommend Sam Harris or maybe Christopher Hitchens. Although Hitchens punches kind of hard from time to time.

But honestly the best writings that I find that confirm my atheism to be some of the less biased histories of the Bible and the origins of the Christian faith. No doubt the same sort of things could be said about every single religion (but some won't necessarily allow it). It's the evidence of the firm hand of man in not only generating but expanding the concept of God.

The less "atheist useful" stuff is the more philosophical views of God as some sort of "essence of order" in the universe or some such. The "Deistic" type of God is attractive for the simple reason that it so seldom has any specific REQUIREMENTS to explain it or understand it. It is a placeholder for a concept to be understood at a later time. It's really hard to draw any meaningful positions from such a broadly ecumenical and nearly incomprehensibly vague description of God. And it's almost impossible to debate against that sort of position.

The thing I find fascinating about Collins' position is one that I find from a close personal friend of mine. A very intelligent person who determined that of all the concepts of God the Christian concept seems to this person to be the most logical. I obviously differ in opinion on this, but I've definitely seen it before. It appears Collins was in need of the supernatural to help him better appreciate what he saw in nature. But it just so happened that the faith he most assuredly grew up surrounded by (even if he was not involved) was the one that he settled on, that made the most sense to him. But the jump from "unknown explanatory variable" to "Being from a small colony of the Roman Empire that one must literally believe in in order to achieve salvation and who is simultaneously God and Not-God seems a bit of a stretch in the INFERENCE department.
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why is a scientist's opinion on religion so important to you?

scientists are often asperger sociopaths when it comes to issues of morality.
 
Lao Tse said:
why is a scientist's opinion on religion so important to you?
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It's times like this when I really wish you were able to read.

Lao Tse said:
scientists are often asperger sociopaths when it comes to issues of morality.
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Fuck off. Seriously you are nothing but a drag on this conversation. Just sit this one out, please? You add nothing and really just annoy people. Is that your game? Just to piss people off at you?

Why?

What is wrong with you?
 
Daylight63 said:
It's times like this when I really wish you were able to read.



Fuck off. Seriously you are nothing but a drag on this conversation. Just sit this one out, please? You add nothing and really just annoy people. Is that your game? Just to piss people off at you?

Why?

What is wrong with you?
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what is more important about religion, the creation story or the moral teachings?

why are atheists invariably supportive of totalitarian scientism and eugenics?
 
Daylight63 said:
Freedom. Freedom from any sort of imaginary thought crime.
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That's not a universal atheist principle published in any atheist Canon.

Where atheists have been given state power, they were never examples of freedom, whether in Soviet Russia, Communist China, Khmer Cambodia, or even revolutionary France.

Nietchze was not a fan of democracy. Sartre was a communist, even a Stalinist. Marx hated democracy. I'm not sure where Freud stood, but these are the big names in atheist intellectualism, and I don't see them as important voices for freedom.

There are undoubtedly individual atheists who believe in personal choice and freedom from coercion. But that is not a universal atheist principle published in any widely accepted atheist canonical literature.

The reason concepts of freedom have traction in western history is because of Jefferson, Locke, Mill, Voltaire, Madison. Wilberforce, MLK, etc. These weren't really atheists. Mill and Voltaire were probably agnostic
 
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Cypress said:
That's not a universal atheist principle published in any atheist Canon.

Where atheists have been given state power, they were never examples of freedom, whether in Soviet Russia, Communist China, Khmer Cambodia, or even revolutionary France.

Nietchze was not a fan of democracy. Sartre was a communist, even a Stalinist. Marx hated democracy. I'm not sure where Freud stood, but these are the big names in atheist intellectualism, and I don't see them as important voices for freedom.

There are undoubtedly individual atheists who believe in personal choice and freedom from coercion. But that is not a universal atheist principle published in any widely accepted atheist canonical literature.
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yes.

they all use their atheism to normalize atrocities and mass murder.

Marx clearly worshipped Satan.
 
Cypress said:
That's not a universal atheist principle published in any atheist Canon.
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LOL. Atheist canon. Good one!

Cypress said:
Where atheists have been given state power, they were never examples of freedom, whether in Soviet Russia, Communist China, Khmer Cambodia, or even revolutionary France.
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That's a standard critique of atheism that I'm used to seeing from more evangelical Christians.

Stalin did NOT kill millions because of some dedication to "atheism". He killed millions because he was a psychopath. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were not killing Cambodians out of some fealty to "atheism". They killed all those people out of a pursuit of power. The list goes on.

On the flip side we DO have countless examples of religious groups murdering in the name of their god or their religion.

"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" comes from the Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century and the orginal Latin (Kill them all, Surely God will know his own") was uttered (allegedly) by the Papal Legate from Rome ("Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.").

The other crusades were made up of people who honestly believed they were working in service to God to retake the Holy Land regardless of who had to be killed.

And it's not just Christianity. Islam was spread by the point of a sword in the Middle East.

People can be killed in many religions for the sin of abandoning that religion.

But even if one wishes to somehow make the two sides equivalent (ie they were both just pursuit of power over others and neither is done in the actual name of their philosophies), it doesn't make atheism somehow "worse" than religion.

Religion never once stopped someone from doing whatever evil was truly in their heart and atheism never stopped someone from doing whatever good was in their heart and vice versa.

The fact that, at the end of the day, religion doesn't necessarily bring advantages that atheism is incapable of is evidence that neither philosophy has a lock on being a "better" philosophy than the other.

Cypress said:
The reason concepts of freedom have traction in western history is because of Jefferson, Locke, Mill, Voltaire, Madison. Wilberforce, MLK, etc. These weren't really atheists. Mill and Voltaire were probably agnostic
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I don't believe one must have a religious belief system to believe in freedom. That sounds absurd on the face of it. But I am willing to hear your hypothesis out.
 
Daylight63 said:
Freedom. Freedom from any sort of imaginary thought crime. And possibly an unvarnished view of reality. It also brings with it the possibility of eliminating one more made-up differentiator between people. We already put ourselves in silos and act as if the other silos are not worthy.

It also opens the door to a much harder task of figuring out the world without reliance on something that we made up to feel better about the explanations.

As Cypress has noted: the scientist does not claim perfect knowledge. But by the same token, the scientist does NOT say "...therefore any idea is equal to every other idea."
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Freedom? LMFAO
 
Daylight63 said:
That's insulting. Do you have a reason why you say that? I mean other than your personal distaste for atheists. Do you have any ACTUAL reason to believe that statement?
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No true intellectual would be an atheist, because that means they believe all creation was a coincidence
 
Daylight63 said:
LOL. Atheist canon. Good one!



That's a standard critique of atheism that I'm used to seeing from more evangelical Christians.

Stalin did NOT kill millions because of some dedication to "atheism". He killed millions because he was a psychopath. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were not killing Cambodians out of some fealty to "atheism". They killed all those people out of a pursuit of power. The list goes on.

On the flip side we DO have countless examples of religious groups murdering in the name of their god or their religion.

"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" comes from the Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century and the orginal Latin (Kill them all, Surely God will know his own") was uttered (allegedly) by the Papal Legate from Rome ("Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.").

The other crusades were made up of people who honestly believed they were working in service to God to retake the Holy Land regardless of who had to be killed.

And it's not just Christianity. Islam was spread by the point of a sword in the Middle East.

People can be killed in many religions for the sin of abandoning that religion.

But even if one wishes to somehow make the two sides equivalent (ie they were both just pursuit of power over others and neither is done in the actual name of their philosophies), it doesn't make atheism somehow "worse" than religion.

Religion never once stopped someone from doing whatever evil was truly in their heart and atheism never stopped someone from doing whatever good was in their heart and vice versa.

The fact that, at the end of the day, religion doesn't necessarily bring advantages that atheism is incapable of is evidence that neither philosophy has a lock on being a "better" philosophy than the other.



I don't believe one must have a religious belief system to believe in freedom. That sounds absurd on the face of it. But I am willing to hear your hypothesis out.
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You're talking about religious wars that happened a thousand years ago. There hasn't been a major war between Christian ideologies in 500 years.


I'm talking about the state atheism that occurred within the last century and up to today. Scientific atheism of Marxist-Leninism was a key component of totalitarian communism, and the system resulted in mass oppression. Ad did the atheism of the French Revolution.

Anyone who wants to claim freedom is inherent and foundational in the atheist belief system, has to be able to explain why state atheism, wherever it took root, resulted in tyranny.

You also have to explain what you mean by freedom. Most Americans think it just means the freedom to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't hurt another person.

In that sense, I say religion doesn't advocate for that kind of freedom at all. Spiritual and moral freedom, in religious contexts, definitely place substantial constraints on being able to do whatever you want.
 
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