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Hm, but again, while I don't want to disagree with that one should be respectful towards personal beliefs, the influence of religion just goes beyond personal matters in practice.

For example, if laws are passed on religious grounds, say on abortion or gay marriage, how is one supposed to argue about them if one isn't to bring up religion?

Again, where I live the influence of religion is relatively small, but if I were in the US: As far as I can see, a politician in the US has only a chance of becoming president when he or she is a Christian (at least by appearance). Which is not surprising given the numbers I quoted about beliefs in the American population. So if I disagree with Christian values, how could I change this situation if not by trying to convince people to believe otherwise? Of course, it's unlikely that one could convince the more extreme cases on either side, but what about the more undecided?

What the fuck did I tell you guys? That this thread didn't have to go to hell, if you just acted at least a little civil! Fuuuck.

 

Edit: To clarify, you're not exactly being calm and civil either. Apart from that, personally I am not trying to "fuck things up" by any means, nor to be overly argumentative.

Morning!

No, you're right. I think I'm thinking of Leafsnail. The endless one quote reply posting ballooning into irrelevant nitpicking about words is bringing back memories of some sort anyway. I can't put my finger on the individual, but there's one here that I really dislike but it's been so long it might as well be the lot of atheists here.

It's really painfully ironic that you accuse atheists of indiscriminately attacking all theists, while constantly generalizing over all atheists ('all internet atheists are rude passive aggressive teenagers'), and even over the very individuals you're having a discussion with.

Plus, you yourself exhibit many of the characteristics you accuse atheists of, e.g. being aggressive.

Finally, you accuse atheists of being argumentative, but apparently you can't help arguing about the rationality or irrationality of religion either:

Do it. Address it. You know you want to.

You are familiar with the negative proof fallacy? Probably this half of it:

   there is no proof X is false
   therefore X is true

Did you know it has a sister half? And they're, gasp, teaching the following blasphemous logical fallacy in school?

   X has not been observed
   Therefore X does not exist

So? So you're saying, only because there's no clear evidence for god, it doesn't mean he doesn't exist? Well yes, that's true, and I guess most atheists wouldn't say "god cannot exist in any form whatsoever". I certainly don't.

But the problem is that it is impossible to prove that god does not exist in some form. The statement "there's an omnipotent god and he's just making it look like everything happens without him" is impossible to falsify.

What is possible, however, is to argue against specific concrete realizations of gods, such as the Christian god, whose existence (as Christian god) kind of relies on the bible making sense. Moreover, it is possible to argue that, given the lack of evidence, and given the existence of various conflicting accounts about god as given by the various religions, the most reasonable stance would be to be agnostic towards any specific realization of god.

Which leaves you with "I don't believe in the Christian god, and otherwise think that if there's a god, he's not relevant to my life", which is exactly what I hear many atheists say, including several people in this forum.

Coming back to what you said, no, lack of evidence does not mean something does not exist, but it surely seems irrational to base your life on something arbitrary that has no evidence whatsoever. After all, what if there's this space amoeba hiding somewhere in the universe that will haunt you in the afterlife unless you sacrifice a virgin everyday? Can you prove that it doesn't exist? Because if not, you better start sacrificing those virgins.

Having said that, I think many of the more modest theists nowadays actually would agree that their belief in god is irrational. It's after all based on faith. And I actually agree with you in so far that people should be more tolerant of people's personal beliefs. However, like I said before, that only goes so far as that. When it's about religion influencing other people's life however, about politics, law, education, or religion interfering with science, then I am strongly of the opinion that is has to be argued against.

Not basing a decision on religion does not automatically make it right or moral, but at least it removes an irrational aspect from the decision process.

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To quote the rest of the wikipedia passage  you used there:

"avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer." It's not specific at all. And other than that, we're getting off topic with the intelligent design thing.

It's part of their strategy to avoid the identity officially, but again you ignore the rest of the paragraph. But anyway.

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I was insultingly blunt where?

In my memory of B12 atheists from times past.

Haha what? So much about generalizations, again.

The Gods only moved with our understanding. To destroy religion, science would have to destroy the entire topic of superhuman agencies in creation. That topic has been in space-faring science fiction and space novels as long as I've been able to read.

But the gods are in the process of moving so far away that they barely have any role to play in our world anymore. With anything but an extreme minimalist definition of religion, religion only makes sense if the gods play a tangible role in the workings of the world.

The negative proof fallacy swings both ways.

Hu? Anyway, I'm afraid I have to go to bed. Good night!

Edit: Ninja'ed in parts.

I don't have much more to say, but for the record, I think you're mixing up creationism, intelligent design, and their definitions a little bit much. As far as I'm aware, the narrowest definition of creationism refers to a literal belief of the story in genesis (again, that's what essentially 45% of Americans believe, and that's what I meant when I talked about creationism). In the broadest sense it's the hypothesis that the universe and life etc. were created by supernatural entities. Neither fits this:

Creationism/Intelligent Design was the hypothesis that superhuman agencies could artificially create life.

It's not about "could".

Overgeneralize? Fine then:
AtheistsThe majority of atheists are far more aggressive, invasive, rude, ungraceful, and inconsiderate than they need be. Or better yet "The majority of all atheists I have ever met online".

Well, I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I guess that's partially a result of atheists being more dominant on the internet.

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What about believing that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."  Is that stupid enough to argue against?

"Stupid" as in dangerous. I was referencing to the previous example where a very religious person might do something that endangers their physical well being.

Well, see, me personally, I'm a scientist. I'm afraid arguing for science is part of my job.

Ps:

I agree that there are "better" religions than others. My favourite? Buddhism. Because I think that it promotes some valid and important philosophical insights. And:

Do not accept anything by mere tradition ... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures ... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions ... But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly.

Any religion that tells you to be sceptical and form your own opinion can't be that bad.

Hell, I don't even approve of those extreme religions. You don't even have to lead them away from God to get them somewhere happier. There's other arguably better religions to follow.

Ah, so there's good and bad religions? And by which measure is this decided?

And in every case regarding religion with questionable motivations, religion is used as an excuse for manipulating political or economic factors. You can't blame the excuses, and you can't blame the tools. You can't seriously ignore all other factors and actual motivations either. Someone actually sat down and decided "I'm going to be dick". Religion, at least the ones I promote, don't actually encourage this on their own.

Which religion would that be? Christianity? If so, are you denying that the bible is full of morally questionable content and rules?

Also, I'm not American myself, but what about these arguments about whether evolution or creationism should be taught in schools? How can this be resolved without having actual arguments in between atheists and theists?

Edit:

My rebuttal, no claim, is granted what he said is true, that still the majority of theists tend to make appeals to the other's well being in comparison to atheists in my experiences.

I just don't think so.

Also, in address to the recent fad of atheism, I should note that there are many who believe that such a collection of closed thinking individuals can really be detrimental to the mental well-being of some people.

Recent fad? Sorry dude, but as long as there is further scientific progress, religions will be on the retreat.