[diseeKeythilt]

The burden of proof is not on athiests though.

I dont feel there is a burden of proof on either party, as their would be in a scientific debate. neither position is proveable, by any ways or means.

At the end of the day if the atheists are right then 'grats dude' you backed the right horse. youre still going to oblivion. If you follow the ideals and precedents of a compassionate religion and that was the right horse to back....what have you lost by being an upstanding citizen all your life

[Immarsecice]

what is there that says an athiest can't be an upstanding citizen just because they feel it's the right thing to do?

I mean, I think I am.

I don't see why it's not a scientific debate. It should be.

[radicalvolume]

Because it's impossible to have a rational discussion with religious people.

[ancexttew]

You can't force someone to believe something. You can only force them to pretend to believe something, what's the point of that?

George Orwell disagrees.

[shieclulaweew]

George Orwell disagrees.

And he's right. Furthermore, if you can't convince the current generation, you can brainwash the children.

[Andrew1978]

Most people who believe in God, believe that He doesn't arrive through physical processes (but rather, defined them/imagined them) so most of your stated reasons for your thoughts about God, Mike, just don't make sense.

God is, for most, inherently a metaphysical discussion.

JM

[Nemerov]

George Orwell disagrees.

I think he dosen't really grasp human nature. Its perfectly possible to simultaneously to believe two or more contradictory things. Or even blatantly false things.

To quickly disprove him, the illusion of group think can easily be used to convince a individual to believe something that is false. And we can actually check this.

MRIs are awesome that way I really don't understand why they are unadmissable in court

[MichaelfromSpace]

I think he dosen't really grasp human nature.

So says the Nazi

[ziIReIGS]

[Susanleech]

Because if they were successful we'd be overrun by sea otters.

[Ztcgtqvb]

Anyone who's read my posts about religion knows that broadly I agree with that too.

I think that on balance, a lot of alleged 'Christians' seem to miss that point entirely, certainly the peace, poverty and forgiveness parts and at the moment religion causes us more problems in modern society than it benefits. Because the fanatics tend to outshout the moderates.

A bit like here where Ben gets so much more attention than the extremely reasonable and well balanced religious posters like Jon Miller, Imran and the rest. They are people you can have a reasoned and respectful debate with, who hold their religious views within the context of the modern world. I know that some of the more extreme religious posters can draw out more extreme reactions from me. ie. Ben drives me mental. But he drives them mental too.

[forexsoft]

My buddy actually went to the local Opus Dei office to talk to them about there being no God and how can they live their lives in this illusion. Hilarious story.

[boiffrona]

lazy to translate. Maybe later.

[soineeLom]

Public education, not cramming things down student's throats since 1927.

Yeah, so you consider teaching somebody how to read and basic math is a bad thing

[giftplas]

I've said it before: when discussing the existence of God, the concept of probability is meaningless. Of course, pretty much every argument about the existence of God is meaningless; "scientific proof," for example, is of dubious utility, because anything admissible as scientific evidence (repeatable when the experiment is performed by different scientists) would not be perceived as divine, just another natural phenomenon. Occam's Razor, aside from being a rule of thumb and not a scientific law, rests on the word "simple," which can be twisted to mean anything (Kuci once argued for a specific kind of simplicity, but I couldn't understand how the Wiki link he gave me was applicable), and in practice means that the individual can freely reject God as long as he pleases in favor of any other explanation he pleases to label as "simpler." And so on.

But really, appeals to probability are emblematic of the problem with the whole argument, because they show how we overextend things we know to an arena where they do not necessarily apply. Probability depends on knowing the full set of outcomes and the likelihood of each. In this context, "probability" means nothing more or less than "what my current worldview inclines me to want to think."

And (I've said this before too) if "God Helmets" disprove God in any way, my ability to masturbate makes the existence of women highly suspect.

[Ivanaishere]

Reason, yes. Science, no, because science is a reasoning process which by its very nature excludes the supernatural from consideration. But yes, it's pretty pointless to argue about it.

[TpDoctorOneTp]

Anyone who's read my posts about religion knows that broadly I agree with that too.

I think that on balance, a lot of alleged 'Christians' seem to miss that point entirely, certainly the peace, poverty and forgiveness parts and at the moment religion causes us more problems in modern society than it benefits. Because the fanatics tend to outshout the moderates.

I think you're equating political fanatic with Christian fanatic. It's more fanatical to forgive, accept and leave all ideologies behind.