Trav... 'principles' has aspects of my questions to be answered.

This is yours:

"You're asking for answers to questions which effectively ask the Christian to map the mind of God's decisions" but isn't that what they do, when we are told that God sent his son to...etc etc.? If God is so mysterious, then mere mortals would never comprehend the purpose, or they'd then be equal to God, would they not?

"But why should a Christian be obliged or even necessarily be able to find an answer to every question?" simply because they make so many claims about 'what is' but rarely if ever produce evidence, apart from Mary McKillop style of course.

"After all, there's plenty of questions the atheist has no answer for- for example, why matter is eternal ('eternal'? Is it really? How do we know that since we are not there yet? Surely, if it were eternal, then it would have had no start date either? Particularly a mere 6000 years ago) or why matter came from nothingness?". Did it?, no idea on that one, and it's really not something that concerns me at all either.

Some things just 'are' or at least until we have a better explanation for them.

I suspect nobody knows whether there is a supernatural god of any sort.

That's why people call their hunch, 'faith'.

They have no real idea, only faith...little more than hope, or in Howard terms, an 'aspiration'.

Celivia reminded us of the Harris argument that we should not have the word 'atheist', and a few point to the 'religion' of afairyism too.

It seems too easy an explanation for 'things' to me. Far harder to comprehend, is the idea that it really doesn't matter.

"So I don't see why it's fair to hold theists to a much higher standard (as far as I can tell, believers have no standards at all, just assertions). If God does exist, there's most certainly a mysterious element to him" (a bit more than an 'element' I'd have thought, particularly from the believer's side).

I suspect that the very basis of the atheist's rejection of God is the awareness of the transcendence of a God who can never be defined because to try and define God, as christians in particular like to do, is to limit God. Therefore the only way out of the mess is to deny the existence of God. It is the theistic God that Christianity worships and tries to force on human beings.It is the theistic God that atheists reject for this reason whether they are aware of it or not.
I, lke the atheists, too deny God. BUT it is the theistic God I reject. I believe that God is. The rest of the predicate is irrelevant. It isnt the transcendence that I respond to but the immanence of God.

socratease

Atheists are shallow and self-centered sad individuals with no depth to them at all! And usualy criminal in their contempt! Why do the right thing! is their moto!

Excellent posts Celivia, TBC, Bushbasher and Principles.

One thing this thread has clarified for me is my label which is:

A-theist, A-Fairy, A-Easterbunny, A-Santaclaus and I guess I'm A-Christ as well because virgins giving birth is only possible for hermaphrodites - humans require two sexes. Now if Mary was a hermaphrodite, she could only have given birth to a clone of herself - a female, not Jesus. Methinks that Joseph had some input into Jesus.

Another thing I and many other people who do not believe in god or formal religions, are decent law-abiding, caring and compassionate people. With these qualities in mind, I will forgive the likes of Peterson for their childish name calling and contempt.

Also I would like to reinforce what Celivia has already pointed out to those carrying such awesome planks in their eyes, that calling someone like Dawkins extremist or militant while, through their silence, condoning the murder of doctors, harassment of women, homosexuals and the bombing of medical clinics is at the very least hypocritical and at most reprehensible.

All Dawkins has done is given his reasons - well-researched and evidence based reasons, for not believing in a god and rejecting the dogma that has been written by men about this deity. At no time has he exhibited strident behaviour or encouraged anyone to harm others, which religious people do frequently, tax-free and with impunity. Until now. Until people have started to say enough is enough.

We were born with the ability to reason, to think, to assess the real from the fantasy based on example and evidence - to blindly follow religious dogma is to deny the very abilities we were born with.

>>Yet another discussion thread hijacked by believers<< (principles)
I went through the motions of checking: of the 45 contributors to this discussion thread, 33 called themselves explicitly atheists or expressed sympathies for atheist positions.

Clearly, Severin, you are an A-lister!