with all this crap about not believing it does not change the simple fact that all will be held accountable to their Maker. A fool says in their heart their is no god. Atheism has and always will be a very poor excuse for living life as if you are not accountable to anyone.

Poor Runner et al., I watched a rather amusing film last night, Ricky Gervais (from Extras and The Office) called 'The Invention of Lying'.

My son tells me that when he saw this on a flight from UK to here it was heavily censored to prevent people, maybe those like Runner, from diving out the rear door.

Seems that when his mate saw it in Brisbane large parts of the audience evaporated, so offended were they by it.

It is very mild indeed, but quite amusing, and worth a look for those who both believe, and do not believe.... could be some material for 'holding the tongue' discussions.

In a world that has no lies at all and no one 'guards their tongues', Ricky discovers how to lie, by accident, to assist his mother to die with some illusion of peace.... he invents an afterlife of mansions, love and joy.

He is overheard by the staff at the hospital and quizzed about how he knows all this new information about 'the afterlife', and is forced to make up a story about 'the man in the sky', which everyone falls for...and you can all work out the rest.

McReal makes a good point too, about Golden Brown's comments being broadcast... not really very ethical of the Sky people was it?

AJP, I intend to visit the Qld Humanists' national conflab in Brisbane later this month...if you were to attend, look for the man with the 666 tattoo on the forehead, and the green carnation, in the dark brown overcoat, and we can have a beer...in the meantime, keep spruiking the wares.

Runner,
All you're sprouting here are your own personal opinions and other wild guesses about atheism and other non-believers.

Your religious mates might readily grab such trash and accept it, but many won't because the facts speak for themselves.

If atheism were such a "poor excuse for living" then one would expect to find jails full of non-believers.

Actually, the reverse is true.

You're probably not interested in factual eveidence, but if you decide that it might make a nice change, then see for yourself...
http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

Atheists do not require the threats of eternal damnation to do the right thing. They choose to live a life of compassion, understanding and justice because it is the right thing to do for a coherent society, regardless of what YOU might believe.

It saddens me that you have been so effectively indoctrinated so as to believe in such nonsense. But then again, maybe you prefer that to the truth.

Runner, I began to doubt the authenticity of what I was being taught at a church school because I could not accept that a loving god would prefer the smell of burning flesh as an offering instead of an offering of grain.

Tell us, how do you reconcile such an act with the supposed "creator of the universe"?

Moreover, there are literally hundreds of other examples of the "word of god" openly supporting, suggesting or demanding slavery, genocide, mutilation, rape, murder, stoning to death, misogyny and other currently unacceptable behaviour.

If biblical laws were enacted in the USA today, there would be millions of homosexual men and women put to death, as well as millions of difficult teenagers and anyone working on a Sunday, to name just a few (millions).

How do you reconcile that?

These are just a few of the points that have made me a non-believer.

Are these the points that have made you a believer, or are you embarassed by them?

Ah, Runner. Why is it that whenever I read one of your posts, I imagine a person hunched over a keyboard with a forked tongue flickering out occasionally?

<<with all this crap about not believing it does not change the simple fact that all will be held accountable to their Maker.>>

When you find some reliable proof for your claim, come and see me.

Oh, and just remember, this “Adamic nation” you keep referring to means nothing until you can explain and demonstrate what the world would be like without a god or this so-called “Adamic nature”.

Do you think we’d all be perfect in a Godless universe? That wouldn’t say much for god now, would it? But I guess - according to Christian mythology - god was the one who knowingly set us up to fail to begin with.

The fact that we are capable of doing wrong comes from our free will - something we wouldn’t have if god existed. Because if an all-knowing and all-seeing god created us knowing what was going to happen in advance, then everything is pre-determined and we don’t have a choice about what we do or what is going to happen.

Back to reality...

I’ve been thinking more about this misconception out there that atheism is a claim to absolute knowledge and/or absolute certainty, or that atheism is a belief system in itself - a misunderstanding that has many atheists referring to themselves, instead, as “agnostics” or “sceptics” - and I was wondering what the implications would be if this were actually the case; what would it mean?

I think it would mean three things...

1. Virtually all non-believers (including myself) would have to abandon the label of “atheist” (not that we should have to have a label to begin with simply because some choose to adopt fantastical beliefs).

3. It would then set a precedent for any old organisation - providing they were big enough and influential enough - to simply wreck the meaning of words for their own selfish and deceiving purposes (Although, this precedent may already have been set, I'm not sure, I don't know much about linguistics but I'd doubt that it's ever happened to this order of magnitude).

Let’s remember here, that the only reason theists narrow and alter the definition of atheism is to denigrate it by dragging it down to the same dogmatic level of the narrow belief system they’re stuck in. They seem to have difficulty accepting, or envious of the fact that atheists get to be the freethinkers .

2. The term “atheist” would then become obsolete and we’d then need to consider a different term to refer to non-believers.

But on second thoughts, getting rid of the term “atheist” and not replacing it could be a good thing. I mean, part of the reason there’s so much confusion out there is because we actually have a term for people who expect evidence before accepting wild claims that go against everything we observe.

We don’t called jurors “not-guiltyists”, or people who don’t believe in leprechauns “a- leprechaunists”.

Anyway, this is a bit off topic and my wife is nagging at me to “stop arguing with idiots” and just start blog or something, so I’m off...

Dear o dear,
I went away for a few days, just when the debate gets interesting!

I want to get back to ethics as that's supposed to be the trump card that all religios pull out to defend their nonsense.

Quite apart from the fact that all the Abrahamic denominations have an appalling ethical record (a long multi-strand history of barbarism between them), their so-called 'ethics' are nothing more than anachronistic tribalism, which does more harm than good. By which I mean that religious ethics foster racial and gender prejudice and are arguably, and ironically, largely 'responsible' for the excesses their ethics are meant to prevent!
The Catholic veto against homosexuality, for instance, combined with clerical celibacy, is tantamount to propagating the very behaviour it pretends to condemn. Is it not a plausible scenario to suggest that gay men, in a homophobic society, might take refuge in a celibate priesthood; either sincerely to expiate their 'sinful' thoughts, or to receive 'succour' and indulge them? The ones I pity are those who buy into and are tortured by the ethical moratorium imposed on their sexual orientation; what chance do they have of 'purifying' themselves among the nearly exclusive society of men! Their ethics are an instrument of torture! As are Christian/Islamic ethics generally; such ethics evoke, and are manifest in, a range of unhealthy preoccupations: self-flagellation, sexism, sadism and masochism, for instance. The fact that practices like B&D are 'unethical' is what makes them so tempting! Are not nuns staple fare in western male fantasy? The idea of seducing and 'violating' an attractive nun is fantasy heaven for a lot of men (including myself)! And women in the full Berka are symbolic of their 'full' subservience, and of course man's concomitant power! An ego as well as a sexual turn for many, I would hazard!
The ethics fostered by religions are largely responsible, in my view, for the 'deviant' behaviour they set-up to stamp out.

Yet I do believe we need ethics ...

The atheists I know, btw, are highly ethical; without being narcissistic about it, or making a fetish ethics!