Trav,

Most child psychologists and evolutionary psychologists would possibly agree that the basis for humans being superstitious (Not spiritual) stems from the survival technique of assuming if one sees a lion’s footprint, a lion could be present. A god did not put this in the mind, survival did and those who didn’t get the message didn’t pass on their genes as sometimes the lion might have been present.

No one arrives at any religion independent of a culture.

I agree (As I continually state) that children should be taught about all religions and none and let them make a decision when they are mature enough to do so. How fairer can it be?

Very few people are brought up in a religion-free vacuum. Some swap around and find a religion that suits them better or drop religion altogether. This happens with all religions. Because you can name a handful of people, who take up Christianity is irrelevant.

Most Atheists are from religious cultures and there are lots of us. The most numerous swappers.

The fastest growing demographic in Australia is no religion. Does that make religion true or untrue? It is extraneous because argumentum ad populum is not a valid argument. If it was and there are more people in the Islamic faith than Christians, you would therefore have to be a Muslim. The same as you would be, statistically speaking, if you were raised in an Islamic culture.

“… vast majority of confirmed atheists would agree with the statement that “God does not exist”. Are you really going to deny that?”

Yes. And your posts suffer considerably because of this mistaken idea.

Agnostics make an erroneously equal claim for and against the god hypothesis. Atheists say there is no credible evidence for the god hypothesis. Big difference.

David

David,

This medium of communication is proving intensely frustrating for me!

Despite my best efforts to engage you, it still seems that you aren't actively confronting the best and most important points I'm making. There could be many reasons for this and the 4-post limit might be playing a major part as well. Perhaps it is lack of understanding. I'm not sure of the reason but I am definitely frustrated, because our discussion has not resulted in us understanding each other and engaging each other's views in a meaningful way.

So, let's keep it simple. I will talk about one point per post only. In this post I want to talk about evidence. Since the concept of evidence is so crucial to your definition of atheism, I expect that this will be interesting to you.

Earlier, you asked another poster if they had "universally accepted evidence" and you contrasted this with "guessing of so-called theologians".

Following on from this, I have three simple questions for you.

1. Do you agree with my earlier comment that lack of evidence for X is only evidence of X's absence if we would expect that the evidence did exist in the case that X existed?

2. What kind of evidence would you expect to see if a God existed?

3. What "universally accepted evidence" would convince you that there is a God?

Crabsy and Trav
Your arguments are nonsense. It is generally accepted that it is not possible to prove a negative.

Atheists hypothesis that there is a god. They then try to find evidence to support the hypothesis. They have found none so like Richard Dawkins they arrive at or very near the god does not exist end of the continuum. Dawkins states that he is at least at 6.5 out of seven.

The evidence that would satisfy me that a god exists would be if the evidence showed that the Epicurus long aphorism is wrong . In case you do not know it it is,
If god is willing to prevent evil but unable
Then he is not omnipotent
If he is able but not willing he is malevolent
If he is both able and willing
Whence cometh evil
If neither able nor willing
Why call him god.

As to ideology, I think you're conflating the AFA's stated position with its organizational characteristics.
Religious people often misrepresent atheism as a 'belief system', that's simply a crude strawman argument.

I'm a member of the AFA -- I'm simply expressing a personal opinion

Mac, why feel the need to be a member of a cult type organisation if you hold your own personal views on issues on all issues? One man or woman is able to move mountains without the support of an 'organisation' and their views.

Trav,

You have selectively skirted around that which I have made comment on and picked on irrelevancies that will not help with understanding any point of view.

You are not Jesus in the Temple with the Pharisees; you are a person supposedly with a case for theism conversing with another human being who only wants evidence. Don’t ask what kind of evidence, just the same kind of evidence that has convinced you this particular god exists.

I think we should keep it as it is. You are postulating a god exists, no doubt, that god is Yahweh/Jesus, so then you have to supply evidence for its existence. I do not have to prove anything.

But not only that you have to supply evidence for the nexus between the assumed Yahweh/Jesus god of your assumptions showing it is the god that created everything.

There is no point going off into waffle-land about absence of evidence etc because that is only a defensive position, not an affirmative one.

Now, let’s have the evidence so the whole planet can accept that your particular god, amongst the thousands that have purportedly existed by your very same reasoning, actually exists.

Convince me Trav, and I will no longer be an Atheist.

These other diversions you bring up are a result of a closeted religious mind. That’s ok to think that way if you will, but don’t expect others to go down that road without evidence.

BTW, universally accepted evidence is somewhat similar to the law of gravity where every one on the planet who understands it has the same view.

Let’s hear your evidence. I wait patiently, ready to be convinced your particular god exists.

Oh, and you might add a sub note as to why the other 4,000 gods don’t exist.

David

Trav,

I noticed you dodged a question of David’s, so I’ll ask what I think David was getting at with slightly different wording:

How do you get from the philosophical concept of an ‘uncaused first cause’ to ‘therefore Jesus’, without indoctrination?

I’ve asked this before from a Christian who violated 1 Peter 3:15 by simply dodging the question with the suggestion that I wasn’t sophisticated to understand.

<<And regarding indoctrination...>>

Yes, regarding indoctrination, have you ever wondered why religious parents feel the need to start indoctrinating their children so early in life? Why, it’s almost as if they feel an urgency to get in there before the critical thinking skills kick in.

As for your list of intelligent theists - who cares? Religion is a purely emotional experience, not a considered/rational conclusion. Are you suggesting that it’s impossible for an intelligent person to be very right-brained? Do you not see any significance in the fact that they virtually always choose the predominant religion in their culture?

I witnessed a lot of conversions to Christianity in my church-going days and I can tell you now, they all result from some sort of non-rational/emotional need and we’ve all heard them before: wife beating, alcoholism, excessive gambling, etc.; anything from those to just a general feeling of emptiness.

It is actually possible for people believe things for bad reasons too, you know - regardless of their intelligence. Can you list any objective/rational reasons for the conversions of the people you listed? I can give you some irrational ones. Take C.S. Lewis for example. After reading the Bible he came up with his famous trilemma, which was actually a quadrilemma with the fourth (and most likely) ‘L’ being ‘legend’; yet he failed to mention that one.

I realise there are some less literal Christians on this thread who quite happily admit that there is no empirical evidence for god, but this doesn’t help their position as it only tell us that they don’t really care so much about the truth of their beliefs.

<<All of those people are extremely well educated and intelligent...>>

Continued...