That’s because you can’t, mhaze.

<<… if that's what you need to tell yourself, then so be it. I don't feel the need to re-litigate your misunderstandings here.>>

There are never any links or quotes to any of your slanderous claims because none of them are true, and you know it. You just make them up.

<<And then my dismantling of your falsely held views would be just cruel.>>

Oh, please, by all means, go ahead. Let’s see this “dismantling” in action, shall we?

No? I didn’t think so.

It’s a common ploy of yours, isn’t it, to pretend that you’re too gentlemanly to embarrass your opponents (while simultaneously slandering them). But only where claims you cannot substantiate are concerned, naturally. If you think you can dismantle a claim, you're quite happy to go right ahead and do it.

<<Atheism encompasses many different beliefs united in their rejection of a deity.>>

Such as?

Your last list was a flop. So, what else have you got for us? Or are you just going to assert it now?

‘Atheism’ is not a ‘their’, by the way. Not even if you’re trying to be gender-neutral.

<<As Chesterton said, “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.”>>

Well, I don’t just believe in anything. You don’t just believe in anything. Going by their posting histories, Rache and mac don’t appear to just believe in anything. So, clearly, he was wrong. But, hey, attach a famous and pretentious-sounding name to a quote, and suddenly it becomes true. Isn't that right?

--

God exists: the only proposition of which the rejection requires absolute certainty. Acceptance, apparently, has no such requirement; and even when it’s achieved, it is never ridiculed.

Dear mhaze,

You wrote;

"As Chesterton said, “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.”"

No he didn't.

The closest quote is when he had Father Brown in The Oracle of the Dog say “It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.”

Others with an agenda similar to yours have embellished it.

If you would be so kind please refrain from attributing it to Chesterton again.

Steele, I'm sure that MHaze will be flattered that you put him in company with Umberto Ecco, who also wrongly attributed this "quote" to Chesterton. But as you can see here https://www.chesterton.org/ceases-to-worship/ it appears to accurately extract the thoughts of Chesterton, so big deal if he never said it. We could attribute the quote to every other misattributor, and the thought would still have an impressive provenance.

But who cares if it is misattribution? It is the sentiment that is important, not the person who is alleged to utter it, unless you invest him with some sort of omniscience. But you wouldn't do that because I sense that not only don't you believe in God, but you don't believe in the possibility of God. So an omniscient being, called GK Chesterton would be a huge philosophical, and evidentiary, problem for you.

In which case I can only think you are nitpicking as a diversion. Playing MHaze for sloppiness on an inessential while avoiding any discussion of the substance of his argument.

For what it's worth I think the writer is correct. Christianity is more compatible than any other religious belief, including atheism, with an economically liberal society. Not surprising, because it is Christian concepts that made that society possible in the first place. But what would I know. I'm not omniscient.

Wow, we have a link. Nice job, mhaze.

And here was my response to that comment explaining why your assertions were wrong:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8106#252286

At no point in that comment of yours did you even remotely demonstrate how I “ended up showing [you] … how the deity couldn't be disproven because it couldn't be defined.” You merely asserted it by making it look like I had been forced to concede something when in fact nothing I had said had changed. On the contrary, I had already shown how a version of deity could be disproved, which was my original point:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8106#252196

Anyway, thanks for helping me to demonstrate that your version of events never happened. Perhaps a little less ad hom next time? It always backfires on you.

I don’t suppose we’re going to learn what these universal pursuits/beliefs/traits of atheists are, let alone why they are an inevitable result of not believing in a god and inextricably tied to it, are we?

I won't hold my breath.

GrahamY

"Christianity is more compatible than any other religious belief, including atheism"

(1) Nice try. Atheism is not a religious belief, it's the absence of religious belief.

(2) The West was governed by a Christian theocracy for 1000 years, however liberal capitalism didn't appear until the Renaissance.