J Philips>> Again, show me your references. I provided you with links supporting my definitions and yet you went silent when I asked for your alleged references.<<

C’mon AJ, we were debating semantics back on page 10. Fifty pages on and semantics is still the issue. As I said the term atheist is a psychological crutch that describes an opinion that placates a psychological urge to believe without validation, nothing more.....a guess in other words.

AJ keep guessing and call it an outcome if you prefer....but you are still just guessing regardless of your “high degree of certainty”. I might add that the word certainty has “faith” as an alternative in the Oxford thesaurus. So it seems the faithful have faith, as does the atheist…..faith is a guess.

AFoAI>> Finally thank goodness, we too became adults and gained freedom to become our own person, and choose our own direction.<<

You should have a caveat in there sport.
It should read “we too became adults and gained freedom to become our own person, and choose our own direction, except for theists who have no right to an opinion if it is not the same as my personal un validated guesstimation.

Worldwatcher>> or my mother who cried so bitterly that God wouldn't accept her grandchildren if they weren't baptised. To give her comfort we went through what to us was a meaningless ritual, but gave her peace.<<

WW, you have encapsulated the issue, your mum had faith, and your selfless act of baptizing the children placated her. The act of baptism meant nothing to you, but it obviously meant the world to your mum. The likes of the AFoAI set out to destroy the pacifier that the faithful find in their religious dogma.

worldwatcher,

Your story shows luck in that your makeup and abilities allowed for developing your own worldview despite another being imposed upon you as a child. No all are so fortunate. A good example is sonofgloin who finds it impossible to overcome cultural input. Maybe time will alter that.

You made a very important point that this is the only life and we must live it knowing that. It gives a spark to existence that the religious miss out on. Some of the faithful need religion but none of them should have been indoctrinated into needing it. Freely chosen religion when thinking is mature enough to do so is the same as freely choosing atheism.

You are also on the right track with expecting certainty in life. That is an illusion.

David

sonofgloin,

If you cannot be bothered in reading what is in this thread then you should remove yourself from it. But, on the other hand, it is your reputation you are trashing and it is a free country. Surely you realise others are also reading this thread. Anyway, let’s move on.

You have no idea of what is being said, are quoting worldwatcher as though it was me and acting like a real dork overall. You misrepresent my stance either through the ignorance of not taking notice of what is being written or because of an imagined heightened sense of self-importance that requires no investigation as you just know you are right. You have not comprehended what AJ Philips has repeatedly said but continue on as though nothing has been explained and explained in such a fashion as a normal person could comprehend.

I believe you think you are the white night protecting the faithful from the nasty atheist. If you would read the thread you would find it is the ‘nasty’ atheist who is attempting to protect the religious and others from themselves.

David

SoG,

This has become surreal. Not only are you completely incapable of comprehending what others say; you show no desire to comprehend it either.

<<C’mon AJ, we were debating semantics back on page 10. Fifty pages on and semantics is still the issue.>>

Hang on… you’re the one who raised semantics again in your last post to me. I simply responded by asking you for these elusive references regarding your creative definition of atheism.

No, semantics are not the issue. They are just an aside. The actual issue was covered in the 500 or so words of my last postings (which you’ve completely ignored) that came before that.

<<As I said the term atheist is a psychological crutch that describes an opinion that placates a psychological urge to believe without validation, nothing more.....a guess in other words.>>

Yes, I know what you said and I’m asking you to back it up with either these references you spoke of, or some reasoned argument that negates what I’ve been saying.

You’ve provided neither.

You simply ignore what I say and continue on with your demonstrably false assertions as if nothing had been said at all, and that’s rude; particularly when someone takes the time to explain something to you as clearly as they can.

David and AJ, c’mon boys the thread is 60 pages long, so my posts are repetitive as are yours. David thanks for suggestion that I leave the thread….but it is a bit rich….have you told anyone else to leave the thread? Or can you handle the others?

Yes I am sticking up for the faithful….I wish I had a faith, but I am an agnostic. The only point I have bleated on about is the conclusiveness of your stance without one iota of empirical proof.

There is no creator….fine….prove it.

AJ Philips>> You simply ignore what I say and continue on with your demonstrably false assertions as if nothing had been said at all, and that’s rude; particularly when someone takes the time to explain something to you as clearly as they can<<

AJ, I do apologize for bolting at page 10, but you were not acknowledging my stance and I was not acknowledging yours. You believe that there is no creator and I say that we do not know. Y

You qualify your conviction with such terms as “burden of proof” or “high degree of certainty” which is rubbish verbiage meant to enhance your lack of facts. All I state is one fact….we don’t know.

TBC

The human hands that wrote all the texts for all religions intimate or stated that mankind is singular as the top of the food chain. No mainstream religions acknowledge life except on earth again intimating that we are the creator’s only plaything. The Jews, Christians, and the Muslims even believe we were made in his image.

The universe is a big place and 13 billion years is a while, countless beings should have evolved and declined, but we can find no proof, and I look gents. I am an amateur astronomer and have had my computer linked to the SETI program from the early days.

We still have not found any anomalies that have been repeated. We found a narrowband signal 35 years ago called WOW which bore the expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-Solar System origin. Our primitive society has been seeding the universe since Marconi’s first transmission and another low technology civilization can read our footprint. But we have found nothing.

If anything could be gleaned from this it is that we are possibly alone….if that is so it is marker towards a creator given religions all say that we and the creatures of the earth were created as a singularity.

You guys don’t consider that point of view plausible. In fact when I asked you to qualify what “was” before the big bang…..silence. To be an atheist you must know this because the time you now use did not exist before that. But something that produced matter did.

You guys have not got a clue…it’s a pseudo religious activity being a card carrying atheist.

sonofgloin,

Are you trying to impress anyone with your scientific expertise because you dabble in amateur astronomy and run the SETI program on your computer? If so, you have failed dismally.

Radio-transmissions have only been sent from earth for about 100 years. At the speed of light they have travelled, although severely weakened in power, for a distance of one hundred light years. That is an infinitesimal distance compared to the 100,000 light years being the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy. Or the few million light years to the Andromeda Galaxy or the billions of light years to the furthest galaxies. Humanity has looked at a next to nothing in its quest to find other life forms.

There is the mystery of the Fermi Paradox but there are also hypotheses explaining it somewhat. That discussion is not for this thread.

I'm not going to be side-tracked with a discussion on the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life or intelligence existing but no conclusions that a god exists can be drawn from these facts. When I say that I mean, none zilch, nada, nothing. If anything, that the universe is so huge and the earth but an insignificant spec in it, shows an awful amount of wasted space.

You have failed to keep up with the thread but still prattle on inappropriately without understanding the difference between ‘possibility’ and ‘probability’ or recognising there is a difference between a philosophical stance and a practical one. My guess is that your understanding of a ‘hypothesis’ and a ‘theory’ would also be to be too much for you to comprehend.

Here’s a challenge for you. How about sign up to the AFA Forums, introduce yourself and then tell all those ‘dumb’ atheists they have all got it wrong and explain why that is so.

http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/forums/index.php

I won’t enter the discussion on that forum nor have any input at all. Now, if you are genuine, which you are not, you would do that. But I don’t have to be a seer to know you won’t.

What’s that saying - are yes, “all mouth and trousers”.

David