Luxor4u

Neither, Im a passionate atheist.

Faith is for fools.

Zooropa wrote:.

Faith is for fools.

"I have great faith in fools; my friends call it self-confidence".

Edgar Allan Poe

Faith is for those that want to control other people or be controlled by other people

WIZARD wrote:I don't believe that for one moment BB, and deep down I don't think you do either.

I think he does mean it and what's more I agree with him 100%. Disagree with him if you will but respect him enough to accept that he knows his own mind. Which incidentley is something that religious leaders don't want you to do. They would rather do your thinking for you. Not all of us are sheep.

Sorry Zooropa, Wizard is right. Deep down I don't believe there are just the two groups - I forgot the ones that when born didn't want to be controlled but have since been brainwashed into a religion and are now unwittingly controlled.

The answer is so simplistic, show me the hard evidence and I will shake the hand of the person providing it. That's not too much to ask is it?

Dusak wrote:The answer is so simplistic, show me the hard evidence and I will shake the hand of the person providing it. That's not too much to ask is it?

But then that is not faith!

Zooropa wrote:Neither, Im a passionate atheist.

Faith is for fools.

Atheism could actually be described as a faith in it's own right.


Personally, I'd rather be a fool with faith than one without.

HEPZIBAH wrote:

Zooropa wrote:Neither, Im a passionate atheist.

Faith is for fools.

Atheism could actually be described as a faith in it's own right.


Personally, I'd rather be a fool with faith than one without.

No it couldn't. It's a position based on lack of evidence.

That's just a feeble argument to justify your position.

It doesn't.

Zooropa wrote:

HEPZIBAH wrote:

Zooropa wrote:Neither, Im a passionate atheist.

Faith is for fools.

Atheism could actually be described as a faith in it's own right.


Personally, I'd rather be a fool with faith than one without.

No it couldn't. It's a position based on lack of evidence.

That's just a feeble argument to justify your position.

It doesn't.

I don't need to justify my position to anyone so I certainly don't need an argument for it. However, I can still make a statement - that does not constitute an argument.

It is interesting that atheists argue that there is no God or divine deity and yet they have never been able to prove that one does not exist.

The argument of proof works both ways.

HEPZIBAH wrote:It is interesting that atheists argue that there is no God or divine deity and yet they have never been able to prove that one does not exist.

The argument of proof works both ways.

Oh please ! The onus is on believers. I can't PROVE that there isn't a real Father Christmas or fairies at the bottom of my garden....but I require some evidence of their existence before accepting such a patently unlikely possibility. Don't you?

The existence of God comes into the same category. It's an inherently improbable concept and is only accepted by those with "faith".

Faith can be defined as the acceptance as "true" something which is "impossible to prove".

The gods of the ancient Egyptians, the Vikings, the Greeks & the Romans have all been & gone in a millisecond of human history. I fully expect the God of Abraham to suffer the same fate in due course.

HEPZIBAH wrote:It is interesting that atheists argue that there is no God or divine deity and yet they have never been able to prove that one does not exist.

The argument of proof works both ways.

No it doesn't - The burden of proof is on the believer to provide evidence of existence not on the non believer to provide evidence it does not.

"We" have never proved non existence because we don't need to.

And why would we want to?

You may get a different answer from Newcastle, but, most atheists don't argue that there is no god or divine deity, they argue that there is no credible evidence to support such a proposition.

And there isn't.

newcastle wrote:

HEPZIBAH wrote:It is interesting that atheists argue that there is no God or divine deity and yet they have never been able to prove that one does not exist.

The argument of proof works both ways.

Oh please ! The onus is on believers. I can't PROVE that there isn't a real Father Christmas or fairies at the bottom of my garden....but I require some evidence of their existence before accepting such a patently unlikely possibility. Don't you?

The existence of God comes into the same category. It's an inherently improbable concept and is only accepted by those with "faith".

Faith can be defined as the acceptance as "true" something which is "impossible to prove".

The gods of the ancient Egyptians, the Vikings, the Greeks & the Romans have all been & gone in a millisecond of human history. I fully expect the God of Abraham to suffer the same fate in due course.

Bravo Newcastle, you beat me to it.

Zooropa wrote:

HEPZIBAH wrote:It is interesting that atheists argue that there is no God or divine deity and yet they have never been able to prove that one does not exist.

The argument of proof works both ways.

No it doesn't - The burden of proof is on the believer to provide evidence of existence not on the non believer to provide evidence it does not.

"We" have never proved non existence because we don't need to.

And why would we want to?

You may get a different answer from Newcastle, but, most atheists don't argue that there is no god or divine deity, they argue that there is no credible evidence to support such a proposition.

And there isn't.

Exactly!

What I find puzzling, and slightly disturbing, is that those with faith in the existence of God invariably demand MORE RESPECT for their belief than, say, a belief in the existence of fairies or unicorns. The evidence for either is distinctly absent.

The concept of faith if you think about it initially outside a religious context is quite interesting.

A child is born with a kind of blind faith (could it be called instinct?) that they will receive nutrition, acceptance, protection, nurturing etc from a parent. A baby through child to teen (? - question mark as I can't say exactly when faith leaves) has faith. That vague, hard to define concept of belief in a power higher than themselves that will protect and give to them. Children just intuitively instinctively believe in the omnipotence of their parents. Am sure this is a warm good feeling that their parents love them, will provide for them etc.

Then move or shift to adulthood where the adult opts to include a religious faith based system to their life.

Is this, via religion, not the same feeling(s) adults seek? And really what is wrong with wanting this? If carrying this same faith (however your own religion defines it) gives the adult the feelings they seek then I really don't see having faith or, as adults tend to refer to it - have A faith is ok.

It's ok as long as it's not peddled as fact to children who are more inclined to accept things without query ( this one of the reasons why religion has endured - childhood indoctrination). And it still does not make it true.

A deistic belief...and the faith that goes with it....are, in themselves, relatively harmless delusions although they can lead some people to abandon common sense ( especially if their brand of faith transcribes into the "everything is determined by (their) God" ).

It's the organised religions which are the problem. Arguably they have been responsible for more human misery than all the plagues & natural disasters visited on mankind put together.

Do children have "faith" LLL ? I doubt it. There's a perfectly sensible evolutionary reason why children - in fact all creatures - 'blindly' accept the instructions of their parents. Mum knows best (through experience) and offspring who question her instructions about life's dangers have a much reduced chance of survival & thus transmitting their genes.

This brings me to Zooropa's good point. Belief in God & religion has to be taught...in the modern world we don't need a god to explain much at all. Those questions that science hasn't yet answered....nor has religion. The origin of the universe? As yet we don't have an irrefutable theory. God then? Is that an answer???? An explanation???

If he created the universe, who created him? He doesn't need a creator? Then why does the universe? Quite nonsensical arguments.

Likewise the origin of life.

Earlier societies had a greater tendency to attribute the inexplicable to gods....as there was much they didn't understand scientifically. It's a unique (as far as we know) attribute of our species that we seem to wish to know how and why things are as they are.

It would be an interesting experiment to bring up a group of children without exposure to gods & religion....and see if it ever entered their minds.

I've heard the teaching of religion to young minds described as a form of child abuse....unintentional of course.

I'll hop off my soap box at this point....having strayed a bit from the subject of "faith". But if religion is the nigger in the woodpile, it's "faith" that perpetuates it.