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[W]e[y]lon Musk

Why did God make you to be an atheist?

Posted - December 17, 2017
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Responses


  • 13395
    Because he can't prove he had anything to do with creation. 
      December 18, 2017 4:08 AM MST
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  • 1393
    if you truly believe that then you're truly not an atheist :)
      December 21, 2017 2:31 AM MST
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  • 13395
    I just think it would be nice to have a god friend of some sort so we could discuss God. 
      December 21, 2017 5:04 AM MST
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  • 3191
    Discussion between believers and atheists have a tendency cease being "discussions".  For honest and open discourse, both must be willing to entertain their views being questioned.  Few, on either side, are. 
      December 21, 2017 5:26 AM MST
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  • I don’t think anyone is born an atheist. I believe the Devil got to me to take me away from God. I was attracted to books that were designed to take me away from God. I would listen to people that were designed to take me away from God. 

    it took me 25 years to see this.
      December 18, 2017 4:22 AM MST
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  • 5391


    Atheism is the original state, all people are born as atheists. No one emerges from the womb possessing beliefs in a deity, they are taught to follow religion, usually by parents or elders. Religion is a state of corrupted mind. This post was edited by Don Barzini at December 21, 2017 7:20 PM MST
      December 18, 2017 4:42 AM MST
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  • 14795
    Well put......i can only but agree.    :)D This post was edited by Nice Jugs at December 18, 2017 2:54 PM MST
      December 18, 2017 2:52 PM MST
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  • 1393
    that does disservice to atheism. It suggests that it is a default position resulting from ignorance not a position arrived at through conscious thought and decision.

    religion can be arrived at through philosophical thought. It is contradictory therefore to associate it in such a sweeping way with a corrupted mind.
      December 21, 2017 2:41 AM MST
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  • 5391
    Tell that “philosophical thought” hooey to the countless preschoolers indoctrinated in their parents’ faith, as most people of faith are, ...or to the generations of humanity coerced into belief under threat of death or specter of hell. 
    Atheism is the lack of belief in deities. Period. Babies qualify. Buddhists qualify. One need not conscientiously object to the tenets of theism to be atheist, only be free of the influence of dogma.
    Religion, all too often isn’t the product of thought and consideration, but of the suppression of choices.  This post was edited by Don Barzini at December 21, 2017 4:57 PM MST
      December 21, 2017 6:35 AM MST
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  • 1393
    I think one needs to approach the subject with a little more open mindedness than is evident in your post.

    Your opening statement is a bit of a strawman argument. You're refuting something I did not say. I did not say that all believers have arrived at their religion through philosophical thought. My claim was that "religion can be arrived at through philosophical thought" In such cases it is obviously wrong to say that "Religion is a state of corrupted mind."

    I am open minded enough to acknowledge your claim that there have been, and where appropriate still are, instances of "countless preschoolers indoctrinated in their parents’ faith, as most people of faith are, ...[and] generations of humanity coerced into belief under threat of death or specter of hell." However, the fact that there are people who cross over from one religion to another or to atheism is evidence that those forces of indoctrination are not that overpowering, at least among those with critical thinking and lack of complacency.

    If people [babies for example] can be atheist by default then they are atheist out of ignorance. That is almost so by definition.You can't have it otherwise. You cannot say people can be atheist by default and then insist they have made an informed [based-on-knowledge] choice.


      December 21, 2017 4:34 PM MST
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  • 5391
    Clurt, I agree with your point about critical thinking and complacency. I’m not too sure how open your mind is, though. 
    You are missing a key point and I can demonstrate it works both ways. Putting fence-sitting agnostics aside: 

    Think about an isolated tribe who’ve never been exposed to god-belief. They observe no deities, perhaps instead call upon their ancestors for purposes of spirituality. They are ignorant of the gods, know of none, and by definition are atheists.

    No one is born a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, a Presbyterian, whatever. They are either indoctrinated into faith as impressionable children, or they make a conscious adult choice to worship God/Allah on their own. Either way, doctrine is imparted to them to facilitate this process. UNTIL this takes place and they become engaged in god-belief, they are otherwise ignorant of the gods —not believers— therefore a-theist. Just like the aforementioned tribe. Perhaps we might call these “undeclared atheists“ -my term. 

    Conversely, if someone once a Catholic/Jew/(whatever) consciously dismisses theist gods and rejects dogma, does not recognize any supernatural deities, they too are atheist. The constant is the same lack of belief. Let’s call them “declared atheists”; again, my term. 

    Too often I see the religious attempting to denominationalize atheists within a set criteria like a sect of faith, which it isn’t, the standards of membership are different. There are no common doctrines or rituals, no special garb or secret handshakes. 

    As for “corrupted mind”; from an atheist perspective, imposing odious fantasies and crafted lies about invisible, imaginary characters onto tender young minds as unerring truth of “God”, IS corrupting those minds, even child abuse. 

    Ask yourself how you’d view the inculcation of the Aztecs‘ gruesome human sacrifice ritual as the “True Way to appease (whichever) God”, and you’ll have some feel for this position. 



    This post was edited by Don Barzini at December 21, 2017 7:44 PM MST
      December 21, 2017 7:06 PM MST
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  • 1393
    1. You're drawing artificial lines and displaying inconsistencies that portray you as having God-phobia or irrational hatred of the three letter word god, no matter how innocuously or benignly it is defined. If "imposing odious fantasies and crafted lies about invisible, imaginary characters onto tender young minds as unerring truth of “God”, IS corrupting those minds, even child abuse." then why wouldn't it be the same for those of an isolated tribe "imposing odious fantasies and crafted lies about invisible, imaginary characters onto tender young minds as unerring truth of “ancestral spirits”"? Why make a distinction between philosophical inquiries that arrive at "God/Gods" as an answer to the otherwise unexplained and philosophical inquiries that arrive at "ancestral spirits" as an answer to the otherwise unexplained?

    2. I think most people would fully understand and sympathise with your position on "the inculcation of the Aztecs‘ gruesome human sacrifice ritual as the “True Way to appease (whichever) God”"

    3. So, rather than attack every aspect of all religions that have anything to do with God it might be more rational and fruitful to challenge those aspects of people's beliefs and practices, whether religiously, tribally, culturally or otherwise justified, which are at the root of the human indignity, suffering, oppression and injustices that are still with us after the thousands of centuries of human progress and development, not to mention the immorally widening gaps between the world's poor and its extremely wealthy.

      December 22, 2017 3:30 PM MST
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  • Not necessarily.
    A logical extension of Barzini's point is that no child is born with faith, or pre-conceptions or conceptions of any kind because they a re born without language and have yet to learn how to imagine, to reason, and to choose. Thus a new born is a-theist in the fullest sense, having no conception of any kind of god or non-material being.
    But a do agree that normally when we speak of an atheist, we think of a person who has considered the various systems of thought, knowledge and belief, and has actively chosen not to believe anything that can't be proven by fact or logic.
    Although I was born into an atheist family and raised in that way of thought, I did spend many years as a young adult considering the alternatives before coming to the conclusion that I agree with atheism.
      December 21, 2017 7:27 PM MST
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  • 1393
    HF, if you insist that "a new born is a-theist in the fullest sense, having no conception of any kind of god or non-material being." then to be consistent you will have to insist that every insane person, for example, whether born in that state or entered that state later in life, and every person who has developed dementia "is [or has become] a-theist in the fullest sense, having no conception of any kind of god or non-material being."

    I'm glad, as must you be, that you "agree that normally when we speak of an atheist, we think of a person who has considered the various systems of thought, knowledge and belief, and has actively chosen not to believe anything that can't be proven by fact or logic." Your own personal case is an illustration of that. Your understanding, at that time, of the limited alternatives you considered to the depth you could against the background of the atheism of your childhood led you to conclude that atheism was the best option.

    It was a different conclusion in the case of the university student, in the video below, who was not only brought up by atheist parents but had it drummed into him that after we die we are worm food, period, and anyone who said otherwise was talking rubbish. Worth listening to for comparison and for the humour.




    This post was edited by CLURT at December 22, 2017 6:16 PM MST
      December 22, 2017 4:34 PM MST
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  • HE didn't. There are no atheist babies. However I am probably willing to concede that babies do lack a belief in God. But then they lack also the mental capacity to conceive of God or ask any deep philosophical questions. Babies do not question their existence, nor do they question where the universe or human life came from. They are completely ignorant, possessing a mental capacity comparable or even inferior to lower animals, so it is no surprise that they lack a belief in God, or anything. As it happens, babies lack a belief in anything, including the milk that they are drinking. Babies even lack a belief in physical objects, and all of the basic beliefs that human beings hold. They only come to grasp them later in life as they begin to observe the physical world, and so the same with belief in God.

      If the atheist is to say that babies are born atheist, because they lack a belief in God, a parallel argument could be applied in saying that the default state of existence is lacking a belief in physical objects. But that would obviously be absurd, a babies’ lack of belief is only reflective of their ignorance, the default state of existence is not developed until later as we begin to learn and observe about the natural world. Since they are completely ignorant, it could be argued that if atheism is the default state of existence, then so is ignorance, because we all begin ignorant. Knowledge only comes when people begin to indoctrinate us with it. Further, babies are born lacking a belief in evolution, so perhaps it could be said that a lack of belief in evolution is the default state of existence.

      I think it is patently absurd to say that newborn babies are the model for the default state of human existence, and this is basically the mistake that atheists make. Atheists often will emphasize that to be an atheist, we need only to lack a belief in God, and they do this to avoid bearing any sort of burden of proof in making a claim that there is no God. Typically they justify this stance by appealing to the Oxford Dictionary, which, I admit, does define atheism as a lack of belief in God.

      But there is a reason that they appeal to the Oxford Dictionary, and that is because it is basically the only popular dictionary which agrees with them. However even if it were the case that every dictionary unanimously agreed that atheism is the lack of belief in God, we still can't use a normal dictionary as a foundation use for philosophical terms. We need a dictionary of philosophy, because while atheism, in grammar, might mean a lack of belief in God, we have to see how it is defined as a philosophical concept.
      December 18, 2017 9:46 AM MST
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  • 46117
    oh brother.
    This is really good.  But.... Oh brother.

    LOL This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at December 19, 2017 2:02 AM MST
      December 18, 2017 9:48 AM MST
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  • I have my days. :)
      January 5, 2018 11:32 PM MST
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  • 13395
    Hardest part of being atheist is changing my swear language;  the way I cuss even makes me feel maybe God imust be still around somewhere. 
      December 18, 2017 11:36 AM MST
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  • 5391
    Hez, all that verbosity only to trip up on illogic. 

    To wit:
    “...and they do this to avoid bearing any sort of burden of proof in making a claim that there is no God”. 

    It is in fact impossible and ILLOGICAL to prove a negative, that something IS NOT, except by the abject lack of that something. For example, prove to me there are no wood-fairies, unicorns or leprechauns. The real absurdity lies in those claiming by Argument from Authority that their deity IS, said this, or created that, without a shred of tangible evidence in support of that claim and yet challenge the lack of (illogical) evidence to the contrary. The burden of proof lies with the claimant of a thing’s postive existence. Always will. This burden has not been met in the case of any deity. 

    Further, the only thing that defines all versions of atheism is a lack of belief in supernatural deities, period. End of line. Buddhists are atheist, so were many of the Native American ”religions”. There are other forms of spirituality that can be classed as atheist. That your lone reference to understanding atheism is a dictionary speaks to your lack of depth on this topic.  

    Since it is a prerequisite to be taught religious dogma, as no one comes to god-beliefs in a vacuum, then the state of non-belief IS the base, or default state.

    Hez, you further make a poor point about belief in evolution, a typical error of ill-informed theists and their dewy-eyed brethren, the Creationists. Accepting something as true based on weight of evidence is less a belief than proclaiming the same absent any proof at all. There is currently more evidence FOR evolution than there is for GRAVITY. We know gravity exists. 

    I’ll muse an example of what is absurd, is that odious and oxymoronic commodity termed, “ Canon, or Biblical knowledge”. The vast majority of what is claimed in all scriptures is asserted devoid of any outside, contemporary or eyewitness corroboration; like which character said or did what, or those “miraculous” key events.
    Such a lack of support is not a defining characteristic of knowledge; this is faith. Faith is acceptance without evidence (an antithesis of knowledge) and all the gods demand this,    ... not coincidentally.

    Typically, misguided theists will construe one as the other as it suits them; or like their affinity for the supernatural, because they “feel” it is so. 


    This post was edited by Don Barzini at December 18, 2017 8:42 PM MST
      December 18, 2017 2:29 PM MST
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  • 2657


    [...The real absurdity lies in those claiming by Argument from Authority that their deity IS, said this, or created that, without a shred of tangible evidence in support of that claim and yet challenge the lack of (illogical) evidence to the contrary...]

    Just because you refuse to acknowledge evidence as such, has no bearing as to rather or not evidence exist. For example, I consider the fact that we exist in spite of the fact that scientifically, we should not be here, as evidence of there is a God that created the universe and us. I consider the fact that scientist have proven that even the smallest form of life produced in a laboratory needed intelligent life to mix the already existing ingredients in a controlled environment as evidence of an intelligent designer. I consider the many prophesies that have come true in the Bible as evidence of there being something to the Bible as well as of inspiration by God. I consider that since many modern scientists now say that all life did not all have a common ancestor just as the Bible said all along as evidence of something you will likely ignore.



    [Buddhists are atheist,]

    Do you consider atheist Buddhists to be evil like you do other religions?



    [Since it is a prerequisite to be taught religious dogma, as no one comes to god-beliefs in a vacuum, then the state of non-belief IS the base, or default state.]

    It seems that some of the earliest writings of man involve 'religious dogma'. Who taught them?

     

     

    [Hez, you further make a poor point about belief in evolution, a typical error of ill-informed theists and their dewy-eyed brethren, the Creationists. Accepting something as true based on weight of evidence is less a belief than proclaiming the same absent any proof at all. There is currently more evidence FOR evolution than there is for GRAVITY. We know gravity exists. ]

    Anyone can pretty much take anything as evidence that they want to. 

    Part of an article from 1985: 

    [Dilemmas Over Fossils
    14 Millions of bones and other evidence of past life have been unearthed by scientists, and these are called fossils. If evolution were a fact, surely in all of this there should be ample evidence of one kind of living thing evolving into another kind. But the Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History commented: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true.”
    15 Why not? The Bulletin went on to say that Darwin “was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn’t look the way he predicted it would . . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.” In fact now, after more than a century of collecting fossils, “we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time,” explained the Bulletin.12 Why is this the case? Because the more abundant fossil evidence available today shows that some of the examples that were once used to support evolution now are seen not to do so at all.
    16 This failure of the fossil evidence to support gradual evolution has disturbed many evolutionists. In The New Evolutionary Timetable, Steven Stanley spoke of “the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another.” He said: “The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with [slow evolution].”13 Niles Eldredge also admitted: “The pattern that we were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist.”14]
     

     EDIT: {Did Ape-Men Exist?
    9 In 130 years of searching for fossils of the missing link between ape and man, evolutionists have come up with a pitifully small array of bones. According to the magazine Science Digest, “all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin!” No doubt, that is where such so-called evidence belongs—with the lid of the coffin nailed down tight!
    10 Those magazine pictures of ape-men that are used to bolster the evolution theory are nothing more than figments of the imagination, drawn on the basis of a few small fragments of a skull or a jawbone. For example, on page 1 of The New York Times of August 16, 1985, there appeared an “artist’s reconstruction of Amphipithecus, earliest known higher primate . . . from which humans evolved,” showing its hairy head and hands. From what was this reconstructed? Says the accompanying article: “The rear portion of a lower jaw . . . together with the frontal jaw fragment found half a century before.” But can the complete head, hair and all, really be reconstructed on the basis of two such fragments? The article quoted an anthropologist at Harvard University as calling these fossils a “pool of light in acres of darkness.” But may they really be equated with light?
    11 What some might call another such “pool of light” was the skull of Piltdown man. It held the center of the evolutionary stage for about 40 years but was exposed in 1953 as an assemblage of bone fragments, some animal and some human, fraudulently stuck together as a hoax!}


    [...Faith is acceptance without evidence (an antithesis of knowledge) and all the gods demand this,    ... not coincidentally. ...]

    {What Is Faith?

    HOW would you define faith? Some equate it with blind belief. Influential American essayist and journalist H. L. Mencken once called faith “an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”
    The Bible, in contrast, describes faith as being neither blind nor illogical. God’s Word says: “Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.”—Hebrews 11:1.
    Given the different opinions about faith, let us consider the answers to the following questions:
    • How is the Bible’s definition different from what many refer to when they talk about faith?
    • Why is it vital that we develop the kind of faith that the Bible describes?
    • How can you build strong faith?
    A Title Deed and Solid Evidence
    At the time of the writing of the Bible book of Hebrews, the Greek term translated “assured expectation” was commonly used. It often appeared in business documents and carried the idea of a guarantee of future possession of something. Therefore, one reference work suggests that Hebrews 11:1 could be translated: “Faith is the title-deed of things hoped for.”
    If you have ever bought an item from a reputable company and then waited for it to be delivered, you have exercised that type of faith. The sales receipt in your hand gave you reason for faith in the company from which you bought the item. In a sense, that receipt was your title deed, your guarantee that you would receive what you purchased. If you had lost the receipt or had thrown it away, you would have lost the proof of your claim of ownership. Similarly, those who have faith that God will fulfill his promises are guaranteed to receive what they hope for. On the other hand, those who do not have faith, or who lose it, are not entitled to receive the things God promises.—James 1:5-8.
    The second expression at Hebrews 11:1, translated “evident demonstration,” carries the idea of producing evidence that contradicts that which only appears to be factual. For instance, the sun appears to revolve around the earth—rising in the east, moving through the sky, and setting in the west. However, evidence from astronomy and mathematics reveals that the earth is not the center of the solar system. Once you become familiar with that evidence and accept it as true, you have faith that the earth revolves around the sun—despite what your eyes tell you. Your faith is not blind. On the contrary, it gives you the ability to see things as they really are, not merely as they seem to be.
    How Important Is Strong Faith?
    This is the type of faith that the Bible encourages—strong faith built on solid evidence, even if it requires that we adjust our beliefs. Such faith is vital. The apostle Paul wrote: “Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he is real and that he rewards those who truly want to find him.”—Hebrews 11:6, New Century Version.
    There are many challenges to developing strong faith. But if you take the four steps discussed on the following pages, you can succeed.}

     

    This post was edited by texasescimo at December 19, 2017 10:24 AM MST
      December 19, 2017 8:54 AM MST
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  • 14795
    Because it knew it was on a loosing streak the minute it saw me pop out.....it never had the bottle to face out my dad either..... :)D 
      December 18, 2017 2:51 PM MST
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  • 1393
    that means you do believe in god. It's just that the you have  chosen to believe in one that is weaker than you as described by you
      December 21, 2017 2:53 AM MST
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  • 14795
    It's highly unlikely I'll ever believe in such man made nonsense........just look up at the stars on a dark night and wonder at the marvels of nature and everloution.....
    All life is a chance happening ...this planet will die when the sun runs out of energy and so will everything on it 


    Preying to a non existing man made myth won't improve anyone's chances either......
      December 21, 2017 3:09 AM MST
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  • 1393
    calling what you know about religion "man made nonsense" means that the only things you know about religion are those that you can readily classify as "man made nonsense". It doesn't mean that everything about religion is man made nonsense.

    Even if you were able to convincingly demonstrate to people that everything you know about religion IS man made nonsense that would still not constitute evidence that there is no god of any form anywhere.
      December 21, 2017 3:46 PM MST
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