>>I’m not an atheist, but how does the author know an atheist cannot console in a time of grief, explain love, or sigh in happy wonder at life’s endless surprises?<<
It is simple. It is their core “what is life” paradigm that eliminates the possibility of being uplifting during such times.
Utterly and completely impossible - unless they are not being true to their own beliefs.
But then, I’ve never met a real athiest. I’ve met plenty that claim to be, but when questioned further, every single one of them backpedaled and admitted they were really more “agnostic”.
Wanna see how a REAL atheist would act? Rent Natural Born Killers.
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I'm not a christian, but I've met plenty who claim to be. When questioned further, every one of them backpedaled...not one could offer any proof or logic behind their belief. Not one.
Wanna' see how a real christian would act? Um...sorry, I can't finish this. I don't have a fucking clue how a real christian would act.
Atheism does not equal nihilism, just for the record.
But then, I'm a militant Agnostic myself, so what do I know?
...
Maybe more than you?
So unless an atheist is as fundie as you are, they're not real atheists.
Contact these people http://www.atheists.org/
Also has someone got the prison Christianity/atheism stats handy?
Wanna see how a REAL christian would act?
http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/dahmer.htm
Jeffrey Dahmer: Born Again Fundamentalist Christian
Jeffrey Dahmer is the son of a Born Again Fundamentalist (Church of Christ) father. Jeffrey's Born Again Fundamentalist home life led him to feel he could not acknowledge his homosexuality to his Fundamentalist father, and instead he developed an intense hatred of himself and of other gay men.
"Wanna see how a REAL atheist would act? Rent Natural Born Killers."
In case it escaped your attention, RobRoy, that movie was FICTION.
There is nothing about atheism that predisposes one to violence, or even to passive nihilism. If anything, atheists tend to value life and treasure it at least as highly as theists if not more so, since they have no expectation of an afterlife.
Agnosticism and atheism are NOT mutually exclusive.
And, you do not do a hell of a lot better at "uplifting" people, unless they are already thoroughly programmed to respond to religious double-speak and garbled rhetoric as sympathetic. Saying that Teh Jesus has a plan behind a person losing the lower half of their body and everyone in their immediate family to a freak chimpanzee attack is not exactly helpful, neither is blaming "sin" for a car accident claiming a toddler's life.
Look at how empty your own consolations are before condemning us from sputtering out the same vacuous phrases.
Agnosticism is defined by idea that one cannot truely know if there is or isn't a god. Varying definitions can transcend further into other forms of knowledge, but in this respect a believer in a god can be agnostic. An agnostic theist believes in god but does not believe you can KNOW there is a god just the same as an agnostic atheist doesn't believe in god but doesn't believe you can know if there isn't one. So seeing how atheism is only defined by a lack of belief in a god, not an out right claim that there is none,I can assure you i'm a REAL atheist and there are plenty of others. I would just be classified a weak or agnostic atheist. So if you were to ever meet me, you'd have met a REAL honest to goodness atheist and you can write home about it and describe my 10 eyes, 3 horns, 2 tails and unrelenting desire to kill as depicted accurately in Natural Born Killers.
Wanna see how a REAL Christian would act? Rent The Crucible.
What do you mean, that's completely different?
Most atheists won't claim that that God doesn't exist, but rather that it is epistemologically unjustifiable to hold such a belief.
That is, they don't claim God doesn't exist so much as they say it is unreasonable to believe he exists as we lack complete evidence other than one obvious work of fiction.
Technically, one cannot disprove the existence of invisible magic elves who steal socks, controls the weather and controls the minds of all nation's leaders. However, it's fairly obvious that it would be absolute insanity to believe such a thing because you cannot know for a fact that it's false.
My parents are real atheists. And they have never seen that movie nor want to. They feel it is too violent. And oh yeah, my mom was there for me when I needed her and the whole family was there for my dad when his parents and brother died. And I am the only one in my family not atheist. Until you meet one, you can't judge since you'd be wrong
I'm an agnostic atheist, I don't believe God exists, but I admit there is a chance that I could be wrong, and that I can't prove he doesn't exist. However I believe that that chance is very very small.
And NORMAL people don't need to be threatened with eternal torment in order to understand that shooting people is bad, NORMAL sane people have a thing called empathy which causes us to understand how our actions make other people feel and to care about how other people feel.
"Wanna see how a REAL atheist would act? Rent Natural Born Killers."
Yes, because we all know that Hollywood movies are the best representation of reality that we've got. Well done. [/sarcasm]
That's not called "backpedalling," that's called "you moving the goalposts." Helpful hint: "I claim that it is utterly impossible for any being that could possibly be considered a 'god' to exist anywhere in the universe" =/= atheism. Consult a dictionary before you open your mouth next time. Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually-exclusive terms.
Also, atheism =/= utter nihilism. Remind me, who is it that believes that this life is merely a sorting algorithm to determine where people spend their afterlives? Oh, right, NOT the atheists, because WE think *this* life actually matters. You fail.
WOW, this guy thinks that he knows non-existent and fictional characters even though he's never met them personally!!. Man, did you hear about something called EMPATHY?. That's what, apparently, is the real base for MORALITY.
Fail. You are not in a position to know whether you're telling the truth or not. As an ex-Christian and current atheist I am. The sensations of wonder, love or consolation I felt before and after deconversion are identical.
Agnosticism (the belief that it's impossible to obtain any knowledge about God) does not preclude any atheist position. Gnosticism (the opposite position, that it is possible to obtain knowledge about God) doesn't even preclude any atheist position.
In the colloquial sense, agnosticism is often misunderstood as being 'unsure' whether God exists, and technically this is true for weak atheists - weak atheists making up the majority of atheists - so you will often find atheists who will also describe themselves as agnostic, for whatever reason.
I guess you could describe me as a gnostic atheist, in the sense that if God burst through my wall screaming "OH YEAAAAH!" as crazy miraculous things started happening all around, that would be proof which would incline me towards believing He exists; but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. I generally describe myself as an agnostic atheist or a weak atheist.
But I'm still a Real Atheist. And I haven't killed anybody, nor would I want to. The fact that the only reason you can think of as to why one might not want to go around killing people relates to belief in, and worship of, an Imaginary Sky-Fairy is frankly terrifying.
I think most atheists would be open to believing in a deity if they were presented with ACTUAL evidence of their existence. If you want to claim that makes us all agnostics, knock yourself out.
'Atheist' is just easier than saying "Agnostic but I'm pretty much certain there is no God".
I'm an atheist, but in a way I'm agnostic. Meaning that if god decided to show himself to 100 people, me included, I would probably believe in god. I have morality, and I dont need silly bronze age texts to tell me how to live my life. I never killed, and I only would in self defense. RobRoy, you are a FILTHY FUCKING LIAR.
There is no such thing as an "athiest". We're atheists, and most of us are agnostic atheists, as we have no way of KNOWING there are no gods. We just look at reality and find no evidence for the existence of any gods. That's not backpedaling, it's just explaining.
I can se how a REAL atheist acts. I just look to my own actions. I have consoled friends and family in times of grief, I have talked about love, and I often sit in my garden during beautiful summer days and sigh happily and contentedly at life and nature.
I've seen Natural Born Killers. It's a movie, it's not reality. Also, I don't remember Micky and Mallory stating that they are atheists.
Like Lilith, I was also going to say "Wanna see how a REAL Christian would act? Rent Carrie.".
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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