Power of Atheism

Hoggums · May 7, 2009

Religion breeds intolerance, hatred and bigotism. It separates societies living in the same borders and has caused more wars than any other reason.

Atheism welcomes people from any walk of life without predudice. Absolutely everyone is equal and encourages tolerance of people from difference faiths.

There is only one true knowledge - and that is the knowledge of fact. One who does not deal solely with fact and provable hypothesis cannot be fully enlightened as they cannot be sure of what they believe.

Knowing what you do not know is far more powerful than believing in something that cannot be proven.

/rant over

TheBramble · May 7, 2009

Hoggums said:
Knowing what you do not know...

LOL. Rumsfeld lives!!!

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know"

...

" I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think... and I assume it's what I said"

TheBramble · May 7, 2009

Which sort of atheism are we talking about here?

An atheist is just as closed-minded at a theist.

An agnostic athiest however is a pleasure to chat with while an agnotic theist even more so.

arabianights · May 7, 2009

There is no such thing as knowledge of fact!

dick_dastardly · May 7, 2009

TheBramble said:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know"

You know, the more I read this the more it seems to makes sense

Should I be worried ?

dd

shadowninja · May 7, 2009

People use religion to rally people to their cause and start wars but it's nothing to do with religion. Some people tend to get this a bit confuzzled and blame religion. It is all about politics and greed, which, incidentally is why so many people are going bankrupt, being made redundant and losing their homes. We need more religion but perhaps just one... let's call this Buddhism. (I am not a Buddhist, btw.)

If you feel hate, anger, depression, sadness, the need to be right, the need for something, the need for more (whether it's food, ciggies, booze, watches, cars, DVDs, CDs, books, crisps...), then perhaps your atheistic views need amending.

MrGecko · May 7, 2009

I'm not religious (maybe you could put me under "spiritual"), but I do think it has its merits.

Life can be scary at times, and having a conscience and having to deal with it can be difficult. It is human to get afraid, to grieve, to love and to lose, and sometimes life just beats the cr@p out of you for the sake of it - if Religion helps people cope with their troubles, then it's fine by me.

[of course the points raised about religion being used to manipulate groups of people are also have merit, but this is not a problem with religion per se, rather the abuse of religion. Also, you really should define religion a little better; some people might argue that Premiership football is a religion, for example]

arabianights · May 7, 2009

MrGecko said:
I'm not religious (maybe you could put me under "spiritual"), but I do think it has its merits.

Life can be scary at times, and having a conscience and having to deal with it can be difficult. It is human to get afraid, to grieve, to love and to lose, and sometimes life just beats the cr@p out of you for the sake of it - if Religion helps people cope with their troubles, then it's fine by me.

[of course the points raised about religion being used to manipulate groups of people are also have merit, but this is not a problem with religion per se, rather the abuse of religion. Also, you really should define religion a little better; some people might argue that Premiership football is a religion, for example]

It isn't so much religion that is the problem so much as dogma/faith/axiomatic beliefs.

When you consider it like this you see that religion, communism, and football are the same thing

stefan10 · May 7, 2009

just 1 fact from 1400 can be a coincidence BUT not 100's see for youself

Miracles of the Qur'an - Modern Science Reveals New Miracles of the Qur'an

arabianights · May 7, 2009

I dunno, I reckon most of my trades are coincidences, and I've done more than 1400 r.t.s today.

Also, even according to muslims, mohammaed was convinced by a load of di'jins to write the satanic verses in the koran, so I can't really believe any of it.

Also, I like bacon.

P.S. Since dilesh is lurking here, does anyone know of any curry houses in Woking where one can discuss far eastern religions?

dilesh23 · May 7, 2009

haha not a good one anymore

there use to be an excellent one but due to the economic climate had to close.

dilesh23 · May 7, 2009

trendie · May 7, 2009

funnily, this afternoon, in between trades, and not posting on T2W, I was getting my daily fix of Dawkins, and Hitchens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcYDkZcLAug&feature=channel

trendie · May 7, 2009

stefan10 said:
just 1 fact from 1400 can be a coincidence BUT not 100's see for youself

Miracles of the Qur'an - Modern Science Reveals New Miracles of the Qur'an

Pick one single example of a truth uncovered.
You will find, that most of these verses are written in metaphorical terms, or terms that can easily be interpreted in many ways.
To suggest the Koran "knew" about quasars is laughable.

Can every single verse be so interpreted? If so, is there no new knowledge to be gained?
Or, is it that the next great scientific discovery will result in a verse being re-interpreted in the light of new discoveries?
Has the Koran been instrumental in leading a new discovery, or merely retrospectively jiggered to fit?

rawrschach · May 7, 2009

Hoggums said:
Religion breeds intolerance, hatred and bigotism. It separates societies living in the same borders and has caused more wars than any other reason.

So does every 'ism', including yours

The problem, really, is that people are stupid. Whether muslim/whatever, if you're stupid you'll act like an idiot. A handful of idiots killed a couple thousand people in 2001 in the name of their religion. A few thousance democracy deifists have since killed a million muslims in the middle east.

Ergo, everyone is stupid, but don't express your stupidity to someone with a bigger stick.

frugi · May 7, 2009

If I had been raised in a sufficient degree of isolation I suspect the concept of god would never have crossed my mind, much as the concept of "(invent a vacuous unused word; damn 'postmodernism' is taken") has not. Atheism is surely our natural state, until our brains become tarnished (when young, they are extremely malleable, it's an evolutionary necessity) by received ideas. In other words, atheism does not require one to take a negative position of any sort until its opposite is invented then passed on by word of mouth / scratch of quill. It's a non-existence of belief, not a rebuttal of it. This does not, of course, mean that I don't find the universe incredible, perplexing, wonderful and mysterious - of course I do - rather that it is sufficiently so (understatement) to make the mental conjuring of another layer of complexity (god) redundant and unlikely, at least to my small mind.

shadowninja · May 7, 2009

trendie said:
funnily, this afternoon, in between trades, and not posting on T2W, I was getting my daily fix of Dawkins, and Hitchens.

He seems to be preaching to the converted. Why is he quoting people? He could easily be quoting them out of context for all we know. In any case, he misses the point; I've seen other interviews covering other matters on youtube and he's just pointless. My only regret is that I cannot have the hours back that I've spent reading his stuff and watching his stuff.

dilesh23 · May 7, 2009

currently while i tuck in to a steak im going to be a christian

later while i roll up a fat spliff i think i will be a rastafarian

and who knows before bed if i decide to have a wnk i think il pull my foreskin back and become jewish

and since im all out of bacon i think tommorow morning im going to wake up muslim

MrGecko · May 7, 2009

frugi said:
If I had been raised in a sufficient degree of isolation I suspect the concept of god would never have crossed my mind, much as the concept of "(invent a vacuous unused word; damn 'postmodernism' is taken") has not. Atheism is surely our natural state...

Good Post

but...

Allegory of the cave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

frugi · May 7, 2009

My only regret is that I cannot have the hours back that I've spent reading his stuff and watching his stuff.

Salut shadow, does this regret apply to his works less concerned with religion, such as Selfish Gene, River out of Eden, Ancestor's Tale etc. as if not you may find he is more inspirational - if not that then at least interesting - when not in full-attack mode? The man excels in his core subject and it would take a wilful degree of stubbornness (?word) not to draw something of benefit from them imho.

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