Atheists The New Theists ?

Still doesn't change the fact that your argument is flawed.

You've sited no evidence. I have. Thus your arguement is flawed, well to be fair more like lacking evidence.

You never cited any evidence, you cited your own opinion.

:edited for grammar correction:

Cited*

lol thanks

good morning

I was SO close to making this exact post lol.

Aw damn D:
Can't see the OP, no youtube at work (assuming it's a youtube video) D:

It is a youtube video.

It's a video from TheAmazingAtheist (if you've every heard of him) comparing Atheist Fundamentalism vs Religious Fundamentalism. It's actually quite smart video.

Ricky Gervais and Penn Jillette are my two favorite atheists.

The rest, I barely know anything about them or vaguely remember who they are for that matter. Except David Silverman, and that's only because of that meme.

Yeah Penn Jillette is pretty interesting to listen to.
I love B.S.
Great show.

B.S. is great, although the last season was kinda meh.

Penn Point is good though.

I love me some Dawkins.

I'd like to ask, however, referencing back to my zebra story that while you can never have absolute knowledge on a subject at what point do you have to say "There is no evidence for this that points to this conclusion, therefore at the current moment we should simply say 'with what we know, that can't be and let's not give it any more thought'."

I have a very serious question.

Has the Big Bang Theory been proven by the scientific method?

I don't think you really say the bolded.
I guess to better understand that would be to determine at which point you differentiate fact and fiction with things you've already decided upon.
For instance The Easter Bunny.
more pictures:

observational evidence
I know that doesn't really directly answer your question, but that's because I personally don't know well enough to give you a legitimate response in regards to this specific issue.

you seem to have a difficult time differentiating from 2 different posts made about 2 different things.

what you are saying is that people having any faith whatsoever are not intelligent. it doesn't make any sense. people have to have some sort of faith in their life otherwise you will live alone.

like ffxi, when you ask for help from your LS or friend, you're putting faith in that they will do what they say. otherwise, why ask them? if they have nothing to gain from helping you, why should they? because you have faith that they are your friend, and they are trustworthy.

Perhaps I should have worded it differently.

I'm sure that many of us can say with certainty that Santa, the tooth fairy, and so on are not real figures. They may have been based off in some way a piece of reality, but there's no old man who breaks into your house to leave you stuff on Christmas Eve.

We discount these things because we understand that they are just stories for tradition and that there is not a single shred of proof supporting them that cannot be explained by other means. The gifts come from your family, the dollar bill comes from your mom and dad. Hanukkah Harry was an SNL sketch.

Why can we not discount religion much in the same way? I feel like because it's become too massive and has been around too long that we treat it differently, as though it does not follow the simple rule that if there's no reason to believe it and no evidence to support its claims.

It seems silly to simply take the stance that "the wisest path is to say that you cannot be certain" because on that path, you really can never be sure of anything and can never claim anything about anything.

If there's no proof of something, until someone finds proof for it why is it silly to say "Zebras can't be the living embodiment of a divine deity"?

That's the sunrise analogy.

"You have faith the sun will rise every morning."

Well, the thing is, that's not "faith". When discussing religion, faith is usually defined in the manner that "you believe this even if evidence does not exist, or contradicts this belief."

A "rational belief" is the belief that the sun will rise in the morning because for the past couple of billion days it did just that.

In this case, he may ask his friends for help because they are fellow players that enjoy his presence and have helped him before. Not "faith" in the sense that religion states: where it would be like him thinking people that had never helped him before would help him.

Different people have different reasons for their own personal beliefs.

Its more like when something has been accepted or believed for a good amount of time and then someone comes up and tells you well thats just not true. It does then fall on them to debunk it. Think of it in terms of the world being flat or the sun revolving around the earth. At one point those were fully accepted beliefs about the way the world was. It fell on the people who came later to keep on exploring and studying and in the end prove that the prior knowledge we thought we had was indeed wrong.

I mean if you had believed something your whole life and someone came up to and told you "hey what you beleive to be true is not true at all" and offered no proof whatsoever would you just believe them and change on the spot just because?

I personally don't get why atheists want to debunk religion or why religions care if people are atheists but I guess everyone has their reasons...

Edit: Why should someone change what they believe if the person telling them nothing is there can't prove it?

Ugh.. at the end of the day everyone is going to have their own opinions about everything. Why can't we just live together without fighting about something that obviously isn't going to be agreed upon..... :/

why are you trying to debate with Ricky Gervais, he is not here.
:P

But that doesn't mean that at one point we can't do the same with religious belief.

lol

I guess I assumed incorrectly that you agreed with his point ^^ my bad...

Believing in one prescription of God over another does not make "All" people who chose such atheists.

There are clear defining factors that separate atheists, theist, spiritualist, etc. To use blanket statements in any form will always be untruth, unless said statement can truly encompass all mankind in agreement.

It is not often in forum that I share my personal beliefs, but to have leadership on our forums of whom which many place a loaded value of faith onto, I feel I must.

I am not an atheist.

I am not of any particular group of religion.

I believe in a God and Creator.

I believe in the domino effect theory of mankind beyond said creation. Which is to say I believe in evolution, yet not fully in macro evolution (as it lacks hard evidence, even at this day and age), although micro evolution has great proof.
Furthermore, that Creation was the act of a Being who set of the "domino effect."

Since the dawn of mankind, we have struggled to understand our existence; resulting in the formation of religious figures of nature as a base of worship (i.e. the sun).

All religions stem from the foundations of these earlier mans beliefs. However, since the strength of these beliefs are so ingrained into the human Psyche they have been manipulated to serve the purpose of societal control over mass populations.
Therefor, once again, I do not believe in religion!

I believe that the roots of all cultural translations of ones natural and spiritual worlds have equated value and should each be given just respect and acceptance. That is to say these spiritual beliefs are enacted in a way that does not infringed on another rights or well-being. Yet are utilized more as a personal expression of ones individual relationship to their chosen spiritual identity.

This is just an extremely simple run down of my personal beliefs.

spoiled text is a blanket statement/rule of thumb in and of itself.

since that's a moot point I shall omit it with a spoiler.
you seriously slathered that on pretty thick.
you at one point say that making a generalization makes everything untrue, directly after that you make not one....but TWO generalizations and your little unless tagged on at the end isn't applicable.
i think you need to give a little bit more thought on that one lol.

wow people are still having their petty little arguments over this. I'm amazed at how petty and small minded people can be.

I disagree with Ricky Gervais's challenge. If you intend to walk up to a group of people and convince the you are wrong, the burden of proof is on you.

If they walked up to you and asked the same, the burden of proof is on them.

It depends on the confronter. If you intend to confront someone and convince them that they are wrong, bring the proof to show them they are wrong.

Don't walk up to someone and say, display to me why you are right. That has never, in the entire history of mankind, worked towards convincing others of a different ideal. It never will.

Pull your head out of your arses and realize you are wrong, otherwise bring the proof showing that you are right.

Ricky Gervais: prove you can.

Me: Okay jump off this building right now and prove you can fly. If you do that, right now, just for me, I will be on your side forever and I will spend my life convincing people that believing in God is wrong.


*Ricky Gervais flys*

Well then I would spend my life doing just that and I would praise a new God. Except that wouldn't happen, it won't happen, and thus this and his entire argument is flawed.

When you bring the argument to someone, the burden of proof is on you, not them. To say other wise is backwards thinking. It's the exact same as asking someone to believe in a God with no proof.

[/quote]
spoiled text is a blanket statement/rule of thumb in and of itself.

since that's a moot point I shall omit it with a spolier.[/quote]

Actually it is not a blanket statement, as such would imply an actual statement with forced attribute over the mass of a population or group. (*^.^*)

/Sigh I messed the quotes up ; . ;

in response to Vinvv