You mean they have not been 100% disproven yet?

I'm sure it's easy to win arguments against high school atheists. I'm sure that many of them, themselves, are not completely sure why they've chosen to think the way they do. Either it just "feels" more logical to them, or they've gone against religion out of spite without truly thinking of good reasons to do so. The never ending paradox in existential debate is that science cannot know every tiny bit of information there is to know (although the cover more ground every day) and the religious side of the argument insists that the unknown information must be God at work. Since there are things that science does not yet have a concrete understanding of, they (being the professionals that they are) hold off on judging what the real reasons might be due to lack of evidence, and the (always tactlessly) overconfident religious side does not hesitate to provide an explanation (even if it will be dis proven at a later time) based off of primitive text and the claims of celebrity evangelicals.

Putting all scientific debate aside, I think the reason a lot of people refuse to give up belief in something is because of their own vanity. Of course, I doubt most of you would own up to an accusation of vanity because your religion likely teaches you to be "humble" and "good", or at least appear to be so in exchange for a reward after death. I might be projecting my own old reasoning onto others, but I doubt it's that uncommon. I know it stings at first to think that there is probably no deity out there; or if there is one, it doesn't give a flip about you. You've been conditioned by, perhaps, the parenting you received as a small child where wanting something = having it, without you understanding why yet. Or maybe your parenting wasn't so great and the prospect of an all knowing sky-fairy that will give you anything you want, if you simply recognized it, sounded appealing. Regardless, you now know why a hungry baby gets a bottle, even if the baby doesn't understand the process.

But that same infantile reasoning lasts well into adulthood. You may be subconsciously conditioned to think that wanting something, and letting that want be known to a massive authority figure, will result in you getting it. That's not the case, and I'm sure you're all intelligent enough to see why. If you want something, you have to figure out the process you will need to go through in order to get it. Even then, your attempts may not succeed, but it is not because some deity was interfering with your life. Either you failed to plan properly, or someone that's better (or perhaps more connected or simply luckier than you) beat you to it, or both. Religion (or pop-spirituality, a movement I'm growing to loathe) is especially effective at moments of confusion and painful want, such as after the death of a loved one, or a tragedy, or a heartbreak. Odds are, you've fallen for a too-good-to-be-true religious promise. You may get some momentary delusional peace, but they really win here, because now you'll be putting money in the plate, tithing your income, and spreading the word to other desperate people. The truth is, things just happen. Sometimes we don't like them. But the best way to ensure future peace is to figure out exactly what went wrong (if possible) and use that understanding in the future. If you don't, sooner or later you will find yourself screwed again and wondering if you didn't quite ask God (or the universe) in just the right way. Or worse, you're thanking the sky-fairy for success deprivation because you need to believe you're humble so that future requests might fare better.

I've rambled a bit, but I wanted to say that I've recently moved from agnostic to atheist. That lingering suspicion that there might be a "design" to everything has finally been allowed to square off with my overwhelming doubt, and the doubt won. I must say, I've never felt more at peace within. Letting go of trying to please God or The Universe (or whatever) is truly liberating. The turn in this direction did sting at first, but now I know that my future success is up to me and not my ability to please the unseen. Rather than constantly playing catch-up with science, or trying to find any (assuredly temporary) chink in science's armor sounds like a losing game. Just let it go. The non-existent God doesn't care. Your life will be just as good (and I suspect better) once you lay that reasoning to rest.

You mean they have not been 100% disproven yet?

I'm sure it's easy to win arguments against high school atheists.

I'm sure that many of them, themselves, are not completely sure why they've chosen to think the way they do. Either it just "feels" more logical to them, or they've gone against religion out of spite without truly thinking of good reasons to do so. The never ending paradox in existential debate is that science cannot know every tiny bit of information there is to know (although the cover more ground every day) and the religious side of the argument insists that the unknown information must be God at work. Since there are things that science does not yet have a concrete understanding of, they (being the professionals that they are) hold off on judging what the real reasons might be due to lack of evidence, and the (always tactlessly) overconfident religious side does not hesitate to provide an explanation (even if it will be dis proven at a later time) based off of primitive text and the claims of celebrity evangelicals.

Putting all scientific debate aside, I think the reason a lot of people refuse to give up belief in something is because of their own vanity. Of course, I doubt most of you would own up to an accusation of vanity because your religion likely teaches you to be "humble" and "good", or at least appear to be so in exchange for a reward after death.[/qoute]

Yes, but I can easily say the same thing about your atheism, I could say that you just don't like being told what to do, so you disregard that god even exists. Of course I have no idea why you believe in what you do, but unwarranted generalizations aren't going to really help your argument as they can easily be turned against anyone, and don't really make any valid points to target the logic of person or another.

[quote=name:Doodan]I might be projecting my own old reasoning onto others, but I doubt it's that uncommon. I know it stings at first to think that there is probably no deity out there; or if there is one, it doesn't give a flip about you. You've been conditioned by, perhaps, the parenting you received as a small child where wanting something = having it, without you understanding why yet. Or maybe your parenting wasn't so great and the prospect of an all knowing sky-fairy that will give you anything you want, if you simply recognized it, sounded appealing. Regardless, you now know why a hungry baby gets a bottle, even if the baby doesn't understand the process.

But that same infantile reasoning lasts well into adulthood. You may be subconsciously conditioned to think that wanting something, and letting that want be known to a massive authority figure, will result in you getting it. That's not the case, and I'm sure you're all intelligent enough to see why. If you want something, you have to figure out the process you will need to go through in order to get it. Even then, your attempts may not succeed, but it is not because some deity was interfering with your life. Either you failed to plan properly, or someone that's better (or perhaps more connected or simply luckier than you) beat you to it, or both. Religion (or pop-spirituality, a movement I'm growing to loathe) is especially effective at moments of confusion and painful want, such as after the death of a loved one, or a tragedy, or a heartbreak. Odds are, you've fallen for a too-good-to-be-true religious promise. You may get some momentary delusional peace, but they really win here, because now you'll be putting money in the plate, tithing your income, and spreading the word to other desperate people. The truth is, things just happen. Sometimes we don't like them. But the best way to ensure future peace is to figure out exactly what went wrong (if possible) and use that understanding in the future. If you don't, sooner or later you will find yourself screwed again and wondering if you didn't quite ask God (or the universe) in just the right way. Or worse, you're thanking the sky-fairy for success deprivation because you need to believe you're humble so that future requests might fare better.

I've rambled a bit, but I wanted to say that I've recently moved from agnostic to atheist. That lingering suspicion that there might be a "design" to everything has finally been allowed to square off with my overwhelming doubt, and the doubt won. I must say, I've never felt more at peace within. Letting go of trying to please God or The Universe (or whatever) is truly liberating. The turn in this direction did sting at first, but now I know that my future success is up to me and not my ability to please the unseen. Rather than constantly playing catch-up with science, or trying to find any (assuredly temporary) chink in science's armor sounds like a losing game. Just let it go. The non-existent God doesn't care. Your life will be just as good (and I suspect better) once you lay that reasoning to rest.

That last point is a good one, let me rephrase. To convince someone of something, they must believe you are on their side, or have legitimate authority signifying that you can convince them. If they do not believe in this authority, then they will not listen to you. This is because the person who your trying to convince does not want to be convinced by you. (Or anyone in your position.) I never pay attention to most anything American news has to offer, because I don't consider most of them to truly express an unbiased opinion. (BBC is better, heck Wikinews is better.) This is why a lot of people hate the preacher that passes out new testaments at my college.

So still.. In the argument in god vs no god the god side wins as atheists just don't have anything that holds up to scrutiny, and I am talking about Evolution.

Something looking like it must have been designed does not denote a designer.

BM[Marine]the fact of evolution.

If all God did was tip over the first domino and watch things unfold, doesn't that make him awfully lazy and uninvolved? It is more likely that there was no God to begin with, and the nature of the origins of the universe is simply not yet known. Perhaps your residual clinging to God is the hope that someone hears you when you talk to yourself? I'm not trying to sound condescending, it's an honest question.

The way I see it, is that God is very involved in our lives. If you look closely at things you can see stuff that should go horribly wrong, but don't. I've had injuries that could of been tons worse, but, due to something totally out of my control, I ended up nearly fine. It is my personal belief that God watches us carefully, and knows each of us better than I do. Using what he knows, he places obstacles in our path. With the obstacles, we can either choose to learn from them, and grow as a person, or we can utterly fail them, and become worse off than we started.

Are you implying divine intervention?

Have you done much research on evolution that is not stained with the creationist or intelligent design agenda? I'm no biologist, but what I have read about evolution is far more convincing than GODDIDIT explanations. I don't know where you've been getting your info, but I suspect it's not a very solid source. There are portions of the fossil record that have not been discovered yet, as we have not had the chance to excavate every square inch of the planet. Any current gaps in evolution's explanation for things does not automatically make God win. Although I do find that reasoning amusing. One side's flaws does not mean the opposition automatically wins. My 7 year old son uses that reasoning a lot, although not in relation to God vs. evolution debates.

Of course I have. But the thing is, an agenda or bias does not always mean a false view or opinion. You can be very biased, and at the same time very right. Those who suffered through the Holocaust are extremely biased in their writings against the Holocaust, but we all agree with them and say that the Holocaust was a bad thing, do we not? So even if a particular passage is biased it does not mean that it cannot be true. And I personally don't like the scoffing sort of remark like "stained by creationist", as I could say the same thing about the "evidence" that is constantly spouted running for Evo. And since you cited the fossil record to help your own argument you displayed your ignorance to the fossil record, as it is really detrimental towards the Evo cause, and actually supports theism. I don't want to go off topic, but you should be a bit more careful in what you say as your own agenda shows pretty obviously in your words.

No the lack of evidence for one side does not prove Christianity, which is why I said a few times I don't know yet what religion is true. However, since god existing and god not existing is mutually exclusive, the lack of evidence for a particular side very well would help to strengthen the other side (even though I don't do that either).

So the still, the reason of why I believe is simply because theists win the arguments..

What does the word Biased mean????

Of course I have.

However, since god existing and god not existing is mutually exclusive,

Of course I have. But the thing is, an agenda or bias does not always mean a false view or opinion. You can be very biased, and at the same time very right. Those who suffered through the Holocaust are extremely biased in their writings against the Holocaust, but we all agree with them and say that the Holocaust was a bad thing, do we not? So even if a particular passage is biased it does not mean that it cannot be true. And I personally don't like the scoffing sort of remark like "stained by creationist", as I could say the same thing about the "evidence" that is constantly spouted running for Evo. And since you cited the fossil record to help your own argument you displayed your ignorance to the fossil record, as it is really detrimental towards the Evo cause, and actually supports theism. I don't want to go off topic, but you should be a bit more careful in what you say as your own agenda shows pretty obviously in your words.

No the lack of evidence for one side does not prove Christianity, which is why I said a few times I don't know yet what religion is true. However, since god existing and god not existing is mutually exclusive, the lack of evidence for a particular side very well would help to strengthen the other side (even though I don't do that either).

So the still, the reason of why I believe is simply because theists win the arguments..

To me, it looks like a record going back billions of years that shows repeatedly how God did not reach down and touch the earth.

"Afflicted with bias."
"Of course"? That phrase is supposed to mean that something is obvious, which isn't the case here. ;o If one is to consider that you seemed to throw out nothing but absurd misinterpretations of the various debated topics in the "Some evolution questions" thread ...
lolfalsedilemma
God exists, evolution occurs; God exists, evolution is false; God does not exist, evolution occurs; God exists, evolution is false are all, presumably, possible universe-states. God and evolution are only related insofar as one assumes a particular god, which you've stated you do not.

Biased is not a word, it is bais and can only be bais.. At least that's what every English teacher I've had has informed me.

.........You didn't catch the joke.

Biased is not a word, it is bais and can only be bais.. At least that's what every English teacher I've had has informed me.