So why don't atheists proselytize?

[Kitschum]

Because if they were successful we'd be overrun by sea otters.

[dannubis]

I am with Snotty on this. You don't have to believe in God to see that what Christ showed is a good thing to aspire to.

[MikeH]

Anyone who's read my posts about religion knows that broadly I agree with that too.

I think that on balance, a lot of alleged 'Christians' seem to miss that point entirely, certainly the peace, poverty and forgiveness parts and at the moment religion causes us more problems in modern society than it benefits. Because the fanatics tend to outshout the moderates.

A bit like here where Ben gets so much more attention than the extremely reasonable and well balanced religious posters like Jon Miller, Imran and the rest. They are people you can have a reasoned and respectful debate with, who hold their religious views within the context of the modern world. I know that some of the more extreme religious posters can draw out more extreme reactions from me. ie. Ben drives me mental. But he drives them mental too.

[MikeH]

That said, I'd like to thank Ben for not ruining this thread overnight.

[Saras]

My buddy actually went to the local Opus Dei office to talk to them about there being no God and how can they live their lives in this illusion. Hilarious story.

[DaShi]

And...

[Saras]

lazy to translate. Maybe later.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Where are these insistent atheists I keep hearing about?

Had them in Texas, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, her family, and their organization, American Atheists Inc. But some other members of American Atheists Inc murdered them and stole the organization's money.

[Ming]

Public education, not cramming things down student's throats since 1927.

Yeah, so you consider teaching somebody how to read and basic math is a bad thing

[MikeH]

Don't force him to ruin the thread Ming! He's talked about that enough times in so many other threads.

[Elok]

I've said it before: when discussing the existence of God, the concept of probability is meaningless. Of course, pretty much every argument about the existence of God is meaningless; "scientific proof," for example, is of dubious utility, because anything admissible as scientific evidence (repeatable when the experiment is performed by different scientists) would not be perceived as divine, just another natural phenomenon. Occam's Razor, aside from being a rule of thumb and not a scientific law, rests on the word "simple," which can be twisted to mean anything (Kuci once argued for a specific kind of simplicity, but I couldn't understand how the Wiki link he gave me was applicable), and in practice means that the individual can freely reject God as long as he pleases in favor of any other explanation he pleases to label as "simpler." And so on.

But really, appeals to probability are emblematic of the problem with the whole argument, because they show how we overextend things we know to an arena where they do not necessarily apply. Probability depends on knowing the full set of outcomes and the likelihood of each. In this context, "probability" means nothing more or less than "what my current worldview inclines me to want to think."

And (I've said this before too) if "God Helmets" disprove God in any way, my ability to masturbate makes the existence of women highly suspect.

[MikeH]

If you can't apply reason and science then it's not even an arena worthy of discussion.

[Elok]

Reason, yes. Science, no, because science is a reasoning process which by its very nature excludes the supernatural from consideration. But yes, it's pretty pointless to argue about it.

[Kidlicious]

I never worried less and enjoyed my life more than since I became a Christian.

[Kidlicious]

Anyone who's read my posts about religion knows that broadly I agree with that too.

I think that on balance, a lot of alleged 'Christians' seem to miss that point entirely, certainly the peace, poverty and forgiveness parts and at the moment religion causes us more problems in modern society than it benefits. Because the fanatics tend to outshout the moderates.

I think you're equating political fanatic with Christian fanatic. It's more fanatical to forgive, accept and leave all ideologies behind.